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Money Can Buy at Least One Type of Happiness - Psychology Today

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The relationship between money and happiness is complicated, to say the least. Some research has found that higher income is related to people’s overall life satisfaction but not to moment-to-moment happiness. Other research has found that wealth explains a minuscule (less than 1 percent) amount of the variation in people’s happiness. Other research suggests the relationship between money and happiness is much stronger.

New research forthcoming in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science suggests that money can buy at least one type of happiness—something psychologists refer to as “happiness frequency.”

“We draw on prior research that distinguishes between the frequency and intensity of happiness to suggest that higher income is more consistently linked to how frequently individuals experience happiness than how intensely happy each episode is,” say the authors, led by Jon Jachimowicz of Harvard Business School. “Notably, we demonstrate that only happiness frequency underlies the relationship between income and life satisfaction.”

To arrive at this conclusion, the psychologists recruited 1,290 U.S. adults to participate in a short online study. Participants were asked to report, on average, how frequently they experienced the emotion of happiness (“about once each month,” “about once each week,” “about once each day,” “about 2-3 times each day,” or “more than 3 times each day”) as well as how intense each feeling of happiness was (“very low,” “low,” “moderate,” “high,” or “very high”). Participants were then asked to report their annual household income and answer a series of demographic questions.

The scientists found that income was associated with happiness frequency but not happiness intensity. Specifically, individuals who reported higher incomes experienced happiness more frequently than those with lower incomes.

The authors next attempted to find out why this association might exist. They theorized that it might have to do with the type of happiness-promoting leisure pursuits people were engaging in. For instance, past research has found that wealthy individuals engage in more active leisure pursuits such as praying, socializing, and exercising while non-wealthy individuals engage in more passive leisure pursuits such as watching TV, napping, and resting. This may be one of the reasons why money is associated with elevated levels of well-being. (Another reason may have to do with the degree to which wealthy individuals engage in work pursuits that offer a high degree of personal autonomy.)

To test this idea, the scientists explored data from the 2012-2013 American Time Use Survey. In this survey, over 20,000 U.S. adults were asked to report everything they did on the day before taking the survey. Participants were also asked to evaluate their emotional state at different times throughout the day. This allowed the researchers to calculate happiness frequency and happiness intensity and match those values with the types of activities people were engaged in.

They again found evidence linking income to happiness frequency but not intensity. They also found that lower-income individuals engaged in more passive leisure pursuits, which partly explained why these individuals experienced happiness less frequently.

The scientists conclude, “Taken together, income may bring about happiness not through more intensely happy experiences, but through a greater number of them.”

Whether or not money can buy other forms of happiness is still an open question.

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Money Can Buy at Least One Type of Happiness - Psychology Today
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