Aug 2026· Journal of Wellbeing Economics· 0 citations· 17 references
Abstract
What can wellbeing data be used for? Can it help decide an individual on buying a cup of coffee versus mint tea, or buying one house rather than another? Can it help governments decide to buy artillery or frigates, set up vocational schooling or more academic schooling? If not, when is it useful? This
Viewpoint
argues that wellbeing data is particularly useful for setting broad priorities, not fine-grained choices. Wellbeing can advise individuals on the trade-offs between friends and career. The WELLBY gives governments a useful metric to see how far one has come and the broad direction of travel, but not the small steps along the way. The paper gives some examples and discusses important open questions in the field.
Advances in AI-driven automation have raised questions about how humans might find wellbeing in a world where paid employment is less necessary or less available than before. Paid work has been variously characterized as both a contributor and an impediment to human wellbeing. What is already known about the relationsh...
Stephanie C. Y. Chan, Adam Bales, Katherine L. Hermann et al.· 0 citations
Morality is often measured in dollars and cents. Economic games and charitable giving tasks frame giving money to strangers as moral and keeping money as selfish. This ‘pay-to-play’ paradigm has grown popular with the rise of online experiments, yet its underlying assumptions often go untested. Here, we present data...
Ryan W. Carlson, M. J. Crockett· Open Mind· 2 citations
Individuals not only seek a happy and meaningful life, but an interesting rather than a boring one. In this paper, we analyze data from 19,000 individuals across 25 European countries to demonstrate that self-employment is associated with modestly lower boredom on average—a relationship that is not captured by tradit...
Sergio Pirla, Raquel Ortega-Lapiedra, S. Oishi et al.· Small Business Economics· 0 citations
General intelligence (
g
) is a robust predictor of success across numerous life domains, including academic achievement and occupational performance. However, these domains often involve strong external incentives or are linked to socio-economic status (SES). Drawing on Jensen (1998), the present study investigate...
Maximilian Krolo, Timothy C. Bates· Intelligence & Cognitive...· 0 citations
It is argued that personalized and proactive companions bear a conditional, role-based, pro tanto responsibility not to narrow users’ experiential worlds, and is translated into three design principles: situated novelty, calibrated challenge, and continuity and outward transfer.
J. Jacobs, Alex Lau, Daezhon Gilbarg et al.· Philosophy & Technology· 0 citations
