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Apparently, money can buy you happiness. There’s a catch of course, you have to spend the money on someone else.

According to researchers at Harvard Business School and the University of British Columbia, spending as little as $5 a day on someone else could boost your happiness.

Although much research has examined the effect of income on happiness, we suggest that how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn. Specifically, we hypothesized that spending money on other people may have a more positive impact on happiness than spending money on oneself. Providing converging evidence for this hypothesis, we found that spending more of one's income on others predicted greater happiness both cross-sectionally (in a nationally representative survey study) and longitudinally (in a field study of windfall spending). Finally, participants who were randomly assigned to spend money on others experienced greater happiness than those assigned to spend money on themselves.

I see a couple problems with this study. First they asked participants how happy they “felt” and how much they spent on charities and other donations. This sounds like a bad idea. It’s well known that people will respond to a survey in what they deem socially acceptable manner. For instance if someone approaches them on the street and asks them if they will vote for a woman, they might respond in the affirmative, even though privately they have reservations. This is known as the Bradley effect.

The second part of the study surveyed a whopping 16 employees after they received their annual raises. Some were randomly assigned to spend money on others. These people reported experiencing “greater happiness” than the others who were assigned to spend money on themselves.

Again I question this because people may feel social pressure to say the “right thing” when asked by a stranger. No one wants to appear selfish.

It would be really interesting to conduct these studies with some kind of brain scan to measure activity in the brain so you could eliminate this bias. Also instead of using reported data, it would be better to use actual bank statements to see what they really spend their money on.

I can’t believe this is what passes as scientific research these days. If this is what Harvard Business School is doing what are other schools doing? This just sounds like a total fluff piece. Digging a little further you find this was conducted by the “Marketing Unit” of Harvard Business School. I have a very low opinion of the field of marketing and this is yet another example of why.

I think more people need to seriously analyze these types of reports in the main stream media. Researchers that you don’t know are telling you what to do every day. You don’t know these people, how do you know if their methods are sound? How do you know what their credentials are?

It seems every week there is a new scare report coming out that tells us that living is bad for us. How do we know if it’s true or not? It seems common sense falls by the wayside when we read the words “scientific” or “research.” To me science implies skepticism and a willingness to debunk false beliefs no matter how dear they may be to us. Research like this just doesn’t seem very scientific.

I think there may be something to spending money on others and happiness. I love taking my parents out for dinner and paying the bill. I like spending my money on my family and paying for the things they need. That’s what a father does. And I must admit it makes me feel good.

The point I want to make is that these surveys seem less than accurate and they fit a “template.” The researchers are looking to validate their own beliefs rather than to discover the truth. I may not have attended Harvard, even though I had the chance (the $30K plus per year tuition bill scared me and my parents just a little too much), but I do have a decent amount of common sense.

Article Links

Reuter’s Article
Science Abstract Page
Bradley Effect

Tags    Charity    Giving    Happiness    Junk Science    Philanthropy

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