Well, the second-hand report supplied by me was just one bit of evidence in support of the more general observation that some people report that they are happiest in situations of adversity - a point raised by Robin. Someone volunteered that a survey had shown that some Russians were happiest during WWII, when millions were killed or starved to death.
The question is whether this situation - happiness during adversity - is typical for certain contexts. That't empirical. The theoretical question is Robin's: if it is true that you can increase your happiness in crummy circumstance, then is that not a challenge to the utility maximizing hypothesis that modern economics is based on? Fabio On Tue, 9 Oct 2001, Alex Tabarrok wrote: > Why not deny the empirical fact - given all we have for data is a > second-hand report about a newspaper column! Indeed, the ease with > which the clever people on this list are able to generate explanations > that go either way seems to me to be a bad sign for evolutionary > psychology. > > Alex > -- > Dr. Alexander Tabarrok > Vice President and Director of Research > The Independent Institute > 100 Swan Way > Oakland, CA, 94621-1428 > Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040 > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
