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The social contingency of momentary subjective well-being
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The social contingency of momentary subjective well-being
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Journal Article
The social contingency of momentary subjective well-being
2016
Overview
Although social comparison is a known determinant of overall life satisfaction, it is not clear how it affects moment-to-moment variation in subjective emotional state. Using a novel social decision task combined with computational modelling, we show that a participant’s subjective emotional state reflects not only the impact of rewards they themselves receive, but also the rewards received by a social partner. Unequal outcomes, whether advantageous or disadvantageous, reduce average momentary happiness. Furthermore, the relative impacts of advantageous and disadvantageous inequality on momentary happiness at the individual level predict a subject’s generosity in a separate dictator game. These findings demonstrate a powerful social influence upon subjective emotional state, where emotional reactivity to inequality is strongly predictive of altruism in an independent task domain.
Comparing oneself to others is inherently human but exactly how social comparison affects one's emotional state is unclear. Here the authors demonstrate that unequal social outcomes decrease happiness and these emotional impacts are proportional to individual levels of generosity.
