Andrew Gibson, Kieran Francis, Harriet Brown, Emily
Williams, Claire Massett and Felicity Lindsay
Research Paper 1
From Wealth to Well-Being? Money matters, but
less than people think. Aknin et al. 2009
Research Paper 2
Money and Mental Well-Being: A longitudinal study
of medium-sized lottery wins. Gardner et al. 2006
 People are obsessed with money
 Concern about losing money
 More time spent at work
 Assume that more money leads to greater level of
happiness
 Study 1 – To find a link between household
income and happiness
 Study 2 – To assess how happy participants
will be with different levels of income
 429 Americans asked to report and predict
happiness levels
 Part of wider online survey where points could be
redeemed for prizes
 Asked to rate their life satisfaction on a scale 0-10
 Asked to predict life satisfaction of 10 people with
different household incomes
Actual and predicted
happiness levels for
the 10 household
income point
estimates
 Higher levels of income associated with greater
level of happiness
 Moderate correlation found
 Accurate prediction about higher household
income being linked to increased happiness
 Vastly underestimated the happiness of people
earning lower levels of household income
 315 Americans from same research pool as used
in Study 1
 Identical methodology to Study 1, but instead
participants were asked to predict how happy THEY
would be with different levels of income, before
making predictions for others
 Predicted Study 2 would mispredict association
between money and happiness, whether or not it’s
in reference to themselves
Actual and predicted
happiness levels for
both oneself and
another at the 10
household income
point estimates
 People accurately predicted the emotional benefits
of being rich, but vastly overestimated the emotional
cost of being poor
 Believe money and happiness more tightly linked
than in reality, overemphasising the importance of
money
 People work harder, driven by the fear of loss
 People spend more time in the office to get more
money – sacrificing family and leisure time
 American population only
 Surveys attracted certain demographic
 No mention of the right to withdraw from the study
 May not answer truthfully
 Possible other reasons for level of happiness
 Previous income was not taken into account
 Statistically well-determined link between income
and reported wellbeing
 Natural experiment using lottery winners’ data
 Used a standard mental well-being measure
contained in BHPS called the GHQ score
 Longitudinal as opposed to cross-sectional study
 12 question survey
 Psychological health questionnaire (GHQ-12)
 33,605 observations
 4,822 “Medium winners” / 137 “Bigger winners”
 Control group – No win / Medium winners
 Experimental group – Bigger winners
Table1 shows the average wins of the groups and the
relevant GHQ scores
Table1 shows the average wins of the groups and the
relevant GHQ scores
Table1 shows the average wins of the groups and the
relevant GHQ scores
Table1 shows the average wins of the groups and the
relevant GHQ scores
 Gender differences
 Demographics don’t matter for big wins
 People who have a higher GHQ level were more
positively affected by big wins
 Evidence is robust
 Winning the lottery shows some improvement on
mental health
 Higher income houses have a lower GHQ after
winning the lottery than those from lower income
households
 Supports evidence of Diener et al. (2002)
 No previous knowledge of participants’ wealth
 Only UK sample used
 Stopped using certain data during study with no
stated reason
 No mention of ethics
 No p value – no test of significance
 Lower income households more likely to play lottery
Graphs to demonstrate how the differing range
in Y axis values can influence our interpretation
of results
 Both studies show a very slight link between
money and happiness
 Both point to other factors having a greater effect
on happiness
 Both studies use similar research methods
 There is an apparent link between money and
happiness
 Financial resources appeared to act as a
mechanism translating life circumstances into
life satisfaction (Diener 2002)
 People may lie about happiness
 Other factors
 Type of expenditure Dunn et al.
 Attitude towards money Vohs et al.
 Status Nettle 2005
 Money and happiness appear to link
 Not the only cause of happiness
 Just because you have money does not
mean you will be happy
 Aknin, L., Norton, M., & Dunn, E. (2009). From wealth to well-being? Money
matters, but less than people think The Journal of Positive Psychology, 4 (6),
523-527.
Diener, E. Biswas-Diener, R. (2002). Will money increase subjective
wellbeing? Social Indicators Research 57, 119-169
Dunn, E. Aknin, L. And Norton, M. (2008) Spending Money on Others
Promotes Happiness Science 21Vol. 319 no. 5870 pp. 1687-1688 .
 Gardner, J. & Oswald, A.J. (2006). Money and mental well-being: A
longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins. Journal of Health
Economics, 26, 49-60.

Johnson, W. , and Krueger, R. F. (2006). How Money Buys Happiness:
Genetic and Environmental Processes linking finances and life satisfaction.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 680-691

Kahneman, D., Krueger, A., B.Schkade, D., Schwarz, N. & Stone, A.A.
(2006). Would You Be Happier If You Were Richer? A Focusing Illusion
Science, 312 (5782), 1908-1910.

Nettle, D., 2005b. Social Gradients in Subjective Wellbeing: Is It Money or
Person Control that Matters? Department of Psychology, Brain and
Behaviour, University of Newcastle: working paper.

Vohs, K. Mead, N. Goode, M. (2006) The Psychological Consequences of
Money Science 17 Vol. 314 no. 5802 1154-1156

Haisley, E., Mostafa, R. and Loewenstein, G. (2008), Subjective relative
income and lottery ticket purchases. J. Behav. Decis. Making, 21: 283–
295.