Surprise: money makes you happy after all!

Yes, money makes happy Money. In the run-up to the elections, it's often about it. Most people would like more of it. But are you also satisfied if you end up with more euros? Does money make you happy? Despite all the tidbits, the main line of the research is: yes, money makes you happy.More income makes people happier. More wealth and less debt do that, too. Important note: great joy about a pay increase or a cash prize does not last long. But our feelings of happiness and well-being are indeed influenced by our long-term financial situation. Extra happy The relationship between happiness and money is quite complex. For example, people who are already very happy react differently to an increase in their income than unhappy people. This is evident from recent research by psychologists Matthew Killingsworth, Daniel Kahneman, and Barbara Mellers among tens of thousands of Americans. Unhappy people do become a bit happier with more income. But the increase in their happiness levels off with a gross annual income of between 60,000 and 90,000 dollars. And comes to a standstill at 100,000. Remarkably, the happiest people turn out to be happy with every extra dollar. Even those over 100,000. (Useful fact: according to the OECD In 2022, the average U.S. gross annual income was $77,463. In the Netherlands, that was, calculated in dollars: 63,225.) Self-earned makes you happier. All kinds of factors determine how happy money makes you happy. I'll mention two.__ Living in a rich country makes people happier. Happiness researcher Edward Diener and his colleagues found that a higher national income leads to a more positive assessment of your life. This applies to both people with higher and lower individual incomes.__ It matters how you get your money. Experimental research of Chinese psychologists Bihui Jin and Jing Li shows that students become happier when they spend money that they have earned themselves than when they spend money that they receive from their parents. According to the researchers, self-earned money meets two important human needs: autonomy and competence.Real happiness? Isn't real happiness in things that are completely different from money? Our answer to that question appears to depend partly on our income.Researcher Rhia Catapano and her colleagues ploughed through the data of more than half a million people in more than a hundred countries. Their conclusion: people who have more to spend are usually a little happier. But people with less money derive their happiness more from a sense of meaning: the conviction that their life has a purpose, value, and direction. And that in turn leads to more long-term well-being. Are you rich and actually a little jealous of that sense of meaning? Then, according to the researchers, it helps to give money to charities and buy things for others.Funny. Real, sustainable happiness appears to be for sale, as long as you don't spend your money on yourself.Ben Tiggelaar writes weekly about personal leadership, work and management.A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of November 4, 2023.