Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved

By Matthew A. Killingsworth, Daniel Kahneman & Barbara Mellers.

It seems like happiness increases as income increases. But for the least happy people it stops increasing at certain point. So happiness increases for most, but not all people, as income rises.

Abstract

"Do larger incomes make people happier? Two authors of the present paper have published contradictory answers. Using dichotomous questions about the preceding day, [Kahneman and Deaton, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 107, 16489–16493 (2010)] reported a flattening pattern: happiness increased steadily with log(income) up to a threshold and then plateaued. Using experience sampling with a continuous scale, [Killingsworth, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 118, e2016976118 (2021)] reported a linear-log pattern in which average happiness rose consistently with log(income). We engaged in an adversarial collaboration to search for a coherent interpretation of both studies. A reanalysis of Killingsworth’s experienced sampling data confirmed the flattening pattern only for the least happy people. Happiness increases steadily with log(income) among happier people, and even accelerates in the happiest group. Complementary nonlinearities contribute to the overall linear-log relationship. We then explain why Kahneman and Deaton overstated the flattening pattern and why Killingsworth failed to find it. We suggest that Kahneman and Deaton might have reached the correct conclusion if they had described their results in terms of unhappiness rather than happiness; their measures could not discriminate among degrees of happiness because of a ceiling effect. The authors of both studies failed to anticipate that increased income is associated with systematic changes in the shape of the happiness distribution. The mislabeling of the dependent variable and the incorrect assumption of homogeneity were consequences of practices that are standard in social science but should be questioned more often. We flag the benefits of adversarial collaboration."

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More On The Economics Of Gift Giving. (2018)

What Brings More Happiness, More Time Or More Money? (2017, this study found that people that chose more free time over more money tended to be happier) 

Do income and happiness tend to go together? Yes, both within and across countries . (2017)

Science proves it: Money really can buy happiness . (2017)

Dagwood Bumpstead Explains The Hedonic Treadmill  (2015)

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Does Or Can Money Buy Happiness?  (2008)

Interesting Book: Stumbling on Happiness  (2007)

Does Money Make You Mean?  (2007)

Related articles:

Money buys happiness after all  (By William Easterly and Laura Freschi, 2011)

The happiness wars (From The Lancet, 2011)