His research finds that the correlation between your paycheck and your happiness holds extremely true across a vast range of incomes.
Further, it shows that the psychological effect of more money is relatively the same across income brackets.
In other words, if a person earning $200,000 a year and a person earning $50,000 both receive a 20% raise, the relative increase to their happiness will very likely be roughly the same.
But in terms of quantifying their joy, the raise has about the same effect, Killingsworth says.
"Money is one of many variables [in] the equation for happiness, and no single variable dominates," Killingsworth says.
Persons:
Matthew Killingsworth, Killingsworth
Organizations:
University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, CNBC