How To Buy Happiness

Bad news for the luxury goods market: Spending money on tchochkes doesn't make you happier, but giving money away just might.

That conclusion, in a study published Thursday in the journal Science, flies in the face of what most people--and, certainly, advertisers--typically believe.

It's far easier to measure income than happiness. Even so, researchers around the world have reported that even though real income has surged around the globe, reported "happiness" levels have stayed relatively flat. That spurred Elizabeth W. Dunn, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver to explore the ways that more money might lead to more happiness.

Working with graduate student Lara B. Aknin and Harvard Business School assistant professor Michael I. Norton, Dunn began by asking 632 Americans from across the U.S. to rate their general level of happiness, as well as to report their income, how much they spent on themselves and how much they donated to charity.

As researchers sifted through the numbers, they found that happiness didn't correlate with personal spending but, rather, with how much they gave away.

Not that anyone was giving very much away. Personal spending--for pleasure and out of necessity--topped donations by a factor of 10. The typical income of participants in the study was modest, roughly ranging from $20,000 to $50,000.

The researchers figured it was worth trying to test the hypothesis a bit further. They found a group of 16 people in the Boston area who were due to receive a profit-sharing bonus at work. A month before getting the bonus, the researchers asked them to rate their happiness. Then, six to eight weeks after the workers received their $3,000 to $8,000 bonuses, the researchers asked what they did with the money and how they felt.

Once again, giving away money seemed to nudge many people up the happiness scale, increasing the number of people who said that they were happy "most of the time" rather than just "some of the time," Dunn reports.

Then the researchers put their results to a test: On the Vancouver campus, they handed out sealed envelopes containing $5 or $20 to 46 people. They instructed half the people to spend the money on themselves--either on necessities or indulgences--and then told the other half to give the money away, all by 5 p.m.

Once again, those who gave the money away were happier by the end of the day--and just as happy whether they gave away $5 or $20.

Dunn said it was hard to speculate whether the results would have been different had she handed out thousands of dollars instead of $5 or $20.

So why don't people dig into their pockets a bit more? Dunn said most people figure they will be happier spending money on themselves.

Dunn's team asked a group of 100 university students what they thought would make them happier: spending or giving. No surprise here. Most figured they'd be happier spending the money on themselves--and that the more they'd spend, the cheerier they'd be. That's a double wrong in Dunn's book.

Dunn has been checking on the status of people's happiness for a number of years. She earned her doctorate in psychology in 2004 for an award-winning study that suggested when people are charming and pleasant--even if they're just putting on appearances--they genuinely feel better later.

She eventually refined that idea, documenting that a quick way long-time couples can bring the spark back into their romance is to pretend that they're strangers.

So next time you want to brighten your day, trying giving away that fiver instead of buying a latte--and do it with a smile.

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How To Buy Happiness

From The Lab
How To Buy Happiness
Elizabeth Corcoran, 03.20.08, 7:00 PM ET

Bad news for the luxury goods market: Spending money on tchochkes doesn't make you happier, but giving money away just might.

That conclusion, in a study published Thursday in the journal Science, flies in the face of what most people--and, certainly, advertisers--typically believe.

It's far easier to measure income than happiness. Even so, researchers around the world have reported that even though real income has surged around the globe, reported "happiness" levels have stayed relatively flat. That spurred Elizabeth W. Dunn, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver to explore the ways that more money might lead to more happiness.

Working with graduate student Lara B. Aknin and Harvard Business School assistant professor Michael I. Norton, Dunn began by asking 632 Americans from across the U.S. to rate their general level of happiness, as well as to report their income, how much they spent on themselves and how much they donated to charity.

As researchers sifted through the numbers, they found that happiness didn't correlate with personal spending but, rather, with how much they gave away.

Not that anyone was giving very much away. Personal spending--for pleasure and out of necessity--topped donations by a factor of 10. The typical income of participants in the study was modest, roughly ranging from $20,000 to $50,000.

The researchers figured it was worth trying to test the hypothesis a bit further. They found a group of 16 people in the Boston area who were due to receive a profit-sharing bonus at work. A month before getting the bonus, the researchers asked them to rate their happiness. Then, six to eight weeks after the workers received their $3,000 to $8,000 bonuses, the researchers asked what they did with the money and how they felt.

Once again, giving away money seemed to nudge many people up the happiness scale, increasing the number of people who said that they were happy "most of the time" rather than just "some of the time," Dunn reports.

Then the researchers put their results to a test: On the Vancouver campus, they handed out sealed envelopes containing $5 or $20 to 46 people. They instructed half the people to spend the money on themselves--either on necessities or indulgences--and then told the other half to give the money away, all by 5 p.m.

Once again, those who gave the money away were happier by the end of the day--and just as happy whether they gave away $5 or $20.

Dunn said it was hard to speculate whether the results would have been different had she handed out thousands of dollars instead of $5 or $20.

So why don't people dig into their pockets a bit more? Dunn said most people figure they will be happier spending money on themselves.

Dunn's team asked a group of 100 university students what they thought would make them happier: spending or giving. No surprise here. Most figured they'd be happier spending the money on themselves--and that the more they'd spend, the cheerier they'd be. That's a double wrong in Dunn's book.

Dunn has been checking on the status of people's happiness for a number of years. She earned her doctorate in psychology in 2004 for an award-winning study that suggested when people are charming and pleasant--even if they're just putting on appearances--they genuinely feel better later.

She eventually refined that idea, documenting that a quick way long-time couples can bring the spark back into their romance is to pretend that they're strangers.

So next time you want to brighten your day, trying giving away that fiver instead of buying a latte--and do it with a smile.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/20/money-buys-love-tech-science-cx_ec_0320love.html

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E-Gang: A Trick Of The Light

On The Cover/Top Stories
A Trick of the Light
Elizabeth Corcoran 09.03.07

For Christiana Honsberg and Allen Barnett, the pot of gold isn't at the end of the rainbow. It's in ripping the rainbow apart to make the world's most efficient solar cells.

In late July University of Delaware researchers Honsberg, 40, and Barnett, 67, set a world record for solar efficiency, converting 42.8% of the sun's radiation into electricity with their prototype cell. That's almost three times as efficient as commercial solar cells. "We think we can do 50%," says Barnett. He and Honsberg are working to build practical devices by 2010, with support from the U.S. military and an industrial group led by DuPont.

The first crushing problem they aim to solve is lightening a soldier's load. Soldiers are walking power supplies, lugging 20 pounds of batteries that last barely a week. Two years ago the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency challenged researchers to create an affordable, rechargeable solar cell, about the size of a postage stamp, which could crank out a half-watt of power.

Honsberg and Barnett were eager to try; it would be their first joint project in almost 20 years. Honsberg first worked on solar cells in the mid-1980s as an undergraduate at the University of Delaware, in Barnett's lab. After earning her doctorate, she wound up at Australia's renowned photovoltaics center at the University of New South Wales. Barnett went into business, spending 14 years running solar power company AstroPower. The company fell into financial turmoil. Barnett resigned and returned to the Newark, Del. campus in 2003. A year later ge bought the assets. When Barnett went looking to staff up a solar research program, Honsberg topped the list of recruits.

Honsberg and Barnett knew that one of the most efficient solar cell designs was a sandwich of three different photovoltaic materials, each of which is triggered by a different wavelength (or color) of light. But to make those photovoltaic stacks researchers must force the crystal structure of one material to match another--a difficult and costly task.

Why struggle with single structure, asked Honsberg, when you could let the constituent parts operate independently?

Honsberg and Barnett proposed a device that uses a concentrator lens to focus light. Another device splits it into colors that are aimed at the various photovoltaic materials. High-energy (short-wavelength) photons are absorbed by one compound semiconductor; mid- and low-energy photons are bounced to other solar materials, such as gallium arsenide and silicon. They figure their device can use as many as six materials, and they can mix and match from among the best or cheapest. No other solar cell design lets engineers swap different materials in and out to balance costs and efficiency, points out Douglas Kirkpatrick, the Darpa manager overseeing the project.

The Delaware lab has built a few dozen experimental solar cells; they can be from 1 to 10 square centimeters. Wiring about three dozen together into a module would be enough to recharge a laptop. Building modules is the agenda for the next six months. Barnett predicts they will be 10 to 20 percentage points more efficient than what's on the market.

Darpa is doubling its funding for the program. With corporate dollars, too, the three-year program will have a $100 million budget. "There's no technological reason why this technology couldn't scale to rooftops," says Kirkpatrick. But first things first: The Pentagon wants solar-powered flashlights and battle gear.

http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0903/092.html

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