Lots of studies have demonstrated a "keeping up with the Joneses" effect, in which the happiness derived from status, income, wealth, or possessions is relative to the circles one inhabits. If I'm making $1M a year in a company full of people making $100k, I'll feel like a baller. If I'm making that same $1M in a company full of people making $10M+, I'll feel like a loser. It's the proximate context, not the universal one, to which people draw their emotional comparisons and assess their financial worth.
Another well-studied effect is that lifestyle tends to rise to meet rising income levels. This is partially driven by the aforementioned effect -- rising income tends to put you in jobs, or in neighborhoods, or generally in physical proximity with other high earners -- and partially driven by the fact that you tend to develop more expensive tastes and habits as you climb the income ladder.
I'm writing this from my iPad on the train, and so I am too lazy to tab over and look up the particular studies or sources. But start by Googling C.N. Parkinson -- the same Parkinson who famously quipped that work expands to meet the time available for its completion -- who stated that expenditures rise to meet income. Plenty of people have taken this observation and run with it in actual studies.
Another well-studied effect is that lifestyle tends to rise to meet rising income levels. This is partially driven by the aforementioned effect -- rising income tends to put you in jobs, or in neighborhoods, or generally in physical proximity with other high earners -- and partially driven by the fact that you tend to develop more expensive tastes and habits as you climb the income ladder.
I'm writing this from my iPad on the train, and so I am too lazy to tab over and look up the particular studies or sources. But start by Googling C.N. Parkinson -- the same Parkinson who famously quipped that work expands to meet the time available for its completion -- who stated that expenditures rise to meet income. Plenty of people have taken this observation and run with it in actual studies.