Time for Happiness

A.V.  Whillans

Article | Harvard Business Review (website)

Time for Happiness: Why the Pursuit of Money Isn't Bringing You Joy—and What Will

Abstract

Adam (real story, fake name) was a good employee who was given a plum project he believed could get him a promotion and a raise. Taking it seemed like the proverbial no-brainer: Work hard, nail the assignment, get more pay. He knew he’d have to put in long days and some hours on weekends, which meant he’d be sacrificing time with his young family. He knew the deadlines would be stressful, as would managing the people and the expectations involved. But he also knew that at the end, he’d be rewarded, and he could make up for the lost time.

Keywords: time; privilege; guilt; Money; Happiness;

Format: Electronic

Citation:

Whillans, A.V. "Time for Happiness: Why the Pursuit of Money Isn't Bringing You Joy—and What Will." Special Issue on HBR Big Idea: Time Poor and Unhappy. Harvard Business Review (website) (January 29, 2019).

Can a “set your own salary” system boost employee happiness and motivation? Spiber made synthetic silk built from proteins mimicking the proteins found in spider silk, the world’s toughest known material by weight. Kazuhide Sekiyama and Junichi Sugahara established Spiber to create protein materials that would eventually compete effectively with petrochemical-based materials widely used in apparel, auto parts, and airplane components, among many other applications. From the beginning, they envisioned a team built on mutual respect and a common purpose. The executive team wanted the company’s compensation system to match the organization’s values. Thus, the company had implemented a unique salary-setting process designed to inspire autonomy and responsibility among employees: each employee retained the ultimate authority to choose his or her own salary. The members of the executive team were excited about the “set your own salary” system, but was it having the intended effect?

In the past decade, behavioral science has undergone beneficial shifts towards greater transparency and more rigorous research. However, we wondered whether this heightened focus on confirmation might make researchers feel inhibited towards doing research, and reduce the propensity to explore. Study 1 (N=404), a descriptive survey, indicated that relative to confirmatory research, researchers found exploratory research more enjoyable, motivating, and interesting; and less anxiety-inducing, frustrating, boring, and scientific. It also introduced a scale to measure research inhibition; higher scores were linked to running fewer studies and were particularly common among women, untenured professors, and receiving one’s PhD after 2011—when reforms began. Study 2 (N=463), a pre-registered experiment, indicated that a confirmatory mindset made researchers less likely to find an interesting (non-hypothesized) interaction. A reminder to explore did not mitigate this effect. These studies suggest that work is needed to ensure that rigorous scientific reforms and exploration can coexist.

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Time for Happiness: Why the Pursuit of Money Isn't Bringing You Joy—and What Will

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