Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(1,458)
- Faculty Publications (156)
- June 2016
- Teaching Note
HubSpot: Lower Churn through Greater CHI
By: Jill Avery, Asis Martinez Jerez and Thomas Steenburgh
HubSpot, a web marketing startup selling inbound marketing software to small- and medium-sized businesses, is under pressure from its venture capital partners to rapidly acquire new customers and to maintain a low level of customer churn. The B2B SaaS company is in the... View Details
- 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
- March 2016 (Revised February 2017)
- Case
Hello Alfred: Come Home Happy
By: Joseph B. Fuller and Carin-Isabel Knoop
On a mission to "automate the on-demand economy," Harvard Business School classmates Marcela Sapone and Jessica Beck launched Hello Alfred in 2013 to provide subscribers with an "Alfred" to complete various chores for a monthly fee. In early 2016, the company has built... View Details
- 2015
- Article
Beliefs About the True Self Explain Asymmetries Based on Moral Judgment
By: George E. Newman, Julian De Freitas and Joshua Knobe
Past research has identified a number of asymmetries based on moral judgments. Beliefs about
(a) what a person values, (b) whether a person is happy, (c) whether a person has shown weakness
of will, and (d) whether a person deserves praise or blame seem to depend... View Details
- December 2014 (Revised May 2019)
- Case
Bhutan: Governing for Happiness
By: Sophus A. Reinert, Thomas Humphrey and Benjamin Safran
Unique among the world’s countries, the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan had abandoned the traditional policy goal of increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in favor of pursuing Gross National Happiness (GNH). Famously, Bhutan ranked highly on lists of the happiest... View Details
- Article
Getting the Most Out of Giving: Concretely Framing a Prosocial Goal Maximizes Happiness
By: Melanie Rudd, Jennifer Aaker and Michael I. Norton
Across six field and laboratory experiments, participants assigned a more concretely-framed prosocial goal (e.g., making someone smile or increasing recycling) felt happier and reported creating greater personal happiness after performing a goal-directed act of... View Details
- Article
Matchmaking Promotes Happiness
By: Lalin Anik and Michael I. Norton
Four studies document and explore the psychology underlying people's proclivity to connect people to each other—to play "matchmaker." First, Study 1 shows that chronic matchmaking is associated with higher well-being. Studies 2 and 3 show that matching others on the... View Details
- 26 Feb 2015 - 28 Feb 2015
- Conference Presentation
Is That All There Is to Happiness?
By: J. Phillips, C. Mott, Julian De Freitas, J. Gruber and J. Knobe
Happiness researchers have started to converge on a conception of
happiness that involves some combination of high positive affect,
low negative affect, and high life satisfaction. We present three
studies which demonstrate that the ordinary understanding... View Details
- 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
- 2013
- Book
Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending
By: Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton
If you think money can't buy happiness, you're not spending it right. Two rising stars in behavioral science explain how money can buy happiness—if you follow five core principles of smarter spending. Happy Money offers a tour of new research on the science of... View Details
- April 2013 (Revised February 2018)
- Case
Norway: The Embarrassment of Riches
By: Sophus A. Reinert, Forest Reinhardt and Senny Munthe-Kaas
In early 2013, Norway was by many accounts the world’s most developed country; it topped various indices for everything from democracy to happiness, had a comprehensive welfare state, and massive oil revenues endowed it with a substantial, and growing, Sovereign Wealth... View Details
- 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
- April 2013
- Article
Making a Difference Matters: Impact Unlocks the Emotional Benefits of Prosocial Spending
By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Ashley V. Whillans, Adam M. Grant and Michael I. Norton
When does giving lead to happiness? Here, we present two studies demonstrating that the
emotional benefits of spending money on others (prosocial spending) are unleashed when
givers are aware of their positive impact. In Study 1, an experiment using real... View Details
- February 2013
- Teaching Note
K&N's: Health and Happiness for Pakistan (TN)
By: David E. Bell, Damien P. McLoughlin and Mary Shelman
- 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
- Article
Happiness on Tap: Piped Water Adoption in Urban Morocco
By: Florencia Devoto, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, William Pariente and Vincent Pons
Connecting private dwellings to the water main is expensive and typically cannot be publicly financed. We show that households' willingness to pay for a private connection is high when it can be purchased on credit, not because a connection improves health but because... View Details
- July 2012 (Revised January 2014)
- Case
HGRM: Bringing Back High Touch Hospitality
By: Lynda M. Applegate and Gabriele Piccoli
The case centers on the dilemma faced by Carlo Fontana, the owner-operator of a small chain of two four-star urban hotels located in Lugano, Switzerland, and the other in Milan, Italy. Having developed an extensive customer service and operations information system,... View Details
- Article
Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion: Evidence for a Positive Feedback Loop between Prosocial Spending and Happiness
By: Lara B. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn and Michael I. Norton
We examine whether a positive feedback loop exists between spending money on others (i.e. prosocial spending) and happiness. Participants recalled a previous purchase made for either themselves or someone else and then reported their happiness. Afterward, participants... View Details
- December 2011 (Revised October 2015)
- Case
K&N's: Health and Happiness for Pakistan
By: David E. Bell, Damien P. McLoughlin and Mary Shelman