Tim Wadsworth, an associate professor of sociology from the University of Colorado, has completed a study that found people who reported a higher frequency of sex were more likely to report a higher level of happiness. Hold those sarcastic quips, though, because the study found something else: people who believe that they’re having less sex than their peers report greater unhappiness, whereas people who believe that they have more sex than their peers are happier.
“There’s an overall increase in sense of well-being that comes with engaging in sex more frequently, but there’s also this relative aspect to it,” Wadsworth said. “Having more sex makes us happy, but thinking that we are having more sex than other people makes us even happier.”
So, how do people know how much other people are having sex? They guess based on television, movies, lifestyle magazines, and old-fashioned conjecture. So, it turns out that sex is like other parts of life. Career satisfaction, your car, your gadgets; you don’t need to be the best, you just need to be better than your friends.
[Sex and the Pursuit of Happiness: How Other People’s Sex Lives are Related to our Sense of Well-Being – via Social Indications Research]
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