Neuroscience
With dogged determination we lie, rob, borrow, gamble and sometimes work too, in the hope of boosting our income. So zealous is our pursuit of money, it's as if we think it will somehow make us happier. Strangely enough, whilst psychologists and economists have conducted numerous studies showing that the relationship between income and happiness is weak, only one prior study has asked what lay people really believe about money and happiness (and this was focused on middle-income, working women). It's into this empirical desert that Lara Aknin and colleagues arrive with a survey of hundreds of North Americans of mixed age, gender and wealth. Aknin's team have found that people do indeed overestimate the link between money and happiness, especially at lower levels of income.
The study worked by asking people what their own income and happiness levels were and then asking them to estimate the happiness of people on lower or higher incomes than themselves. The participants' estimates of the happiness of people on high incomes was largely accurate, but they massively underestimated the happiness of people on lower incomes. The picture was the same in a second study that asked people to estimate how happy they'd be if they earned more or less than they really did.
More detailed analysis showed that people on higher incomes were more likely to overestimate the relationship between money and happiness, perhaps because they had more to fear from losing the ability to maintain their current standard of living.
"We demonstrate that adult Americans erroneously believe that earning less than the median household income is associated with severely diminished happiness," the researchers said. "[This is] a false belief that may lead many people to chase opportunities for increased wealth or forgo a reduction in income for increased free time."
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Aknin, L., Norton, M., & Dunn, E. (2009). From wealth to well-being? Money matters, but less than people think The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4 (6), 523-527 DOI: 10.1080/17439760903271421
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Neuroscience
People think that money affects happiness more than it really does
With dogged determination we lie, rob, borrow, gamble and sometimes work too, in the hope of boosting our income. So zealous is our pursuit of money, it's as if we think it will somehow make us happier. Strangely enough, whilst psychologists and economists have conducted numerous studies showing that the relationship between income and happiness is weak, only one prior study has asked what lay people really believe about money and happiness (and this was focused on middle-income, working women). It's into this empirical desert that Lara Aknin and colleagues arrive with a survey of hundreds of North Americans of mixed age, gender and wealth. Aknin's team have found that people do indeed overestimate the link between money and happiness, especially at lower levels of income.The study worked by asking people what their own income and happiness levels were and then asking them to estimate the happiness of people on lower or higher incomes than themselves. The participants' estimates of the happiness of people on high incomes was largely accurate, but they massively underestimated the happiness of people on lower incomes. The picture was the same in a second study that asked people to estimate how happy they'd be if they earned more or less than they really did.
More detailed analysis showed that people on higher incomes were more likely to overestimate the relationship between money and happiness, perhaps because they had more to fear from losing the ability to maintain their current standard of living.
"We demonstrate that adult Americans erroneously believe that earning less than the median household income is associated with severely diminished happiness," the researchers said. "[This is] a false belief that may lead many people to chase opportunities for increased wealth or forgo a reduction in income for increased free time."
_________________________________
Aknin, L., Norton, M., & Dunn, E. (2009). From wealth to well-being? Money matters, but less than people think The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4 (6), 523-527 DOI: 10.1080/17439760903271421Related Digest posts:
How much money to make you happy?
The price of money - selfishness.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- People Who Prioritise Time Over Money Are Happier
A lot of has been written about how focusing too much on materialistic ambitions, at the expense of relationships and experiences, can leave us miserable and unfulfilled. In a new paper published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, a team...
- Happy People Have More Children
Lots of research, much of it contradictory, has looked into whether having children brings happiness. There are studies showing marital satisfaction plummets after the kids arrive, but there's other evidence that the bundles of joy really do bring...
- The Route To Happiness
By Will Meek, of Vancouver Psychologist. One of the biggest questions being tackled in the subjective well-being/happiness literature is whether we can achieve sustainable change to our happiness level, or whether we can only achieve momentary departures...
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"From the Archives", first published in the Digest 24.11.03. Do you dream of untold wealth, fast cars and plasma screen TVs? Did you know that research suggests people who strive for financial success tend to be less satisfied with their lives? Nobel...
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You could fill a library with all the research showing an association between happiness and success – no surprise there, why wouldn’t success lead people to be more happy? But after conducting a comprehensive review of 225 studies, collectively involving...