Self-study
A study of 20,000 20- to 64-year-olds found that people's satisfaction with their incomes is not strongly correlated with the amount they make. ██████ ████ ██ ████ ██ █████████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ ██████ ███ ███ █████ █████ ████ ████████ ████████████ ████ █████ ███████ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ █████████ █████ ███████ ███████ ████ █████ ██ █████ ██████████
Summary
A study found that there isn’t a strong correlation between the amount of people’s income and their satisfaction with that income. Instead, people’s satisfaction with their income depends a lot on how their income compares to their neighbors’ income. Making more than one’s neighbors is associated with more satisfaction. People tend to live around people from their same economic class.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
People will be more satisfied with their own income if their neighbors are fired and lose their income.
People will be less satisfied with their own income if their neighbors begin to make a lot more money.
22.
The statements above, if true, ████ ████████ ███████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████
a
People with high ███████ ███ ████████████ ████ █████████ ████ █████ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████
Unsupported. People tend to live around others in their same economic class. Since satisfaction depends on comparisons with one’s neighbors, there’s no support for high earners being more satisfied than the middle class. High earners aren’t living around the middle class.
b
Older people are █████████ ████ █████████ ████ █████ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████
Unsupported. The stimulus didn’t provide any evidence of differences between age groups. In addition, even if you think older people earn more than younger people, we don’t know that older people live around younger people or compare their incomes to younger people’s.
c
Satisfaction with income ██ ████████ ██████████ ████ █████████████
Unsupported. We’re told satisfaction depends mainly on how one’s income compares with the incomes of one’s neighbors. So, a rich ‘hood and poor ‘hood could easily have the same satisfaction, since the people within each ‘hood compare themselves to others in the same ‘hood.
d
In general, people's ██████ ██████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ █████ ██ ████████████ ████ ████ ██ █ ██████
Unsupported. The stimulus concerns satisfaction with one’s income, not satisfaction with one’s life as a whole.
e
An increase in ██████████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ████████ ████████ ██████ ██ ████████████ ████ █████ ███ ████████
Strongly supported. Satisfaction with income largely depends on whether one makes more than one’s neighbors. If everyone has an increase in their income, people don’t necessarily start to earn more than their neighbors. So, satisfaction with income doesn’t increase much.