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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?"

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 25, No. 5, 586-595 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167299025005004


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