It is true to some extent. But chances are that you will get the most for your money.
New research suggests that happiness is not determined by how much money we earn, but how you spend it. University of British Columbia Associate Professor Elizabeth Dunn explains why.
It's an old question: Can money buy happiness?
In recent years, new research has given us a deeper understanding of the relationship between what we earn and what we feel. Economists have been scrutinizing the relationship between income and happiness among the nations, and psychologists surveyed people to find out what really motivates us when receivable.
The results, at first glance, may seem a bit obvious: Yes, people with higher incomes are generally happier than those who are struggling to survive.
But dig a little deeper into the results, and get much more surprising and more useful.
In short, this latest research shows, wealth alone does not provide a guarantee of a good life. What matters much more than a great income it is how people spend. For example, giving more money makes people happy lavishing on themselves. And when they do spend money on themselves, people are much happier when they use it for experiments as travel of material goods.
With that in mind, here's what the latest research says about how people can make smart use of your dollars and maximize their happiness happy poems.
The experiences are more valuable than you think
Ryan Howell was bothered by an enigma. Numerous studies over the last 10 years have shown that life experiences give us the most lasting pleasure than material things, but people continue to deny themselves often experiences and give priority to the acquisition of material goods.
Thus Professor Howell, associate professor of psychology at San Francisco State University professor, decided to see what happens. In a study published earlier this year, he found that people think buying materials offer a better value because the experiences are fleeting and material goods last longer. So although occasionally splurge on a vacation or big ticket concert, when they are more fashion conscious of money, which adhere to material goods.
But in fact, Professor Howell found that when people watched their purchases, they realized that the experiences actually provided better value.
"What we found is that there is this huge misforecast" he said. "People think that experiments will only provide temporary happiness, but provided both more happiness and more lasting value." However, we still continue to buy material things, he said, because they are tangible and we believe we can continue to use them.
Professor of psychology at Cornell University Thomas Gilovich has reached similar conclusions. "People often make a rational calculation: I have a limited amount of money, and I can go, or you can have it," he said. "If I go, it'll be fine, but it will be done in no time. If I buy this thing, at least I always have. It is indeed true, but not psychologically true. We adapt to our material goods".
It is this process of "hedonic adaptation," which makes it so difficult to buy happiness through the purchase of equipment. The new dress or a luxury car gives a brief thrill, but then we come to take for acquired.
Experience, however, tend to meet several of our underlying psychological needs, says Professor Gilovich. Often they shared with others, which gives us a greater sense of connection and form a large part of our sense of identity. If you have increased in the Himalayas, which is something I will always remember and talk about long after all your favorite gadgets were to landfill.
And above all, we tend not to compare our experiences with others as much. "Keeping up with the neighbors is much more important than material things to experiential things," he said. "Imagine you just bought a new computer that you really like, and I show up and say I paid the same amount for one with a brighter screen and a faster processor. How mistake?"
No experiments, that is executed, bugs a lot of people. But when we tell people to think they've been vacationing in New Zealand, and someone has slightly better holiday ", which bothers some people, but still have their own experiences and their own memories, and that tends to bother you less. "
In a recent article titled "Waiting Merlot," Prof. Gilovich and colleagues have shown that we also anticipate the most fun experiences that anticipate the acquisition of material things. People waiting for a happy event were generally waiting to material things "seemed to have a quality forward."
It does not fit what you buy
An important reason for having more things do not always make us happy is that we adapt to it. "Humans are very good to get used to the changes in their lives, particularly for positive change," says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside. "If you have an increase in income, which gives you a boost, but then their aspirations increase too. Maybe you buy a bigger house in a new neighborhood, and what their neighbors are rich, and you begin to want more . You entered the hedonic treadmill. Try to avoid or reduce the speed is really a challenge happy poems. "
An approach that can work, he said, is aware trying to promote the appreciation and gratitude for what you have. The process of adaptation, after all, just take what you have purchased, so you can slow down, reminding him why appreciate what you have.
It could be as simple as putting aside time each day to follow the traditional advice "Count your blessings." Or maybe you want to keep a journal or express your gratitude to others. The key is finding a way to keep track of everything you have and just keep adapting to have around.
Because you are working against your natural inclination, Prof. Lyubomirsky recognizes that feelings of gratitude and appreciation can be very difficult to maintain. If your newspaper or a daily list only becomes a stale routine, you will not have much effect. You may have to keep changing techniques.
Increased variety, novelty or surprise can also help you make the most of their belongings. "When things get immutable, when you adapt to them," says Professor Lyubomirsky.
If you maintain a hanging in the same place on the same wall, for example box, stop noticing after a while. But the exchange with a painting of another room, and they all look with new eyes and appreciate them more. Try to share their possessions with others, too, and open to new experiences, he said.
This could even mean to deprive him of his property for a while, perhaps through loans or share with someone else. Elizabeth Dunn, associate professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and co-author of the book "Happy Money" teacher, recently conducted an experiment in which she sent people home with a big bag of chocolate say some of them to eat as much as they could and others were forbidden to eat. A third group could choose how much to eat.
The result? People who had been banned from eating chocolate could enjoy your next chocolate bar much more than those who consumed very or consume their normal amount. "Give some time may actually help preserve our ability to benefit" says Professor Dunn.
Try to give them away
The paradox is that money, despite winning more of it tends to improve our welfare, we become happier giving to spend on ourselves.
That's the conclusion of a series of studies by Professor Dunn. It began distributing cash to students on campus and tell some to spend on themselves and others to move to another person. Those who spent money on others were happier than those who are victims of trafficking.
Since Prof. Dunn repeated the experiment in other countries around the world, and spread to see if people were always happy when giving away your money instead of free money given to them by a teacher. It was found that in countries as diverse as Canada, South Africa and Uganda, giving away money regularly made people happier. This was true even when people were giving away their own money, even when they themselves were relatively poor happy poems.
She also worked with economists to analyze data from 100 countries Gallup World Poll survey, and found that those who gave money to charity were happier in poor and rich countries alike.
"The fact that we have observed the same effect we saw in Canada in places like South Africa and Uganda was probably the biggest surprise of my career," he said. "Many of us think we're going to give to charity, one day, when we are richer, but in fact, we see the benefits of giving, even among people who are struggling to meet their own basic needs."
What moves the needle in terms of happiness is not so much how much you give, Professor Dunn, but the perceived impact of your donation said. If you can see your money making a difference in the lives of others, which will make you happy, even if the amount they gave was quite small.
Be sure to buy time, too
It is also important to consider how the purchase will affect the way that you spend your time. This large house in the suburbs may seem like a good idea, but a 2004 study by Alois Stutzer and Bruno Frey of the University of Zurich found that people with longer trips generally expressed less satisfaction with life, everything else equal. They calculated that a wage increase of 40% is needed to compensate for the added misery of a one-hour trip.
"Use the money to buy a better time," says Professor Dunn. "Do not buy a little fancier car while having heated seats during their two-hour trip. For a place near your work, so you can use the last hour of daylight to kick a ball in the park with their children. "
Another way to buy that time, Professor Dunn said, is outsourcing the tasks that you hate. Given that hiring personal assistants used to be the preserve of the rich, it is now easier and more affordable to hire freelancers and online virtual assistants to help with good regular or just single administration or tasks.
She is doing research on how people actually spend the time saved by outsourcing tasks and if it makes them happy. Preliminary results, he says, is that most people do not become happier by the time to buy for themselves, but only if they use the time in the right way.
"Our hypothesis is that people will be much more likely to get an emotional benefit if they think of it as the" boom times "and use it to do something good, rather than just assume," he says -that.
But while buying time is a good idea to put a dollar value on your time maybe not. In another part of the ongoing investigation, Professor Dunn is finding that when people think of your time as money, making them less likely to spend even small amounts of time on things that are not compensated financially. "Seeing that the time for that money can have a number of destructive consequences," he said.
Only money brings happiness to some extent
When looking at all these research results, there is an important caveat to keep in mind. Those in the happiness divided into two components field, and you should have both sides work together to be truly happy. But only one of these components continue to improve more wins. The other tops after a certain point.
The first measure of happiness is "evaluation". Prof. Lyubomirsky defined as "the feeling that your life is good you are satisfied with your life, you are progressing toward your goals in life." That is the measure used by economists Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson, who conducted extensive research comparing the economic studies and happiness worldwide data. "We found clear evidence that, in almost all countries, the rich are happier than the poor," says Professor Wolfers. "And people in rich countries are happier than people in poor countries."
The other component of happiness-Sounds "emotional" how often experience positive emotions such as joy, affection and peace, rather than the negative, Professor Lyubomirsky says. "You might be satisfied with their life together, but really can not be happy at the time," he said. "Of course, happy people are experiencing negative emotions, but not as often. Therefore it is necessary to have both components."
Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton of Princeton University have found that when they looked affective measures, happiness has not increased after a household has an annual income of about $ 75,000. (It did, however, find a steady increase in life satisfaction in general with the results of Profs. Wolfers and Stevenson.)
The bottom line: If you do not have a lot of money, a little can go a long way, because you have to meet the most essential needs. As you accumulate more wealth, however, it becomes more difficult to maintain "buy" more happiness.
Do not get in over your head
Finally, although most research in this area is to spend money rather than save it, researchers agree that spending more than you can afford is a route to poverty. Taking care of their basic needs and achieving a level of financial security is important.
Prof. Gilovich said that although his research shows that life experiences give more happiness than material goods, people should buy, of course, the essential first. Their conclusions are valid for a wide range of income levels and demographic groups, but not for people with very low incomes. "These people are not really discretionary income and has little more to go on the needs," he said.
Some studies, however, have shown that debt has a negative effect on happiness, while the savings and financial security tend to stimulate. A household survey in the UK found that people with high levels of debt reported lower happiness, and a research on the separate married couples showed that older debt had more marital conflict.
"Saving is good for happiness ;. Debt is bad for happiness, but the debt is more powerfully bad that saving is good," says Professor Dunn. "In terms of happiness, it is more important to get rid of debt to build savings."
So before you go out and spend all your money on a dream vacation, make sure you have taken care of the basics, he paid their debts and have enough money to protect against the worst problems life.
"Financial advisors are very good," Professor Howell said. "The first thing you should do with your money is to create a safety net. If you go into debt to buy these great experiences of life, the stress you feel when the bill arrives credit card probably delete the well you experienced happy poems ".
0 التعليقات:
إرسال تعليق