Many of us think careful planning will result in more money for retirement. Think again, a study suggests. But there's this consolation: It also found that a bigger nest egg doesn't mean more happiness.
Christopher Hsee, of the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, and colleagues used a lab simulation of real life called the Retirement Game, in which people must make decisions about how much to work, for what rewards, and when to quit. Some volunteers were asked beforehand to forecast what optimal rewards they'd want, while others were permitted to work toward the reward without conscious deliberation. The results: Those who stopped to think about the future—and how much wealth they'd really need—earned less over their "lifetime" than those who did not deliberate.
But those who slowed down and thought about these issues—work, wealth, need—were happier than the others. The more people earned, the less happy they were.
Christopher Hsee and two other authors, Psychological Science (forthcoming)
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