Rich People Are Less Sad–But They Aren’t Any Happier Than The Rest Of Us

There is a lot of research showing that rich people are more satisfied with their lives than their people when they meet at least their most important needs. But life satisfaction and happiness are different, happiness is not as good as our lives and the feelings that we always feel. And, interestingly, income may not be that much. It seems that you can not buy everything with money.

In fact, according to a new survey, wealthy people and poor people are often satisfied with each other. Their difference is the degree of their sadness: the daily sorrows of the people of the high income group are significantly reduced.

"In a massive survey of the US population using the most complex emotional health measures, wealthy individuals reported less sadness, but did not report any more happiness to their daily activities." Journal It was published in. Social Psychology and Personality Science

The results are based on a cross-sectional survey of Americans - a total of 12,291 people. Participants rated their happiness and sadness about the three random events of the day (0 = not at all, 6 = very). Divide the sample into 16 income groups and compare the importance of wealth

Studies have shown that the relationship between income and sadness is as strong as income and satisfaction with life. To illustrate this point, British Columbia University Ph.D. candidate, lead author Kostadin Kushlev, compared the effects of taking aspirin to prevent a second heart attack. It can prevent 50-100 deaths between 20,000 people

But why are some people richer and sad? Research shows that it has stronger ability to deal with recession. For example, a wealthier person leaking into their roof may irritate this problem - they need to call someone. A poor who can not fix it quickly knows that it must deal with dripping for several months. "By coping with this regrettable difficulty, the poor can not manage the sacrifice of their own lives, and they may feel that the impact on sadness is greater than the impact on happiness," the study said.

Probably, rich are not good at happiness. Other studies have shown that wealthy people may not be able to enjoy the joy of life, the key to happiness. "Revenue brings a lot of benefits and happiness, so finding out that there is no effect means that income reduces the happiness people earn from their daily activities," Kushlev says.

Easterlin discovered that it is not - the country's wealthy people are often more happy than the poorest in the same country, but in general, richer countries are more happy than the poor There was not. These findings, known as the Easterlin paradox, contradict the general assumption that wealthy people enjoy a more happy life. In the research on winners of lottery tickets and victims of serious accidents, we are further exploring the relationship between money and happiness. The happiness of 22 big lottery winners was compared with 29 control people and 29 people who were paralyzed by accident. The joy of winning the lottery is to make people refuse to be more pleasant in their daily lives - resistance that researchers call "live" because more important events can bring joy to the winners Brickman, Coates, Janoff-Bulman, 1978) 3).

Wealthier people are more happy than ordinary citizens, wealthy countries are more happy than poor countries. However, even if the wealth of the country grows, the happiness of the country does not necessarily increase. This is the famous Easter lord paradox named after the economist Richard Easterl. I have observed mysterious phenomena. Between 1946 and 1970, the United States experienced significant economic expansion. However, throughout the postwar boom period, there was no increase in happiness in this survey. (Read the full text)

If they live in a rich country, will people be more happy? As shown in Figure 1, there are people in rich countries that tend to be happy and satisfying (these people are often countries with high literacy rate, civil rights and stable democracy) . However, the correlation between national wealth and happiness gradually exceeds a certain level. Are rich people more happy in any country? Many researchers have discovered that the correlation between personal income and happiness is "unexpectedly weak" (as reported by Ronald Inglehart in 1990), but a recent survey revealed cross-country between individuals I showed this relationship is curvilinear. The connection between income and happiness disappears. There is adequate income for payment of daily necessities and management of living