Noble price winner & psychologist Daniel Kahneman just got some interesting results in his new study. After surveying almost 450,000 americans, Deaton and Kahneman suggested that there are two forms of happiness: day-to-day contentment (emotional well-being) and overall “life assessment” (broader satisfaction with one’s place in the world). He showed that as people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000 (per year). After that it's just more stuff, with no gain in happiness. Still, ultra wealthy people report overall higher life satisfaction than wealthy people. As Deaton pointed out: "Giving people more income beyond 75K is not going to do much for their daily mood … but it is going to make them feel they have a better life" (Associated Press, 2010).
While the full paper is still in preparation, this study swept headline news of major economical magazines and high-impact journals. One thing that there is Kahneman name on it. Another - that they really surveyed massive group of people - almost half a million americans. Still, I have some doubts about it mainly for cultural and socio-economic differences. While America is a prototype of capitalist, western country, I doubt that $75,000 will be "magical" enough for daily happiness in UK (especially in London area, £48,000/year would be considered "very" average). However, that's quite a lot of money in Poland for example (223,000 PLN/year would be around 18,500PLN/month - you can do quite a lot for that). Hell, within USA itself I would expect high fluctuations between states. So $75,000 figure might be hard to apply straightforwardly to other countries without considering some wider context.
Still, it clearly confirms very old intuition - that having more money is generally good for you ;-)
[photo credit: Andrew Magill]
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