Income Reliably Predicts Daily Sadness, but Not Happiness: A Replication and Extension of Kushlev, Dunn, and Lucas (2015)

Kushlev, Dunn, and Lucas (2015) found that income predicts less daily sadnessbut not greater happinessamong Americans. The present study used longitudinal data from an approximately representative German sample to replicate and extend these findings. Our results largely replicated Kushlev et al.'s results: Income predicted less daily sadness (albeit with a smaller effect size) but was unrelated to happiness. Moreover, the association between income and sadness could not be explained by demographics, stress, or daily time use. Extending Kushlev et al.'s findings, new analyses indicated that only between-persons variance in income (but not within-persons variance) predicted daily sadnessperhaps because there was relatively little within-persons variance in income. Finally, income predicted less daily sadness and worry, but not less anger or frustrationpotentially suggesting that income predicts less internalizing but not less externalizing negative emotions. Together, our study and Kushlev et al.'s study provide evidence that income robustly predicts select daily negative emotionsbut not positive ones.