Cardiff/Warwick - Comparatively happy

Money makes you happy only if it improves your social standing, researchers have found. The team from the universities of Cardiff and Warwick wanted to explain why people in rich nations on average have not become any happier over the past 40 years. Chris Boyce, a researcher at Warwick's department of psychology, said: "Earning £1 million a year appears to be not enough to make you happy if you know your friends all earn £2 million a year." The study, "Money and Happiness: Rank of Income, Not Income, Affects Life Satisfaction", will be published in the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Science.