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What Makes Rich People Happier Than the Rest of Us?
A new study shows it’s not their material purchases
Peering into the lives of the rich is a guilty pleasure. Collectively, we love to hate them, even as we scroll through their Instagram pages and read about what they buy, what they do, and where they go. At the heart of this curiosity is our desire to find the answer to the question: Are they really happier than the rest of us?
Statistically speaking, yes, they are. Studies have found a positive association between wealth and life satisfaction. That’s not exactly a shocking revelation, I know. What’s interesting, however, is that the happiness wealthy people experience may stem less from what they buy and more from how they spend their time. In a study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers surveyed more than 800 millionaires in the Netherlands along with a nationally representative sample of around 1,200 people. They compared how the two groups spent their time both at work and in their daily activities (cooking, eating, commuting, working, relaxing, volunteering, and hobbies) as well as their overall life satisfaction.
There were fewer variations than expected. When it came to daily activities, for example, both spent about the same amount of time cooking and shopping. The…
