Status Buys Happiness

“Money doesn’t buy happiness all on its own purchasing power, but rather happiness comes indirectly from the higher status money provides.” Relative income is what counts, says new research. “Chris Boyce, a research psychologist at the University of Warwick, suggests that how much you have relative to someone else brings happiness, not the income itself. Boyce and his team claim that extra joy doesn’t come from greater consumption but by the elevated status relative to others. It’s been shown before that relative income is more important than absolute income, that employees’ income rank affects well-being as does neighborhood rank in terms of wealth. Humans prefer to be the big fish in a small pond as opposed to an ordinary fish in a large one.”