According to a new study, money can buy happiness for the majority of people in the United States.
Digital Desk: The dictum "money can't buy happiness" is a difficult lesson to learn because many people experience the opposite after amassing wealth.
Some believe it is a cliche that people go broke to make themselves feel better about not having enough money.
But there are those who swear by it and live their lives believing in it every day.
The relationship between money and happiness is highly subjective. A new study, however, has completely refuted the adage that many people have come to believe over generations.
According to a new study, money can buy happiness for the majority of people in the United States.
Daniel Kahneman and Matthew Killingsworth of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania conducted the study. The two crunched the numbers and came to an unexpected conclusion.
They discovered that as income and earnings increase, so does happiness.
However, according to Kahneman's 2010 research, the trend usually stops when a person's income reaches around $75,000. However, a new study has found that more money does seem to increase happiness, even when incomes exceed $75,000.
According to New Scientist, Kahneman's research was based on survey data from 1000 people in the United States who were surveyed daily about their levels of happiness between 2008 and 2009.
Kahneman and Killingsworth's latest findings have now been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It contradicts their earlier discovery from over a decade ago.
They interviewed 33,000 Americans this time, with the lowest salary starting at $10,000 per year. They were allegedly tracked using a smartphone app that indicated how the participants felt at various times of the day.
To obtain data, the pair compared these feelings to the person's income. According to CBS, the pair eventually realized that people earning up to $500,000 per year had overall feelings of happiness.
Simply put, higher incomes are associated with higher happiness for the majority of people. People who are financially well-off but unhappy are an exception "Killingsworth stated.
"For example, if you're wealthy but unhappy, more money won't help.More money was associated with higher happiness to varying degrees for everyone else," he added.
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