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Introduction
To many Americans, achieving the national dream means gaining personal wealth, being happy and satisfied with life. A popular belief among Americans has been that money is essential for happiness, but not all people see it this way. People's perceptions of happiness vary widely even among those who live under similar economic and financial conditions. Therefore, to what degree money can (or cannot) buy happiness, or more specifically, under what circumstances money promotes happiness is not self-evident (George 1992). The factors that influence people's perception of happiness have long been the focus of scholars and philosophers. Social scientists in particular have devoted a great deal of effort to the topic (e.g. Campbell, Converse and Rogers 1976; Diener 1984; Feist et al. 1995; George and Bearon 1980; Myers and Diener 1995). Although social gerontologists have for years researched the relationship between age and ageing and happiness, life satisfaction and subjective wellbeing, most studies have centred only on older adults (Cutler 1992). Research to date has yet to offer conclusive findings on the effect of age on happiness (Felton 1987; La Barbera and Gürhan 1997; Shmotkin 1990; Stock et al. 1983; Yang 2008).
This study focuses on the relationships between money, happiness and age among American adults. More specifically, it aims to increase understanding of the relationship between money and happiness across three commonly recognised adult age groups: young (18-44 years), middle-age (45-64 years) and older (65 or more) (cf. Cutler 1992). The research question addressed is: does the relationship between money and happiness differ by age group?
Literature review
According to Maddox (1992), studies of happiness and satisfaction have been merged with studies of wellbeing since the work of Campbell, Converse and Rogers (1976). One result is that researchers generally use the rubric of subjective wellbeing to include both studies of happiness, which concentrate on the balance between the positive and negative components of mood, and studies of satisfaction that focus on the extent to which hopes and aspirations are perceived to be fulfilled (Diener 1984; George 1992; Maddox 1992).
Researchers have devoted a great deal of effort to studying happiness or subjective wellbeing (Campbell, Converse and Rogers 1976; Di Tella, MacCulloch and Oswald 2003;...