A joint study by two researchers from Princeton University and University of Pennsylvania seems to have answered one of the most asked timeless questions: can money buy happiness?
The research conducted by Daniel Kahneman and Matthew Killingsworth, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reached a conclusion: happiness tends to rise with increase in income and earnings.
The latest study on the correlation between money and happiness refutes the previously reached conclusion that happiness levels off for people when their income reaches $75,000, The Washington Post reports.
In 2010, Nobel Prize-winning economist and psychologist Daniel Kahneman first proposed this threshold in a study that found that "emotional well-being [also] improves with log income, but there is no further growth beyond a yearly income of $75,000."
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However, a research conducted by Matthew Killingsworth, a happiness researcher and senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, found that happiness does not level out after hitting $75,000, rather continues to rise with “income well beyond $200,000,” the report adds.
In their latest study, both researchers came together and pitted their theories against each other with the help of an arbiter.
The study was adjusted for inflation, they told The Washington Post.
The two researchers surveyed 33,391 people in the US — aged between 18 and 65 — with a household income of at least $100,000 a year.
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Killingsworth developed a smartphone app called ‘Track Your Happiness’ to measure their happiness. The app required participants to report their feelings at random intervals throughout the day.
“The data came from repeatedly pinging people at randomly-timed moments during daily life, and asking about their happiness at that moment in real-time,” he told The Washington Post via email.
They were specifically asked questions like “How do you feel right now?” on a scale ranging from “very bad” to “very good.”
The study found that happiness continues to rise with “income even in the high range of incomes” for the majority of people, reaching a conclusion that for many, earning more can mean increased happiness.
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However, for about 20% of the respondents, the case is a bit different. For them, the unhappiness diminishes with rising income up to a certain threshold, the report says citing the research.
These people usually experience “negative miseries” that can’t be alleviated by making more money, according to the study.
“In the simplest terms, the findings suggest that for most people larger incomes are associated with greater happiness,” Killingsworth said about the final conclusion of the study.
However, he cautioned that money isn’t everything — “just one of the many determinants of happiness.”
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“For instance, if you’re rich and miserable, more money won’t help,” The Washington Post quoted him as saying.