Income Reliably Predicts Daily Sadness, but Not Happiness

Kushlev, Dunn, and Lucas (2015) found that income predicts less daily sadness-but not greater happiness-among Americans. The present study used longitudinal data from an approximately representative German sample to replicate and extend these findings. Our results largely replicated Kushlev and colleagues': 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 and colleagues' findings, new analyses indicated that only between-persons variance in income (but not within-persons variance) predicted daily sadness-perhaps because there was relatively little within-persons variance in income. Finally, income predicted less daily sadness and worry, but not less anger or frustration-potentially suggesting that income predicts less "internalizing" but not less "externalizing" negative emotions. Together, our study and Kushlev and colleagues' provide evidence that income robustly predicts select daily negative emotions-but not positive ones.