Wealth & Wellbeing Wealth and its relation to well-being is often debated, often pontificated about, often misunderstood.
In this assignment, you will think about how a concept, idea, or theory discussed in class or the readings applies to real-world experiences or practices observed in the marketplace. You are free to discuss any real-world application as long as you clearly explain how it reflects the topic of your choice. These examples often add depth to class discussion. A sample assignment is available on Canvas.
Each student will complete one such assignment. Note that, you need to submit an assignment related to a particular class no later than one week (7 days) after that class (e.g., if we discuss topic X in class on Sep 8, an assignment covering this topic must be submitted by 8pm on Sep 15).
When you submit, please specify the topic you are covering (and the session #).
Requirements: as specific as possible
Topic: Wealth & Wellbeing Wealth and its relation to well-being is often debated, often pontificated about, often misunderstood. WeÕve all heard the adage money canÕt buy you happiness, but it turns out, like many behavioral studies, that comes with an asterisk. While the readings bring up many points and many reasons why money doesnÕt buy you happiness in the way you think it will, IÕd like to focus on a particular argument made in Would You Be Happier If You Were Richer? Kahneman et al reviews the role that focusing illusion plays with wealth and well-being; namely, that when estimates of subjective well-being are invoked, focusing illusion causes people to focus on their relative material well-being, essentially benchmarking themselves against peers, coworkers, family, friends, etc. The text notes, ÒEasterlin, Frank, and others have argued that relative income rather than the level of income affects well-beingÑearning more or less than others looms larger than how much one earns.Ó This suggests that you may always be able to find someone with more wealth than you no matter how high up the ladder you climb, so gaining wealth doesnÕt have the impact we imagine it will have on our happiness because we get that raise but then, sure enough, we find someone making more than us and the cycle begins again (this is not to say it will have no impactÑof course weÕd all like to have a raise, but rather that its predicted impact doesnÕt rise to its observed impact). IÕd like to discuss this concept with respect to the recent trend of salary transparency in the workplace. According to Time, approximately 17% of private companies participate in pay transparency, including companies like Whole Foods (at least, before it was purchased by Amazon). One startup named Buffer publicly posts all employee salaries in a Google sheet (when I checked it out, 26 other people were in there too). Transparency of this nature has been hailed as a way to close the gender pay gap, reduce workplace discrimination, and generally even the playing field for a representative employee pool. But are we institutionalizing focusing illusion, thereby making it easier for employees to see how many people make more than them, and thus decreasing subjective well-being? Unless youÕre the CEO, there will likely always be someone making more than you. Sure, you may have parity with your immediate peers (and if you donÕtÑhello disgruntled employee), but how will you feel knowing that VP who you think is a massive idiot earns double what you do? And now that you know that, are you disengaged, frustrated, and unproductive? ItÕs not hard to imagine a situation in which all of that is true. Alternatively, perhaps salary transparency removes a burden from you. Now you no longer have to wonder or imagine what other people are making (usually assuming youÕre making les, of course), you see it free and clear. You know you have parity with your co-workers, that youÕre all making market rate, and what you can strive for next time you ask for a raise. One company, SumAll, that participates in salary transparency claims that employee satisfaction and productivity both rose when transparency policies were put in place. Because pay transparency is a relatively new phenomenon, studies are inconclusive about its impacts, but itÕs clear that, given wealth benchmarking, itÕs bound to have some impact on employee well-being. When attempting to think of ways in which to use pay transparency to directly, positively impact well-being, itÕs difficult to come up with a solution that doesnÕt have some potential downside given that money and workplace dynamics are difficult issues to begin
Topic: Wealth & Wellbeing with. For example, perhaps you could institute pay transparency where you can only see salaries in your department, to reduce the reference pool for focusing illusion. But would that erode employee trust and make it seem like you were trying to hide something? You could release salaries without identifiers so people canÕt single out co-workers and get jealous of a specific person, but with our predisposition to compare, would that just draw more attention to the issue? The New York Times ran an article saying, Òwomen with higher education levels who live in states that have outlawed pay secrecy have higher earnings, and that the wage gap is consequently reduced.Ó While this is a worthy and necessary step toward eliminating the pay gap, evidence suggests there is little implication for well-being in that sentence. Perhaps the wage is perceived as fairer, but because of focusing illusion and the human propensity to gauge wealth relative to others, weÕre likely to continue to find ways in which to be unsatisfied. Works Cited Kahneman, Daniel et al., ÒWould You Be Happier If You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion.Ó Science, 2006. Wong, Kristen. ÒWant to Close the Pay Gap? Pay Transparency Will Help.Ó The New York Times. January 20, 2019. Cooney, Samantha. ÒShould You Share Your Salary With Co-Workers? HereÕs What Experts Say.Ó Time, August 14, 2018. Buffer salaries: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11s9VSyf4yaYUsqBKLaVH78NL8wdl8gXoj5BGAzjIFuc/edit#gid=671465451
Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers
Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.
Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS
Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?
Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.
We write plagiarism Free Content
Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.
Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.