One of the most surprising findings in recent research shows that a lottery win of ￡1,000 or more won’t immediately make you happy. Instead, it takes two years before winners enjoy their money. This is in stark contrast to the effect of earned incomes on happiness: an increase in salary often leads to some immediate improvement (again, not as much as one would think) in a person’s happiness. But why does the joy from a lottery win take two years to arrive? One hypothesis is that, while traditional economic theories typically assume that a pound is a pound is a pound, the reality is that one pound won is not the same as one pound earned.
近期研究中最驚人的發現之一顯示：中獎贏得1000英鎊（或更多的錢）不會立刻讓你感到幸福。相反，中獎者需要2年的時間，才能開始享受自己的獎金。這與勞動所得對幸福感的影響形成了鮮明對比：加薪往往會給一個人的幸福感帶來一些立竿見影的改善（同樣，其效果并不像人們想象的那么明顯）。但為什么要用2年時間才能感覺到中獎的喜悅呢？一種假設是，雖然傳統經濟理論通常認為只要是錢，就沒什么兩樣，但事實上，中獎贏得的1英鎊與掙到的1英鎊有所不同。