Speaker 1: Pushkin. I thought, you know, maybe twenty thousand dollars, thirty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or something like that. This is Josh Green.
Speaker 1: You might remember him from a past episode of The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab that we recorded last year. Josh is a
Speaker 1: psychology professor at Harvard. But he didn't come on the
Speaker 1: show just to talk about scientific studies. Josh wanted your
Speaker 1: money and my money, and wow, were we generous. It
Speaker 1: was clear early on that he's going over a quarter
Speaker 1: of a million dollars. I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I was just absolutely blown away. And it wasn't just
Speaker 1: like it was a bit more than I expected. It's
Speaker 1: just stunning in the most delightful way. Josh is a
Speaker 1: proponent of what's been called effective altruism. He thinks each
Speaker 1: and every one of us should be trying to help
Speaker 1: and in some cases even save the lives of the
Speaker 1: people around us whenever we can, and he's found that
Speaker 1: one of the best ways to do that is not
Speaker 1: just by donating money to charity, but by making sure
Speaker 1: that every cent we donate counts. That's why he set
Speaker 1: up a new website called giving Multiplier dot org, or
Speaker 1: you can give money to your favorite cause at the
Speaker 1: same time as you donate to the most effective charities
Speaker 1: on the planet. Once we're just a few of your
Speaker 1: dollars will stop someone from going blind or catching a
Speaker 1: deadly illness. I think people are kind of stunned to
Speaker 1: learn how much farther your money can go, how much
Speaker 1: more impact you can have if you can pick the
Speaker 1: right charity, right. I mean that people think like, oh,
Speaker 1: if you gave twice as much, that would be doing
Speaker 1: a lot more. But if you choose wisely, you can
Speaker 1: have an impact that's one hundred times more or a
Speaker 1: thousand times more, supporting the kind of charities that really
Speaker 1: get a lot of bang for their buck, or address
Speaker 1: issues that are of just enormous importance and where we
Speaker 1: have some ideas about what we can do to prevent
Speaker 1: catastrophes and things like that. So last year, following the
Speaker 1: post Thanksgiving consumer bananzas that are Black Friday and Cyber Monday,
Speaker 1: Josh came on the Happiness Lab for the lesser known
Speaker 1: holiday of Tuesday. He offered us a chance to spend
Speaker 1: on other people in a way that can have an
Speaker 1: extra big impact. He shared the u RL giving multiplier
Speaker 1: dot org slash Happiness Lab that we could use to
Speaker 1: donate both to a cause of our choice and to
Speaker 1: one of those effective charities identified by experts. Giving multiplier
Speaker 1: dot org also match some of our donations. I went
Speaker 1: to the website and gave, and so did members of
Speaker 1: the production team and many listeners who who heard Josh
Speaker 1: on the show. All of us felt a little happier
Speaker 1: having done some good in the world, but I didn't
Speaker 1: quite realize just how much money we'd all raised and
Speaker 1: how much good we'd really done. I was stunned. Your
Speaker 1: audience just has this sweet spot of hard and head
Speaker 1: right people who really care not only want to feel
Speaker 1: better in their own lives, but really want to improve
Speaker 1: other people's lives. But also I get that the world
Speaker 1: is complicated and that you need to think, and you
Speaker 1: need to do research, and you need experts who can
Speaker 1: guide you. And I think that magic combination is just
Speaker 1: comes together in the Happiness Lab podcast and listeners. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to tell you the exact amount of money
Speaker 1: we collectively donated quite yet, because where would be the
Speaker 1: fun in that. First, I want to dive into the
Speaker 1: science of giving and the powerful link between donating to
Speaker 1: a good cause and boosting your own well being, because
Speaker 1: the science shows that giving money to help someone else
Speaker 1: often feels better than keeping it for ourselves, no matter
Speaker 1: how much that goes against our intuitions. Our minds are
Speaker 1: constantly telling us what to do to be happy. But
Speaker 1: what if our minds are wrong, What if our minds
Speaker 1: are lying to us, leading us away from will really
Speaker 1: make us happy. The good news is that understanding the
Speaker 1: science of the mind can point us all back in
Speaker 1: the right direction. You're listening to the Happiness Lab with
Speaker 1: doctor Laurie Sanders. People say money can't buy happiness, but
Speaker 1: research shows that's not quite true. We can use our
Speaker 1: money to buy ourselves out of pesky tasks we prefer
Speaker 1: not to do and free up our time to spend
Speaker 1: more enjoyable activities and more enjoyable people. This is Laura Acnet.
Speaker 1: You know those meal prep services you here advertised on
Speaker 1: podcasts a lot. Laura decided to try one out when
Speaker 1: her sister in law bought her a voucher. I remember
Speaker 1: thinking like, oh, this will be fun to try for
Speaker 1: a week or two, but I have been so pleasantly
Speaker 1: surprised by how this is freed up my time. I
Speaker 1: don't need to meal prep as much, I don't need
Speaker 1: to deal with buying all those groceries. I also don't
Speaker 1: need to do all the pesky chopping that is often
Speaker 1: involved and hard to do with a four year old
Speaker 1: kind of tugging at my sweater. So I have been
Speaker 1: a firm believer of using my money to buy myself
Speaker 1: out of neal prep over the last few years, and
Speaker 1: it has brought me happiness and probably relieved a lot
Speaker 1: of frustration at the same time. We often assume that
Speaker 1: buying ourselves things new clothes, a shiny car, or a
Speaker 1: nicer cell phone will bring us happiness. But acquiring new
Speaker 1: possessions doesn't feel as good as we usually hope, and
Speaker 1: research shows that the well being boost we do experience
Speaker 1: is pretty short lived. But research also shows, as Laura
Speaker 1: has found, that you money to buy time can lead
Speaker 1: to a boost in well being. But as a professor
Speaker 1: of social psychology as Simon Fraser University, Laura has begun
Speaker 1: studying an even more surprising way to trade dollars for happiness,
Speaker 1: and that way, well, it involves just giving those dollars away.
Speaker 1: Laura's research examines the psychological consequences of what's known as
Speaker 1: pro social spending. I asked Laura, exactly what counts as
Speaker 1: pro social spending. Well, it can take a very formalized approach,
Speaker 1: where we might be donating money to our favorite charity
Speaker 1: on a one off occasion. It might be something that
Speaker 1: is more systematic, where we have payroll deductions each month,
Speaker 1: or it can be in many ways that are much
Speaker 1: more interpersonal. So it could be treating a best friend
Speaker 1: to coffee or taking a new colleague out for dinner.
Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be large and substantial, but in
Speaker 1: any way kind of using our money to benefit other people.
Speaker 1: And so, how have we figured out that this is
Speaker 1: really good for our happiness? You start with some of
Speaker 1: the correlational studies that you and others have worked on.
Speaker 1: People who use their time in generous ways tend to
Speaker 1: report higher levels of happiness. In fact, there are large
Speaker 1: international surveys that have documented this for quite some time.
Speaker 1: But over the last couple of years of my colleagues
Speaker 1: and I have tried to examine whether people who use
Speaker 1: their money to help others might also report being happier.
Speaker 1: And so, in one of our first papers on this topic,
Speaker 1: we recruited a large sample of over six hundred participants
Speaker 1: and asked them to simply tell us how they spend
Speaker 1: their money in a typical month. To avoid the painstaking
Speaker 1: detail of listing and going through bank accounts, we asked
Speaker 1: them to simply give us estimates of how much they
Speaker 1: spent on One category was bills and expenses, another category
Speaker 1: was gifts for themselves. Those were both considered kind of
Speaker 1: personal directed spending, so spending on oneself, but we also
Speaker 1: asked about two prosocial categories. One involved spending money on
Speaker 1: others by way of gifts and the others charitable donations.
Speaker 1: And using those monthly estimates, what we did was we
Speaker 1: also looked at people's happiness reports and saw how people
Speaker 1: spent their money in a typical month predicted their monthly happiness.
Speaker 1: And what we found was that how much money people
Speaker 1: spent on themselves in a typical month, to our surprise,
Speaker 1: did not predict their happiness, but how much money they
Speaker 1: spent on others did, such that the more they spend
Speaker 1: on others, the happier they reported feeling. This is while
Speaker 1: we were controlling for household income and so it wasn't
Speaker 1: just that these folks had more money to spend and
Speaker 1: could have the luxury of spending on others. But even
Speaker 1: holding that constant, people who spent more on others in
Speaker 1: a typical month we're happier. I mean, it's such a
Speaker 1: violation of what we normally think of that brings us happiness.
Speaker 1: I mean, I hope this isn't just my very selfish intuitions,
Speaker 1: but I have the sense like when I'm buying myself
Speaker 1: more stuff, I'm going to wind up happier than when
Speaker 1: I'm buying stuff for other people. But that seems to
Speaker 1: be not the case, which is pretty weird. Yeah, having
Speaker 1: more money is confusingly related to how happy we are.
Speaker 1: It seems to the lower level predict our levels of happiness,
Speaker 1: and then it tapers off. And I think part of
Speaker 1: that has to do with this hedonic adaptation. We buy
Speaker 1: more for ourselves and then expect more and we seem
Speaker 1: to be unsatisfied. But when we're spending money on others,
Speaker 1: we can see this positive impact we're having on other people.
Speaker 1: We could strengthen social relationships, which is such a robust
Speaker 1: predictor of happiness. We are truly social animals, and so
Speaker 1: I think any time we can go out of our
Speaker 1: way to forge connections with other people and strengthen those
Speaker 1: that we have. We're on a pretty clear path to
Speaker 1: pursuing greater happiness for ourselves. But one of the things
Speaker 1: you find is that even when people are donating to charities,
Speaker 1: so the moneys socially spent on someone they don't meet,
Speaker 1: this too, can really have an effect on people's happiness. Right.
Speaker 1: The short edgwer is Yes. My suspicion is that it
Speaker 1: might be kind of an overfiring of this response. So
Speaker 1: I think in many of our lives, and especially through
Speaker 1: our ancestral past, many times we gave. We were often
Speaker 1: giving in face to face ways in which we could
Speaker 1: build these relationships and see the positive impact of our gifts.
Speaker 1: And sometimes charities, even when we don't give face to
Speaker 1: face and we don't know the beneficiary, charities can still
Speaker 1: do a very good job of translating how they're going
Speaker 1: to use this money to help other people. There are
Speaker 1: some charities that do a fantastic job of that and
Speaker 1: others where it's almost as if you're giving it to
Speaker 1: the ether and into the black hole. And in those situations,
Speaker 1: I think giving can sometimes fall a little flat. Well,
Speaker 1: we can imagine or get some feedback on how our
Speaker 1: gifts are helping other people. When there's this disconnected we're
Speaker 1: not forging a relationship with someone we might ever received
Speaker 1: from or received back from in the future. We can
Speaker 1: still feel really good about giving. And so the results
Speaker 1: we've been talking about so far are all correlations, and
Speaker 1: as nerdy scientists, we tend to always use this phrase
Speaker 1: that correlation does not equal causation. So to really find
Speaker 1: out if pro social spending boosts our well being, we
Speaker 1: have to do an experiment. But this is something that
Speaker 1: you've actually done sort of forced people to spread pro
Speaker 1: socially as it were. Yeah, in fact, we've done it
Speaker 1: lots of times now and it's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: parts of the job because I mean, we've done this
Speaker 1: in different ways, and so in some of our big experiments,
Speaker 1: what we do is we bring students into the lab
Speaker 1: and they sit privately by themselves, and it's this intricately
Speaker 1: designed study. But the heart of the matter is is
Speaker 1: that people report their baseline levels of happiness and then
Speaker 1: they receive this extra small windfall of money, usually around
Speaker 1: three dollars and so we're not talking large amounts here,
Speaker 1: and we tell people that with this money they can
Speaker 1: purchase a goodie bag that is filled with edible treats
Speaker 1: like juice or chocolate bars, and they get to pick
Speaker 1: what they'd like to put in this goodie bag. And then,
Speaker 1: using an experimental method, we randomly assign some people to
Speaker 1: a personal condition where they're told that if they buy
Speaker 1: this goodie bag, it's for them to keep and they'll
Speaker 1: pick it up at the conclusion of the experiment. But
Speaker 1: at the other condition, people are randomly assigned to this
Speaker 1: pro social spending condition, where we tell them that their
Speaker 1: goodie bag will be donated to a sick kid at
Speaker 1: a local children's hospital. It's important to let people feel
Speaker 1: that there is a true choice and so they are
Speaker 1: allowed to keep the money for themselves. But I would
Speaker 1: say ninety seven percent of people across these large studies
Speaker 1: choose to purchase the goodie bag in both conditions, and
Speaker 1: so almost everybody follows through with a personal or pro
Speaker 1: social spending purchase. They go, they see the goodie bag purchased,
Speaker 1: and then they return back to their seat and privately
Speaker 1: report how they're feeling. And what we find time and
Speaker 1: time again is that people who purchase basically the exact
Speaker 1: same items for a sick kid at a local children's
Speaker 1: hospital report feeling higher levels of happiness than people who
Speaker 1: buy the same items for themselves, which is really cool, right,
Speaker 1: because it's exactly the same item, right, it's the same purchase.
Speaker 1: Everybody's purchasing the goodie bag. But if you don't get
Speaker 1: it right, if you don't personally benefit from the goodie bag,
Speaker 1: it winds up improving how you feel. Yeah, and we do,
Speaker 1: I mean, for what it's worth, we certainly do go
Speaker 1: deliver these goodie bags. I think it's important that people
Speaker 1: actually see the goodie bag. They physically see it packaged,
Speaker 1: and so they don't think we're pulling the wool over
Speaker 1: their eyes. They've gotten to make the choice that they
Speaker 1: want to give, which is I think an important precondition
Speaker 1: for feeling good about giving. But they can also really
Speaker 1: imagine how their gift is going to help another person,
Speaker 1: because this goodie bag is very tangible. It's visible in
Speaker 1: front of their eyes, and they know. Where I'm based
Speaker 1: in Vancouver, there's a very well recognized and well respected
Speaker 1: local children's charity, and we named that one in particular,
Speaker 1: and so I think most of our participants can imagine
Speaker 1: this goodie bag and how it might really brighten the
Speaker 1: day of someone who's experiencing a very tough time. And
Speaker 1: so you mentioned doing these studies in Vancouver, and I
Speaker 1: think that's kind of important too. I think sometimes when
Speaker 1: we talk about the kinds of things we can do
Speaker 1: to improve our well being, there's always this worry that, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that might work for American or Canadian folks, but you know,
Speaker 1: is this really the kind of thing that's true cross culturally?
Speaker 1: And I think one of the things that's amazing about
Speaker 1: your work is that you haven't done the thing that
Speaker 1: many social seists do, or you just test people around you.
Speaker 1: You've actually tried to look at whether or not pro
Speaker 1: social spending works across the world. And so what have
Speaker 1: you found. We have found that there is some consistent
Speaker 1: evidence for this finding around the world. So my colleagues
Speaker 1: and I have really, like you say, tried to go
Speaker 1: out of our way and try to test our understanding
Speaker 1: of how far this relationship might expand. And what we
Speaker 1: have argued is that this might represent what we call
Speaker 1: a psychological universal, so finding that is detectable in most
Speaker 1: humans around the globe. And so to test this question,
Speaker 1: we have run experiments in South Africa and Uganda. I've
Speaker 1: traveled to a small village in Vanuatu where there is
Speaker 1: no running water, there's no electricity, their food comes from
Speaker 1: local crops, and only that most people have never left
Speaker 1: this small village and even still here. Using kind of
Speaker 1: conceptual replications of our original design, we see very similar patterns.
Speaker 1: So it's not just around the world, but my colleagues
Speaker 1: and I have also tried to test whether this emerges
Speaker 1: early in development. So in children under the age of two,
Speaker 1: we find that kids it's not necessarily money per se,
Speaker 1: but the emotional rewards of giving can be detectable, with
Speaker 1: kids giving away small treats to a puppet who seems
Speaker 1: to really enjoy the goldfish crackers they give, as opposed
Speaker 1: to when they are receiving treats themselves. And so even
Speaker 1: here early in development, we're seeing that humans feel good
Speaker 1: about giving and giving even when it's costly. And I
Speaker 1: love these developmental findings in the little kids because I
Speaker 1: think if there's any group of participants we think of
Speaker 1: as incredibly selfish, it's like, you know, toddlers with their
Speaker 1: like goldfish crackers, but even they're kind of giving these
Speaker 1: things away is making you feel better. Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: a pleasure to watch these videos because the kids are
Speaker 1: gifted this like small stash on their own. And over
Speaker 1: the course of a few minutes, we ask you know,
Speaker 1: will you give one of your treats to monkey? Will
Speaker 1: you give one of the experimenters treats to monkey? And
Speaker 1: they simply watch the experiment or give a treat to monkey.
Speaker 1: And on both occasions of giving, kids are smiling more
Speaker 1: when they're giving away than when they're receiving. But in
Speaker 1: our Vancouver based study we also found and Vaniwatsu, we
Speaker 1: also found the kids smiled more when giving away a
Speaker 1: treat that belonged to them than an identical treat that
Speaker 1: did not. And I think that's a really critical comparison
Speaker 1: because kids are giving the same treat to the same
Speaker 1: person who responds the exact same way, and the only
Speaker 1: key difference is whether it costs them something, and it's
Speaker 1: in that occasion when they are smiling more. And so
Speaker 1: I think that provides us some clues to the idea
Speaker 1: that this might be a really emotionally rewarding activity. It
Speaker 1: kicks in the most when we need it, and that
Speaker 1: is to build these relationships and you're also finding that
Speaker 1: this relationship between pro social spending and happiness kicks in
Speaker 1: at work and in our paychecks. So talk to me
Speaker 1: about some of the employee bonus studies you've been working on. Sure, So,
Speaker 1: my colleagues and I have run a few studies trying
Speaker 1: to examine how generosity might play out in the workplace
Speaker 1: and whether giving in this context, which is often considered
Speaker 1: a little bit more of a volatile, personally focused ovain,
Speaker 1: can have similar benefits. So in some experiments we have
Speaker 1: given on both work teams but also sports teams. We've
Speaker 1: randomly assigned people to either spend small bonuses on themselves
Speaker 1: or spend them on colleagues. And generally speaking, what we
Speaker 1: find is we replicate the emotional rewards of giving. So
Speaker 1: when people give to others, they report higher levels of
Speaker 1: happiness than when they spend on themselves. But not only
Speaker 1: that the recipients report higher levels of happiness, but also
Speaker 1: their teams win or are more productive. And so I
Speaker 1: think what this is suggesting is that this is building
Speaker 1: relationships and building a positive atmosphere. And so we've argued
Speaker 1: that the perhaps there might be ripple effects of generosity
Speaker 1: that exist beyond the giver, and not just to perhaps
Speaker 1: the obvious recipient, but just people in the vicinity who
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to kind of bask in the glow
Speaker 1: of the kindness that is around them. And another one
Speaker 1: of the ripple effects you've identified is that the act
Speaker 1: of pro social spending, once our happiness gets boosted, that
Speaker 1: seems to affect our generosity too, right, that's right. So
Speaker 1: there seems to be this really fascinating and heartwarming positive
Speaker 1: feedback loop between generosity and happiness. And so what we
Speaker 1: found in our research is that when people spend on others,
Speaker 1: they report feeling higher levels of happiness than when they
Speaker 1: spend on themselves. But in turn, those higher levels of
Speaker 1: happiness encourage subsequent acts of generosity. And so while at
Speaker 1: one time act of giving may wax and wane over time,
Speaker 1: it does necessarily persists indefinitely, but it puts us on
Speaker 1: a path to build better relationships and continue doing acts
Speaker 1: of kindness. This feedback loop of generosity is great. When
Speaker 1: you give, it feels good, and so you give again,
Speaker 1: and then you're feeling men better and so you give again.
Speaker 1: But Laura's research also suggests that there are some ways
Speaker 1: of spending money on others that can lead to an
Speaker 1: even bigger happiness boost. We'll see what those extra well
Speaker 1: being boosting methods are when the happiness lab returns in
Speaker 1: a moment. Giving to others we might reflexively think of
Speaker 1: as an act that connects us with other people, but
Speaker 1: I think if you stop and take a moment to
Speaker 1: think a little bit more deeply, there are many opportunities
Speaker 1: to gives that are actually quite disconnected. Social psychologists Laura
Speaker 1: actin studies how pro social spending, that is, using our
Speaker 1: money to benefit others can markedly improve our own happiness.
Speaker 1: But she's also found that not all pro social spending
Speaker 1: is equal. Some type of giving can give us a
Speaker 1: bigger happiness bang for our buck than others. Consider, for example,
Speaker 1: the differential mood boost we get from merely giving versus
Speaker 1: connecting with the people we're helping. So there are oftentimes,
Speaker 1: and I am guilty of this too, where we send
Speaker 1: gift certificates to friends and we don't really get a
Speaker 1: chance to enjoy it with them. We send gifts to
Speaker 1: friends and family and other places, or we make donations
Speaker 1: to a charity but don't even recognize it. Like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: the payroll deductions that happen before, and while all of
Speaker 1: those are wonderfully kind acts, they don't really emphasize and
Speaker 1: allow us to truly enjoy the social connection that pro
Speaker 1: social spending can be so effective in doing. And so
Speaker 1: a lot of our work has found kind of supportive
Speaker 1: of this general notion that would people give in ways
Speaker 1: that allow for a greater sense of social connection, we
Speaker 1: enjoy the act more, we experience a bigger boost of
Speaker 1: happiness from doing so. And I think it's important to
Speaker 1: realize that giving with a higher sense of social connection
Speaker 1: can come in various channels. So that can come from
Speaker 1: connecting with the recipient that you are actually helping. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, give a check or your time donating at
Speaker 1: a food bank, being there in person might be a
Speaker 1: lot more rewarding than simply sending a check in the
Speaker 1: mail where you have no face to face contact with
Speaker 1: someone on the other side. So giving where you're able
Speaker 1: to see the recipient, giving in ways that allow you
Speaker 1: to connect with other donors. So there are ways in
Speaker 1: which we can give in collaborative campaigns online, through Facebook,
Speaker 1: through other ways, through just even my home department here
Speaker 1: often gives in large charitable endeavors, and so knowing that
Speaker 1: I'm giving with my colleagues and grad students is often
Speaker 1: very rewarding, and sometimes just connecting with a cause at large.
Speaker 1: So kind of situating ourselves in these ways that are
Speaker 1: more connected usually lead to larger emotional rewards from giving.
Speaker 1: And that's great that you pointed that out, because I
Speaker 1: think one could hear this work and think like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: the best way to give is to someone who's like
Speaker 1: my best friend or I'm really close to, But we
Speaker 1: can actually connect with recipients who we might not know
Speaker 1: as long as we're connecting with the cause itself. It
Speaker 1: sounds like that's right. In fact, in one early study
Speaker 1: on this, my colleagues and I ran a study where
Speaker 1: we endowed students with a ten dollar payment for participating
Speaker 1: in a study asked them if they'd like to donate
Speaker 1: to a subsidiary of UNISEF, and in one condition, participants
Speaker 1: were told that which was true the research assistant disclosed
Speaker 1: that they were personally interested and really connected with this charity,
Speaker 1: and in the other condition, this personal connection just remained silent.
Speaker 1: And what we found was that in general, people gave
Speaker 1: equal amounts of money across the two conditions. But in
Speaker 1: the condition where people were giving to someone who was
Speaker 1: personally affiliated with the cause, the more they gave, the
Speaker 1: happier they reported feeling. Meanwhile, the emotional rewards of giving
Speaker 1: were almost flatline in the other condition. And so sometimes
Speaker 1: when we're giving in disconnected ways, we might really rob
Speaker 1: ourselves of these emotional rewards. Another thing you found that
Speaker 1: super important for the kind of happiness benefit that comes
Speaker 1: from pro social giving comes from our autonomy and giving.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by autonomy here? Yes, So usually
Speaker 1: autonomy is referred to whether people themselves have had the
Speaker 1: opportunity to make the decision that they want to give,
Speaker 1: that they are experiencing a sense of volition and personal choice,
Speaker 1: that they have pursued this opportunity in a meaningful way themselves.
Speaker 1: And so I think about this often when it comes
Speaker 1: to parenting. I try not to force my kids to
Speaker 1: give too much. I try to scaffold these opportunities for
Speaker 1: them to realize that it's important to give. My colleagues
Speaker 1: and I have done some work in this domain, but
Speaker 1: I think probably the most highly referenced study in areas
Speaker 1: by Weinstein and Ryan that has nicely controlled this where
Speaker 1: people were given the opportunity to make donations. In one condition,
Speaker 1: people chose how much. In the other condition, they were
Speaker 1: kind of just yoked to give the identical amount. And
Speaker 1: when people had freedom to choose, the more they gave,
Speaker 1: the happier they were. But in the other condition, they
Speaker 1: gave identical amounts and felt no such enjoyment. So it
Speaker 1: really seems like we need to be choosing, like when
Speaker 1: we give, who we give, how much we give. I
Speaker 1: think that's super important because I sometimes get questions from
Speaker 1: folks about these benefits, not just a pro social spending,
Speaker 1: but also just pro social actions. And people sometimes feel
Speaker 1: like if they're forced to help, right, if they have
Speaker 1: no choice other than to help, that it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: It can feel most onerous. I'm thinking of people who
Speaker 1: are stuck doing certain kinds of childcare elder care, and
Speaker 1: obviously they love the people that they're working for, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like they're getting the same happiness boost
Speaker 1: that they might if they kind of chose to volunteer
Speaker 1: at a food bank or something like that. That's right.
Speaker 1: I think that's an important distinction. I think there are
Speaker 1: many times we engage in generous acts, but sometimes through
Speaker 1: a sense of obligation. There is a bit of work
Speaker 1: suggesting that sometimes just even scaffolding what feels like a
Speaker 1: sense of choice can be productive in this domain. So
Speaker 1: you can say you don't need to do this, but
Speaker 1: you know it's your choice to decide if and how
Speaker 1: and when you'd like to give. Kind of offering a
Speaker 1: little bit of flexibility and how or when or why
Speaker 1: can free people up to regain some of this personal
Speaker 1: control That can make giving a lot more rewarding, less
Speaker 1: of a tedious task and more like something that they
Speaker 1: will enjoy. And remember, I think that's really key, because
Speaker 1: we forget that the way we frame things can be
Speaker 1: really powerful for how we think things are working. You know,
Speaker 1: even just reminding yourself you know it's a choice that
Speaker 1: I'm spending my time doing this, or I know I've
Speaker 1: chosen to do this like that can have a powerful
Speaker 1: effect on just the sense of autonomy we feel and
Speaker 1: therefore maybe the well being boost that we get from
Speaker 1: engaging in those actions. A third sweet spot found in
Speaker 1: this domain of pro social spending boosting our happiness comes
Speaker 1: when we see that what we've done has a real impact.
Speaker 1: Why has impact so important to our psychology and to
Speaker 1: our enjoyment. That's a great question. I think people enjoy
Speaker 1: giving when it is more impactful because it helps them
Speaker 1: realize that they haven't just chosen to let go of
Speaker 1: a resource that is valuable to them, but that is
Speaker 1: having a clear and positive improving someone else's life. And
Speaker 1: so there are opportunities where I think we want to
Speaker 1: see that we're effective in pursuing our goals, but even
Speaker 1: beyond that, I think we want to see that we
Speaker 1: have measurably improved the lives of others. And when we
Speaker 1: are given clear evidence of that, we usually feel much
Speaker 1: better for it. So I think there are some charities
Speaker 1: that do a fantastic job of this. I remember at
Speaker 1: one point in my life I was living in New
Speaker 1: York and there was a local organization that would collect
Speaker 1: clothing for women who were returning to the workplace, and
Speaker 1: you could see with every outfit you donated how many
Speaker 1: women it would help, and how they would rearrange the
Speaker 1: outfits to return as many women as they could to
Speaker 1: the workforce. And essentially there was an online pro social calculator.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was a brilliant idea and so
Speaker 1: kind of offering that is an incentive or kind of
Speaker 1: an opportunity for potential donors to see what they can do.
Speaker 1: Is a really an effective tool. There are also some
Speaker 1: charities that do this brilliantly after the fact. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite examples as donors Choose, which is a website
Speaker 1: that allows people to give and support teachers all across
Speaker 1: the United States and perhaps even more broadly with specific
Speaker 1: needs that they require for their classrooms. So if a
Speaker 1: teacher is in need of new software to teach programming
Speaker 1: to sixth graders, here's what they need. And they're often
Speaker 1: from lower income parts of the country where the school
Speaker 1: district is unable to do so. But also what happens
Speaker 1: afterward is usually the students and the teachers right hand
Speaker 1: written notes to the donor. We have used this in
Speaker 1: many of our studies and it is one of the
Speaker 1: most touching things to see. I realize that some charities
Speaker 1: don't have an easy cell in this regard. I mean
Speaker 1: is sometimes you're buying or protecting an acreage of land,
Speaker 1: and that isn't it is an easy of a cell
Speaker 1: to show how your actions have made a difference. But
Speaker 1: I think there are many times in which we can
Speaker 1: find this for ourselves by sometimes giving in person or
Speaker 1: sometimes even just like we said before, kind of circling
Speaker 1: back to the people who have dedicated their lives and
Speaker 1: their energy to this pursuit in that too can be
Speaker 1: a huge booster. So I love donors to choose, But
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that we've realized in
Speaker 1: past episodes is that the kind of way we donate
Speaker 1: kind of matters too in terms of its impact. There
Speaker 1: might be things that don't feel really impactful in the moment,
Speaker 1: like we might not meet the recipients, but they might
Speaker 1: be doing a tremendous amount of good And so do
Speaker 1: you think reflecting on that form of impact might also
Speaker 1: help us get more of a happiness benefit too. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: sometimes we might not have the physical proof in front
Speaker 1: of us. Sometimes we may not be able to connect
Speaker 1: specifically with the recipient or proxy thereof. Sometimes we have
Speaker 1: to rely on some mental calculations to try to imagine
Speaker 1: and take us one step further. I think there might
Speaker 1: be individual differences and to what extent people are able
Speaker 1: to do that, But I think we might be able
Speaker 1: to kind of mentally time travel, if you will, or
Speaker 1: at least mentally transport ourselves to imagine how these gifts
Speaker 1: might be helping other people, and I think the extent
Speaker 1: to which we're doing that would probably unlock a lot
Speaker 1: of emotional rewards. You know, what's so amazing about your
Speaker 1: resource law is that you're constantly doing work showing that
Speaker 1: giving money away, not spending money on yourself, is a
Speaker 1: better more happiness and do saying way to spend money?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you get pushback on that sometimes? Although
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I seem to receive pushback from both ends.
Speaker 1: On the one side, there are folks, sometimes economists and
Speaker 1: business folks or business students who say, like, this seems crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure why anybody would find enjoyment in spending
Speaker 1: some of their limited financial resources on other people. Limited
Speaker 1: or otherwise, I should say, And I try to show
Speaker 1: them the data and argue, as we've talked about here,
Speaker 1: that humans are social creatures and this provides a meaningful
Speaker 1: route to connect with other people. However, I also received
Speaker 1: pushback from the other side, where people email and call
Speaker 1: and say, well, this is obvious, we didn't need your
Speaker 1: work to make the point, Thank you very much. My
Speaker 1: grandmother told me this when I was four, and she
Speaker 1: was right. And to that I say, I'm glad. I'm glad.
Speaker 1: This seems like an intuitive reaction to many people. I think,
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, to do is. I think at
Speaker 1: a high level, we appreciate and gather that doing nice
Speaker 1: things for others gives us this form glow, and it's
Speaker 1: a nice thing to do. But I think when push
Speaker 1: comes to shoven, we see it in the data when
Speaker 1: we ask people what do you think will make you happier?
Speaker 1: And specifically when it comes to money. I think money
Speaker 1: is kind of a complicated psychological phenomenon where people seem
Speaker 1: to focus more inward than outward. But when we ask people,
Speaker 1: you know, given five or twenty dollars and the choice
Speaker 1: to spend on yourself or others, what do you think
Speaker 1: will make you happier? The overwhelming majority of people think
Speaker 1: that they would be happier spending on themselves. And so
Speaker 1: in some ways this is counterintuitive and in some ways
Speaker 1: it isn't. And my goal with a lot of this
Speaker 1: research is to try to understand how robust this relationship is,
Speaker 1: and it seems to be quite robust, but also to
Speaker 1: make giving as rewarding as possible so that we kind
Speaker 1: of kick most people onto these positive feedback loops where
Speaker 1: they're feeling good about doing it and more likely to
Speaker 1: do it in the future. Laura's work really got me thinking.
Speaker 1: When we pointed all of you towards Josh Green's Giving
Speaker 1: Multiplier website last year so that you could donate to
Speaker 1: the most effective charities around we never really updated you
Speaker 1: on just how much money we raised together as a
Speaker 1: community and what good that money did around the world.
Speaker 1: So I decided to invite Josh back so he could
Speaker 1: share the good news himself. The response from this audience
Speaker 1: was just unbelievable. So I can just yeah, because you
Speaker 1: brought you actually nerded it and brought the numbers. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen them yet. You're going to tell me these
Speaker 1: for the first time. Yeah, all right. So I mean
Speaker 1: we'll just get to the to the headline number. So
Speaker 1: the total raised, the people who use the code, and
Speaker 1: the people who I could identify by their their comments.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I didn't catch every last person. With the
Speaker 1: matching funds added on top, raised four hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Oh my god, close to half a million
Speaker 1: dollars just from your listeners over less than less than
Speaker 1: the last year. So I was just floored, I mean, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That makes you want to cry. Listeners, y'all
Speaker 1: are amazing. True. Yeah. But one of the great things
Speaker 1: about giving multipliers that we can not just say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's almost half a million dollars. You can actually put
Speaker 1: it in terms of the effectiveness the impact that these
Speaker 1: this money having, right yeah, So I mean over a
Speaker 1: quarter a million dollars is going to the super effective
Speaker 1: charities on our list, and I can just you know,
Speaker 1: give some some examples of that. So the Against Malaria Foundation,
Speaker 1: one of the most tried and true methods for just
Speaker 1: doing huge amount of impact with with your dollars is
Speaker 1: distributing anti malarial bednets. This is a huge cause of death,
Speaker 1: mostly in Sub Saharan Africa, and Happiness Labors with the
Speaker 1: Matches gave thirty eight thousand dollars to the Against Malaria Foundation,
Speaker 1: which you know, in the world of philanthropy, that might
Speaker 1: not seem like a huge amount, but first of all,
Speaker 1: that's just a small amount of what you folks did overall.
Speaker 1: That's just one out of these nine charities. But you know,
Speaker 1: each malaria net costs about five dollars all in to
Speaker 1: sort of buy and distribute. So we're we're talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, something like seven thousand, six hundred nets or
Speaker 1: or something like that. And when you look at that number,
Speaker 1: you can imagine that that can do a lot of good.
Speaker 1: I will preface what I'm about to say was saying
Speaker 1: that a lot of people mistakenly think that it's really, really,
Speaker 1: really cheap to save somebody's life. So Lucious Caveola, my
Speaker 1: collaborator on this, is on research showing that a lot
Speaker 1: of people think it's like one hundred dollars or one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars because you have seen ads, you know,
Speaker 1: over the years, you know, oh, you could save someone's
Speaker 1: life one hundred dollars. It's not quite that easy, right,
Speaker 1: but it's not anywhere close to impossible either. So my
Speaker 1: best guest estimate, and this is a very rough estimate,
Speaker 1: and give Well is very clear that these are rough
Speaker 1: estimates distributing seventy six hundred malaria and that's which is
Speaker 1: what this amount should buy. You would expect that to
Speaker 1: save something like seven people's lives, mostly children, and the
Speaker 1: effectiveness there is going to vary by region, which is
Speaker 1: going to vary by season, so you know, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of nerdy caveats with this, but we're really
Speaker 1: talking about is just the part of the donations that
Speaker 1: went to Against Malaria Foundation, which is just you know
Speaker 1: a small part of what your this audience has done
Speaker 1: clearly saving life, whether it's two or seven or ten
Speaker 1: or twenty. And that's that's for real. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: really based on rigorous research going back meant many years,
Speaker 1: so that to me, that's just unbelievable. And that's just
Speaker 1: one part of you know, what you've The science suggests
Speaker 1: that every one of you who went to giving Multiplier
Speaker 1: dot org slash Happiness Lab and donated probably bought yourself
Speaker 1: a little happiness boost. But the fact that we all
Speaker 1: together raised nearly half a million dollars has made me
Speaker 1: really really happy. I cannot stop thinking of all the
Speaker 1: lives we've improved and maybe even saved Happiness Lab listeners.
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of us. So let's do it again.
Speaker 1: If you gave last time and felt a happiness bump,
Speaker 1: why not get into that positive feedback loop. Lara was
Speaker 1: talking about head back to giving Multiplier dot org slash
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab and give whatever you can again, and if
Speaker 1: you're still not convinced of the personal benefits of pro
Speaker 1: social spending, you can head to giving multiplier dot org
Speaker 1: slash Happiness Lab and run the experiment for yourself. The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab has big plans for twenty twenty three, and
Speaker 1: we're working on some show ideas that I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1: What I can tell you now is that we'll be
Speaker 1: back at the start of January with a series that
Speaker 1: will help you rise to the challenge of the new year.
Speaker 1: Until then, stay safe, stay happy, and thanks for giving.
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley,
Speaker 1: Emily Anne Vaughan and Courtney Guerino. Joseph Fridman checked our facts.
Speaker 1: Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring,
Speaker 1: mixing and mastering by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Miilabelle,
Speaker 1: Heather Fame, John Schnars, Carlie Migliori, Christina Sullivan, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: Eric Sangler, Nicole Morano, Royston Preserved, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent,
Speaker 1: Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries and Nate Doctor. Laurie Santos. To find more
Speaker 1: Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your podcast