Empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that an individual’s position in an income stratum—more than the absolute income level—determines subjective well-being. However, studies on subjective well-being suffer from a critical methodological weakness: they use exogenously defined reference groups. Our study addresses this point by applying an innovative new survey instrument. We ask respondents to identify individual reference persons for income comparisons. We find that these reference persons come from a range of social groups. Interactions between personality traits and the direction of income comparisons lead to different levels of subjective well-being. This highlights the importance of collecting information on personality traits in research on subjective well-being. We conclude that questions about self-defined individual income comparisons can be a valuable and straightforward addition to future surveys.

实证证据支持这样的假设，即个人在收入阶层中的地位——超过绝对收入水平——决定了主观幸福感。然而，关于主观幸福感的研究存在一个关键的方法论缺陷：它们使用外生定义的参照组。我们的研究通过应用创新的新调查工具解决了这一点。我们要求受访者确定个人参考人以进行收入比较。我们发现这些参考人来自一系列社会群体。人格特质与收入比较方向之间的相互作用导致不同程度的主观幸福感。这凸显了在主观幸福感研究中收集人格特质信息的重要性。