The Dangerous Economist: Are Moral People Happier?

The full title is Are Moral People Happier? Answers from Reputation-Based Measures of Moral Character by Jessie Sun, Wen Wu, & Geoffrey P. Goodwin.

Here is the abstract:

"Philosophers have long debated whether moral virtue contributes to happiness, or whether morality and happiness are in conflict. Yet, little empirical research addresses this question. Here, we examined the association between reputation-based measures of everyday moral character (operationalized as a composite of widely accepted moral virtues such as compassion, honesty, and fairness) and self-reported well-being across two cultures. In Study 1, close others reported on U.S. undergraduate students’ moral character (two samples; Ns = 221/228). In Study 2, Chinese employees (N = 711) reported on their coworkers’ moral character and their own well-being. To better sample the moral extremes, in Study 3, U.S. participants nominated “targets” who were among the most moral, least moral, and morally average people they personally knew. Targets (N = 281) self-reported their well-being and nominated informants who provided a second, continuous measure of the targets’ moral character. These studies showed that those who are more moral in the eyes of close others, coworkers, and acquaintances generally experience a greater sense of subjective well-being and meaning in life. These associations were generally robust when controlling for key demographic variables (including religiosity) and informant-reported liking. There were no significant differences in the strength of the associations between moral character and well-being across two major subdimensions of both moral character (kindness and integrity) and well-being (subjective well-being and meaning in life). Together, these studies provide the most comprehensive evidence to date of a positive and general association between everyday moral character and well-being."

Hat tip: Koen Smets.

The Invisible Hand Increases Trust, Cooperation, and Universal Moral Action (2022)

Conspicuous Consumption, Conspicuous Virtue, Thorstein Veblen (and Adam Smith, too!) (2007)

Is altruism a result of selfishness? (2017)

Do you have to be selfish to make more money? (2018)

Does collective self-deception mask selfish behavior? (2018)

Why Doing Good Makes It Easier to Be Bad (2019)