Wealth, Warmth, and Well-Being: Whether Happiness Is Relative or Absolute Depends on Whether It Is About Money, Acquisition, or Consumption

Vol. XLVI (June 2009), 396–409 396 © 2009, American Marketing Association ISSN: 0022-2437 (print), 1547-7193 (electronic) *Christopher K. Hsee is Theodore O. Yntema Professor of Behavioral Sciences and Marketing, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago (e-mail: [email protected]). Yang Yang is a marketing student, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University (e-mail: [email protected]). Naihe Li is Associate Professor of Marketing, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (e-mail: [email protected]). Luxi Shen is a psychology student, Fudan University (e-mail: lucyshen917@ gmail.com). The authors thank James Bergstrom, John Cacioppo, Claire Chen, Xianchi Dai, Jill Gu, Moshe Hoffman, Jingjing Hsee, Renna Jiang, Emir Kamenica, Kathryn Mach, Kristian Myrseth, Judy Tang, Yaqian Wang, and Jiao Zhang for comments on previous drafts of this article. They also thank the Templeton Foundation, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and National Natural Science Foundation of China grants for research support. (A prior version of this article was circulated under the title “Whether Happiness Is Relative or Absolute Depends on Whether It Is About Money, Acquisition, or Consumption.”) Dilip Soman served as associate editor for this article. CHRISTOPHER K. HSEE, YANG YANG, NAIHE LI, and LUXI SHEN*