Abstract
This research note links recent psychological research to literature about income aspiration, and advances the monkey-trap hypothesis for further research. It argues that what people have not yet acquired makes them dissatisfied, because it prevents them from enjoying what they have already accomplished. Therefore, people’s income aspirations limit their life satisfaction, in the sense that if they aspire to more, they feel less satisfaction. The empirical analysis, which uses two waves of Special Eurobarometer surveys in 27 European countries, finds support for this hypothesis, and reveals that income aspiration decreases life satisfaction. The results, however, should be interpreted with caution, on account of possible measurement issues. The implications of the results are discussed, in order to encourage future research on this question.
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Notes
For an interpretation of the coefficient, see: Wooldridge (2009: 45).
This is based on an estimation which uses the nominal rather than the log transformed estimation. This estimation is not shown in full in this paper.
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This paper was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
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Appendix
Appendix
See Fig. 5.
The connection of country average income aspiration with disposable income (left panel) and Gini coefficient (right panel)
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Keller, T. Caught in the Monkey Trap: Elaborating the Hypothesis for Why Income Aspiration Decreases Life Satisfaction. J Happiness Stud 20, 829–840 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9969-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-018-9969-z