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“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
Proverbs 17:22 (English Standard Version).
The timeless question, “can money buy happiness?” has been explored extensively (Boyce et al., 2010; Diener & Biswas-Diener, 2002; Diener & Oishi, 2000; Easterlin et al., 2010; King et al., 2012). Yet, given that prior literature reveals a relatively weak relationship between money and happiness when money is the independent variable and happiness is the dependent variable (Dunn et al., 2011; Easterlin et al., 2010), it may be better to ask ourselves, “can happiness lead to more money?” (Asebedo & Seay, 2015; Asebedo et al., 2020; Guven, 2012; Hill et al., 2016). The concept that happiness can lead to more money may be more appealing since it does not assume that a core measure of human flourishing, like happiness, is simply transactional, and only available to those who acquire wealth. However, this question may still cause some concern since many people see their financial and emotional life as two separate domains.
Recent developments in behavioral economics and financial therapy, however, have begun to draw significant conclusions that a person’s financial and emotional life are inter-related (Asebedo, 2016; Baker & Ricciardi, 2014; Ford et al., 2020; Rasure, 2011; Whillans et al., 2016; Zeamer & Estey, 2021). For example, Ford et al. (2020) found that financial distress was improved among six couples who experienced both a financial and traditional therapy approach during marital counseling. In a sample of Greek couples, Karademas and Roussi (2017) found that financial strain impacted overall relationship satisfaction. In a clinical experiment comparing sampled people visiting marital therapists and financial counselors, Aniol and Synder (1997) found that one-third of the sampled people who entered marital therapy reported high levels of financial difficulties while one-third of the sampled people who went to a financial counselor reported high levels of general relationship distress. Given the inter-related nature of money and our emotions, what if the positive impact of a joyful heart (i.e., positive emotions) extend to the financial life of an individual? In addition, what if the negative impact of a crushed spirit (i.e., negative emotions) goes beyond acting as a burden to just the body, and burdens the individual’s financial life, as well?
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