Spending money on others promotes happiness.
Level 2 - randomized trial
Includes an individual randomized experiment (graded by design analogy for behavioral science)
PubMed 18356530 · doi:10.1126/science.1150952
What was done
The authors investigated whether spending money on others promotes greater happiness than spending on oneself. They used three distinct study designs: a nationally representative cross-sectional survey, a longitudinal field study evaluating responses to windfall spending, and an experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to spend money either on others or on themselves.
What was found
The abstract reports no numerical values, effect sizes, or test statistics. Directionally, spending more income on others predicted greater happiness in the cross-sectional survey and in the longitudinal windfall study. In the randomized experiment, participants allocated to spend on others reported greater happiness than those allocated to spend on themselves.
Why it matters
This research indicates that how income is spent affects well-being, suggesting that prosocial financial choices provide greater happiness gains than personal spending.
Limits
The abstract provides no sample sizes, effect sizes, monetary amounts tested, or duration of the observed happiness boost. It is unclear from the abstract alone how generalizable the findings are across different cultural or socioeconomic contexts.
Cited by
- supports Studies demonstrate that participants given money to spend on others report significantly higher happiness than participants instructed to spend the same amount on themselves.