Money Doesn’t Buy Much Happiness
How much happiness does money actually buy you? About twelve percent — or less, if you look at actual happiness, rather than reported life satisfaction.
From a LiveScience article about a new study to be published in the June 30 issue of Science:
It was expected that those who made less than $20,000 a year would spend 32 percent more of their time in a bad mood than those that had an annual income greater than $100,000.
In reality, the low-income group spent only 12 percent more time in a bad mood than their wealthier counterparts. This suggests that the link between income and mood has been perhaps overstated.
The researchers once again surveyed another group of women in 2005. In this study, participants not only recorded their overall satisfaction with life but a moment-to-moment account of their contentment.
The results showed that higher income had less of a correlation with momentary happiness than with overall life satisfaction.
“If people have high income, they think they should be satisfied and reflect that in their answers,” said study team member Alan Krueger, an economist from Princeton University. “Income, however, matters very little for moment-to-moment experience.”
This is, of course, no news flash to anybody who understands how to actually cultivate happiness.
Read the full article for more information about the study.
