Money may make the world go 'round' but respect is what will make you happy. New studies have shown that the respect you've earned is worth more than what is in the bank.

Respect is hard earned and for people it's something that is worth more than its weight in gold. Many believe that success, a high paying career or a college degree breeds happiness but that's not necessarily true based on previous studies. When faced with this conundrum of what actually leads to success, researchers discovered that respect warms the heart.

The research in identifying what made people happy was led by Cameron Anderson, PhD, from the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley. Researchers believed that respect and admiration in society ultimately led to happiness and developed four different studies in order to test the hypothesis.

The first study involved 80 college students who were active in different college groups such as sororities or ROTC. Respect and admiration from society of the participants was measured by peer review, self-reporting and leadership positions held. Social well-being and household income was also factored in the study.

The researchers discovered that respect and admiration from peers and society, sociometric status, was better at predicting happiness among the 80 participants than socioeconomic, such as education and household income, status. Researchers confirmed these findings in a second study which featured a larger and more diverse group of individuals.

Respect and admiration may be linked to happiness because of acceptance and sense of power gained from being well-respected in society, according to researchers based on findings from a third study.

The fourth study followed students as they graduated from a MBA program to test the effects of sociometric status on happiness. After graduation, again sociometric status was able to predict happiness better than socioeconomic status.

The researchers dub this the "local-ladder effect" in that you place on the ladder of respect could predict your general happiness. Money may come and go and people can get used to success but being respected and revered in the community is something that can bring a life of happiness for people.

The study was published in Psychological Science.