Latter-day researches based on reported subjective well-being have improved the understanding of utility. The concept of utility has acquired a psychological content, and has proved to be operational in researches on income, unemployment, inflation, inequality, and democratic institutions in their relations with happiness. The authors plead for fostering happiness researches, and give examples in which ...
In a simple conceptual framework, we organize a multitude of phenomena related to the (mis)prediction of utility. Consequences in terms of distorted choices and lower well-being emerge if people have to trade-off between alternatives that are characterized by attributes satisfying extrinsic desires and alternatives serving intrinsic needs. Thereby the neglect of asymmetries in adaptation is proposed ...