[D]o you really think if someone handed you a billion dollars and you filled your world-famous days competing with Musk to reach Mars or something insanely awesome like that, you would only be twice as happy as when you were a low-status scrub-monkey making 50k?
Lottery-winners are self-selected for a number of things including innumeracy or foolishness and not having grand projects materially advanced by winnings, and the famous lottery winner examples are for relatively small sums as far as I know—most of the winners in that paper were $400k or less at a time of higher tax rates, with a serious selection issue there as well (less than half of the winners interviewed).
Only twice as?
Adaptation level theory suggests that both contrast and habituation will operate to prevent the winning of a fortune from elevating happiness as much as might be expected. … As predicted, lottery winners were not happier than controls
It’s a well replicated phenomenon.
Lottery-winners are self-selected for a number of things including innumeracy or foolishness and not having grand projects materially advanced by winnings, and the famous lottery winner examples are for relatively small sums as far as I know—most of the winners in that paper were $400k or less at a time of higher tax rates, with a serious selection issue there as well (less than half of the winners interviewed).