Wealth Poverty and Happiness
Wealth, Poverty, and Happiness
How does social class—individuals’ wealth, education, and occupational prestige (Kraus, Piff, Mendoza-Denton, Rheinschmidt, &
Keltner, 2012; Piff, Kraus, & Keltner, in press)—relate to experiences
of positive emotion, like love, amusement, and awe? Extending research on the association between social class (e.g., income) and
emotional well-being (e.g., Kahneman & Deaton, 2010), in a large
nationally representative sample we examine the associations between
social class and a variety of distinct positive emotions (Shiota, Keltner, & John, 2006), many of which we test here for the first time (e.g.,
love, awe).
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Social Class and Emotional Well-Being
In Leviathan (Hobbes, 1668/1994), Thomas Hobbes described
human social life as “nasty, brutish, and short.” Although Hobbes
intended to capture the state of humankind, this sentiment has
since been predominantly used to describe the poor and lower
social classes, whose lives are seen as defined by discontent (e.g.,
“The Rich Are Different,” 2010). Corresponding research finds
that relative to their upper class counterparts, lower class individuals experience worse health outcomes (e.g., Barr, 2014), are
subjected to increased social devaluation and exclusion (Piff et al.,
in press), and report reduced subjective well-being—for example,
the relationship between income and life satisfaction is as high as
.50 in some countries (Diener & Oishi, 2000; Howell & Howell,
2008; Lucas & Schimmack, 2009). Lower class individuals also
experience more intense and recurring negative affect, including
anxiety and depression (e.g., Gallo & Matthews, 2003). Lower
class individuals, it would seem, experience less positive emotion
and happiness.
And yet new research renders this view somewhat simplistic.
Life satisfaction—which reflects a person’s thoughts about his or
her life—is conceptually and empirically distinguishable from
emotional well-being, or experienced happiness, which refers to
the emotional quality of an individual’s everyday life—the frequency and intensity of experiences like joy, pride, and love
(Diener, Ng, Harter, & Arora, 2010; Fredrickson, 1998; Kahneman
& Deaton, 2010; Shiota et al., 2006). Whereas upper class individuals are generally more satisfied with their lives as a whole
(Diener et al., 2010; Kahneman & Deaton, 2010), the association
between social class and emotional well-being is more complex. In
one study using the Gallup World Poll of 132 countries (Diener et
al., 2010), income was strongly associated with self-reported life
satisfaction (r .44), but less so with positive and negative
emotions felt during the preceding day (rs .17 and .11,
respectively). In another study using an experience sample
method, higher income respondents were less likely to report
This article was published Online First December 18, 2017.
Paul K. Piff and Jake P. Moskowitz, Department of Psychology and
Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Paul K.
Piff, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, 4324 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Irvine, CA 92697-
7050. E-mail: [email protected]
Emotion © 2017 American Psychological Association
2018, Vol. 18, No. 6, 902–905 1528-3542/18/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000387
902
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feeling “sad” (r .15) but not more likely to report feeling
“happy” (r _ .005) than their lower income counterparts (Kushlev,
Dunn, & Lucas, 2015). These findings indicate that higher social
class may only be weakly (if at all) related to increased global
positivity. Here, we examine how social class relates to experiences of various positive emotions in daily life that are central to
happiness (Shiota et al., 2006).
Social Class and Positive Emotions
Upper and lower class individuals possess different resources
(e.g., income) and inhabit distinct environments, which shape their
concerns and priorities in unique ways. Increased material resources afford upper class individuals greater autonomy and reduced exposure to social and environmental threat, giving rise to
an internal, self-oriented focus— greater attention to one’s internal
states and goals and increased independence from others, as evidenced, for example, by decreased social attentiveness and more
self-interested behavior. By contrast, lower class individuals are
exposed to more threats to their well-being (e.g., increased crime,
poorly funded schools), and they possess fewer resources to cope
with these threats. As a result, lower class individuals develop an
external, other-oriented focus— greater vigilance to the social
context and interdependence with others it, as demonstrated, for
example, by more affiliative and prosocial behavior (Kraus et al.,
2012; Piff et al., in press).