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Thanks Serdar and Craig, It is easy (too easy, its a trap?) to ridicule this 'research' . . . for example, given millions are starving and countless others malnourished it is hard to feel sympathetic about the unhappiness of someone gets "overwhelmed by all the choices and possibilities, and the amount of freedom that they have" because they can "go to this restaurant or that one" and given the countless people in the 'flexible labour market' (flexible for neo-liberal employers) who are having to stick one part time job end to end with another to make ends meet or are unemployed or are homeless, it is hard to feel that sorry for those struggling with "dilemmas about what the best way to use all (their) time might be" or who can "get to build anything (they) want — a house, a business, a new nonprofit" and who consequently allegedly "often get lost or befuddled with all of their options". It seems so ridiculous one suspects it is a spoof but I think it would be a mistake not to take the content seriously i.e. critically even whilst ridiculing it because not to do so would be to risk accepting its acritical discursive frame of reference: by ridiculing it from within that acritical frame of reference one reinforces that frame of reference! This 'research project' tried to understand the wealthy and by extension wealth through understanding "the deeper motivations of people in high net worth households", "the aspirations, dilemmas and personal philosophies of people worth $25 million or more" . . . it thus individualised, psychologised and depoliticised what was collective, economic and political and thus (re)produced and reinforced 'psy'. Just as we should steadfastly resist any accounts of 'the poor' and poverty which individualise psychologise and depoliticise poverty and which seeks to understand and explain the behaviour of 'the poor' in terms of psy, we should surely do so in the case of wealth and 'the rich'. 'The rich' anonymously surveyed (assuming they did not order their servants to complete the survey for them) agonised on behalf of their children over "if their children would . . . know if their achievements were because of their own skills, knowledge and talent or because they have a lot of money", creating a neat acritical binary. The answer I would want to check . . . that their achievements were 'because of' neo-liberal capitalism which distributed wealth and health in their favour and in so doing wrecked the majority of other children's lives and the earth which sustains all lives . . . was presumably not an option amongst those on the 'anonymous survey' David ________________________________ From: Craig Newnes <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Friday, 13 July 2012, 2:04 Subject: Re: Groundbreaking research: Extremely wealthy people have their own set of concerns Serdar, Beware the happiness rhetoric - happiness is sporadic, transitory + largely about luck. Rich people get anxious sometimes - so what? They are rarely at risk of eviction, having their water supply poisoned through illegal discharge by chemical plants or being unable to avoid prosecution for petty offences (or even grand larceny if they happen to be bankers). Craig Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone ________________________________ From: "Serdar M. Degirmencioglu" <[log in to unmask]> Sender: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2012 03:05:54 -0700 To: <[log in to unmask]> ReplyTo: The UK Community Psychology Discussion List <[log in to unmask]> Subject: [COMMUNITYPSYCHUK] Groundbreaking research: Extremely wealthy people have their own set of concerns Money can't buy happiness Extremely wealthy people have their own set of concerns: anxiety about their children, uncertainty over their relationships and fears of isolation, finds research by Robert Kenny. By Amy Novotney Monitor on Psychology, July 2012, Vol 43, No. 7, Print version: page 24 Most of what we think we know about people with a lot of money comes from television, movies and beach novels — and a lot of it is inaccurate, says Robert Kenny, EdD. In an effort to remedy that, Kenny, a developmental psychologist and senior advisor at the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, is co-leading a research project on the aspirations, dilemmas and personal philosophies of people worth $25 million or more. Kenny and his colleagues surveyed approximately 165 households via an anonymous online survey and were surprised to find that while money eased many aspects of these people's lives, it made other aspects more difficult. The Monitor spoke to Kenny about his findings and about the significance of his research for those of us who don't have a net worth of $25 million or more. To read more about this extremely rich set of findings: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/money.aspx Serdar M. Degirmencioglu ___________________________________ There is a twitter feed: http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK (to post contact Grant [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK ___________________________________ There is a twitter feed: http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK (to post contact Grant [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK ___________________________________ There is a twitter feed: http://twitter.com/CommPsychUK (to post contact Grant [log in to unmask] To unsubscribe or to change your details on this COMMUNITYPSYCHUK list, visit the website: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=COMMUNITYPSYCHUK