My Man's Gotta Job!

Here is one more of my “seven random thoughts of highly effective people” from last week.

3) I have been thinking a lot lately about the theory of relative income. As an economics major I am always thinking about human behavior and incentives. As little kids, money is meaningless to us. We preferred ice cream to five dollar bills. As we got a little older we started to understand the value of money; we unwisely thought that money made us happy and so we picked money over ice cream. Ironically, we were actually closer to the truth as little kids; money has no real intrinsic value and so unless you derive utility from dirty pieces of paper and round bits of metal with dead people’s faces on them, it is the stuff that you buy with the money that actually makes you happy…like ice cream. If buying stuff makes us happy then more money is preferred to less money right? …WRONG!
The theory of relative income says that more money (or shoes, or ice cream) does not make us happier, the only thing that makes us happier is having more than our peer group. If my neighbor has two more pairs of designer jeans than I do, I am not made happy if I buy a new pair for myself. Also, I would not brag to my coworker that I just got a new Accord if I knew he drove a Lexus (but I would to my friend who drives a neon).
I see this theory manifest itself everyday as I interact with people at work, watch reality television, or eavesdrop on other people’s phone conversations while I pretend to read the newspaper. For example, in my peer group you are not likely to hear a woman say something like, “MY MAN'S GOTTA JOB!” when she is in a fight with another woman. The comment does not elevate her position in the world like it would in other social circles. Or my personal favorite…”I GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL!” just doesn’t seem to have the same impact in white suburbia.