Publications

November 2008
Article

Getting off the Hedonic Treadmill, One Step at a Time: The Impact of Regular Religious Practice and Exercise on Well-Being

By: Daniel Mochon, Michael I. Norton and Dan Ariely

Many studies have shown that few events in life have a lasting impact on subjective well-being because of people's tendency to adapt quickly; worse, those events that do have a lasting impact tend to be negative. We suggest that while major events may not provide... View Details

Keywords: Health; Religion; Behavior; Happiness; Welfare

Article

Prosocial Spending and Buying Time: Money as a Tool for Increasing Subjective Well-Being

By: Elizabeth Dunn, A.V. Whillans, Michael I. Norton and Lara B. Aknin

Researchers have long been interested in the relationship between income and happiness, but a newer wave of work suggests that how people use their money also matters. We discuss the three primary areas in which psychologists have explored the relationship... View Details

Keywords: Wellbeing; Money; Spending; Decision Making; Happiness; Well-being

Article

Valuing Time Over Money Is Associated with Greater Happiness

By: A.V. Whillans, Aaron C. Weidman and Elizabeth W. Dunn

How do the trade-offs that we make about two of our most valuable resources—time and money—shape happiness? While past research has documented the immediate consequences of thinking about time and money, research has not yet examined whether people’s general... View Details

Keywords: Well-being; Time; Trade-offs; Orientations; Happiness; Money; Satisfaction

May 2018
Article

The Amount and Source of Millionaires' Wealth (Moderately) Predicts Their Happiness

By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Tianyi Zheng, Emily Haisley and Michael I. Norton

Two samples of more than 4,000 millionaires reveal two primary findings. First, only at high levels of wealth—in excess of $8 million (Study 1) and $10 million (Study 2)—are wealthier millionaires happier than millionaires with lower levels of wealth, though these... View Details

Keywords: Income; Well-being; Happiness; Wealth; Money; Attitudes; Situation or Environment

October 8, 2020
Article

How to Build a Life: Reading Too Much Political News Is Bad for Your Well-Being

By: Arthur C. Brooks

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Article

What Is Your Status Portfolio? Higher Status Variance across Groups Increases Interpersonal Helping but Decreases Intrapersonal Well-being

By: Catarina R. Fernandes, Siyu Yu, Taeya M. Howell, Alison Wood Brooks, Gavin J. Kilduff and Nathan C. Pettit

Individuals belong to multiple groups across various domains of life, which in aggregate constitute a portfolio of potentially distinct levels of experienced status. We propose a two-factor model for assessing the effects of an individual’s status portfolio, based on... View Details

Keywords: Status; Social Hierarchies; Helping; Perspective Taking; Anxiety; Status and Position; Groups and Teams; Perspective; Well-being

2014
Article

Prosocial Spending and Happiness: Using Money to Benefit Others Pays Off

By: Elizabeth W. Dunn, Lara B. Aknin and Michael I. Norton

While a great deal of research has shown that people with more money are somewhat happier than people with less money, our research demonstrates that how people spend their money also matters for their happiness. In particular, both correlational and... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Spending; Well-being; Happiness; Money; Spending; Welfare; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving

Article

A Multicountry Perspective on Gender Differences in Time Use During COVID-19

By: Laura M. Giurge, Ashley V. Whillans and Ayse Yemiscigil (shared authorship)

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered how people spend time, with possible consequences for subjective well-being. Using diverse samples of remote workers from the United States, Canada, Denmark, Brazil, and Spain (n = 31,141), following a preregistered... View Details

Keywords: Time; Subjective Well-being; COVID-19; Health Pandemics; Gender; Time Management; Well-being; Work-Life Balance; Global Range

August 2020
Article

Does Spending Money on Others Promote Happiness? A Registered Replication Report

By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Jason Proulx, Iris Lok and Michael I. Norton

Research indicates that spending money on others—prosocial spending—leads to greater happiness than spending money on oneself (e.g., Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008, 2014). These findings have received widespread attention because they offer insight into why people engage... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Spending; Generosity; Well-being; Replication; Happiness; Behavior; Spending

Research Summary

Overview

Grant uses a combination of laboratory and field experiments to harness consumers' cognitive and affective resources to increase their well-being. Consumers make countless daily decisions in the pursuit of happiness -- whether and how to spend or save their money, what... View Details

Keywords: Well-being; Judgment And Decision Making; Health; Prosocial Behavior

Article

Social Recycling Transforms Unwanted Goods into Happiness

By: Grant Edward Donnelly, Cait Lamberton, Rebecca Walker Reczek and Michael I. Norton

Consumers are often surrounded by resources that once offered meaning or happiness but that have lost this subjective value over time—even as they retain their objective utility. We explore the potential for social recycling—disposing of used goods by allowing other... View Details

Keywords: Disposition; Well-being; Prosocial Behavior; Pro-environmental Behavior; Happiness; Behavior; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Environmental Sustainability

2019
Article

Preferences for Experienced Versus Remembered Happiness

By: Cassie Mogilner and Michael I. Norton

Consider two types of happiness: one experienced on a moment-to-moment basis, the other a reflective evaluation where people feel happy looking back. Though researchers have measured and argued the merits of each, we inquired into which happiness people say they want.... View Details

Keywords: Well-being; Life Satisfaction; Experience; Retrospective; Time; Happiness; Satisfaction; Welfare; Perception

October 2012
Article

Giving Time Gives You Time

By: Cassie Mogilner, Zoe Chance and Michael I. Norton

Four experiments reveal a counterintuitive solution to the common problem of feeling that one does not have enough time: giving some of it away. Although people's objective amount of time cannot be increased (there are only 24 hours in a day), this research... View Details

Keywords: Time Perception; Well-being; Volunteering; Prosocial Behavior; Helping; Time Management; Welfare

July 2015 (Revised October 2015)
Case

Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank

By: Amy C. Edmondson, Erin L. Henry, Andreas Georgoulias and Natalie Bartlett

Building Strong Partnerships at the Inter-American Development Bank details the development of the bank's new Office of Outreach Partnerships to sustain a culture of innovation through maintaining and generating partnerships in order to fulfill the bank's greater... View Details

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2013
Article

Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal

By: Lara B. Aknin, Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh, Elizabeth W. Dunn, John F. Helliwell, Justine Burns, Robert Biswas-Diener, Imelda Kemeza, Paul Nyende, Claire Ashton-James and Michael I. Norton

This research provides the first support for a possible psychological universal: Human beings around the world derive emotional benefits from using their financial resources to help others (prosocial spending). In Study 1, survey data from 136 countries were examined... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Spending; Psychological Universal; Prosocial Behavior; Well-being; Happiness; Spending; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Canada; Uganda; South Africa; India

July 2022
Article

Mental Health During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review and Recommendations for Moving Forward

By: Lara Aknin, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Elizabeth Dunn, Daisy Fancourt, Elkhonon Goldberg, John Helliwell, Sarah P. Jones, Elie Karam, Richard Layard, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Andrew Rzepa, Shekhar Saxena, Emily Thornton, Tyler VanderWeele, Ashley V. Whillans, Jamil Zaki, Ozge Karadag Caman and Yanis Ben Amour

COVID-19 has infected millions of people and upended the lives of most humans on the planet. Researchers from across the psychological sciences have sought to document and investigate the impact of COVID-19 in myriad ways, causing an explosion of research that is broad... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Mental Health; Psychological Distress; Subjective Well-being; Lonelines; Social Connection; Self-harm; Suicide; Health Pandemics; Well-being

2013
Article

Does Social Connection Turn Good Deeds into Good Feelings? On the Value of Putting the 'Social' in Prosocial Spending

By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Gillian M. Sandstrom and Michael I. Norton

When are the emotional benefits of generous behavior most likely to emerge? In three studies, we demonstrate that the hedonic benefits of generous spending are most likely when spending promotes positive social connection. Study 1 shows that people feel happier after... View Details

Keywords: Money; Prosocial Spending; Social Connection; Well-being; Donations; Charitable Giving; Warm Glow; Social Relationships; Gift Giving; Happiness; Relationships; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Society