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Is Social Status Important in Life Satisfaction

Andrea Letourneau

Department of Psychology, Bridgewater State University

PSYC 304: Research Methods

October 11, 2024

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Abstract

This paper studies the relationship between life satisfaction and social status. Life

satisfaction is presented as how happy you are. Suppose you are civil with how your life is going

you would score higher on the scale. Social status is presented as financial struggles or

financially stable. Mainly adults were studied in this topic in over 90 countries with a total of

153,716. The findings were that the better social class you are the more satisfied with your life. I

used four scholarly articles and the WVS to base my conclusions. In the discussion, I will go

over the results and the interpretation of them.

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Is Social Status Important in Life Satisfaction

Have you ever wondered if social status affected how satisfied you are with your life?

Some researchers suggested it doesn’t, and others do but which is right. I used the world value

survey (WVS) and four scholar articles to figure that question out. My hypothesis is that the

higher your social class the more satisfied you are with your life. My findings agreed with the

hypothesis suggesting it is true. However, in this paper I will talk about how I got to that

conclusion and the results of the findings.

The first scholarly article I reviewed was titled ‘Social Status and Life Satisfaction in

Context: A Comparison between Sweden and USA’. In this article, they wanted to compare

social status and life satisfaction between Sweden and the United States. They formulated four

hypotheses, Hypothesis 1A: Socioeconomic status is more strongly associated with LS in the US

compared to in Sweden; Hypothesis 2: Sociometric status is more strongly associated with LS in

the US compared to in Sweden. Hypothesis 3: Social status seeking is negatively associated with

LS in Sweden, while positively associated with LS in the US. Hypothesis 4: Social status and

status seeking is more strongly associated with LS for men compared to women in the US, while

such gender differences are smaller in Sweden. They measured life satisfaction using a single-

item question on life satisfaction taken from the European Social Survey. To measure

socioeconomic status, they used respondents’ household income as a proxy variable. The results

found that the level of life satisfaction is higher in the US sample compared to the Swedish

sample. As expected, the data show a positive relationship between life satisfaction and both

socioeconomic status and sociometric status.

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The second scholarly article I reviewed was titled ‘Life Satisfaction’. They analyzed the

determinants of global life satisfaction in two countries (The Netherlands and the U.S.), by using

both self-reports and responses to a battery of vignette questions. The analysis in this paper is

based on information obtained from two Internet surveys, conducted in the Netherlands and the

United States. Respondents are asked to rate themselves on a five-point scale. They do so in the

following specific life domains: income, family and social relations, job, and health. They are

also asked a global question about their own life satisfaction. As expected, these results show

that satisfaction with life is positively associated with satisfaction within each of the four

domains. While there is not much evidence of statistically significant differences between the

two countries in the translation from satisfaction within a domain into global life satisfaction,

there appears to be less weight in the US assigned to the health domain.

The third scholarly article I reviewed was titled ‘Life Satisfaction in the United States’.

Data were drawn from a survey of 1,347 adult residents of the United States. Hypotheses

concerning each independent variable were derived from the literature and tested through

regression analysis. Sex was incorporated in the research design as a control variable.

Hypotheses 1-Whites score higher on life satisfaction than blacks. Hypothesis 2-There is an

inverse relationship between age and life satisfaction. Hypothesis 3-There is a direct relationship

between both indicators of SES and life satisfaction. Hypothesis 4-Married individuals score

higher on life satisfaction than unmarried individuals. Hypothesis 5-There is a direct relationship

between perceived quality of health and life satisfaction. Hypothesis 6-There is a direct

relationship between both indicators of social participation and life satisfaction. Zero-order

correlations (r) were used as an index of the gross relationship between the variables. Both

standardized and unstandardized partial regression coefficients were calculated to test the
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hypotheses and to provide an assessment of the predictive utility of each independent variable

when the effects of the remaining independent variables were removed. Hypothesis I predicted

whites would score higher on life satisfaction than blacks. Hypothesis 2. When the sample is

divided into three age groups some doubt is cast on the hypothesis that there is an inverse

relationship between age and life satisfaction. Both the 40-59 group and the 60 and over group

score higher on life satisfaction than the 18-39 group. Hypothesis 3 posited a direct relationship

between both indicators of socioeconomic status and life satisfaction. Hypothesis 5 predicted a

direct relationship between perceived quality of health and life satisfaction. Hypothesis 6 posited

a direct relationship between both indices of social participation and life satisfaction.

The final scholarly article I reviewed was titled ‘The relative contributions of

race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, health, and social relationships to life satisfaction in the

United States’. To evaluate racial/ethnic disparities in life satisfaction and the relative

contributions of socioeconomic status, health, and social relationships to well-being within and

across racial/ethnic groups. We analyzed two U.S. population-based public health surveys, the

2001 National Health Interview Survey, and the 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance

System. In both surveys, life satisfaction was measured with the question “In general, how

satisfied re you with your life?” The response options included very satisfied, satisfied,

dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied. Socioeconomic status was assessed by education (dummy

variables standing for <high school; high school graduate or equivalent; some college; college

graduate; postgraduate degree), household income (> or <$20,000 per year; eight categories

ranging from <$10,000 to >$75,000 per year), employment status, and wealth. Employment was

represented by dummy codes standing for retired, unemployed, and never worked versus

working. The results were whites had higher life satisfaction compared to blacks and Hispanics.
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Across all participants, socioeconomic status indicators accounted for 6–9% of the variance in

life satisfaction judgments.

So, what does all this mean? I will get into that in the next sections of this paper. I will

compare life satisfaction and social status from the world value survey and explain in detail how

I got my hypothesis which is the higher your social class the more satisfied you are with life.

Method

Participants

The total number of participants in this study for social class is 3903 with 47 missing, and

for life satisfaction is 3939 with 11 missing. There was not any statement of consent or ethics

since the world value survey was used. The average mean of life satisfaction of participants was

7.22 (SD= .90) The average median of social class of participants was 3 (SD= 1.86).

Materials

I used the world value survey to test my hypothesis. I also used SPSS to conduct data

analysis.

Procedure

The research team of the world value survey conducted research by going door to door

for participants from each country. They also conducted face to face interviews with these

participants. Afterwards, the participants were thanked and paid for their participation.
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Results

The values I reported were life satisfaction and social status. There was a significant

correlation which was positive. Social status and life satisfaction were correlated r (88542)

=.157, p<.01. There was also a significant regression which was also positive. The intercept of

my dependent variable is 6.053. The slope for my independent variable is .363. Social status

positively predicted life satisfaction, b = .363, p<.01. There was a significant correlation between

life satisfaction and social class r (88573) = .157, p<.01. These results did confirm my hypothesis

that the higher social class you are the more satisfied you are with life.

Discussion

I was studying social class and life satisfaction. I hypothesized that the higher your social

class the more satisfied you are with your life. I found the results to be true and significant. My

conclusion is that social class does have an impact on if you are satisfied with your life or not.

There were two limitations to my study. The first was the world value survey is correlational, but

it cannot prove causal relationships between social class and life satisfaction. The next was the

selection of variables were limited as the world value survey items are not handcrafted by me

and was done by other researchers. There were also two strengths in my study. One was that the

results were highly generalizable. The other was that I was able to test my ideas with a non-

WEIRD population. WEIRD means western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. In

the future I would like other researchers to expand my study by using other means of finding the

data points instead of just using SPSS.

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References

Barger, S. D., Donoho, C. J., & Wayment, H. A. (2009). The relative contributions of race

/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, health, and social relationships to life satisfaction in the

United States. Quality of Life Research, 18, 179-189. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc

/articles/PMC6036920/

Clemente, F., & Sauer, W. J. (1976). Life satisfaction in the United States. Social Forces, 54(3),

621-631. https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/josf 54&div=54&g_

sent=1&casa_token=yPGvfgWooIoAAAAA:ZfNl3mkSGIDholIWV7p_oOY-y2Cobx

GUFU EOxkm9JwkR5qYpKx1R9sEmU20ab5iGAlOSZ6dE&collection=journals

Fors Connolly, F., & Johansson Sevä, I. (2018). Social status and life satisfaction in context: A

comparison between Sweden and the USA. International Journal of Wellbeing, 8(2),

110-134. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1269170/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Kapteyn, A., Smith, J. P., & Van Soest, A. (2010). Life satisfaction. International differences in

well-being, 70-104. https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/35314/1/593350510.pdf