The most prominent theory to explain the curvilinear relationship between income and subjective wellbeing (SWB) is need theory, which proposes that increased income and wealth can lead to increased wellbeing in poverty because money is used to satisfy basic physiological needs. The present study tests the tenets of need theory by proposing that money can buy happiness beyond poverty if the money satisfies higher-order needs. Findings indicate that in older adults (n = 1,284), as economic standing rises, so do individual perceptions of financial security (a safety need), which in turn increases overall life satisfaction. Further, a path model tested the degree to which financial security and psychological need satisfaction mediated the path from economic standing to life satisfaction and demonstrated the complete mediation through higher-order needs-there was a 66% reduction in the direct link through financial security and a 34% reduction through psychological need satisfaction. Discussion focuses on how these mediation and path models extend need theory.

Advances in Web technology and widespread use of the Internet have provided survey researchers with an inexpensive and efficient method of accessing a vast participant pool and the ability to target specific populations that might otherwise be difficult to locate. Buchanan and Smith (1999) argued that online or Internet surveys might have better psychometric properties than do identical paper-and-pencil (PP) or computer-based (CB) surveys. Past research has shown that those taking Internet surveys provide longer, more detailed answers to open-ended questions than do those taking PP surveys (Denscombe, 2008). To date, there have been numerous studies examining the equivalence of PP, CB, and Internet surveys. For the most part, past research has shown that the results from PP, CB, and Internet surveys are similar. For example, past research has demonstrated the comparability of PP, CB, and Internet personality surveys (Birnbaum, 2004;Bliven, Kaufman, & Spertus, 2001;Buchanan & Smith, 1999;Chuah, Drasgow, & Roberts, 2006;Gosling, Vazire, Srivastava, & John, 2004;Reimers & Stewart, 2007;Riva, Teruzzi, & Anolli, 2003;Williams, McGraw, & Tew, 1999). Further support for the comparability between PP, CB, and Internet-administered surveys has been demonstrated in several areas, including methodology (Birnbaum, 2004;Gosling et al., 2004;McGraw, Tew, & Williams, 2000;Riva et al., 2003), health (Bliven et al., 2001), training (Luthans, Avey, & Patera, 2008), transformational leadership (Cole, Bedeian, & Field, 2006), associative learning (Vadillo, Bárcena, & Matute, 2006), and reaction time (Reimers & Stewart, 2007).Although the Internet presents many benefits to survey methodology (Gosling et al., 2004), an equivalent response across survey methods does not necessarily indicate that the samples are interchangeable. For example, whereas the Internet might provide access to a more diverse sample, Internet surveys may be biased toward participants who are young, educated, and of middle to high socioeconomic status. Internet samples might be volunteering solely out of curiosity or interest in the research topic, compared with those recruited by traditional methods who might be motivated by course credit or other compensation. Furthermore, the environmental and physi- Internet research is appealing because it is a cost-and time-efficient way to access a large number of participants; however, the validity of Internet research for important subjective well-being (SWB) surveys has not been adequately assessed. The goal of the present study was to validate the Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985), the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-X; Watson & Clark, 1994), and the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS; Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999) for use on the Internet. This study compared the quality of data collected using paper-based (paper-and-pencil version in a lab setting), computer-based (Web-based version in a lab setting), and Internet (Web-based version on a computer of the participant's ...

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