They say that money can’t buy happiness. But can it? Answer these questions and discover if your income and wellbeing are related.
1. Which salary band do you fit into? a) <£11k (bottom 20% for the UK) b) £11-18k c) £18-25k d) £25-36k e) >£36k (top 20% for the UK)
2. On average, how often each day do you experience feelings of happiness, enthusiasm or satisfaction? And how often do you notice feelings of anger, frustration, sadness and worry?
The higher the earnings category you fall into, the less often you are likely to experience negative emotions. However, perhaps surprisingly, the earnings category makes no difference to how often you are likely to experience positive emotions.
Studies conducted in the USA and Germany found that the higher your salary, the less often – on average – you experience feelings of anger, frustration, sadness and worry. But, significantly, there was no relationship at all between salary and how often people experienced happiness, enthusiasm or satisfaction. This makes sense: rich people don’t walk around with a permanent grin on their faces, but they don’t have to worry about where their next meal or rent payment is coming from.
So the old saying is right after all: money can’t buy happiness. But what it can buy – and frequently does – is the absence of sadness.
A fully referenced version of this article is available at benambridge.com. Order Psy-Q by Ben Ambridge (Profile Books, £8.99) for £6.99 at bookshop.theguardian.com
