02 July,2010 09:07 AM IST | | Agencies
A worldwide survey of happiness of over 100,000 people has shown that there is a link between feelings of security and income but not between money and fun. It found that life satisfaction rises with personal and national income.
But positive feelings, like having fun and enjoyment, are much more strongly associated with other factors, such as feeling respected, being independent, having friends and working at a fulfilling job.
"The public always wonders: Does money make you happy?" telegraph.co.uk quoted Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois as saying.
"This study shows that it all depends on how you define happiness, because if you look at life satisfaction, how you evaluate your life as a whole, you see a pretty strong correlation around the world between income and happiness."
"On the other hand, it's pretty shocking how small the correlation is with positive feelings and enjoying yourself," Diener said.
The findings appear in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
According to Diener, this is the first "happiness" study in the world to differentiate between life satisfaction, the philosophical belief that your life is going well, and the day-to-day positive or negative feelings that one experiences.
"Everybody has been looking at just life satisfaction and income," he said.
"And while it is true that getting richer will make you more satisfied with your life, it may not have the big impact we thought on enjoying life," he added.
