“Money don’t mean a thing”, we all know that, it doesn’t make us happier or sadder – until we begin comparing our income with our friends’, scientists say. As soon as we embark on comparisons, we get deeply enmeshed into the happiness issue.
Researchers from Great Britain discovered that money certainly makes us happier if it gives us the feeling of financial superiority over our friends and neighbors.
Scientists from the University of Warwick and Cardiff University investigated interrelations existing in the UK between income and satisfaction with life for the past seven years. Individuals who knew that their earnings went above the earnings of their friends, neighbors and colleagues definitely regarded themselves as happy.
Their study concluded that happiness is linked with money via social rank. It is reported to be entitled “Money and Happiness: Rank of Income, Not Income, Affects Life Satisfaction” and is expected to appear in the Psychological Science.
Chris Boyce of the University of Warwick summed up: “Our study found that the ranked position of an individual’s income best predicted general life satisfaction, while the actual amount of income and the average income of others appear to have no significant effect.”
The researchers go on to say that this explains why there has been noted no manifest increase in blissful attitude to life in people living in prosperous countries over the last 40-year span despite the fact that average incomes have been growing.
Source of the image: Photl.com.
