Exploring the place of financial status in the good life: Income and meaning in life

Abstract

Two studies examined the association between income and meaning in life (MIL). Study 1 (N = 781) demonstrated that income and other measures of financial status are positively associated with MIL and other aspects of well-being. The association between income and MIL was partially explained by autonomy, competence, and perceptions of control. Study 2 (N = 123) examined people’s forecasts of how financial status would affect their future well-being. Having a middle class or upper-middle class income in the future was expected to result in higher MIL, happiness, and need satisfaction than a life with a low income, showing that people perceive income as tied to meaning. These studies demonstrate how financial status can contribute to actual and expected MIL.

Keywords:

• Meaning in life
• income
• socioeconomic status

Notes

1. We included additional measures in this study that are excluded from analyses.

2. We investigated potential interactions between PA and expected/actual income in Studies 1 and 2 as these were noted in previous research (Ward & King, 2016a). Specifically, Ward and King found a stronger relationship between PA and MIL among people with low incomes. Study 1, a main effect of PA emerged, β = .53, p < .001, but income and the PA X income interaction were not significant, β’s < .05; p’s > .16. This lack of an interaction may be due to the nature of the participant sample or the different measure of PA used in this study (versus Ward & King, 2016a). In Study 2, we also examined whether expected happiness interacted with dummy coded conditions (middle class treated as baseline) to predict expected MIL. There was a main effect of expected happiness on expected MIL, β = 0.79, p < 0.001, but the interactions between dummy coded condition and expected happiness were not significant, β’s<+/− .09 p’s > .61. Within cell correlations between expected happiness and MIL were consistent with Ward & King, 2016a: r’s = .66, .58, .49; p’s <.001 for poor, middle class, and upper middle class/wealthy future conditions, respectively.