Spend Money To Get Happy

Yes, Its true spending as little as $5 can make you happy, but you have to spend money on others ( e.g gift, charity) and not on yourself. So buy for someone and get happiness in return. Its an outcome of the research conducted by HBS professor Michael I. Norton and colleagues Elizabeth W. Dunn and Lara B. Aknin. The research also gives answers to how and why spending on others gives a sense of happiness.

The researchers confirmed the joys of giving in three separate ways. First, by surveying a national sample of more than 600 Americans, they found that spending more on gifts and charity correlated with greater happiness, whereas spending more money on oneself did not.

Second, by tracking 16 workers before and after they received profit-sharing bonuses, the researchers found that that the workers who gave more of the money to others ended up happier than the ones who spent more of it on themselves. In fact, how the bonus was spent was a better predictor of happiness than the size of the bonus.

The final bit of evidence came from an experiment in which 46 students were given either $5 or $20 to spend by the end of the day. The ones who were instructed to spend the money on others — they bought toys for siblings, treated friends to meals and made donations to the homeless — were happier at the end of the day than the ones who were instructed to spend the money on themselves.

“These experimental results,” the researchers conclude, “provide direct support for our causal argument that spending money on others promotes happiness more than spending money on oneself.”

Its strange but but do we need a scientific research to make ourself believe in the joy of giving? Being an Indian and a Hindu, its been instilled in our religion/way of living that giving gives divine joy and blessings from God.