Dear Reader, Welcome to my multi-genre project on Wealth and the Pursuit of Happiness.

The most prominent theory to explain the relationship between wealth and happiness is need theory (Howell, Ryan). Humans constantly seek fulfillment in life by satisfying both their basic needs as well as other higher-order needs. In todays first world society, unlike former more simplistic societies, people satisfy their needs by earning and utilizing some sort of currency. In other words, money dominates our first world societies and largely determines how we satisfy our needs. While researching the causation between wealth and happiness, I was able to determine the way in which people achieve happiness, with their wealth, is largely dependent on an individuals socioeconomic status. I investigated the three basic socioeconomic classes, the poor, the middle class and the rich, and discovered a method for achieving happiness with wealth that could apply to each group of people. Although many people still struggle to satisfy their most basic needs, an overwhelming majority of people in our first world society, for the most part, have their basic needs met, therefore causing them to question how they can achieve further happiness with their wealth. Wealth and the Pursuit of Happiness aims to display a method, independent of social status, of utilizing wealth in order to achieve our ever-continuing desire for happiness. As a member of the majority explained above, I, like everyone else, also have the desire for happiness. As a college student who is spending a large amount of money on my education in order to obtain a career, I view the connection between wealth and happiness as very direct. I conducted my research in order to understand the connection between wealth and happiness

beyond my own perceptions. Upon my discovery of a possible method of utilizing wealth to achieve happiness, I was able to achieve a more developed perspective on the issue. Wealth and the Pursuit of Happiness, my multi-genre project, serves to clearly display the perspective I obtained through my research. I expect you, the reader, to ask yourself how you expect wealth to buy you happiness and to determine if the method I discovered with my research conflicted with any perceptions you may have had regarding the issue. (Please continue onto the next page)

DEAR HELEN:

I Have Everything I Ever Wanted and Im Still Unsatisfied

DEAR HELEN: I am 35 years old and currently work at a reputable insurance company. I make around $100,000 a year and put a lot of effort into saving and investing my money so that I could live the lifestyle I had always wanted. I live in an $800,000 home here in Charlotte and I am fortunate enough to not have to clean my own house or cut my own lawn. I also have two cars, a BMW for driving to work and a $200,000 Mercedes for driving on the weekends. I also have the luxury to eat most of my meals in restaurants, so I hardly ever have to cook my own meals. Everything I have, and then some, is everything I had ever dreamed of having since graduating college. Considering my dream, my life is perfect; however my lifestyle has its drawbacks. My job allows me a full one week vacation every year, which is great and all, however by living my dream I had to sacrifice my ability to utilize more than one or two of my vacation days per year. I figured I wouldnt need fulfillment elsewhere by pursuing my dream, but I am just not as happy as I imagined I would be. How could I not be happy if I am living my dream? UNHAPPY DREAMER

DEAR UNHAPPY: Dont fret! Everybody, to an extent, has the same issue that you are facing. We all have our dreams, and we like to imagine how we would feel if our dreams come true, however as Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has discovered, we humans struggle when it comes to affective forecastingimagining how we will feel about something in the future. Gilbert explains that we tend to overestimate the intensity and duration of our emotional reactions, which is just the case with your dream lifestyle. Happiness is partly a result of our decisions about time and money (Vanderkam). A common mistake many people make, you included, is to primarily focus on their income and not their time spent outside of work. Your dream, no matter how perfect it may have seemed, is primarily wealth-oriented. Wealth alone cannot help you achieve happiness. If you focus more of your time into developing and engaging in relationships with friends and family you would most certainly be happier (Mogilner). You also have made another common mistake by pursuing your dream; you spend most of your money on yourself and your lifestyle rather than on friends and family. Spending money on friends and family helps you develop a social connection with others, which will increase your happiness. Also by spending money on loved ones, you will have the ability to observe how your money helped make your loved ones happier, which in turn will also make you happier. Like many people in our consumer culture, you exhibit a strong

desire for material wealth. Your dream lifestyle is heavily influenced by American consumerism, which leads you to exhibit materialistic behavior regarding your pursuit of happiness. Fortunately, you dont have to abandon your materialistic lifestyle in order to be happy. So long as your lifestyle doesnt conflict with more soul-satisfying pursuits, such as social connection with loved ones (DeAngelis). You explain that you have sacrificed a majority of your vacation days in order to

be able to afford your currently desired lifestyle. I would advise against this. You will never achieve happiness if you spend a majority of your time working to afford material goods. If happiness is partly a result of our decisions about time and money, you should rather use your money in a way that gives you more time away from work. Time spent away from work, possibly on a vacation or socializing with friends and family will help you achieve the happiness you desire.

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Achieving Happiness with Wealth: A Manifesto

Overcoming the setbacks of consumerism Unlike past, more primitive, societies where humans had to directly obtain food, shelter, water, clothing and other necessities, our present-day society is primarily focused on consumerism in order for our needs to be met. Conventional folk wisdom holds that money buys happiness and the desire to obtain wealth remains one of the strongest motivations for people living in modern societies (Howell). In our modern society we divide people into groups based on their level of income; the poor, the rich and those in between, the middle class. Happiness can most directly be obtained with wealth for those who do not have their basic physiological needs met (food, shelter, water, clothing and etc.). However, an overwhelming majority of people in our consumerist society, for the most part, already have their basic needs met (Howell). This is not to say that happiness cannot be achieved with wealth for this majority. I believe that money can buy happiness beyond poverty if the money satisfies higher-order needs. What are higher-order needs? Financial security and social communication are two main examples of higher-order needs (Howell). As humans, we are subject to affective forecasting errors, meaning we tend to overestimate the intensity of our emotions we expect to experience given an event (Boyce). Financial Security is thus important to the pursuit of happiness because it alleviates negative emotions from affective forecasting errors regarding income loss. Humans, as social beings, require constant interaction with other people in order to gain happiness. Social relationships with others are essential for personal happiness (Mogilner). Decreasing the stress of negative perceptions caused by affective forecasting errors will increase an individuals level of happiness. Decreasing the amount of time utilized to obtain wealth will Increase the amount of time an individual has to develop social relationships with others, therefore increasing their happiness.

How people spend their money is also important to understanding how happiness can be achieved through wealth. Modern society instills a materialistic perspective in consumers. All social classes exhibit a desire for material wealth, which can have devastating effects on a persons happiness. Only those who have their basic needs met can afford to be materialistic. Affective forecasting errors are also prevalent among materialists because the intensity of positive emotion toward the acquisition of material wealth is overestimated. Material wealth may increase happiness, but the effect is limited. Material wealth must only be obtained if it doesnt conflict with more soul-satisfying pursuits such as prosocial spending, vacation time from work, and socialization with others (Dunn).

Materialism is ineffective in achieving true happiness with wealth. Happiness gained through materialistic pursuits is usually overestimated and temporary. If practiced by people who cannot afford it (those who do not have their basic needs met), materialism can cause a significant decrease in happiness. Prosocial Spending, spending money on others, has a greater impact on happiness than spending money on material goods. Prosocial Spending promotes socialization and positive relationships between person and others thus increasing happiness.

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Suppose youre driving on the highway and you are stopped at a stoplight behind an average everyday sedan. Like many cars on the road this car has a few bumper stickers plastered on its rear bumper. Imagine the bumper sticker above is among those displayed on the vehicle in front of you. Like many bumper stickers youve read you may be scratching your head wondering, What is that supposed to mean? The bumper sticker above pokes fun at the BMW M-series, a series of cars that costs upwards of $100,000. A BMW, especially the M-series is recognized as a desirable car among the materialistic because of its performance and luxury. The fact that the bumper sticker was on the rear bumper of an average sedan aids in understanding the underlying meaning behind the message. The bumper sticker reads a mathematical equation, using word play as well as symbolism to display the message, Less money spent on expensive materialistic goods equates to more money that can be spent on vacation and travel. Time is equally important to the pursuit of happiness as is money (Mogilner). Meaning that money spent on experiential purchases, such as a vacation to Paris, increases happiness by decreasing the amount of time spent on wealth and material acquisition such as the purchase of an M-series BMW.

Rationale: Helpful Helen Advice Column An Advice column is a column written in print media in which the advice columnist replies to questions submitted by the audience. Selected questions are then answered by the columnist, who provides knowledgeable information with a seemingly omniscient perspective. One of the functions of an advice column is to serve as an anonymous means for an individual to gain advice on an embarrassing or difficult predicament. Given my line of inquiry I defined the question, How can money buy happiness? as a difficult question that a fairly affluent individual may be embarrassed to ask. I also decided upon utilizing an advice column out of hopes that the genre would display to my audience that the question asked by my line of inquiry is prevalent in our society. Assuming that advice columns are written for the general public, I chose to develop a question pertaining to my line of inquiry that could be answered in such a way that the audience was not restricted to the questioner. The Helpful Helen advice column communicates advice utilizing sources, gathered through my research, that provide solution(s) to the universal question, Can money buy happiness? The creation of this genre was important to my line of inquiry because it displayed a perspective in a format that the audience would understand to be a proposed set of solutions. By providing solutions in the format of an omniscient advice columnist I developed a basis on which to develop my other genres, focusing on a certain perspective for my audience.

Rationale: Achieving Happiness with Wealth: A Manifesto This genre is the most important genre in my multi-genre project. I used this genre as a backbone for supporting both of my other genres. Upon discovering the perspective behind which I was going to display my line of inquiry, I wanted to create a genre that would encompass all of my source(s) essential information. I decided upon writing a manifesto to clearly outline and highlight the perspective in which my multi-genre project is based. A manifesto is a written statement that describes the policies, goals, and opinions of a person or group. By choosing to present ideas that present a single solution to my line of inquiry, I decided a manifesto would best display the ideas in a clear, concise format. Achieving Happiness with Wealth: A Manifesto briefly introduces the issue to the reader before outlining main issues behind why money may not be aiding in an individuals pursuit of happiness. The manifesto then goes on to suggest solutions, using multiple sources which complement each other, and lists statements describing the main ideas of these solutions. Being the most essential genre in my multi-genre project, both my advice column and bumper sticker depend on the ideas presented. Regarding the importance of this genre I chose to present it second to the Helpful Helen advice column. I did this so that the reader would be more engaged into my line of inquiry before reading a large amount of information on the topic. This chosen structure also adds a certain amount of validity to the response presented by Helen in the first genre.

Rationale: Bumper Sticker Bumper stickers are intended, as the name permits, to be applied to the bumper of a car and read by passerby or those in other vehicles. As a form of media, bumper stickers are a simple and direct way for a person to display their opinions to others. By applying an opinion to the rear of a car it is ensured that the opinion will be read, willingly or unwillingly, by many different people. This is because many people in our first world society are around, drive or ride in a vehicle every day. Although arguably a need in todays society, cars are prime example of materialism. This is why I decided to create the bumper sticker. Cars, in modern society, arent just viewed as a means of transportation; they are viewed as form of entertainment, luxury and social status. By viewing the bumper sticker I expect the viewer to understand the unwritten social code behind the application of bumper stickers. Bumper stickers are rarely used by those with expensive cars and by understanding the intent behind which type of car the bumper sticker would be applied to, my bumper gains more meaning behind its message. The bumper sticker displays the message, Less money spent on expensive materialistic goods equates to more money that can be spent on vacation and travel, in the form of a real-life example. By being the last genre presented in the project, the bumper sticker relies on the information presented in both the Helpful Helen advice column as well as Achieving Happiness with Wealth: A Manifesto. Without the information presented in the above genres the bumper sticker would essentially be meaningless, with no basis behind its message. By providing an example for the information presented in my other genres, the bumper sticker helps solidify my viewpoint that without paying attention to time, wealth struggles to effectively buy happiness.

Final Reflection Unlike a research paper, utilizing different genres to be connected within a single project caused my research to become more focused and in depth. The multi-genre project encouraged me to perform broad, yet, extensive research on my line of inquiry. In contrast with a research paper, which primarily focuses on regurgitating large amounts of information from multiple sources, the multi-genre project presented me with the opportunity to apply the information I gathered from multiple sources to my own opinions that developed while I was conducting my research. This opportunity is what aided in my development of how I was going to display my research within the multi-genre project itself. The freedom to choose mediums of displaying information is the most essential aspect of the multi-genre project. By utilizing different genres I feel I was best able to control the effectiveness of how my research was going to be displayed. This control was not simple to achieve however. Unlike a research paper (a single genre) I had to ensure that my three unique genres effectively worked together to present my message. Although somewhat difficult to achieve, the control gained through utilizing multiple genres helped me learn a great deal about genres themselves. One of the first things I learned from the multi-genre project was that the use of a single genre, a research paper, actually restricts the purpose behind research. By utilizing different forms of media, research becomes more in depth and focused upon relaying the most important information rather than encouraging the inclusion of information that can actually distract the reader from understanding the writers goal. The multi-genre consists of only three unique forms of genres, out of the seemingly endless amount of genres available. Given more time on the multi-genre project I would like to

have been able to create more genres, possibly some within similar categories, to present my research. When it came to presenting a visual piece, I would like to have had more than a single visual for my audience. Visual pieces are a rather simple genre to create and therefore multiple visuals could be created to help aid other more information-based genres. All-in-all the multi-genre project was an excellent way to encourage research as well as promote thinking behind the display of information. I enjoyed the research process much more so than that of a research paper, which contributed to my involvement in the multi-genre project. My research was more effective because I had to decide what medium I was going to have to utilize my research, rather than copying the medium of the research itself. The insights I gained into the research process, as well as the selection of genres, will hopefully enhance the productivity and effectiveness of my research in the future.