Ilaria Rosella Pagliaro Happiness cannot be bought at the supermarket, but can be obtained with the right expenditure: donations, experiences and gifts increase well-being. The key? Do it with autonomy, without the pressure of other people's judgement
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A new study, published in Communications Psychology, tried to answer the ages-old question: Can money actually buy happiness? And, as usually happens, it’s not quite that straightforward. The study investigated the day-to-day spending-emotional well-being link, finding some spending can indeed lift our moods-but it really depends on context and how we spend.
It is quite well documented that most people feel money can buy happiness, and many studies reinforce that idea. For one thing, experiences tend to make people happier than material goods: concerts, travel, special dinners. But there’s more: giving money away or buying gifts for others seems to raise our happiness far more than spending on ourselves.
There is even a biological explanation for this: when we give, especially in public, the ventral striatum-a region of the brain associated with pleasure and reward-is activated. But the effects are even stronger when we give in private, and the perception of autonomy plays a crucial role. Happiness, in other words, does not come from the display of generosity but from making a conscious choice, an authentic one.
There is, however, a catch. Most research into happiness and spending has been conducted in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) countries, and so it is not clear whether the results generalize globally. The present study gets around this limitation by including participants with a wide range of economic and cultural backgrounds.
How spending visibility influences well-being
They consisted of 200 participants from seven countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Kenya, the UK, and the US. Participants were chosen for a specific criterion to have an active Twitter account with high English proficiency. Each was given US$10,000 to spend within three months. There was just one catch: Half the participants had to share their spending with friends, family, and on social media, while the other half had to keep their participation confidential.
In using this approach, what the researchers were able to do was investigate a key theme: that of autonomy. It is well-documented that public spending does not always create the same level of satisfaction as private spending-especially in terms of donations and gifts.
For comparison, 100 additional participants were randomly assigned to a control group that didn’t receive money but reported SWB. They were asked to report each month how much was spent in each category and how they felt about those purchases. Spending diaries were kept. Emotional positivity and negativity and life satisfaction were among the variables measured. Long-term impact of spending on well-being was measured six months later.
More happiness through donations, experiences, and self-care
The results were amazing: Those who spent money to attain happiness demonstrated better well-being even six months later. Donations, gifts, and experiences topped the list of most rewarding expenditures. Runners-up were personal care and education, which also positively affected happiness.
On the other hand, public donors or gift givers reported less happiness compared to the private ones. This indicates the feeling of freedom and absence of judgment by other people while making a choice.
Cultural differences were also remarkable. People living in high-income countries derived more happiness from “buying time”-for example, outsourcing housework or reducing stress-and from giving gifts, while happiness in low-income countries was more closely tied to basic spending, such as paying off debts or securing housing. In other words, economic context significantly shapes what makes us happy.
This is evident from the various groups that emerge from an analysis of five categorizations based on the reported degree of happiness brought by one’s spending: for participants in the highest category, well-being rose by 0.78 points whereas for those lower down the scale, it went up by 0.31 points. That said, making purchases aligned with values and higher-order needs should have positive consequences for feelings of well-being.
This study teaches us that money can indeed buy happiness-but only if spent more consciously. Spending choices should reflect personal priorities while taking economic and cultural context into account.
For instance, in rich nations, spending on leisure or gifts matters whereas, in emerging economies, happiness is still linked to money spent on basic needs and necessities. Still, at all times, one act that gives happiness is donating or giving away, but it has to come out of choice.
Although enlightening, this has some limitations in their findings: their sample is not well representative; it only involves those Twitter users that have a good grasp of the English language. But still, an interesting grounding for more global research.
Source: Communications Psychology
