Viewing archives for Dr. Alberto Prati

Sharing meals is associated with greater wellbeing

Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Andrew Dugan, Micah Kaats and Alberto Prati

Abstract

Although social connections are important drivers of wellbeing, and sharing meals is a nearly universal practice, the relationship between sharing meals and wellbeing remains underexplored. In Study 1, using novel data from Gallup surveys in 142 countries and territories (2022–2023), we use the frequency of meal sharing as a global measure of social connections, and investigate its relationship with subjective wellbeing. We find a significant, positive relationship in almost all world regions. The number of shared meals explains as much variation in wellbeing as some key socioeconomic indicators, such as income or unemployment. In Study 2, we use data from the American Time Use Survey (2003–2023) to document changes in meal sharing in the United States over time. We find clear evidence that, with every passing year, Americans are dining alone more and more often, particularly the younger generations. Using Day Reconstruction Method data, we show that Americans who eat at least one meal with others report higher levels of happiness and lower levels of stress, pain and sadness on that day. Finally, we point to a number of promising avenues for future research and discuss implications for policy.

Does happiness spread within organizations? Evidence from a field experiment in Norway

Torbjørn Hanson, Åshild A. Johnsen, Andreas Kotsadam and Alberto Prati

Abstract

We report the results from a large field experiment that tests if happiness spreads within an organizational setting, as predicted by the emotional contagion hypothesis. Although some studies have supported this hypothesis, no well-powered randomized controlled trial has ever tested it in the field. In collaboration with the Norwegian Armed Forces, we randomly assign over 1500 recruits to rooms during eight-week boot camps. Some recruits live with relatively happier peers while others live with relatively unhappier ones. We find no evidence of happiness convergence at the room level and reject even small contagion effects. We show that the null result is not explained by excessive stability in happiness, and prior studies in the same setting show that peer effects emerge for some non-emotional attitudes. These results call for a reconsideration of the presumed ubiquity of happiness spillovers, with subsequent implications for well-being models and policies.

The shrinking arguments for degrowth

Financial Times

And earlier this year new research pushed back on the argument that once a country becomes rich enough, further economic growth doesn’t boost wellbeing. After adjusting for the way people change their frame of reference over time, focusing instead on whether they say they are doing better than in the past, the research found life satisfaction continued to climb alongside GDP per capita even in countries as rich as the US.

Is it possible to raise national happiness?

Alberto Prati and Claudia Senik

Abstract

We revisit the famous Easterlin paradox by considering that life evaluation scales refer to a changing context, hence they are regularly reinterpreted. We propose a simple model of rescaling based on both retrospective and current life evaluations, and apply it to unexploited archival data from the USA. When correcting for rescaling, we find that the well-being of Americans has substantially increased, on par with GDP, health, education, and liberal democracy, from the 1950s to the early 2000s. Using several datasets, we shed light on other happiness puzzles, including the apparent stability of life evaluations during COVID-19, why Ukrainians report similar levels of life satisfaction today as before the war, and the absence of parental happiness.

Falling wine sales reflect a lonelier and more atomised world

The Economist

In 2023 almost 25% of American adults ate every meal alone on a given day, up from 17% in 2003; among under-30s the share has nearly doubled. That pattern probably holds across much of the rich world, says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, one of the editors of the World Happiness Report, an annual UN-backed study.

The consequences are measurable. Around one in six people worldwide is lonely, reckons the World Health Organisation. In 22 European countries the share of people who said they were “never lonely” fell from 59% in 2018 to 51% in 2022. The latest World Happiness Report found that across countries and ages, how often people share meals predicts life satisfaction almost as strongly as relative income or employment status.

Is motivated memory (just) a matter of mood?

Alberto Prati and Charlotte Saucet

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in motivated memory as a psychological determinant of economic outcomes. According to motivated memory, people tend to better recall pleasant information because it serves their psychological needs. Another phenomenon, however, predicts the same pattern: According to mood congruence, pleasant information is easier to recall for individuals in nonnegative mood, regardless of any psychological needs. Since most people tend to have some need for self-esteem and to experience more positive than negative feelings during the day, the two phenomena predict similar outcomes in most ordinary situations, but not all. To test the predictive power of these two phenomena, we collect data from a laboratory experiment and from a nationally representative survey. We study how individuals in a temporarily induced negative mood (via a video clip) or those who report a low baseline mood (relative to the population) recall negative feedback. Our results meet the predictions of motivated memory: Individuals better recall positive than negative feedback, even when they are in negative mood. Motivated memory is not just a matter of mood.

25% of young Americans aged 18 to 24 eat every meal alone—‘a virtual doubling of what it was two decades ago,’ expert says

CNBC

They found that in 2023, 25% of 18-to 24-year-olds ate all three meals alone the previous day.

“That’s a virtual doubling of what it was two decades ago,” De Neve says, and it’s to the detriment of their mental health. The number of meals shared with others is “as predictive of their life satisfaction, essentially their overall well-being” as their employment status or relative income, he adds.

Money and happiness

Rémy Bellaunay, Alberto Prati, and Christian Krekel

Abstract

Many people believe that earning more money would bring more happiness into their lives (Aknin et al, 2009). However, despite massive improvements in material living conditions in most Western countries, average population happiness has stagnated for decades (Layard et al, 2010). This raises an evident question: does money bring about happiness?

The answer is ‘yes’, but far less than most people would think, and with strings attached. Herein, we review the state of the literature after half a century of empirical research on income and happiness. We will use the term “happiness” to refer to the evaluative component of subjective wellbeing, in particular measured as self-reported life satisfaction, and explicitly state whenever we are referring to the affective component.

Eating lunch and dinner with others brings an ‘uptick in life satisfaction’—here’s how many meals you should share each week

CNBC

In Senegal, out of 14 lunches and dinners per week, people share 11.7 meals, according to the 2025 World Happiness Report. In Sweden, people share 9.5 meals per week, in the U.S. people share 7.9 meals per week and in Japan, people share 3.7 meals per week.

And it turns out the number of meals you eat with others has an effect on your overall wellbeing. In fact, “there’s an optimal level of social eating,” says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, editor of the report and director of the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford.

Americans’ increasing antisocial habits, explained in one chart

Vox

“The extent to which one shares meals,” says Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, a professor of economics and behavioral science at the University of Oxford and co-editor of the World Happiness Report, “is an extraordinary proxy for measuring people’s social connections and their social capital. It underpins people’s social support. It drives prosocial behaviors, and all of that, in turn, leads it to be a very strong indicator — predictor — for people’s life satisfaction.”