The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950

Explores the ways in which affluence breeds impatience, and impatience undermines well-being, in the United States and the United Kingdom. Considers how the resources of well-being are conventionally evaluated, focusing on the impact of economic resources on subjective and social well-being. Studies the psychic challenges of reconciling a variety of wants and desires at different time ranges. Investigates reciprocity, the main source of rewards outside the market. Examines how advertising balances its dependence on expectations of honesty with the temptation to deceive. Analyzes eating as a straightforward conflict between the satisfaction of appetite and the consequences for physical appearance and health. Investigates the hedonic dynamics of anticipation and habituation, focusing on household appliances and automobiles. Explores the rewards of status, with the advantages of ranking over other people, and the psychic, economic, and health costs of status complaints, or ranking below other people. Discusses the dilemmas of love under affluence. Traces the costs of these dilemmas. Offer is Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford, Fellow of All Souls College, and Fellow of the British Academy. Bibliography; index.