Wealth makes you selfish, claims new study

Being rich can make you self-centred and selfish, a new study suggests.

For the study, University of California researchers looked at how we experience happiness by surveying 1,519 people in the United States (US).

Those with all the money in the world experience more positive emotions when the focus is on them, The Independent reported.

They also found people with lower incomes experienced happiness in others through feelings of love and compassion.

"Lower-income individuals have devised a way to cope, to find meaning, joy and happiness in their lives despite their relatively less favourable circumstances," lead author Paul Piff of the University of California, Irvine told The Independent. Adding, "Wealth doesn't guarantee you happiness, but it may predispose you to experiencing different forms of it - for example, whether you delight in yourself versus in your friends and relationships."

The research was published by American Psychological Association and the study's findings were originally published in the journal Emotion.