
Researchers have often examined the cliché “money can’t buy happiness.” Prior findings suggest that having a higher income is associated with greater well-being, at least until the highest income levels are reached. However, research also suggests that people overvalue the importance of money. This study looked at whether believing that one would be happier with a higher income or a better job was associated with well-being.
Researchers looked at the following measures from over 3700 participants at the 2nd wave of MIDUS:
- Good Life Checklist: Participants were asked to choose 5 out of 17 options to indicate what they thought was important for a good life. The list included having:
- enough money to meet basic needs
- extra money/disposable income
- a good job (occupational prestige)
- and other options such as faith and physical fitness.
- Income: was measured as annual household income from wages, pensions, social security, and other sources.
- Occupational Prestige: measured the social status of participants’ jobs, based on standardized systems in which occupations requiring more education or having higher incomes have higher prestige.
- Positive and Negative Emotions: Participants were asked how often in the past 30 days they felt calm, cheerful, or enthusiastic; vs. afraid, irritable, or sad.
- Life Satisfaction: Participants rated how satisfied they were with their life from 0 (the worst possible) to 10 (the best possible).
- Psychological Well-being: Previous research has considered the associations between income and the above feelings of happiness and satisfaction, but this study also included questions about how much participants had these additional aspects of well-being:
- sense of purpose- ‘‘I have a sense of direction and purpose in life’’
- positive relationships with others- ‘‘I feel like I get a lot out of my friendships’’
- personal growth- ‘‘I am the kind of person who likes to give new things a try’’
- autonomy- ‘‘My decisions are not usually influenced by what everyone else is doing’’
- environmental mastery- ‘‘In general, I feel I am in charge of my life”
- self-acceptance- ‘‘I like most aspects of my personality.’’
Researchers found these results related to income:
- Believing it was important to have enough money or extra money was associated with having poorer well-being across all measures (lower psychological well-being, more negative and fewer positive emotions, and less life satisfaction).
- People who believed that having enough money was important made $17,000 less annually compared to those who did not perceive it as important. This may be because people with less income realize its importance in meeting basic needs.
- Those who believed having extra money was important had higher actual incomes, perhaps because their beliefs motivated them to make more money.
- Having a higher actual income was linked with higher sense of purpose, greater personal growth, greater self-acceptance, greater environmental mastery as well as higher life satisfaction and fewer negative emotions. However, this relationship became weaker at higher levels of income, except for life satisfaction.
- Actual income was not associated with autonomy, perhaps because those high in autonomy are not affected by social pressure, making it easier to follow the career path of their choice regardless of how much money they might make in that career.
These results were found related to occupational prestige:
- Having higher occupational prestige was associated with improved well-being for most measures.
- In contrast, believing that occupational prestige was important was associated with lower well-being for some measures (autonomy, personal growth, self-acceptance, positive relations with others, and more negative emotions).
- People who believed that occupational prestige was important had significantly lower occupational prestige.
These results suggest that having money or a good job can buy some types of happiness, although the amount of happiness it buys decreases as income rises. The results also show that what a person believes about the importance of income and a good job also affects well-being. As stated by the researchers: “Being motivated to find well-being through money appears harmful to actually having well-being.” These results align with previous research showing that people with materialistic goals or values are more likely to report lower well-being. As researchers continue to investigate whether money buys happiness, it is important to consider people’s beliefs as well as their actual incomes.
Source: Pfund, G. N., Willroth, E. C., Mroczek, D. K., & Hill, P. L. (2024). Valuing versus having: The contrary roles of valuing and having money and prestige on well-being. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 15(3), 255-380. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506231166048
Read the full article at: http://www.midus.wisc.edu/findings/pdfs/2688.pdf