Keeping up with the Joneses—social envy—can push people toward things they might otherwise avoid, like buying a car they can’t afford or building an extension they don’t need.
Keeping up with the Joneses—social envy—can push people toward things they might otherwise avoid, like buying a car they can’t afford or building an extension they don’t need.
It also might be a motivator for becoming a parent, a new Rutgers University study finds.
Roughly one in every 14 parents in the United States, about 7%, say they wouldn’t have children if they could do it over again. Rates of parental regret are even higher in parts of Europe, such as Germany (8%) and Poland (13.6%). One of the main reasons that regretful parents have children in the first place may be fear of missing out, more colloquially known as «FOMO.»
«Why do you really want to have a child? What are your motivations?» said Kristina M. Scharp, an associate professor in the Rutgers School of Communication and Information and co-author of the study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
