´In Good Spirits´ and the Achievement of Material Satisfaction: Evidence from Argentina

Abstract

Previous literature has been committed to study the impact of socio-economic variables on material life satisfaction and to study the impact on mental health on emotional life satisfaction. However, not many studies has investigated the impact of mental health over material life satisfaction. This paper has two main objectives: it explores the elements that increase satisfaction in Argentinean men and women according to their self-reports, and to study the influence of socioeconomic variables and the absence of pathological symptoms in the prediction of emotional and material satisfaction. One thousand twelve Argentinean participants were included in this study, about 47.4% were male and age ranged from 18 to 91 years. Concerning the first objective, results have shown that earn more money and personal fulfillment at work comes up with a 46.6% of the answers in men and 37.83% in women. But, paradoxically, the second objective evidences that socioeconomical variables are associated with material satisfaction but not with emotional satisfaction while absence of pathological symptoms are related to both material and emotional satisfaction.