It is said that money does not buy happiness. But researchers find in a new study that this statement is not entirely correct.
Philadelphia – The question of whether money makes you happy has always occupied people. So says one Harvard professor that winning millions in the lottery doesn’t make you happier. Even a salary in the millions does not seem to be a guarantee of eternal happiness. Because researchers found that Employees are happiest and most satisfied when they earn less than 60,000 euros net per year.
Connection between money and happiness: Two researchers come to different conclusions in studies
Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahnemann and Angus Deaton found something similar in a study published in 2010. If annual income increases to between $60,000 and $90,000, this contributes to well-being. Beyond this threshold, a positive influence of a salary increase on happiness could no longer be determined.
In 2021, however, came Matthew Killingsworth from the University of Pennsylvania in a new study on a different finding. According to this, the level of happiness can also increase well beyond an income of $200,000.
Connection between money and happiness: Researchers want to resolve the contradiction
Now Kahnemann, Killingsworth and the psychologist Barbara Mellers have teamed up to resolve this apparent contradiction. For a new study, the scientists in the USA surveyed over 33,000 adults at random intervals about their current well-being using a smartphone app. The possible answers ranged from “very bad” to “very good”.
The result of this Study was published in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The result is that, on average, higher income is actually associated with higher and higher levels of happiness. However, the picture is more complex than that of the two earlier studies.
Connection between money and happiness: An unfortunate minority does not help even more money
There is an unfortunate minority in the lower income bracket, who make up 15 to 20 percent of those surveyed. For them, the level of happiness increases up to an annual income of $100,000, but then flattens out sharply. This means that a further increase in salary no longer has a positive impact on happiness. “This income threshold may represent the threshold at which remaining misery is not mitigated by high income,” the researchers write. As examples of such misery are grief, grief and clinical depressions called.
“Put simply, this suggests that for most people, higher income is associated with greater happiness,” Killingsworth says in one communication. The exception is people who are doing well financially but are unhappy. If they are rich and unhappy, more money doesn’t help either. “For everyone else, more money was associated with higher happiness to slightly different degrees.”
Relationship between money and happiness: Emotional well-being plays a role
Mellers specifies this connection. Money has different effects on happiness among people “with different levels of emotional well-being”. While happiness increases with income up to $100,000, particularly for the least fortunate group, it shows no further increase as income increases. For those in the middle range of emotional well-being, happiness increases linearly with income, and for the happiest group, this accelerates even above $100,000 in annual income.
Both researchers see themselves confirmed by the new study in previous investigations. “The two results, which appeared to be completely contradictory, come from data that are amazingly consistent,” Killingsworth said. In general on the subject, he says that money is just one of the many happiness factors. “Money isn’t the secret to happiness, but it can probably help a little.”
