Money = Happiness?

An analysis of data gathered in the 2005-2006 Gallup World Poll reveals that while more money may improve people's satisfaction with life, it won't necessarily help them enjoy it.

The worldwide survey of more than 136,000 people in 132 countries, representing about 96 percent of the world's population, reflects the diversity of cultural, economic and political realities around the globe.

The respondents, who rated their lives on a scale of zero (worst) to 10 (best), were asked about positive or negative emotions experienced the previous day, whether they felt respected, whether they had family and friends they could count on in an emergency and how free they felt to choose their daily activities, learn new things or do what they do best.

Like other studies have found, the new analysis revealed that life evaluation, or life satisfaction, increases as income increases, individually and in the country overall.

But positive feelings, which also increase somewhat as income rises, are much more strongly associated with other factors, such as feeling respected, enjoying autonomy and social support from friends and family, and working at a fulfilling job.

Ed Diener, James Harter and Raksha Arora of The Gallup Organization and Weiting Ng of the Singapore Institute of Management were co-authors on the study.

Journal Reference

Diener E, Ng W, Harter J, Arora R. Wealth and happiness across the world: Material prosperity predicts life evaluation, whereas psychosocial prosperity predicts positive feeling. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2010 Jul;99(1):52-61.

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