Armin Falk, an economist, says, “The fact that we are social beings is a well-known fact.” But we’re happier when others get less and we feel more successful when others fail.
Time.com reports that there’s “a mountain of survey data collected by modern economists and psychologists that suggests people care very much about keeping up with the Joneses.
Many scholars believe that social comparison helps to explain why, even as much of the world gets ever richer, people today don’t report being happier than people did 50 years ago.
It turns out the negative response to earning less is usually stronger than the positive response to earning more….”