Most people are happier if they know they are having sex more often than their friends, according to new research published by Tim Wadsworth, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

We already know that people are happier if they know they are earning more money than their peers. This is one of the first studies to evaluate what relative impact sexual activity has on people’s happiness when they compare themselves with others.

The paper, titled “Sex and the Pursuit of Happiness: How Other People’s Sex Lives are Related to Our Sense of Well-Being,” was published in Social Indicators Research.

Wadsworth analyzed results from national survey data and found that higher sexual activity was associated with higher levels of happiness. In addition, he found that people who thought they were having sex more often than their peers were in general happier than those who thought they weren’t.

Wadsworth said:

“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. Having more sex makes us happy, but thinking that we are having more sex than other people makes us even happier.”

He gathered the data from the General Social Survey which asked the participants whether they were “very happy, pretty happy or not too happy”. Since 1989 the survey has also included questions about sexual frequency.

A total of 15,386 people were included in Wadsworth’s sample. The respondents who had sex at least two to three times a month were found to be happier than those who had no sex during the 12 months prior to being asked.

People who had sex once a week were 44 percent more likely to be happier than those who had no sex in the past year, while those who had sex two to three times a week were 55 percent more likely to be happier, Wadsworth found.

How can people know how much sex their peers are having, given that sex is a private matter? Wadsworth said: “There is plenty of evidence that information concerning normative sexual behavior is learned through discussions within peer groups and friendship networks.”

The results showed that if people who are having sex two or three times a month believe that their peers are doing it every week, they are 14% less likely to report a higher level of happiness.

The author concluded:

“I can’t think of a better explanation for why how much sex other people are having would influence a person’s happiness. We’re usually not looking down and therefore thinking of ourselves as better off, but we’re usually looking up and therefore feeling insufficient and inadequate.”

Previous research presented at the The Gerontological Society of America’s (GSA) 64th Annual Scientific Meeting in Boston, revealed that the more often older married individuals have sex, the more likely they are to be happy with both their lives and marriages.

Written by Joseph Nordqvist