Research has long been convinced that money alone does not bring happiness. In an earlier study, the researchers found that people with an annual income of more than 75,000 US dollars (equivalent to around 61,000 euros) are no happier than before. Happiness stagnates at some point. So if the person earns more, it doesn’t really make them happier.
Now there is a new study by the US psychologist Matthew Killingsworth from the University of Pennsylvania, which shakes this thesis.
In his happiness study, Killingsworth surveyed 33,000 working Americans. The process: While the participants went about their everyday activities, they were asked a question at random times of the day via the smartphone app “Track Your Happiness”: “How are you feeling right now?” The participants could then answer on a scale from “very good” to “very bad”.
In total, the researchers collected over 1.7 million individual pieces of data and came to the conclusion that people who earn more are on average happier than those who have a lower salary. Even with an annual income of more than 80,000 US dollars (equivalent to 66,000 euros), there was no sign of a break in day-to-day well-being.
Contrary to what researchers previously assumed, money can very well make people happy. “Put simply, this suggests that for most people, higher income is associated with greater happiness,” says Killingsworth, lead author of the study Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has been published. But what is the reason for this? According to the researchers, money gives participants a sense of control over their lives. This in turn makes them happy.
“The exception is people who are doing well financially but are unhappy. For example, if you’re rich and unhappy, more money won’t help. For everyone else, more money was associated with more happiness to varying degrees,” explains Killingsworth.
Professor Barbara Mellers of Penn Integrates Knowledge University, who also participated in the study, found that emotional well-being and income are not linked by a single relationship and differ among people with different levels of emotional well-being, particularly in the group who… was least happy.
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Because it was also shown that happiness increases with an income of up to 100,000 US dollars (equivalent to around 94,000 euros), but beyond that there is no further significant increase. For those in the middle range of emotional well-being, happiness increases linearly with income. In the happiest group, well-being grew even beyond the $100,000 income.
Matthew Killingsworth added that money isn’t the be-all and end-all for emotional well-being. “Money is just one of the many determinants of happiness,” he says. “Money isn’t the secret to happiness, but it can probably help a little.”