Comparing income with peers causes unhappiness 與同儕比收入讓人不開心

◎國際新聞中心

Comparing your income with those of family and friends is a recipe for unhappiness, a study has suggested. Researchers analysing data from a Europe-wide survey found three-quarters of those asked thought it important to compare their incomes with others. But those who compared salaries seem less content, especially if they looked at those of friends and family rather than work colleagues.

研究顯示，與親朋好友比較收入，是讓你不開心的方法。研究人員分析歐洲調查的 資料發現，4分之3的受訪者認為，與別人比較收入是很重要的事情，但那些會去比較薪水的人似乎比較不滿足，特別是如果他們與朋友和家人、而非同事比較的 話。

The researchers, from the Paris School of Economics, used data from the European Social Survey covering 19,000 participants in 24 countries. They found that those who compared their incomes with others tended to be less happy.

巴黎經濟學院的研究人員，使用涵蓋24國1萬9000名受訪者的歐洲社會調查數據，發現 與他人比較收入的人似乎較不快樂。

There was no difference seen between men and women in how much they compare their income with those around them. But limiting comparisons to work colleagues seems to be the most innocuous - as comparisons with friends appeared to be twice as painful as comparisons with colleagues.

在與周遭的人比較收入上，男性與女性沒有什麼差別，但是把比較限於同事，似乎 最無害；與朋友相比的痛苦，似乎比與同事相比要痛苦兩倍。

People in poorer countries were found to compare their incomes more than people in richer ones and, within countries, poorer people were more likely to compare their incomes than richer people.

在較貧窮國家的人，比較富裕國家的人還會比較收入，而在同一個國家內，較貧窮的人可能比較富裕的人還會比較 收入。

新聞辭典

recipe： 名詞，食譜，訣竅、方法。

content：形容詞，滿意的。例句：He seems fairly content with （his） life.（他似乎相當滿意他的生活。）

innocuous：形容詞，無害的。例句：Some mushrooms look innocuous but are in fact poisonous.（有些菇類看來無害其實有毒。）