This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Klar, Y. Articles by Giladi, E. E. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Klar, Y. Articles by Giladi, E. E. Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Are Most People Happier than their Peers, or Are They Just Happy?

Tel-Aviv University, Israel, yklar{at}freud.tau.ac.il

Eilath E. Giladi

Tel-Aviv University, Israel, eilath{at}ccsg.tau.ac.il

Most people judge themselves to be content with their lives. However, they also judge themselves to be more content than the others in their group, which is a logical impossibility. In line with previous speculations, the authors found in two studies that comparative contentment judgments were highly related to judgments of one’s own contentment but entirely unrelated to judgments of comparison of others’ contentment. That is, comparative contentment judgments are predominantly self-focused. Researchers asking the question, "How content are you relative to your peers?" should be aware that the response might well be to the question "How content are you?"

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?