Happiness signaling

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Arie Sherman

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
data (2).xlsx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet 46.6 KB 03/21/2024 11:05:PM

Project Citation: 

Sherman, Arie. Happiness signaling . Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-03-22. https://doi.org/10.3886/E199182V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary
The factors that determine the prices of goods and services are within the core inquiry of
economic science. Do consumer’s emotions affect seller’s selling prices? The current study
explores this issue through six field studies. The first four studies focus on happiness,
demonstrating for the first time that happiness signals affect the prices of products and services.
Happy customers are offered to pay lower price for goods–cellphones and bicycles–and for
related services. The results are relevant both in face-to-face and online interactions and in
between—and within—subject designs, implying that extended real income is another objective
benefit of individual happiness. Two additional experiments do not show the same effect when
other emotions–anger and disgust–are signaled by the consumer. We present a formal model
for the positive happiness premium and discuss the welfare implications of our findings.



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V1 [2024-03-22]

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