COVENTRY, England, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Employee well-being is dependent upon the rank of an individual's wage in a group, as opposed to the individual's absolute pay, British researchers say.
Gordon D.A. Brown, Andrew J. Oswald and Jing Qian of the University of Warwick and Jonathan Gardner of Watson Wyatt Worldwide asked undergraduates to rate how satisfied they would be with wages they might be offered for their first job after college.
Subjects expressed feelings about each potential wage in the context of a set of other wages. Researchers also analyzed data from 16,000 employees who reported on workplace satisfaction.
The study, published in the journal Industrial Relations, found that employees did not care solely about their absolute level of pay. Workers were more concerned with their income relative to the salary levels around them in their workplace.
Individuals were not just influenced by relative income, but by the rank-ordered position of their wage within a comparison set.
"Results show that human well-being depends in a particular way upon comparisons with others," the study authors say in a statement.
