Tiffany's second attempt

I am studying how everyday personal and social decisions affect happiness because I want to demonstrate how economic principles can explain differences in people’s self-reported levels of happiness. By doing so, I am trying to help the average person gain a better understanding of the discrepancies between perception and reality in the relationship between decisions and experiences and in turn, the user may learn simple concepts in economic theory in order to make more informed decisions that will have a positive effect on his happiness. Hence, my goal is to help the average layman learn about how to use economic analyses to make better decisions. I want my project to be both interactive and informative, and since I want this tool to be accessible to everyone, I may design my project as an online website.

Firstly, I am defining “happiness” as subjective well-being, quantifiable only by the user as a reflection of her personal level of satisfaction. I am going about making the argument that the average person does not correctly forecast or backcast his experienced happiness by developing a tool or simulation that mimics the process of making a decision. This may be accomplished by a four-fold method: 1. Have the user complete a questionnaire related to what is to be learned or decided upon. 2. The user will make an actual decision or complete a simple task similar to those summarized in textbooks. 3. The user will complete a post-task survey. 4. A results section will use economic analysis to explain their decision. The goal is to have the user come to the realization that their perception of a decision may be different from the actual outcome because the average person fails to take into consideration changes in aspirations and adaptation, as well as other social and economic forces that play a role in determining one’s happiness. Therefore, my contention is that the people do not accurately predict which actions will actually result in significant (lasting) improvements in their happiness.

The platform will be similar to a website with surveymonkey attached

My topic is narrow enough to cover in depth. I have not yet commenced any interviews, but believe that they may not be necessary if sufficient published material is available to reference. However, the details of my interface and planning process are rather vague and need to be carefully tailored to further the goal of this project and teach the average person how happiness relates to economics through a multimedia experience. Some other experiments I have identified that may be incorporated in the project are:
- The desire to see rewards for progress: People would rather choose to earn $30,000 one year, $40,000 the next, then $50,000 the following year, rather than earn $60,000, $50,000, and then $40,000, even though the latter is greater in absolute dollars. This experiment also introduces the ideas of aspiration and adaptation. I would probably go about doing this through a survey of 2-3 short questions relating to financial and social reward, followed by an explanation about why the user selected the answer she chose, and whether or not such choice was consistent with economic ideology.
- Remembering a general idea, but not details: Subjects reviewing a list of words will recall a general idea about the words, but do not remember them exactly and their mind will “fill in the blanks” and summarize, creating an inaccurate recollection of the event.
- Peak-end theory: What a subject remembers about an event is determined most strongly by the peak and end of the experience. For example, subjects would prefer to submerge their hands in ice water for a longer amount of time and then in warm water, than to submerge their hands in ice water for a significantly shorter amount of time, due to the peak-end theory.