News from Cfleesia

Although much research has examined the effect of income onhappiness, we suggest that how people spend their money maybe at least as important as how much money they earn. Specifically,we hypothesized that spending money on other people may havea more positive impact on happiness than spending money on oneself.Providing converging evidence for this hypothesis, we foundthat spending more of one’s income on others predicted greaterhappiness both cross-sectionally (in a nationally representativesurvey study) and longitudinally (in a field study of windfallspending). Finally, participants who were randomly assignedto spend money on others experienced greater happiness thanthose assigned to spend money on themselves.