Publications

November 19, 2020
Article

How to Build a Life: Sedentary Pandemic Life Is Bad for Our Happiness

The times when we most want comfort and rest may paradoxically be the times we most need to move, for the sake of our well-being. View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Welfare

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November 2020 (Revised March 2022)
Teaching Note

Social Salary Setting at Spiber

By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 920-050. The case tells the story of Spiber, a Japanese technology start-up company. To reflect the company’s values, the leadership team implemented a new and unique salary-setting process: each employee had the authority to choose their... View Details

Keywords: Compensation; General Management; Employee Benefits; Incentives; Motivation; Compensation and Benefits; Fairness; Motivation and Incentives; Management; Happiness; Negotiation; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Japan

August 2020
Case

Sheena Gupta (A)

By: Leslie Perlow and Matthew Preble

Sheena Gupta (A) is a first-person narrative of a Harvard Business School alumna (class of 2008) who has thoughtfully and purposefully crafted the various components of her life in a way that aligns with her personal values and needs. Gupta shares her life story, and... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Values and Beliefs; Work-Life Balance

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

July 30, 2020
Article

How to Build a Life: ‘Success Addicts’ Choose Being Special Over Being Happy

July 2, 2020
Article

How to Build a Life: A College Degree Is No Guarantee of a Good Life

Higher education is often described as an investment. But it’s still unclear if it pays off in happiness. View Details

Keywords: Higher Education; Happiness

Article

Time Use and Happiness of Millionaires: Evidence from the Netherlands

By: Paul Smeets, A.V. Whillans, Rene Bekkers and Michael I. Norton

How do the very wealthy spend their time, and how does time use relate to well-being? In two studies in the Netherlands, the affluent (N=863, N=690) and the general population (N=1232, N=306) spent time in surprisingly similar ways, such as by spending the same amount... View Details

Keywords: Time And Wellbeing; Millionaires; Social Class; Wealth; Happiness; Demographics; Netherlands

March 24, 2020
Article

Delayed Negative Effects of Prosocial Spending on Happiness

By: Armin Falk and Thomas Graeber

Does prosocial behavior promote happiness? We test this longstanding hypothesis in a behavioral experiment that extends the scope of previous research. In our Saving a Life paradigm, every participant either saved one human life in expectation by triggering a targeted... View Details

Keywords: Prosocial Behavior; Altruism; Happiness; Well-being; Spending; Behavior

March 2020 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Social Salary Setting at Spiber

By: Ashley Whillans and John Beshears

Can a “set your own salary” system boost employee happiness and motivation? Spiber made synthetic silk built from proteins mimicking the proteins found in spider silk, the world’s toughest known material by weight. Kazuhide Sekiyama and Junichi Sugahara established... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Motivation and Incentives; Happiness; Negotiation Tactics; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Biotechnology Industry; Japan; United States

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

November 2019
Case

Chief: Role for Lindsay Kaplan

By: Katherine B. Coffman, Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Kathleen L. McGinn, Julia Kelley and Katherine Chen

In 2018, Lindsay Kaplan is preparing to meet with Carolyn Childers about the possibility of co-founding Chief, a New York-based peer network for women executives. Kaplan is currently the vice president of communications and brand engagement at a successful mattress... View Details

Keywords: Negotiation; Entrepreneurship; Leadership; North and Central America; United States; New York (state, US); New York (city, NY)

Article

Valuing Time Over Money Predicts Happiness After a Major Life Transition: A Preregistered Longitudinal Study of Graduating Students

By: A.V. Whillans, Lucia Macchia and Elizabeth Dunn

How does prioritizing time or money shape major life decisions and subsequent well-being? In a preregistered longitudinal study of approximately 1000 graduating university students, respondents who valued time over money chose more intrinsically rewarding activities... View Details

Keywords: Time Use; Trade-offs; Career Decisions; Time Management; Money; Happiness; Values and Beliefs; Personal Development and Career

August 2019
Case

Simón Cohen at Henco: Sustaining 'High Performance, Happy People'

By: Francesca Gino, Jeff Steiner, Arianna Camacho and Paul Green

Simón Cohen—Founder of Henco Logistics—transformed a small Mexican logistics company into a major player within the industry. Cohen credits the firm’s focus on employee happiness as the key ingredient to its success, an approach he developed following a personal... View Details

Keywords: Work/life Balance; Growth Strategy; Corporate Culture; Motivation; Values; Authentic Leadership Development; Leadership; Personal Development and Career; Motivation and Incentives; Values and Beliefs; Service Operations; Organizational Culture; Growth and Development Strategy; Service Industry

Article

Making Seconds Count: When Valuing Time Promotes Subjective Well-being

By: Alice Lee-Yoon and A.V. Whillans

Time is a finite and precious resource, and the way that we value our time can critically shape happiness. In this article, we present a conceptual framework to explain when valuing time can enhance vs. undermine well-being. Specifically, we review the emotional... View Details

Keywords: Time; Happiness; Welfare; Money; Value; Well-being

2019
Book

Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt

To get ahead today, you have to be a jerk, right?

Divisive politicians. Screaming heads on television. Angry campus activists. Twitter trolls. Today in America, there is an “outrage industrial complex” that prospers by setting American against... View Details

Keywords: Political Participation; Political Culture; Moral Sensibility; Government and Politics; Society; United States

2019
Chapter

Happiness and Prosocial Behavior: An Evaluation of the Evidence

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

Humans are an extremely prosocial species. Compared to most primates, humans provide more assistance to family, friends, and strangers, even when costly. Why do people devote their resources to helping others? In this chapter, we examine whether engaging in prosocial... View Details

Keywords: Volunteering; Charity; Prosocial Behavior; Happiness; Well-being; Behavior

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

January 2019
Editorial

Accounting for Time

By: Ashley Whillans and Hanne Collins

Keywords: Time Management; Valuation; Happiness

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