David Brooks, who is the author of text 1, is undoubtedly of the opinion that wealth won’t make you happy. He actually describes anyone who would accept a severe personal blow in exchange for professional gain is: “…absolutely crazy.” He argues that if you are engaged in a happy marriage, then professional setbacks are much easier to endure whilst being reasonably happy, but no matter how many career triumphs you attain they will never feel satisfactory if you are in an unhappy marriage. He describes the relation between happiness and income as complicated, as there in poor nations who grow to become middle-class nations is an increase in overall happiness but with further economic ascent the effect on general happiness is greatly diminished, if it even exists. He bases this in research conducted by the Brookings Institute. It states that USA has become much richer over the past 50 years and has become a very unequal country but neither this growth in overall wealth nor the vast differentiation in income social classes in-between has had an effect on the general happiness of the country.
Text 2 takes quite a different approach, looking at which way of spending your money gives most happiness. Stephanie Rosenbloom, the author of the text, emphasizes that using your money on experiences e.g. vacations or cooking-classes will produce a longer lasting happiness than the purchasing of materialistic things. The main reason for this being that experiences nearly always engages you socially, whereas buying things does not. She mentions a study published in Psychological Science which has found that wealth has a negative effect on our ability to enjoy the smaller everyday indulgences, like when you gratify your desire by eating a candy bar.