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- November 2022
- Article
The Psychosocial Value of Employment: Evidence from a Refugee Camp
By: Reshmaan Hussam, Erin M. Kelley, Gregory Lane and Fatima Zahra
Employment may be important to wellbeing for reasons beyond its role as an income source. This paper presents a causal estimate of the psychosocial value of employment in refugee camps in Bangladesh. We involve 745 individuals in a field experiment with three arms: a...
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- November 2022
- Article
The Sharp Spikes of Poverty: Financial Scarcity Is Related to Higher Levels of Distress Intensity in Daily Life
By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Erin L. Frey, Sandra C. Matz, Bertus F. Jeronimus and Adam D. Galinsky
Although income is an important predictor of life satisfaction, the precise forces that drive this relationship remain unclear. We propose that financial resources afford individuals a path to reducing the distressing impact of everyday hassles, in turn increasing...
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Keywords:
Distress;
Affect;
Control;
Financial Scarcity;
Life Satisfaction;
Income;
Poverty;
Well-being
- October 17, 2022
- Article
Relational Diversity in Social Portfolios Predicts Well-Being
We document a link between the relational diversity of one’s social portfolio—the richness and evenness of relationship types across one’s social interactions—and well-being. Across four distinct samples, respondents from the United States who completed a preregistered...
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- October 2022
- Case
Weapons of Self Destruction: Zak Pym Williams and the Cultivation of Mental Wellness
By: Lauren Cohen, Ronnie Stangler and Grace Headinger
Zak Pym Williams, mental health advocate, grappled with the question of how to create a proactive mental health family environment for his children. Having witnessed how mental health challenges such as addiction and depression had impacted the past four generations of...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Ethical Risks of Autonomous Products: The Case of Mental Health Crises on AI Companion Applications
By: Julian De Freitas, Ahmet Kaan Uğuralp and Zeliha Uğuralp
Increasingly, some products do not merely automate some piece of our lives but act as
autonomous agents. When these technologies are not yet perfected, what are their risks? Here
we explore the case of AI companion apps. Although these apps are designed...
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- 2022
- Book
Making Meritocracy: Lessons from China and India, from Antiquity to the Present
By: Tarun Khanna and Michael Szonyi
How do societies identify and promote merit? Enabling all people to fulfill their potential, and ensuring the selection of competent and capable leaders are central challenges for any society. These are not new concerns. Scholars, educators, and political and economic...
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- July 2022
- Article
Mental Health During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review and Recommendations for Moving Forward
By: Lara Aknin, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Elizabeth Dunn, Daisy Fancourt, Elkhonon Goldberg, John Helliwell, Sarah P. Jones, Elie Karam, Richard Layard, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Andrew Rzepa, Shekhar Saxena, Emily Thornton, Tyler VanderWeele, Ashley V. Whillans, Jamil Zaki, Ozge Karadag Caman and Yanis Ben Amour
COVID-19 has infected millions of people and upended the lives of most humans on the planet. Researchers from across the psychological sciences have sought to document and investigate the impact of COVID-19 in myriad ways, causing an explosion of research that is broad...
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- May 2022
- Article
Policy Stringency and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Analysis of Data from 15 Countries
By: Lara B. Aknin, Bernardo Andretti, Rafael Goldszmidt, John F. Helliwell, Anna Petherick, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daisy Fancourt, Elkhonon Goldberg, Sarah P. Jones, Ozge Karadag, Elie Karam, Richard Layard, Shekhar Saxena, Emily Thornton, Ashley Whillans and Jamil Zaki
To date, public health policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic have been evaluated on the basis of their ability to reduce transmission and minimise economic harm. We aimed to assess the association between COVID-19 policy restrictions and mental health...
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- 2022
- Article
Social Interactivity in Live Video Experiences Reduces Loneliness
By: Benjamin T. Kaveladze, Robert R. Morris, Rosa Victoria Dimitrova-Gammeltoft, Amit Goldenberg, James J. Gross, Judd Antin, Melissa Sandgren and Melissa C. Thomas-Hunt
Background: Loneliness, especially when chronic, can substantially reduce one's quality of life. However, positive social experiences might help to break cycles of loneliness by promoting more prosocial cognitions and behaviors. Internet-mediated live video...
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- March 2022 (Revised April 2022)
- Teaching Note
France Télécom (A), (B), and (C)
By: Ashley Whillans
This case series discusses the evolution of France Télécom (now Orange) from a national telephone monopoly to a private company. During this process, the company faced numerous challenges including the entry of new competition from other countries and a workforce that...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Can a Website Bring Unemployment Down? Experimental Evidence from France
By: Aïcha Ben Dhia, Bruno Crépon, Esther Mbih, Louise Paul-Delvaux, Bertille Picard and Vincent Pons
We evaluate the impact of an online platform giving job seekers tips to improve their search and recommendations of new occupations and locations to target, based on their personal data and labor market data. Our experiment used an encouragement design and was...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Fintech to the (Worker) Rescue: Earned Wage Access and Employee Retention
By: Jose Murillo, Boris Vallee and Dolly Yu
Using novel data from a Mexican FinTech firm, we study the usage by workers of earned wages access, an innovative financial service offered by firms to their employees as a benefit. We find usage to be significant and concentrated towards the end of the pay cycle. We...
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Keywords:
Fintech;
Present Bias;
Earned Wage Access;
Wages;
Employees;
Retention;
Well-being;
Mexico
- 2022
- Chapter
Sustainability for People and the Planet: Placing Workers at the Center of Sustainability Research
By: Julie Yen, Julie Battilana and Emilie Aguirre
Though workers face a series of critical challenges in contemporary work organizations, they are often overlooked in conversations about sustainable business. In this chapter, we argue that prioritizing the rights and well-being of workers is a core dimension of...
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- February 2022
- Case
Toraya
By: Lauren Cohen and Akiko Kanno
Mitsuharu Kurokawa was the 18th generation leader of a family firm that produced and sold premium Japanese sweets, Toraya Confectionery Co., Ltd. He had succeeded the business from his father, Mitsuhiro Kurokawa who had led the firm for thirty years. Mitsuharu was...
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- 2022
- Book
Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies
By: Ranjay Gulati
This book offers a compelling reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms manage to get purpose right. Few business topics have aroused more skepticism in recent...
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- 2022
- Article
Alleviating Time Poverty Among the Working Poor: A Pre-Registered Longitudinal Field Experiment
By: A.V. Whillans and Colin West
Poverty entails more than a scarcity of material resources—it also involves a shortage of time. To examine the causal benefits of reducing time poverty, we conducted a longitudinal feld experiment over six consecutive weeks in an urban slum in Kenya with a sample of...
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Keywords:
Time;
Subjective Well Being;
Administrative Costs;
Friction;
Poverty;
Well-being;
Money;
Perception;
Kenya
- January 2022
- Technical Note
Ethical Analysis: Well-Being and Rights
By: Nien-hê Hsieh and Christopher Diak
This note introduces students to two central concepts for ethical analysis: well-being and rights. It illustrates ways in which they figure in managerial decisions and challenges that arise, including how to frame trade-offs across individual well-being and...
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- 2022
- White Paper
Building from the Bottom Up: What Business Can Do to Strengthen the Bottom Line by Investing in Front-line Workers
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Manjari Raman
A significant number of American workers—44%—are employed in low wage jobs at the front line of industries. Despite undertaking some of the most tedious, dirtiest, and most dangerous jobs, low-wage workers are—and have long been—the most likely to be overlooked by...
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- 2021
- Article
Psychological Pathways Linking Income Inequality in Adolescence to Well-being in Adulthood
By: Lora E. Park, Han Young Jung, Kristen Schultz Lee, Deborah E. Ward, Paul K. Piff, Ashley Whillans and Kristin Naragon-Gainey
Does exposure to income inequality in adolescence relate to well-being in adulthood? In Studies 1 and 2 ( N = 888), individuals who grew up in U.S. counties with higher income inequality expected greater benefits of financial success as adults, were more likely to base...
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- 2021
- Article
Public Health Risks Arising from Food Supply Chains: Challenges and Opportunities
By: Lu Chen, Donovan Guittieres, Retsef Levi, Elisabeth Paulson, Georgia Perakis, Nicholas Renegar and Stacy Springs
Safe, healthy, and resilient food supply chains are essential to ensuring the livelihood and well-being of humans and societies, as well as local and global economies. However, the ability to provide and sustain access to nutritious and safe food continues to be a...
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