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Speaker 1: Pushkin a Happiness Lab listeners, We're still putting the finishing

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Speaker 1: touches on our next season of shows, a whole series

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Speaker 1: addressing situations in which I the happiness Professor and flunking class.

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Speaker 1: Our new season will be out on June third, but

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Speaker 1: here's a quick sneak preview.

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Speaker 2: Can you hear me now?

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Speaker 1: I'm doctor Laurie Santos, and I'm devoting the new season

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Speaker 1: of my podcast, The Happiness Lab to topics that are

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Speaker 1: dear to my heart, with people dear to my heart,

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Speaker 1: like my mom.

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Speaker 3: Wait a minute, let me put the TV.

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Speaker 1: I'll be finding out why I personally struggle so badly

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Speaker 1: with perfectionism, stress, and even sitting still and doing nothing.

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Speaker 1: But I feel like I'm bad at boredom because you're

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Speaker 1: bad at boredom.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I didn't do well with doing nothing.

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Speaker 1: And once I find out why these things affect me

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Speaker 1: so badly, I'm hoping to do something about it. So

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Speaker 1: join me on my journey Wherever you get your podcasts,

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Speaker 1: so be sure to stay tuned. But today I wanted

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Speaker 1: to share an amazing episode of the Ted Interview podcast,

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Speaker 1: which focuses on the work of my friend and close

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Speaker 1: collaborator Liz Dunn, a psychology professor from the University of

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Speaker 1: British Columbia. Liz has been a guest on The Happiness

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Speaker 1: Lab a bunch, but in this episode, she'll take Chris

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Speaker 1: Anderson from TED on a deep dive across her entire career,

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Speaker 1: including some of her important work on how we can

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Speaker 1: all become happier. I hope you like this episode and

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Speaker 1: be sure to check out more editions of The Ted

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Speaker 1: Interview show wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 3: Hello everyone, I'm Chris Anderson. Welcome to The Ted Interview.

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Speaker 3: This season, we're delving deep into the concept of generosity,

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Speaker 3: which I've come to believe is the single most crucial

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Speaker 3: idea that our modern world needs. It's an idea that

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Speaker 3: I've spent the last three years thinking about and researching

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Speaker 3: for a book titled Infectious Generosity. Now, Today's episode is

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Speaker 3: a special one for two reasons. First of all, I'm

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Speaker 3: sitting in front of a live audience at TED twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty four. The audience is full of brilliant people and

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Speaker 3: they will be helping co create this episode by asking

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Speaker 3: questions part way through. And then secondly, our guest today

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Speaker 3: she has played a catalytic role in developing my thinking

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Speaker 3: about generosity. Her name is Elizabeth Dunn. She's a social

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Speaker 3: psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, and apart

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Speaker 3: from delivering a beautiful ted talk on the links between

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Speaker 3: generosity and happiness, she also was involved in an experience

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Speaker 3: which forced me to go ahead and write this book. Honestly,

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Speaker 3: we will be talking about that shortly, but for now,

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Speaker 3: please join me in welcoming Elizabeth Dunn. It's great to

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Speaker 3: have you here.

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Speaker 2: Oh, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 3: Let's start by your sharing a little bit of your

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Speaker 3: background and what drew you to the study of happiness,

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Speaker 3: generosity and related Yeah.

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Speaker 4: So, I have been studying happiness for over twenty years

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Speaker 4: now as a social psychologist, and I got into studying

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Speaker 4: generosity primarily because I wanted to understand what made people

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Speaker 4: happy and specifically actually, when I got my first faculty

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Speaker 4: job as a professor at the University of British Columbia,

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Speaker 4: I started earning more money than I needed to stay

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Speaker 4: alive for the first time in my life, and I

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Speaker 4: was like, oh, I have disposable income. This is a

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Speaker 4: novelty for me, you know, And so I wanted to

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Speaker 4: understand how people could use money in order to enhance happiness,

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Speaker 4: and I thought generosity might.

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Speaker 2: Actually be a pretty good way to go.

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Speaker 4: So we started running experiments, first, small experiments just here

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Speaker 4: in Vancouver, and then built it out from there. So

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Speaker 4: that's sort of where I started. And then my research

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Speaker 4: has taken me in all kinds of different directions to

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Speaker 4: try to understand what really matters for him and happiness.

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Speaker 3: So typical experiment would be some students get given ten

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Speaker 3: or twenty bucks untel to do different things with it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, So in the first experiment we ever ran on

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Speaker 4: this topic, we sent our research assistants out on campus

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Speaker 4: at UBC armed with cash. We gave them five and

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Speaker 4: twenty dollars bills. We had them literally walk up and

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Speaker 4: hand them to people, and we either told each individual

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Speaker 4: to spend this money to benefit themselves or to benefit others,

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Speaker 4: and then we called them at the end of the day,

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Speaker 4: found out how their day had been, asked them to

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Speaker 4: complete measures of happiness. And what we discovered was that

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Speaker 4: people felt happier at the end of the day when

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Speaker 4: they'd been assigned, basically by the flip.

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Speaker 2: Of a coin, to spend this money on.

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Speaker 3: Others, and do you think they actually did spend it

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Speaker 3: on this?

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Speaker 4: You know, they give us pretty detailed reports of like

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Speaker 4: exactly what they did, so yeah, I'm pretty confident.

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Speaker 3: Give us some more headlines of big findings that have

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Speaker 3: happened over the last decade or two.

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Speaker 4: So another big finding for us was to show that

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Speaker 4: this effect wasn't just limited to Vancouver to folks with

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Speaker 4: a reasonable amount of disposable income. We wanted to try

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Speaker 4: doing this in countries around the world. We explored this

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Speaker 4: idea with the littlest humans, with toddlers, showing that even

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Speaker 4: two year olds get joy from giving their resources to others.

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Speaker 2: Toddlers don't really care about money.

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Speaker 4: We worked with toddler gold specifically goldfish crackers, and so

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Speaker 4: you know, we've explored this idea in a number of

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Speaker 4: different ways. We've also looked at other aspects that matter

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Speaker 4: for happiness. In a project that grew out of a

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Speaker 4: collaboration at TED, we've been examining how to increase social

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Speaker 4: connections by bringing together architects and software engineers to figure

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Speaker 4: out how we can design physical spaces to bring people

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Speaker 4: together in positive ways. So I've done all kinds of

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Speaker 4: different things, But along the way, happiness has been sort

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Speaker 4: of my north star.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think your team wrote a paper connected

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Speaker 3: to a giant Gallup survey that was done once asking

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Speaker 3: more than tw hundred thousand people across the world about

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Speaker 3: their happiness levels. Can you say a bit of yeah.

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Speaker 4: So, In taking advantage of really amazing data collected by Gallop,

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Speaker 4: what we discovered was that around the world, people who

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Speaker 4: had donated money to charity in the past month reported

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Speaker 4: greater happiness than those who didn't.

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Speaker 2: And this wasn't a small effect.

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Speaker 4: In fact, when we really dug into the data, what

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Speaker 4: we saw was that spending donating money to charity was

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Speaker 4: basically equivalent to a doubling of household income in terms

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Speaker 4: of its relationship with happiness.

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Speaker 3: People work their whole year to try to justify it.

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Speaker 3: Maybe if I could just get twenty percent more income,

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Speaker 3: that's what would make all the difference to me in

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Speaker 3: my family. Doubling of income rarely happens to most people.

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Speaker 3: It's like it's not quite winning the lottery, but it's close.

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Speaker 3: And yet on the face of it, just committing to

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Speaker 3: being generous to charities could actually deliver the same life

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Speaker 3: happiness that seems so implausible. Can that really be true?

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Speaker 4: Well, first off, you know, in that particular study, it's

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Speaker 4: important recognize it's just a correlation, right, So people who

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Speaker 4: give money to charity are happier than people who do not, right,

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Speaker 4: And you can imagine that people who are getting to

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Speaker 4: charity might differ in all kinds of ways. And we

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Speaker 4: do our best as scientists to try to control for

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Speaker 4: the obvious ones like income, and that relationship still holds.

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Speaker 4: But I wouldn't presume that it's entirely causal, that it's

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Speaker 4: just about spending money on others leading to happiness. Now

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Speaker 4: that said, it is still fascinating, you know when we

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Speaker 4: see this relationship emerge in experimental work as well, so

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Speaker 4: we know there is this causal relationship, and yet it

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Speaker 4: doesn't seem like people are always aware of it.

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Speaker 3: So it's a bit like the riddle about marriage and happiness,

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Speaker 3: Like all the stats show that on average marriage people

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Speaker 3: tend to be happier, But it did the marriage cause it?

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Speaker 3: Or is it that the happier people get married because

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Speaker 3: no one wants to marry us that'll get well, yeah.

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Speaker 4: And you know, the really interesting thing with marriage is

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Speaker 4: that the best longitudinal studies on this.

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Speaker 2: Where you follow the same people over.

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Speaker 4: Time, suggest that people do get happier when they get married,

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Speaker 4: but that boost and happiness last two years.

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Speaker 2: Now that's an average.

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Speaker 4: Individuals vary, So like if you went to your friend's

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Speaker 4: wedding two years ago, you don't need to send a little,

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Speaker 4: you know, condolence note. But certainly that's the sort of

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Speaker 4: fundamental force that we as happiness researchers are working against.

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Speaker 4: This thing called hedonic adaptation or whatever wonderful thing we have,

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Speaker 4: we adapt to it. So it's super exciting to walk

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Speaker 4: down the aisle. It's less exciting to walk down and

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Speaker 4: see your spouse at the breakfast table.

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Speaker 3: One thing I've learned about you, Liz, is that you

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Speaker 3: have all the skepticism that you would hopeful from a scientist,

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Speaker 3: and recently you've been involved in work trying to address

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Speaker 3: what's been this crisis in social science that all these

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Speaker 3: weird and wild experiments that were reported, some of them

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Speaker 3: didn't replicate. Talk about the work you've been doing recently

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Speaker 3: about that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is really important, and I think it's

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Speaker 4: something that many people who are interested in psychology and

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Speaker 4: behavioral science don't realize is that there's really been a

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Speaker 4: revolution in behavioral science over the past decade where we

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Speaker 4: came to realize that some of the really neat, exciting

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Speaker 4: effects that some of you might have.

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Speaker 2: Heard about just don't replicate.

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Speaker 4: And so my lab has been involved, along with many

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Speaker 4: other people in my field, in trying to change that,

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Speaker 4: trying to create a more replicable, reliable, robust science. And

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Speaker 4: so one of the big things that we've been involved

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Speaker 4: in doing is pre registering our studies. So I'm going

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Speaker 4: to get a little nerdy for a second, but I

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Speaker 4: promise it's going to be worth it because it's super important.

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Speaker 4: So in science sometimes it's like we throw a bunch

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Speaker 4: of darts against the wall and then we draw the

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Speaker 4: bullseye on afterward and say, hey, look we found what

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Speaker 4: we expected to find, right, And there's an obvious problem

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Speaker 4: with that because you don't know how many darts we

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Speaker 4: actually shot. And so this is a problem not just

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Speaker 4: for our psychology certainly, not just for happiness research, for

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Speaker 4: really all of quantitative science. And so now what we're

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Speaker 4: trying to do is pre register our studies and say

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Speaker 4: up front, we're going to call our shot ahead of

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Speaker 4: time and say this is what I'm going to do.

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Speaker 4: This is how I'm going to test it, and I'm

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Speaker 4: going to prove myself wrong that shot doesn't land. And

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Speaker 4: so one thing that I've been doing is going and

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Speaker 4: trying to reassess the happiness literature, in particular to try

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Speaker 4: to understand, you know, how good does it look when

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Speaker 4: we apply these newer approaches. Another really key piece is

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Speaker 4: using larger samples. So if you look at some of

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Speaker 4: the older psychology studies out there, they'll often have a

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Speaker 4: teeny tiny number of participants, and this can leave us

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Speaker 4: with a situation where those effects don't actually replicate.

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Speaker 2: You can get.

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Speaker 4: Little weird, fluky findings when you only study small numbers

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Speaker 4: of people. So increasingly in my field, we're using much

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Speaker 4: larger sample sizes, and that gives us much more reliable conclusions.

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Speaker 3: And your work found that actually quite a large percentage

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Speaker 3: of some of the earlier work probably.

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Speaker 4: Wasn't that valid, right, I mean, we don't know for

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Speaker 4: sure which studies would fail to replicate, but we found

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Speaker 4: we looked at some of the most widely reported ideas

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Speaker 4: about happiness in the media, So we looked at strategies

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Speaker 4: like getting out in nature, practicing, meditation and mindfulness as

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Speaker 4: well as exercise very popular strategies for promoting happiness, and

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Speaker 4: we found that ninety five percent of those experiments really did.

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Speaker 2: Not meet our current standards.

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Speaker 4: It doesn't mean that those things, like if you're super

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Speaker 4: into meditation or exercise, I'm not saying like, give those

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Speaker 4: things up and just watch Netflix because whatever.

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Speaker 2: Like those things.

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Speaker 4: There's good reasons to believe those strategies should work. But

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Speaker 4: it's just remarkable that we don't actually have the kind

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Speaker 4: of evidence that we would consider the kind of modern

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Speaker 4: gold standard to support them.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that seems like really important social science to do.

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Speaker 3: I mean, as someone who loves being in nature, I

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Speaker 3: would really like to know that my impression that it

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Speaker 3: brings happiness wasn't just my imagination.

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Speaker 4: Right, And I mean you may know, right, Like one

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Speaker 4: of the wonderful things about happiness is that you can

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Speaker 4: experiment on yourself, right, and you can see, hey, does this.

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Speaker 2: Make me happy? And that's great.

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Speaker 4: So if you find being in nature makes you happy,

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Speaker 4: then do it. But if we want to make broader

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Speaker 4: recommendations and really push forward policies and stuff, we want

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Speaker 4: to know what has the most reliable and the biggest

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Speaker 4: effects for the most people. It turns out that if

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Speaker 4: you do little things like you say, oh, let me

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Speaker 4: analyze the data a little bit differently, let me control

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Speaker 4: for gender. These people seemed like they weren't really paying attention.

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Speaker 4: I'm going to cut them from my study. Then you

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Speaker 4: can quickly actually create an effect where none really exists.

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Speaker 4: And that is what we are trying to change. And

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Speaker 4: I think where our field has come so far over

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Speaker 4: the past decade.

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Speaker 3: So wearing your full skeptical hat, you and I we

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Speaker 3: had a conversation in twenty twenty about a crazy idea

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Speaker 3: that happened because there was a donor in the tech

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Speaker 3: community who wanted to give away a million dollars and

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Speaker 3: to do some social science in the process. Talk about

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Speaker 3: what happened.

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Speaker 4: This was like the coolest phone call I've ever gotten,

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Speaker 4: where Chris called me and said, you know, I've got

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Speaker 4: this interesting opportunity. Is this something that your lab would

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Speaker 4: like to study where we could potentially I think initially

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Speaker 4: that we would give ten thousand US dollars to one

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Speaker 4: hundred people in multiple countries around the world and study

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Speaker 4: what happened. And I was blown away. I was very

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Speaker 4: excited I was like, count me in. And then we

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Speaker 4: got to talking more and we thought it would be

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Speaker 4: interesting to vary, you know, to have a couple of

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Speaker 4: different conditions or groups. So give these groups some different

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Speaker 4: instructions and be able to test what kind of difference

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Speaker 4: that made. And so we thought, well, maybe we could

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Speaker 4: take that hundred people and split it into two groups

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Speaker 4: of fifty. And that's where I gave you, like a

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Speaker 4: born lecture on statistics and how like, when you have

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Speaker 4: fifty people per group, it's actually not necessarily enough to

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Speaker 4: detect these effects in a really reliable way. So I said,

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Speaker 4: is there any way we could have two groups of

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Speaker 4: one hundred people? You know, it would two million dollars

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Speaker 4: be possible? And I let me tell you, as somebody

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Speaker 4: who like applies to academic funding agencies, I just expected

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Speaker 4: the answer to be no. But I was like, ah,

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Speaker 4: you might might as well mention this, and you can.

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Speaker 3: This is the tech community is full of surprises. It

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Speaker 3: really is full of surprises. And I'm so, but also

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Speaker 3: be careful what proposal you put to Liz done. But

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Speaker 3: so yeah, so ended up being two hundred people getting

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Speaker 3: ten thousand dollars each. That was the plan. How did

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Speaker 3: you structure the ex.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so we had one group of one hundred people

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Speaker 4: who were told to share their participation in this experiment publicly.

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Speaker 4: So they were told to share this with their social

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Speaker 4: networks on Twitter at the time, now x, and then

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Speaker 4: we told the other one hundred to just keep this

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Speaker 4: on the download. You know, you can tell a couple

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Speaker 4: close friends and family if you need to, but basically

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Speaker 4: keep this news private. And so this allowed us to

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Speaker 4: look at whether sharing this news publicly would make a

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Speaker 4: difference for how people spent the money or how they

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Speaker 4: felt about it. And also, in one of our early conversations,

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Speaker 4: I said, you know what would be really great is

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Speaker 4: if we could have a control group of people that

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Speaker 4: don't get any money and we could study them all

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Speaker 4: along the way. And you were like, okay, Liz, yeah,

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Speaker 4: sure we can do that too. So we had this

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Speaker 4: control group of folks that were chosen at random. So,

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Speaker 4: after recruiting people making sure they qualify, we randomly assign

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Speaker 4: people to either get this money, share it publicly, get

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Speaker 4: this money, keep it, keep this news private, or not

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Speaker 4: get any money, but complete all of our surveys and

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Speaker 4: get a small fee for completing the surveys.

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Speaker 3: And specifically what they were told is that this money

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Speaker 3: was up to them as to how they could spend it.

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Speaker 3: First all, when they were recruited, because I got to

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Speaker 3: play a role in recruiting people, and we basically I

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Speaker 3: put out a tweet saying, Hey, do you want to

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Speaker 3: participate in an interesting experiment? Could be stressful, could be

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Speaker 3: potentially life changing, will take quite a bit of time,

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Speaker 3: what do you think? But with no mention of money.

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Speaker 3: So we got people not knowing really what they were

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Speaker 3: signing up for. And then when we told them they

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Speaker 3: were getting ten thousand dollars, like, some of them were like, oh,

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Speaker 3: it's a scam.

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Speaker 4: And I think that was one of the biggest challenges, right,

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Speaker 4: because if you go to the spam folder of your

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Speaker 4: inbox right now, you can probably find an offer like this, right,

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Speaker 4: So we had to I think one of the biggest

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Speaker 4: challenges was convincing people was real. And so you made

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Speaker 4: a great video of yourself, just like kind of a

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Speaker 4: low production video explaining to people what was happening. And

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Speaker 4: I think that was really important and kind of convincing

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Speaker 4: people like, no, for real, We're going to send you

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Speaker 4: ten thousand dollars The.

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Speaker 3: Only real strings attached then was that they just had

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Speaker 3: to report back to us how to fill out a

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Speaker 3: survey every few months.

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Speaker 4: Basically once yeah, every month for three months, and then

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Speaker 4: again at.

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Speaker 2: A six month mark.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Right. So what did we discover?

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Speaker 4: Well, we learned a lot from this experiment, and I

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Speaker 4: just want to say one of the really beautiful things

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Speaker 4: about this whole experience was that we were able to

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Speaker 4: conduct this experiment at a scale that I never would

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Speaker 4: have thought was possible, and the donors were so committed

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Speaker 4: to doing the science really carefully too, and so we

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Speaker 4: were able to address several long standing fundamental questions in

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Speaker 4: behavioral science. And I think the one that was probably

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Speaker 4: the core question that we started with was how would

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Speaker 4: people spend this money and would they use it in

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Speaker 4: ways that benefited others? I think one of the remarkable

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Speaker 4: findings from this study was that people used the majority

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Speaker 4: of this money, over six thousand dollars of the ten

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Speaker 4: thousand dollars windfall, in ways that benefited other people.

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Speaker 2: Now, we were.

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Speaker 4: Defining benefiting other people in a broad way, as you know,

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Speaker 4: any way that was you know, it could be anything

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Speaker 4: from taking friends out for dinner to making a donation

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Speaker 4: to charity, to treating a loved one to something special.

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Speaker 4: So perhaps in that sense, it's not so surprising that

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Speaker 4: that number was big. But even when we look at

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Speaker 4: a much narrower definition, we look just at charitable donations,

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Speaker 4: we still found that people spent almost seventeen hundred dollars

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Speaker 4: on average just on charitable donations.

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Speaker 2: And you know that that kind of blew me away.

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Speaker 3: In general, people I think, on average, spend two or

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Speaker 3: three or four percent at most of their income on charity,

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Speaker 3: and that's a massive increase. So what's going on there?

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Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think one important component here is

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Speaker 4: that it was a gift, right, So it wasn't like

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Speaker 4: people earned this money per se. It wasn't something that

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Speaker 4: they were expecting. It began with an active generosity by

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Speaker 4: the donors. And I think that's still very interesting, right,

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Speaker 4: that one powerful act of generosity, and in some cases

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Speaker 4: the kinds of donations that people were making could themselves

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Speaker 4: create other opportunities, could have these incredible ripple effects into

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Speaker 4: some of the communities.

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Speaker 2: To me, that was one piece of it that was

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Speaker 2: just so powerful.

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Speaker 3: Was there a difference in the behavior between people who

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Speaker 3: on social media proudly boasting of the amount that they

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Speaker 3: were giving away to those who were keeping in private.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so we expected that there would be a difference.

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Speaker 4: We thought people who were sharing this publicly would spend

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Speaker 4: more on others. If everyone knows you've got this money

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Speaker 4: and whatever, you can imagine, you would spend it more generously.

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Speaker 4: We pre registered that prediction, so we set up front, Hey,

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Speaker 4: this is what we think we're going to find this,

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Speaker 4: how we're going to test it.

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Speaker 2: And we were wrong.

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Speaker 4: So we found that it did not matter whether people

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Speaker 4: publicly sharing this information or not. Either way, we found

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Speaker 4: these very high levels of generosity, which you could call

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Speaker 4: a field experiment, but I call like a beautiful testament

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Speaker 4: to humanity that like, even when they're spending choice is private,

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Speaker 4: they still chose to spend the majority of the money

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Speaker 4: in ways that benefited others.

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Speaker 3: So it really was this was a response to generosity.

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Speaker 3: It wasn't an attempt to boost reputation. It seemed.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we can't. Of course, it's possible that

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Speaker 4: some people were you know, taking friends out for dinner

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Speaker 4: and in a way that can have reputational benefits. So

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Speaker 4: we can almost never erase reputation. And that's part of it.

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Speaker 4: And something that I love in your book is that

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Speaker 4: you say, you know, it's not necessarily bad if people

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Speaker 4: are engaging in generous behavior to enhance their reputations, Like,

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Speaker 4: what a wonderful feature of humanity, that that's something a

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Speaker 4: way that we would want to increase our enhance our reputation.

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Speaker 4: But yet we designed what we felt was a very

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Speaker 4: powerful manipulation of reputational concerns and it did not matter.

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Speaker 2: So that tells us to me.

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Speaker 4: My takeaway from that is that you know, perhaps reputational

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Speaker 4: concerns are not a necessary or driving force behind generosity.

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Speaker 3: And have you heard from other social scientists that they

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Speaker 3: view that this is a contribution to the science.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, we've gotten an amazing response to this from the

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Speaker 4: scientific community, and I think because we had the opportunity

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Speaker 4: to scale this up, to have this diverse, worldwide sample,

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Speaker 4: to work with amounts of money that are deeply meaningful.

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Speaker 4: So for folks who were in lower income countries who participated,

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Speaker 4: we were essentially doubling their annual income with this gift.

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Speaker 2: So it was a huge amount of money.

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Speaker 4: In contrast the kinds of experiments my lab has done

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Speaker 4: throughout my career are usually more on the order of

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Speaker 4: ten dollars, and so one might say, well, sure people

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Speaker 4: feel happy when they give away a few dollars, but

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Speaker 4: they don't really care.

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Speaker 2: And so this shows us with.

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Speaker 4: Very large amounts of money people are giving a lot

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Speaker 4: and as well, I'm sure talk about more getting a

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Speaker 4: lot of joy from it.

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Speaker 3: So talk about the first pape you published.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So.

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Speaker 4: Chris started out, of course with this interest in how

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Speaker 4: generously are people going to spend the money?

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Speaker 2: And I wanted to know the answer to that too.

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Speaker 4: But I was like, this experiment can answer a lot

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Speaker 4: of fascinating questions. And one thing that I wanted to

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Speaker 4: know just how much happiness can two million dollars buy

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Speaker 4: when it's distributed across a large, diverse group of people,

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Speaker 4: as opposed to concentrated in the hands of one affluent couple.

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Speaker 4: And so, in a paper that is entitled Wealth Redistribution

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Speaker 4: Promotes Happiness, we demonstrate and quantify just how much happiness

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Speaker 4: two million dollars can buy. And one of the things

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Speaker 4: that we demonstrate is that by giving this money away

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Speaker 4: to this diverse group of people, this couple provided two

441
00:21:42,036 --> 00:21:44,916
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty five times as much happiness as they

442
00:21:44,956 --> 00:21:47,716
Speaker 4: could possibly have found for themselves from this money.

443
00:21:48,036 --> 00:21:51,836
Speaker 3: And that's an incredible number and wonderful when you think

444
00:21:51,836 --> 00:21:54,236
Speaker 3: about it, feminine, it's kind of obvious. I mean, when

445
00:21:54,236 --> 00:21:56,956
Speaker 3: someone's rich, how much happier can a bit of extra

446
00:21:56,956 --> 00:22:00,876
Speaker 3: money actually make them? Not much? But when it shared out,

447
00:22:00,956 --> 00:22:02,716
Speaker 3: we know that that can make a lot of difference

448
00:22:02,756 --> 00:22:04,636
Speaker 3: to a lot of people. I've just been hit so

449
00:22:04,756 --> 00:22:08,156
Speaker 3: many times since thinking about this work and writing the

450
00:22:08,156 --> 00:22:10,756
Speaker 3: book of just how big a deal it is that

451
00:22:11,076 --> 00:22:16,076
Speaker 3: generosity is fundamentally asymmetric. This is a really really exciting

452
00:22:16,116 --> 00:22:18,156
Speaker 3: feature about things that we normally think of the world

453
00:22:18,196 --> 00:22:21,676
Speaker 3: in zero some terms. You know, the reason people don't

454
00:22:21,756 --> 00:22:24,036
Speaker 3: give is because of loss, a version you don't want

455
00:22:24,076 --> 00:22:26,396
Speaker 3: to give away you lose it. It feels like you know,

456
00:22:26,516 --> 00:22:29,956
Speaker 3: you're gain my loss, no thank you. But actually there

457
00:22:29,956 --> 00:22:33,636
Speaker 3: are so many circumstances when that is not the case.

458
00:22:33,996 --> 00:22:38,076
Speaker 3: There's so much inequality in the world, and that money

459
00:22:38,156 --> 00:22:41,316
Speaker 3: is sitting there, and the cost to the richer person

460
00:22:41,396 --> 00:22:44,636
Speaker 3: literally is pretty low. And in fact, you could argue

461
00:22:44,756 --> 00:22:46,836
Speaker 3: and and in fact some of the other days you've

462
00:22:46,836 --> 00:22:48,956
Speaker 3: shown is that the actual act of generosity doesn't cost

463
00:22:48,996 --> 00:22:52,596
Speaker 3: them any happiness either it actually boosts their happiness. And

464
00:22:52,636 --> 00:22:55,676
Speaker 3: so it's this kind of thinking which which really gave

465
00:22:55,716 --> 00:22:58,756
Speaker 3: me no choice but to write this book. And if

466
00:22:58,796 --> 00:23:03,156
Speaker 3: there was a culture of generosity, everyone benefits in the

467
00:23:03,196 --> 00:23:05,956
Speaker 3: most amazing way, and we're all connected, and so it

468
00:23:05,956 --> 00:23:08,196
Speaker 3: should be easier to do this than ever. So, so,

469
00:23:08,756 --> 00:23:11,916
Speaker 3: how on earth is it that we're actually experiencing being

470
00:23:11,916 --> 00:23:13,036
Speaker 3: in a world that's getting meaner?

471
00:23:13,756 --> 00:23:15,436
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I don't know if we are living

472
00:23:15,476 --> 00:23:18,196
Speaker 4: in a world that's getting meaner. I think that, you know,

473
00:23:18,276 --> 00:23:20,316
Speaker 4: we have that perception, but I think one thing that

474
00:23:20,356 --> 00:23:23,156
Speaker 4: we've been seeing already just this week at TED so

475
00:23:23,276 --> 00:23:25,996
Speaker 4: far is how much of that may be an illusion

476
00:23:26,036 --> 00:23:28,516
Speaker 4: and how much good really is happening. And that's one

477
00:23:28,516 --> 00:23:30,716
Speaker 4: thing that I love about this experiment is that it

478
00:23:30,756 --> 00:23:34,316
Speaker 4: really highlights, like when we did the science very carefully

479
00:23:34,876 --> 00:23:39,356
Speaker 4: and tracked exactly what happened, you know, we were discovering

480
00:23:39,396 --> 00:23:43,396
Speaker 4: that people were spending this money in ways that benefited others,

481
00:23:43,476 --> 00:23:44,236
Speaker 4: paying this.

482
00:23:44,396 --> 00:23:45,956
Speaker 2: Act of generosity forward.

483
00:23:46,556 --> 00:23:50,436
Speaker 4: And so I actually, especially after doing this experiment, I

484
00:23:50,476 --> 00:23:55,476
Speaker 4: feel pretty good about humanity's potential for goodness.

485
00:23:55,596 --> 00:23:58,516
Speaker 3: So part of the riddle is that we are filtering

486
00:23:58,996 --> 00:24:01,396
Speaker 3: the stories we tell each other about humanity in a

487
00:24:01,396 --> 00:24:05,036
Speaker 3: way that's very destructive. Social media algorithms are probably helping

488
00:24:05,556 --> 00:24:08,436
Speaker 3: with this, and that when you actually pull the camera

489
00:24:08,516 --> 00:24:12,036
Speaker 3: back and look for actual data about what's happening in

490
00:24:12,076 --> 00:24:14,996
Speaker 3: the world, really different pictures can amaze. And certainly what

491
00:24:15,116 --> 00:24:19,196
Speaker 3: you know in doing research for this book, my brilliant

492
00:24:19,196 --> 00:24:22,116
Speaker 3: researcher is actually here, Kate. Kate Honey spent a couple

493
00:24:22,116 --> 00:24:24,996
Speaker 3: of years researching and looking for stories under the radar,

494
00:24:25,036 --> 00:24:30,116
Speaker 3: and there are so many stories of people doing kind

495
00:24:30,196 --> 00:24:35,116
Speaker 3: things that create these amazing ripple effects. Are they on

496
00:24:35,156 --> 00:24:37,836
Speaker 3: your news feed? They are not. And so it's tragic

497
00:24:37,876 --> 00:24:41,476
Speaker 3: because there's a saying we are shaped by the stories

498
00:24:41,836 --> 00:24:43,716
Speaker 3: we tell ourselves. There's evidence for this.

499
00:24:43,836 --> 00:24:45,876
Speaker 4: Yes, that's right, And I think it can also be

500
00:24:45,996 --> 00:24:49,436
Speaker 4: a kind of self reinforcing cycle where if we feel

501
00:24:49,476 --> 00:24:52,476
Speaker 4: like the world is this terrible place where nobody's doing

502
00:24:52,556 --> 00:24:55,036
Speaker 4: anything good, then why should I step up and do

503
00:24:55,116 --> 00:25:01,156
Speaker 4: something positive? And so I think flipping that script is

504
00:25:01,196 --> 00:25:09,396
Speaker 4: incredibly important.

505
00:25:14,756 --> 00:25:17,036
Speaker 3: Well, one of the joyful things was that after the

506
00:25:17,076 --> 00:25:19,356
Speaker 3: experiment was done and the science was sort of locked down,

507
00:25:19,836 --> 00:25:22,036
Speaker 3: I got to write to some of the people who'd

508
00:25:22,036 --> 00:25:24,956
Speaker 3: participated because they'd told us, you know, what they're done,

509
00:25:25,356 --> 00:25:28,916
Speaker 3: and I got to ask them, why did you do that?

510
00:25:29,396 --> 00:25:34,356
Speaker 3: And it was an amazing consistent picture that came back.

511
00:25:34,396 --> 00:25:37,636
Speaker 3: People often use the same language. A typical thing that

512
00:25:37,676 --> 00:25:42,676
Speaker 3: people said, and this surprised me was I felt seen,

513
00:25:43,356 --> 00:25:45,396
Speaker 3: you know, the act this is weird to me, like

514
00:25:45,716 --> 00:25:48,956
Speaker 3: being given ten thousand dollars by a stranger on the internet.

515
00:25:48,956 --> 00:25:52,436
Speaker 3: They felt I felt seen, and I felt like I

516
00:25:53,636 --> 00:25:56,356
Speaker 3: needed to let other people feel seen the way I

517
00:25:56,396 --> 00:26:00,436
Speaker 3: had felt seen. So this was quite a powerful, you know,

518
00:26:00,516 --> 00:26:03,996
Speaker 3: biological thing that really surprised me. But several of them said,

519
00:26:04,036 --> 00:26:06,036
Speaker 3: if I'd won this money in a lottery, I wouldn't

520
00:26:06,036 --> 00:26:06,916
Speaker 3: have behaved this way.

521
00:26:07,236 --> 00:26:09,916
Speaker 4: Well, and that's a really interesting hypothesis, right, So is

522
00:26:09,956 --> 00:26:12,396
Speaker 4: it the case, you know, that they wouldn't have been

523
00:26:12,396 --> 00:26:15,516
Speaker 4: so generous had we described the source of the money differently?

524
00:26:15,516 --> 00:26:17,956
Speaker 4: And I think you and I had a conversation after

525
00:26:17,996 --> 00:26:20,436
Speaker 4: we'd collected the data, after we'd run the experiment, and

526
00:26:20,476 --> 00:26:22,836
Speaker 4: you said, I wish we'd, you know, had this other

527
00:26:22,836 --> 00:26:24,836
Speaker 4: condition where we told people the money was, you know,

528
00:26:24,876 --> 00:26:26,676
Speaker 4: from a lottery or if they'd earned it or something.

529
00:26:26,836 --> 00:26:28,556
Speaker 2: And I was like, welcome to being a scientist.

530
00:26:28,716 --> 00:26:30,956
Speaker 4: This is the experience you always have after you run

531
00:26:31,036 --> 00:26:32,076
Speaker 4: the experiment, you wish.

532
00:26:31,956 --> 00:26:32,556
Speaker 2: You want the next thing.

533
00:26:32,596 --> 00:26:35,356
Speaker 4: But that's also the beautiful thing about sciences that were

534
00:26:35,596 --> 00:26:38,996
Speaker 4: each each question we try to answer propels us toward

535
00:26:39,036 --> 00:26:40,996
Speaker 4: the next one. And I think that's a really, really

536
00:26:40,996 --> 00:26:43,436
Speaker 4: fascinating one that you know, if anyone wants to donate

537
00:26:43,476 --> 00:26:46,556
Speaker 4: two million dollars, I'd love to pursue.

538
00:26:46,876 --> 00:26:50,916
Speaker 3: But there was there's a third payper you're working on.

539
00:26:51,196 --> 00:26:52,036
Speaker 3: Tell us about that one.

540
00:26:52,196 --> 00:26:54,636
Speaker 4: Yeah, So in the paper that we're currently writing up,

541
00:26:54,636 --> 00:26:56,316
Speaker 4: so you all are among the first to hear about it.

542
00:26:57,116 --> 00:27:00,596
Speaker 4: We were looking at the choices that people made about

543
00:27:00,596 --> 00:27:02,836
Speaker 4: how to spend the money in terms of the implications

544
00:27:02,836 --> 00:27:07,556
Speaker 4: for their own happiness. So we painstakingly coded each and

545
00:27:07,596 --> 00:27:11,196
Speaker 4: every spending description to assess how people had spent the money.

546
00:27:11,196 --> 00:27:15,396
Speaker 4: So we placed each purchase into seventeen different possible categories,

547
00:27:15,556 --> 00:27:20,556
Speaker 4: ranging from paying for utility bills, buying durable goods, buying

548
00:27:20,636 --> 00:27:23,316
Speaker 4: purchases that would save you time, all kinds of different things.

549
00:27:23,596 --> 00:27:26,236
Speaker 4: And then we looked at how much happiness each purchase

550
00:27:26,436 --> 00:27:30,316
Speaker 4: provided participants. And so what we discovered is that out

551
00:27:30,316 --> 00:27:34,796
Speaker 4: of all seventeen categories. The type of spending that provided

552
00:27:34,836 --> 00:27:39,116
Speaker 4: the highest level of happiness was in fact, making charitable donations,

553
00:27:39,756 --> 00:27:42,636
Speaker 4: so it confirmed what we had seen in previous research,

554
00:27:42,716 --> 00:27:46,236
Speaker 4: but with much larger spending amounts. If you're curious what

555
00:27:46,316 --> 00:27:50,076
Speaker 4: some of the others were. Second place was buying experiences,

556
00:27:50,516 --> 00:27:53,436
Speaker 4: so you know, going on trips, going out for special meals.

557
00:27:53,476 --> 00:27:56,916
Speaker 4: These also provided a lot of happiness. One that hasn't

558
00:27:56,916 --> 00:28:00,156
Speaker 4: popped up in previous research, but that we discovered in

559
00:28:00,196 --> 00:28:03,116
Speaker 4: this study produced particularly high levels of happiness was spending

560
00:28:03,116 --> 00:28:03,876
Speaker 4: money on education.

561
00:28:03,956 --> 00:28:06,356
Speaker 2: And as a professor, I like that one.

562
00:28:06,996 --> 00:28:11,116
Speaker 3: This one thing I'm puzzled by is that, I mean,

563
00:28:11,116 --> 00:28:15,196
Speaker 3: in one level, it makes sense why being generous would

564
00:28:15,236 --> 00:28:18,596
Speaker 3: bring happiness with it. If you think from an evolutionary perspective,

565
00:28:19,236 --> 00:28:21,356
Speaker 3: you would want there to be a reward for cooperative

566
00:28:21,396 --> 00:28:25,436
Speaker 3: behavior because there's obviously, you know, the belief is that

567
00:28:25,596 --> 00:28:28,636
Speaker 3: species that learn to cooperate get benefit from it, and

568
00:28:28,676 --> 00:28:32,556
Speaker 3: so you need that reward to do it. And yet,

569
00:28:32,676 --> 00:28:36,676
Speaker 3: unlike with other types of happiness, it doesn't seem to

570
00:28:36,676 --> 00:28:40,596
Speaker 3: be advertised. So if I'm hungry, I know that if

571
00:28:40,676 --> 00:28:43,596
Speaker 3: I eat, I will feel better, and you can say

572
00:28:43,636 --> 00:28:46,196
Speaker 3: the same for most other sort of obvious sort of

573
00:28:46,196 --> 00:28:50,596
Speaker 3: biological urges. But on this one, I think a lot

574
00:28:50,676 --> 00:28:53,756
Speaker 3: of people don't know that they're going to be happy.

575
00:28:54,276 --> 00:28:57,356
Speaker 3: It becomes a matter of sort of wisdom passed down

576
00:28:57,436 --> 00:28:59,436
Speaker 3: by the elders in your community or something like that,

577
00:28:59,676 --> 00:29:03,476
Speaker 3: or something that you eventually discover. Why do you think

578
00:29:03,756 --> 00:29:05,316
Speaker 3: that is hidden?

579
00:29:05,796 --> 00:29:08,756
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think it's actually surprisingly difficult for

580
00:29:08,796 --> 00:29:11,596
Speaker 4: people to figure out what makes them happy.

581
00:29:12,436 --> 00:29:13,036
Speaker 2: For one thing.

582
00:29:13,116 --> 00:29:16,236
Speaker 4: You know, we can notice that we feel happy after

583
00:29:16,836 --> 00:29:20,236
Speaker 4: you know, helping a friend engaging in some active generosity,

584
00:29:20,476 --> 00:29:22,556
Speaker 4: but we might say, oh, it's because you know, my

585
00:29:22,596 --> 00:29:24,716
Speaker 4: friend was in this particular situation and I'm glad that

586
00:29:24,716 --> 00:29:25,876
Speaker 4: I was able to help her out with that. But

587
00:29:25,916 --> 00:29:29,076
Speaker 4: we don't necessarily make the right broader inference of like

588
00:29:29,156 --> 00:29:31,916
Speaker 4: this is about generosity as a whole. And I think

589
00:29:31,956 --> 00:29:33,756
Speaker 4: there's also just a lot of smoke screens in our

590
00:29:33,796 --> 00:29:37,316
Speaker 4: society where that's not necessarily the message that we hear.

591
00:29:37,396 --> 00:29:41,116
Speaker 4: Although it's interesting because I have gotten, you know, letters

592
00:29:41,156 --> 00:29:43,596
Speaker 4: from people saying, why did we need you as a

593
00:29:43,596 --> 00:29:45,916
Speaker 4: social scientist to tell us that giving makes us happy?

594
00:29:45,956 --> 00:29:47,756
Speaker 4: This is something that is you know, taught to us

595
00:29:47,756 --> 00:29:51,516
Speaker 4: in religious traditions, by grandparents and so forth. So those

596
00:29:51,556 --> 00:29:54,236
Speaker 4: messages are out there. But I think it's really interesting

597
00:29:54,276 --> 00:29:57,116
Speaker 4: the point you make about, you know, feeling hungry, because

598
00:29:57,436 --> 00:29:59,476
Speaker 4: I think it's when people are in the moment that

599
00:29:59,516 --> 00:30:02,276
Speaker 4: they don't necessarily realize, oh, this is the best thing

600
00:30:02,316 --> 00:30:04,076
Speaker 4: that I could do with this money is use it

601
00:30:04,116 --> 00:30:06,476
Speaker 4: to benefit somebody else. And in fact, we've run studies

602
00:30:06,596 --> 00:30:09,156
Speaker 4: where we say, hey, we can give you money and

603
00:30:09,236 --> 00:30:12,116
Speaker 4: want you to tell us what would make you the happiest,

604
00:30:12,116 --> 00:30:15,116
Speaker 4: and they don't tend to think of using it to

605
00:30:15,156 --> 00:30:17,516
Speaker 4: benefit others. So's there does seem to be something about

606
00:30:17,596 --> 00:30:20,796
Speaker 4: money in particular that puts people in this mindset of

607
00:30:20,876 --> 00:30:24,036
Speaker 4: looking out for themselves, and so that that may actually

608
00:30:24,076 --> 00:30:26,956
Speaker 4: serve to distract us from this broader knowledge that we

609
00:30:27,036 --> 00:30:29,516
Speaker 4: have maybe picked up from important people and traditions in

610
00:30:29,556 --> 00:30:32,796
Speaker 4: our life that may get lost when we're faced with that,

611
00:30:32,956 --> 00:30:34,196
Speaker 4: you know wallet.

612
00:30:34,596 --> 00:30:41,556
Speaker 3: In your wonderful ted talk, you said that generosity doesn't

613
00:30:41,556 --> 00:30:45,636
Speaker 3: always bring happiness. What matters is how it's done, and

614
00:30:45,676 --> 00:30:50,836
Speaker 3: that generosity that is done where there is direct contact,

615
00:30:50,876 --> 00:30:53,596
Speaker 3: for example, with a person, when you can feel or

616
00:30:53,716 --> 00:30:57,596
Speaker 3: see the human impact of it, works a lot better.

617
00:30:57,636 --> 00:31:00,836
Speaker 3: In terms of bringing happiness. Could you say a bit

618
00:31:00,876 --> 00:31:01,396
Speaker 3: more about that.

619
00:31:01,796 --> 00:31:04,116
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I would say there's sort of three key

620
00:31:04,276 --> 00:31:08,196
Speaker 4: ingredients that are pretty essential in turning generosity into happiness.

621
00:31:08,356 --> 00:31:11,836
Speaker 4: So one is feeling a sense of connection ideally with it,

622
00:31:11,916 --> 00:31:14,076
Speaker 4: you know, the individuals or the causing you are helping,

623
00:31:14,116 --> 00:31:17,476
Speaker 4: having that actual In my case, for example, we were

624
00:31:17,516 --> 00:31:20,756
Speaker 4: able to privately sponsor a family of Searian refugees to

625
00:31:20,756 --> 00:31:22,716
Speaker 4: come to Vancouver, and we were literally picking them up

626
00:31:22,716 --> 00:31:24,716
Speaker 4: at the airport and hugging them, and so that's like

627
00:31:24,756 --> 00:31:26,876
Speaker 4: the ultimate form of contact. But even if you're a

628
00:31:26,876 --> 00:31:28,956
Speaker 4: little bit more removed from that, feeling that sense of

629
00:31:28,956 --> 00:31:31,956
Speaker 4: connection is critically important, and I think a lot of

630
00:31:32,036 --> 00:31:34,996
Speaker 4: charitable giving opportunities don't offer that, and that there's this

631
00:31:35,036 --> 00:31:37,876
Speaker 4: beautiful space for innovation and figuring out how to create that,

632
00:31:37,916 --> 00:31:40,716
Speaker 4: particularly when we're giving to people far away. So connection

633
00:31:40,836 --> 00:31:43,716
Speaker 4: is probably the number one. But also impact matters, so

634
00:31:43,796 --> 00:31:47,756
Speaker 4: being able to really understand or at least vividly imagine

635
00:31:47,836 --> 00:31:50,076
Speaker 4: how your generosity is making a difference.

636
00:31:50,516 --> 00:31:52,836
Speaker 2: And finally, choice matters, So feeling that.

637
00:31:52,756 --> 00:31:55,756
Speaker 4: You have a sense of choice, of autonomy of agency.

638
00:31:56,276 --> 00:31:58,956
Speaker 4: There's no better way to rob people of the joy

639
00:31:58,956 --> 00:32:00,876
Speaker 4: of giving than to back them into a corner and

640
00:32:00,876 --> 00:32:02,836
Speaker 4: make them feel like they've been forced to give. And

641
00:32:02,876 --> 00:32:05,316
Speaker 4: so I think, you know, we want to keep these

642
00:32:05,436 --> 00:32:08,596
Speaker 4: ingredients in mind because ideally we are building a future

643
00:32:09,156 --> 00:32:12,036
Speaker 4: that is filled with opportunities to give in these joyful

644
00:32:12,076 --> 00:32:15,316
Speaker 4: ways that involve you know, connection, impact, and choice.

645
00:32:15,356 --> 00:32:18,236
Speaker 3: So help connect the dots here because that makes a

646
00:32:18,236 --> 00:32:21,836
Speaker 3: lot of sense to me, But it also seems to

647
00:32:22,116 --> 00:32:26,236
Speaker 3: contradict another piece of advice that feels important, which is

648
00:32:26,236 --> 00:32:29,516
Speaker 3: that we want people to bring their minds to their giving.

649
00:32:29,956 --> 00:32:32,756
Speaker 3: So much of you know, life is this battle between

650
00:32:32,796 --> 00:32:38,236
Speaker 3: our instincts and then our reflective selves. And Paul Bloom,

651
00:32:38,236 --> 00:32:40,516
Speaker 3: who's been on this podcast series, I wrote a book

652
00:32:40,676 --> 00:32:43,316
Speaker 3: called Against Empathy where he was arguing that, you know,

653
00:32:43,396 --> 00:32:45,956
Speaker 3: we have these powerful feelings of empathy. You see someone suffering,

654
00:32:45,956 --> 00:32:49,036
Speaker 3: you want to help them, and quite possibly that does

655
00:32:49,076 --> 00:32:52,996
Speaker 3: bring with it most happiness, but it may distract us

656
00:32:52,996 --> 00:32:57,236
Speaker 3: from the wisest spending of money. So many people their

657
00:32:57,316 --> 00:33:00,756
Speaker 3: charitable lives are limited to oh, I saw some need

658
00:33:00,796 --> 00:33:03,996
Speaker 3: on TV of some disaster, and so I'll text the

659
00:33:04,036 --> 00:33:06,996
Speaker 3: money there and then you forget about it. And part

660
00:33:06,996 --> 00:33:09,756
Speaker 3: of what we want to argue for is for people

661
00:33:09,796 --> 00:33:13,596
Speaker 3: to be reflective and almost strategic about their giving so

662
00:33:13,636 --> 00:33:17,956
Speaker 3: that they can spend the money wisely. Now that may

663
00:33:18,036 --> 00:33:21,036
Speaker 3: mean that that doesn't make them as happy because you're

664
00:33:21,076 --> 00:33:25,276
Speaker 3: not triggering those instants out of human instinctive selves. How

665
00:33:25,356 --> 00:33:28,276
Speaker 3: might we bridge and get the best of both worlds here?

666
00:33:28,516 --> 00:33:30,716
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the key to bridging those worlds is

667
00:33:30,756 --> 00:33:34,276
Speaker 4: to focus on impact. Because obviously impact is what matters

668
00:33:34,276 --> 00:33:37,356
Speaker 4: when we're kind of thinking with our heads. But we

669
00:33:37,436 --> 00:33:39,796
Speaker 4: also see in our research that people get a lot

670
00:33:39,876 --> 00:33:42,676
Speaker 4: more joy from giving when they can see or vividly

671
00:33:42,716 --> 00:33:46,596
Speaker 4: imagine the impact that they're having. And so I think

672
00:33:46,876 --> 00:33:50,996
Speaker 4: making it possible for charities that really do have a

673
00:33:51,436 --> 00:33:56,196
Speaker 4: genuine impact bringing that out in a way that potential

674
00:33:56,236 --> 00:34:00,356
Speaker 4: donors can see it, understand it, vividly experience it. I

675
00:34:00,356 --> 00:34:02,836
Speaker 4: think that is an opportunity where our heads and our

676
00:34:02,916 --> 00:34:06,556
Speaker 4: hearts meet and can center around impact. That said, you

677
00:34:06,636 --> 00:34:10,276
Speaker 4: mentioned you know, is this the wisest use.

678
00:34:10,116 --> 00:34:10,756
Speaker 2: Of your money?

679
00:34:10,836 --> 00:34:15,476
Speaker 4: And my favorite part of your book was arguing that

680
00:34:16,316 --> 00:34:17,876
Speaker 4: maybe that's not the right question.

681
00:34:18,036 --> 00:34:19,636
Speaker 2: Maybe we shouldn't be trying.

682
00:34:19,396 --> 00:34:24,756
Speaker 4: For the wisest use of our charitable donation money or

683
00:34:24,836 --> 00:34:28,236
Speaker 4: our pro social spending because that puts us in a trap.

684
00:34:28,276 --> 00:34:30,396
Speaker 4: And I've experienced this myself where I'm like, I have

685
00:34:30,436 --> 00:34:34,316
Speaker 4: to find the best charity doing X right, and then

686
00:34:34,476 --> 00:34:37,236
Speaker 4: I don't get around to donating, or I just get

687
00:34:37,236 --> 00:34:39,196
Speaker 4: in my head about it. And so I love your

688
00:34:39,236 --> 00:34:41,876
Speaker 4: book for sort of freeing people to say, is this

689
00:34:41,996 --> 00:34:44,596
Speaker 4: a good use of the money? And if the answer

690
00:34:44,636 --> 00:34:49,196
Speaker 4: is yes, then maybe greenlight yourself to go ahead and donate.

691
00:34:49,676 --> 00:34:52,076
Speaker 3: Yes. I like that. We have to really know ourselves

692
00:34:52,716 --> 00:34:55,916
Speaker 3: and figure out one how to avoid that trap. Two

693
00:34:56,356 --> 00:34:59,316
Speaker 3: how to feed some of those human instincts. So, say

694
00:34:59,356 --> 00:35:04,556
Speaker 3: you discover make an intellectual conclusion that an organization is

695
00:35:05,116 --> 00:35:09,996
Speaker 3: a wise one to support, don't just stop there. Give

696
00:35:10,076 --> 00:35:13,316
Speaker 3: your humanness a chance to actually see the impact. So

697
00:35:13,516 --> 00:35:17,516
Speaker 3: the statistics coming out of that group won't be enough,

698
00:35:18,076 --> 00:35:22,516
Speaker 3: But maybe if you actually can meet and get to

699
00:35:22,556 --> 00:35:26,476
Speaker 3: know some of the stories that are actually behind those statistics,

700
00:35:26,636 --> 00:35:29,036
Speaker 3: and perhaps join a community of other people who are

701
00:35:29,036 --> 00:35:31,956
Speaker 3: supporting them, that is the kind of thing that can

702
00:35:32,116 --> 00:35:34,676
Speaker 3: carry you on and turn a sort of short term

703
00:35:34,676 --> 00:35:37,436
Speaker 3: intellectual decision that's smart into an emotional thing that actually

704
00:35:37,676 --> 00:35:39,676
Speaker 3: brings with it joy and habit making.

705
00:35:40,036 --> 00:35:44,196
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think for folks working in the nonprofit world,

706
00:35:44,476 --> 00:35:48,276
Speaker 4: contemplating not just how can we get donors to give

707
00:35:48,356 --> 00:35:51,076
Speaker 4: more money, but how can we make the experience of

708
00:35:51,116 --> 00:35:55,676
Speaker 4: donation more joyful is potentially a way to tackle that

709
00:35:55,756 --> 00:35:57,676
Speaker 4: question from a different perspective.

710
00:35:57,796 --> 00:36:01,436
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so ted, audience, this is your turn. Now.

711
00:36:01,596 --> 00:36:04,796
Speaker 3: If you have a question for Liz, please raise your hand,

712
00:36:04,876 --> 00:36:07,396
Speaker 3: A microphone will come to you and we're going to

713
00:36:07,396 --> 00:36:10,396
Speaker 3: get through as many as we can. Hi.

714
00:36:10,516 --> 00:36:11,196
Speaker 2: Yes, Sarah.

715
00:36:11,276 --> 00:36:14,156
Speaker 6: So I'm wondering is there a direct correlation between the

716
00:36:14,196 --> 00:36:17,036
Speaker 6: amount of happiness and the amount of generosity? Do you

717
00:36:17,076 --> 00:36:19,356
Speaker 6: get so much more money happiness out of giving a

718
00:36:19,396 --> 00:36:22,276
Speaker 6: million versus out of giving a thousand, And what does

719
00:36:22,316 --> 00:36:23,556
Speaker 6: that sort of racial look like.

720
00:36:23,716 --> 00:36:28,156
Speaker 4: This is actually a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Certainly

721
00:36:28,196 --> 00:36:31,636
Speaker 4: there is a relationship, and in fact there's a relationship.

722
00:36:31,636 --> 00:36:34,996
Speaker 4: What we see in the data from the Mystery experiment

723
00:36:35,276 --> 00:36:38,036
Speaker 4: is that just in general, people get more happiness from

724
00:36:38,036 --> 00:36:41,156
Speaker 4: more expensive stuff. So like the more money they spent

725
00:36:41,356 --> 00:36:44,036
Speaker 4: on a purchase, the more the higher they tend to

726
00:36:44,116 --> 00:36:46,396
Speaker 4: rate it. Not perfectly in terms of happiness, but certainly

727
00:36:46,436 --> 00:36:47,516
Speaker 4: that relationship is there.

728
00:36:48,236 --> 00:36:49,836
Speaker 2: So I would say.

729
00:36:49,636 --> 00:36:54,796
Speaker 4: Overall, larger amounts of money spent charitably do provide more happiness.

730
00:36:54,916 --> 00:36:57,836
Speaker 4: And yet it is not at all like a perfect

731
00:36:57,956 --> 00:37:01,796
Speaker 4: or super strong relationship, because people can also spend a

732
00:37:01,876 --> 00:37:04,396
Speaker 4: pretty small amount of money but do so in a

733
00:37:04,436 --> 00:37:07,996
Speaker 4: way that provides a ton of connection, a lot of

734
00:37:08,036 --> 00:37:10,156
Speaker 4: impacts and the felt from really chosen and that can

735
00:37:10,196 --> 00:37:12,636
Speaker 4: deliver a big boost in terms of happiness. So it's

736
00:37:12,636 --> 00:37:16,716
Speaker 4: certainly not just like a dollar for dollar kind of relationship.

737
00:37:16,716 --> 00:37:18,436
Speaker 4: And I will say too, I just want to mention

738
00:37:18,796 --> 00:37:22,236
Speaker 4: there's more to discover in these data. And we have

739
00:37:22,756 --> 00:37:24,916
Speaker 4: done a lot of work on our side to make

740
00:37:24,956 --> 00:37:25,836
Speaker 4: these data.

741
00:37:26,156 --> 00:37:28,716
Speaker 2: Accessible to researchers. So researchers need to come to us.

742
00:37:28,956 --> 00:37:31,356
Speaker 4: We'll check their credentials and everything, but we think there

743
00:37:31,356 --> 00:37:33,996
Speaker 4: are unanswered questions. So or if you are a scientist

744
00:37:34,156 --> 00:37:36,196
Speaker 4: or a curious philanthropist and want to try to figure

745
00:37:36,196 --> 00:37:38,676
Speaker 4: something out. One thing we've talked about is trying to

746
00:37:38,716 --> 00:37:41,316
Speaker 4: make these data as much of a gift to the

747
00:37:41,356 --> 00:37:44,876
Speaker 4: scientific community as we can by allowing people to use

748
00:37:44,916 --> 00:37:46,636
Speaker 4: the data to answer their own questions.

749
00:37:47,196 --> 00:37:49,916
Speaker 5: So I'm very nique, thank you for this. This is fascinating.

750
00:37:50,276 --> 00:37:52,396
Speaker 5: So I work in the US, but I live in

751
00:37:52,436 --> 00:37:56,316
Speaker 5: Europe and My question is to what extent does culture

752
00:37:56,436 --> 00:38:00,356
Speaker 5: impact how generous we are, Because what I've seen is

753
00:38:00,356 --> 00:38:03,396
Speaker 5: that in the US it's a very giving culture when

754
00:38:03,436 --> 00:38:07,396
Speaker 5: it comes to making a check, supporting your local charity,

755
00:38:08,156 --> 00:38:11,796
Speaker 5: donating your time. In Europe it's very, very different, and

756
00:38:12,396 --> 00:38:16,636
Speaker 5: it's really hard to find local charities, not even for children.

757
00:38:16,876 --> 00:38:20,836
Speaker 5: Or I tried to put something together for my daughter's school,

758
00:38:20,916 --> 00:38:23,956
Speaker 5: and everybody was so shocked, you know, and I think

759
00:38:23,996 --> 00:38:28,116
Speaker 5: they even doubted my intentions. It was really crazy. So

760
00:38:28,276 --> 00:38:30,316
Speaker 5: I had a thought, and I'd love to know what

761
00:38:30,396 --> 00:38:33,916
Speaker 5: you think. So in America we pay fewer taxes, really,

762
00:38:34,116 --> 00:38:37,836
Speaker 5: and there isn't this social safety net. So maybe there's

763
00:38:38,396 --> 00:38:40,756
Speaker 5: we have to do this because we have to fill

764
00:38:40,796 --> 00:38:43,236
Speaker 5: the gaps, and maybe in Europe that's not the case

765
00:38:43,236 --> 00:38:45,836
Speaker 5: and we pay a lot of taxes. That's a theory,

766
00:38:45,876 --> 00:38:48,036
Speaker 5: but I think it's probably more complex than that.

767
00:38:48,156 --> 00:38:49,316
Speaker 3: So what are your thoughts.

768
00:38:49,396 --> 00:38:54,116
Speaker 4: I mean, certainly we see big cultural differences when you look,

769
00:38:54,316 --> 00:38:57,476
Speaker 4: for example, in the Gallop World data that Chris mentioned,

770
00:38:57,676 --> 00:39:00,956
Speaker 4: there are substantial differences between different countries in terms of

771
00:39:00,996 --> 00:39:03,436
Speaker 4: how much people give to charity. I would say the

772
00:39:03,476 --> 00:39:06,916
Speaker 4: fascinating thing in this particular experiment was that, you know,

773
00:39:06,916 --> 00:39:10,956
Speaker 4: we had people from three lower income countries, so Kenya, Indonesia,

774
00:39:10,996 --> 00:39:15,636
Speaker 4: and Brazil. For higher income countries the US, the UK, Australia,

775
00:39:15,676 --> 00:39:18,436
Speaker 4: and Canada, and we didn't have enough people within each

776
00:39:18,476 --> 00:39:22,156
Speaker 4: country to treat each country separately. But we compared the

777
00:39:22,196 --> 00:39:24,556
Speaker 4: lower income countries with the higher income countries, and we

778
00:39:24,956 --> 00:39:28,036
Speaker 4: expected that perhaps people in the higher income countries would

779
00:39:28,116 --> 00:39:30,036
Speaker 4: spend more money on others because they have a lot

780
00:39:30,076 --> 00:39:32,876
Speaker 4: more disposable income on average, but we didn't find that.

781
00:39:32,916 --> 00:39:35,796
Speaker 4: We actually found people in the lower income countries spent

782
00:39:35,916 --> 00:39:38,716
Speaker 4: just as much on others compared to those in the

783
00:39:38,796 --> 00:39:39,716
Speaker 4: higher income countries.

784
00:39:40,276 --> 00:39:42,596
Speaker 7: First of all, let me say I'm one hundred percent

785
00:39:42,676 --> 00:39:44,956
Speaker 7: on giving. I'm a philanthropist. I worked with my local

786
00:39:44,956 --> 00:39:49,036
Speaker 7: community foundations. The first challenging question I have is this is,

787
00:39:49,196 --> 00:39:52,436
Speaker 7: since you're measuring happiness, I want to focus on that

788
00:39:52,556 --> 00:39:55,756
Speaker 7: word because I want to talk about happiness versus joy.

789
00:39:56,316 --> 00:39:58,596
Speaker 7: I noticed that you use those two terms I guess

790
00:39:58,596 --> 00:40:01,196
Speaker 7: interchangeably too, and I'm going to ask you how you

791
00:40:01,276 --> 00:40:03,636
Speaker 7: define happiness in order to measure happiness.

792
00:40:03,836 --> 00:40:05,676
Speaker 4: Thank you for asking, ma, because it is helpful to

793
00:40:05,716 --> 00:40:10,876
Speaker 4: clarify the definition. So we we define happiness as subjective

794
00:40:10,916 --> 00:40:13,276
Speaker 4: well being. That's like the technical jargon y term if

795
00:40:13,276 --> 00:40:17,196
Speaker 4: you want to google research in this area and broadly in.

796
00:40:17,196 --> 00:40:19,836
Speaker 2: My field of social psychology, that is.

797
00:40:19,876 --> 00:40:23,716
Speaker 4: The dominant way that we think about happiness. And so

798
00:40:23,876 --> 00:40:27,036
Speaker 4: subjective well being has three core components. And so we

799
00:40:27,156 --> 00:40:30,796
Speaker 4: have positive affect and that can include feelings like joy,

800
00:40:30,836 --> 00:40:33,516
Speaker 4: although it's sort of it's very central. It's like capturing

801
00:40:33,876 --> 00:40:38,116
Speaker 4: sort of the core elements of just feeling good. Basically,

802
00:40:38,436 --> 00:40:41,756
Speaker 4: we have negative affect, and so we're looking, you know,

803
00:40:42,036 --> 00:40:46,316
Speaker 4: just to be clear, even happy people experience negative emotions.

804
00:40:46,356 --> 00:40:49,276
Speaker 4: Negative emotions are healthy and they're good, they're part of

805
00:40:49,316 --> 00:40:50,636
Speaker 4: who we're meant to.

806
00:40:50,556 --> 00:40:51,436
Speaker 2: Be as a species.

807
00:40:51,636 --> 00:40:54,076
Speaker 4: But you know, very happy people tend to experience a

808
00:40:54,116 --> 00:40:57,036
Speaker 4: lot more positive emotion than negative emotion on a typical day.

809
00:40:57,436 --> 00:41:00,356
Speaker 4: And then the third component, which is really important is

810
00:41:00,436 --> 00:41:04,196
Speaker 4: life satisfaction, and that is a more cognitive and valuative,

811
00:41:04,276 --> 00:41:07,276
Speaker 4: more reflective judgment of like am I leading the kind

812
00:41:07,316 --> 00:41:10,316
Speaker 4: of life that I want to have? And the remarkable

813
00:41:10,316 --> 00:41:14,076
Speaker 4: thing about this experiment is that we saw substantial changes

814
00:41:14,236 --> 00:41:18,276
Speaker 4: not only in positive emotions and negative emotions, but also

815
00:41:18,436 --> 00:41:21,556
Speaker 4: in life satisfaction and in fact, when my lab reviewed

816
00:41:21,676 --> 00:41:24,956
Speaker 4: all of the preregistered experiments that have ever been conducted

817
00:41:25,116 --> 00:41:29,036
Speaker 4: on happiness, we found that this experiment had the largest

818
00:41:29,076 --> 00:41:31,876
Speaker 4: impact on life satisfaction that's ever been found.

819
00:41:31,996 --> 00:41:33,636
Speaker 3: So I think what the question is getting at is

820
00:41:33,676 --> 00:41:35,276
Speaker 3: that we want to feel that there's a difference between

821
00:41:35,276 --> 00:41:40,556
Speaker 3: the temporary pleasure of eating strawberry ice cream versus sort

822
00:41:40,596 --> 00:41:44,156
Speaker 3: of the deeper life satisfaction or joy of that can

823
00:41:44,196 --> 00:41:46,876
Speaker 3: come from giving. And I mean it does science support

824
00:41:46,916 --> 00:41:49,516
Speaker 3: the fact that there's the form of happiness that you

825
00:41:49,556 --> 00:41:52,036
Speaker 3: get from generosity. You know, it goes to that deeper happiness.

826
00:41:52,076 --> 00:41:54,916
Speaker 3: It's longer lasting than just the sort of temporary positive

827
00:41:54,956 --> 00:41:56,316
Speaker 3: effect that you might otherwise get.

828
00:41:56,516 --> 00:41:58,836
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we see it in this work and

829
00:41:59,156 --> 00:42:01,996
Speaker 4: in other studies. We see that the effects of generosity

830
00:42:02,076 --> 00:42:04,676
Speaker 4: are pretty broad and robust. So we see them both

831
00:42:04,716 --> 00:42:08,196
Speaker 4: in terms of this immediate increase in positive mood, but

832
00:42:08,516 --> 00:42:12,476
Speaker 4: also over time, this seems to result in actual changes

833
00:42:12,516 --> 00:42:14,836
Speaker 4: in people's satisfaction with their lives.

834
00:42:15,316 --> 00:42:18,156
Speaker 8: When I'm giving, should I be giving a dollar a

835
00:42:18,276 --> 00:42:22,076
Speaker 8: day to get my happiness or quarterly? What's a cadence?

836
00:42:22,316 --> 00:42:24,076
Speaker 8: And then should I be paying attention to the percentage

837
00:42:24,116 --> 00:42:26,756
Speaker 8: of my income or the percentage of the receiver's income, I.

838
00:42:26,716 --> 00:42:29,116
Speaker 4: Would say, again, it's not so much about the exact

839
00:42:29,196 --> 00:42:31,756
Speaker 4: number of dollars, but I would say looking for opportunities

840
00:42:31,796 --> 00:42:34,396
Speaker 4: to give where you really feel a sense of the impact.

841
00:42:35,156 --> 00:42:38,516
Speaker 3: In the book, I suggest to people who are well

842
00:42:38,516 --> 00:42:41,236
Speaker 3: off that we could do worse than look at what

843
00:42:41,316 --> 00:42:44,876
Speaker 3: the religious traditions are and the expectations are, which in

844
00:42:45,316 --> 00:42:48,996
Speaker 3: Christianity and Judaism are ten percent of income and in

845
00:42:49,636 --> 00:42:53,036
Speaker 3: Islam it's two and a half percent of net worth annually.

846
00:42:53,116 --> 00:42:55,596
Speaker 3: And I say, if you really want to embrace the

847
00:42:55,636 --> 00:42:58,236
Speaker 3: notion that as secular people many of us here at

848
00:42:58,236 --> 00:43:01,876
Speaker 3: TA probably secular people, do we want omorle standards to

849
00:43:01,876 --> 00:43:03,716
Speaker 3: be at least as high as those are the religions.

850
00:43:04,076 --> 00:43:07,396
Speaker 3: If so, there's an argument that you should try and

851
00:43:07,436 --> 00:43:09,796
Speaker 3: get to the position where you can commit to the

852
00:43:09,916 --> 00:43:12,836
Speaker 3: hire of those two standards ten percent of income or

853
00:43:12,876 --> 00:43:15,316
Speaker 3: two and a half percent of networth. What amazed me

854
00:43:15,356 --> 00:43:16,956
Speaker 3: in doing the book is that if you accept that,

855
00:43:17,036 --> 00:43:19,636
Speaker 3: embrace that, and do the math at what that would raise,

856
00:43:20,436 --> 00:43:22,436
Speaker 3: it would transform the world and we could switch the

857
00:43:22,476 --> 00:43:26,036
Speaker 3: conversation around philanthropy from being this slightly awkward thing to

858
00:43:26,116 --> 00:43:30,356
Speaker 3: being one of thrilling imagination and possibility.

859
00:43:30,716 --> 00:43:34,356
Speaker 9: Is there a difference in happiness experience between giving away

860
00:43:34,436 --> 00:43:37,436
Speaker 9: your money and giving away your time? And do you

861
00:43:37,716 --> 00:43:40,636
Speaker 9: get exponentially greater happiness by giving away both at the

862
00:43:40,676 --> 00:43:41,196
Speaker 9: same type.

863
00:43:42,316 --> 00:43:43,516
Speaker 2: Yeah, fascinating question.

864
00:43:44,316 --> 00:43:46,436
Speaker 4: You know, I can't think of an experiment that has

865
00:43:46,556 --> 00:43:51,316
Speaker 4: directly contrasted those but there's really strong, robust evidence that

866
00:43:51,676 --> 00:43:54,756
Speaker 4: does meet these kind of gold standards of modern behavioral

867
00:43:54,836 --> 00:43:59,196
Speaker 4: science showing that using money to benefit others promotes happiness.

868
00:43:59,196 --> 00:44:03,676
Speaker 4: And interestingly, the research on volunteering, for example, is one

869
00:44:03,676 --> 00:44:08,196
Speaker 4: way of giving time. Strangely that liurture hasn't produced the

870
00:44:08,236 --> 00:44:11,276
Speaker 4: strongest result, and I'm curious about why that is, and

871
00:44:11,636 --> 00:44:14,636
Speaker 4: I would love to see more large scale work on

872
00:44:14,636 --> 00:44:17,156
Speaker 4: that topic. But I especially love your insight about bringing

873
00:44:17,156 --> 00:44:19,316
Speaker 4: the time and the money together, in part because I

874
00:44:19,356 --> 00:44:22,036
Speaker 4: think putting in some of the time can maybe unleash

875
00:44:22,116 --> 00:44:23,156
Speaker 4: the benefits of the money.

876
00:44:23,196 --> 00:44:24,276
Speaker 2: And in my TED.

877
00:44:24,116 --> 00:44:27,476
Speaker 4: Talk I described a local charity just down the street

878
00:44:27,476 --> 00:44:31,436
Speaker 4: from here where folks in Vancouver will get together donate

879
00:44:31,516 --> 00:44:35,116
Speaker 4: money to this organization and then you go and you

880
00:44:35,596 --> 00:44:38,476
Speaker 4: make dinner for people on the downtown east Side and

881
00:44:38,516 --> 00:44:40,796
Speaker 4: you get to meet them, talk to them, and then

882
00:44:40,836 --> 00:44:43,316
Speaker 4: the money doesn't just buy them dinner. It also helps

883
00:44:43,356 --> 00:44:45,756
Speaker 4: to deal with the food security problem more broadly by

884
00:44:45,756 --> 00:44:48,036
Speaker 4: providing lunches throughout the week. And so that I think

885
00:44:48,076 --> 00:44:50,996
Speaker 4: is a beautiful model of a program where it bridges

886
00:44:51,036 --> 00:44:53,756
Speaker 4: the money and the time and the way that creates genuine,

887
00:44:53,756 --> 00:44:56,356
Speaker 4: meaningful connection for both donors and recipients.

888
00:44:56,756 --> 00:45:00,196
Speaker 10: H I just read there is generosity really a function

889
00:45:00,276 --> 00:45:04,396
Speaker 10: of feeling needed, because one feels better after giving. So

890
00:45:04,636 --> 00:45:07,556
Speaker 10: is that my own for my own satisfaction that I'm

891
00:45:07,596 --> 00:45:10,596
Speaker 10: doing or is just happens a label for it.

892
00:45:11,596 --> 00:45:13,716
Speaker 4: I love the answer you give to this question in

893
00:45:13,716 --> 00:45:14,836
Speaker 4: the box, so I think you should.

894
00:45:15,956 --> 00:45:23,316
Speaker 3: So I have been dismayed at how the conversation around generosity,

895
00:45:23,596 --> 00:45:27,876
Speaker 3: especially in terms of philanthropy, is happening in the modern culture,

896
00:45:27,956 --> 00:45:32,556
Speaker 3: where it feels like every opportunity has taken to poke

897
00:45:32,636 --> 00:45:36,436
Speaker 3: at people and to criticize and snipe at decisions of generosity,

898
00:45:36,716 --> 00:45:40,996
Speaker 3: of saying oh there's mixed motivation here, Oh they're only

899
00:45:40,996 --> 00:45:43,396
Speaker 3: doing it to make themselves feel good or to boost

900
00:45:43,516 --> 00:45:46,956
Speaker 3: their reputation, or oh couldn't they have given more? Or

901
00:45:47,036 --> 00:45:48,996
Speaker 3: oh how did they make that money? In the first place,

902
00:45:49,236 --> 00:45:52,716
Speaker 3: all these things are said, and I think it's toxic.

903
00:45:52,756 --> 00:45:56,356
Speaker 3: I think generosity has actually always there's no such thing

904
00:45:56,396 --> 00:45:59,556
Speaker 3: as pure generosity. I think the philosopher Emmanuel Kant is

905
00:45:59,596 --> 00:46:02,636
Speaker 3: wrong on this. Even when I was brought up, it

906
00:46:02,716 --> 00:46:05,676
Speaker 3: was give and you shall receive. You know, even our

907
00:46:05,756 --> 00:46:10,076
Speaker 3: parents you had to apply these other incentives to give.

908
00:46:10,556 --> 00:46:13,156
Speaker 3: And I think as a philosophy student, I used to

909
00:46:13,236 --> 00:46:16,676
Speaker 3: agonize over this. It was like, but I give to

910
00:46:16,796 --> 00:46:19,956
Speaker 3: satisfy my conscience. But it feels good to satisfy my conscience.

911
00:46:20,436 --> 00:46:23,556
Speaker 3: And so is that generosity? Well, yes, it down well

912
00:46:23,596 --> 00:46:26,716
Speaker 3: is generosity. And so I think we should not look

913
00:46:26,796 --> 00:46:30,356
Speaker 3: for reasons to ding generosity. We should look for reasons

914
00:46:30,756 --> 00:46:33,316
Speaker 3: to celebrate it. And in the connected age there are

915
00:46:33,316 --> 00:46:36,516
Speaker 3: more reasons than ever. Why. You know, generosity can spread,

916
00:46:36,556 --> 00:46:39,236
Speaker 3: It can change how you're regarded. It can introduce your

917
00:46:39,276 --> 00:46:41,516
Speaker 3: work to thousands of other people who may want to

918
00:46:41,556 --> 00:46:45,396
Speaker 3: work with you. It can enhance your reputation. It can

919
00:46:45,436 --> 00:46:48,316
Speaker 3: bring you happiness. It will bring you happiness, just as

920
00:46:48,316 --> 00:46:52,156
Speaker 3: it's hard to decide to go and work out, but

921
00:46:52,276 --> 00:46:54,716
Speaker 3: you know that long term, you know afterwards you'll feel

922
00:46:54,756 --> 00:46:58,076
Speaker 3: good about it. This is in the same category. It's

923
00:46:58,116 --> 00:47:00,316
Speaker 3: hard to do, but we should celebrate it even though

924
00:47:00,316 --> 00:47:03,356
Speaker 3: we know that there are rewards to the giver. And

925
00:47:03,396 --> 00:47:05,396
Speaker 3: so yeah, I've got a tackle in the book called

926
00:47:05,396 --> 00:47:09,916
Speaker 3: imperfect generosity. Generosity is the classic case which the perfect

927
00:47:09,916 --> 00:47:12,196
Speaker 3: becomes the enemy of the good. Let's not do that,

928
00:47:12,756 --> 00:47:14,436
Speaker 3: and that way we'll have a lot more generosity in

929
00:47:14,476 --> 00:47:14,836
Speaker 3: the world.

930
00:47:19,276 --> 00:47:22,276
Speaker 11: Religiously in the different traditions. I mean, the idea of

931
00:47:22,396 --> 00:47:25,676
Speaker 11: having a sincere heart or is the action itself good enough?

932
00:47:25,716 --> 00:47:28,396
Speaker 11: And I'm curious from the study, can I go in

933
00:47:28,436 --> 00:47:32,036
Speaker 11: with really bad motivations and still get the happiness effect

934
00:47:32,316 --> 00:47:33,156
Speaker 11: or does it change me?

935
00:47:33,276 --> 00:47:33,876
Speaker 3: I'm curious.

936
00:47:36,716 --> 00:47:39,196
Speaker 4: Well, we didn't ask people if they had bad motivations

937
00:47:39,636 --> 00:47:41,916
Speaker 4: going in, So yeah, I don't know.

938
00:47:41,996 --> 00:47:45,636
Speaker 3: What do you think, Chris, I mean, look, define bad motivations.

939
00:47:45,796 --> 00:47:49,316
Speaker 3: There's definitely a level of cynicism, which is something I

940
00:47:49,316 --> 00:47:53,596
Speaker 3: guess you can't claim is generous. But I think if

941
00:47:53,636 --> 00:47:58,276
Speaker 3: you see someone who needs something and you decide you

942
00:47:58,276 --> 00:48:02,876
Speaker 3: would like to meet that need, there's enough good motivation

943
00:48:02,996 --> 00:48:05,436
Speaker 3: in there for me to celebrate that act.

944
00:48:05,716 --> 00:48:08,796
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, certainly we do see that overall people

945
00:48:08,956 --> 00:48:11,396
Speaker 4: are getting the highest levels of happiness from what we

946
00:48:11,476 --> 00:48:13,676
Speaker 4: might call, you know, the purest form of giving, of

947
00:48:14,236 --> 00:48:15,476
Speaker 4: making charitable donations.

948
00:48:15,876 --> 00:48:18,036
Speaker 2: But also, you know, there's this interesting little finding.

949
00:48:18,076 --> 00:48:19,276
Speaker 4: I don't want to make too much of it because

950
00:48:19,276 --> 00:48:23,196
Speaker 4: we didn't expect it totally exploratory, but we saw that

951
00:48:23,396 --> 00:48:25,996
Speaker 4: in the public condition where people had to share the

952
00:48:26,036 --> 00:48:28,196
Speaker 4: decisions they were making along the way with this money,

953
00:48:28,556 --> 00:48:30,996
Speaker 4: we actually saw those folks getting a little bit less

954
00:48:31,036 --> 00:48:34,716
Speaker 4: happiness from their charitable donations compared to those who are

955
00:48:34,796 --> 00:48:37,436
Speaker 4: keeping it private. So it actually suggests that when you're

956
00:48:37,436 --> 00:48:39,956
Speaker 4: trying to be a little showy about this, it might detract.

957
00:48:39,996 --> 00:48:42,476
Speaker 2: Now, it doesn't mean we could never do this in.

958
00:48:42,436 --> 00:48:44,716
Speaker 4: A way that would work where we could both share

959
00:48:44,756 --> 00:48:47,236
Speaker 4: it and feel happy about it. But maybe it speaks

960
00:48:47,276 --> 00:48:50,556
Speaker 4: to the idea that generosity isn't all about just looking

961
00:48:50,556 --> 00:48:53,156
Speaker 4: good to other people, and that maybe when we're doing

962
00:48:53,196 --> 00:48:55,356
Speaker 4: it in these more private ways, it can feel great.

963
00:48:56,236 --> 00:48:56,396
Speaker 2: Oh.

964
00:48:56,436 --> 00:49:00,156
Speaker 12: Hi, I'm Marla. I'm curious about the intake process for

965
00:49:00,276 --> 00:49:06,396
Speaker 12: your research. Did you track previous generosity, previous charitable donations,

966
00:49:06,396 --> 00:49:09,356
Speaker 12: et cetera. And I'm also wondering if your plan to

967
00:49:09,436 --> 00:49:13,596
Speaker 12: track moving forward if they continue to be generous, and

968
00:49:13,876 --> 00:49:15,276
Speaker 12: if so, how we.

969
00:49:15,276 --> 00:49:18,956
Speaker 4: Did not track people's previous you know, charitable donations or

970
00:49:18,996 --> 00:49:21,996
Speaker 4: other spending choices. We did ask them, you know, just

971
00:49:22,076 --> 00:49:23,876
Speaker 4: as I think kind of a point of interest. We

972
00:49:23,916 --> 00:49:25,796
Speaker 4: did ask them some questions to make sure it would

973
00:49:25,796 --> 00:49:27,996
Speaker 4: be safe for them to be in this study. So

974
00:49:28,036 --> 00:49:30,476
Speaker 4: we did do a pretty careful intake process where we asked,

975
00:49:30,556 --> 00:49:32,796
Speaker 4: you know, we'd like to tell you about some wacky

976
00:49:32,836 --> 00:49:35,476
Speaker 4: things that could happen to you. Would any of these

977
00:49:35,556 --> 00:49:39,516
Speaker 4: cause you danger or serious distress? And so like having

978
00:49:39,556 --> 00:49:42,116
Speaker 4: a movie star show up on your doorstep getting ten

979
00:49:42,116 --> 00:49:44,596
Speaker 4: thousand dollars out of the blue, you know, all of

980
00:49:44,596 --> 00:49:46,956
Speaker 4: these things. And so we did not include people who

981
00:49:46,996 --> 00:49:49,076
Speaker 4: told us that it could be a danger to them,

982
00:49:49,076 --> 00:49:52,036
Speaker 4: but we didn't assess, you know, their previous giving. I

983
00:49:52,036 --> 00:49:54,676
Speaker 4: would love to know how this changes people in the

984
00:49:54,716 --> 00:49:57,396
Speaker 4: future and follow up with them, see you know, how

985
00:49:57,436 --> 00:50:00,796
Speaker 4: happy they are, what choices they've made down the road.

986
00:50:00,836 --> 00:50:03,196
Speaker 4: I think that would be a wonderful, fascinating thing to do.

987
00:50:03,676 --> 00:50:06,796
Speaker 3: Okay, Liz, do you have any final thought you'd like

988
00:50:06,876 --> 00:50:10,516
Speaker 3: to share from the mystery experiment or just in general,

989
00:50:10,676 --> 00:50:13,356
Speaker 3: something from your work that you wish was more widely known.

990
00:50:13,876 --> 00:50:16,996
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think this experiment, along with a

991
00:50:17,076 --> 00:50:20,516
Speaker 4: growing body of research, has really dealt the final death

992
00:50:20,556 --> 00:50:25,676
Speaker 4: blow to our notion of homoeconomicists as this self interested creature,

993
00:50:26,116 --> 00:50:28,516
Speaker 4: and it is time to leave that vision behind.

994
00:50:28,716 --> 00:50:30,516
Speaker 2: And I think that that is very freeing.

995
00:50:31,396 --> 00:50:33,316
Speaker 4: I'll also just leave you with one other stat that

996
00:50:33,316 --> 00:50:37,196
Speaker 4: didn't come up, which is that we found that people

997
00:50:37,676 --> 00:50:41,476
Speaker 4: in lower income countries got three times the happiness boost

998
00:50:41,596 --> 00:50:44,676
Speaker 4: from this money as those in higher income countries. So again,

999
00:50:44,756 --> 00:50:46,916
Speaker 4: in terms of an asymmetry, it's suggest how we can

1000
00:50:46,956 --> 00:50:47,556
Speaker 4: really make.

1001
00:50:47,436 --> 00:50:49,036
Speaker 2: The most of our money.

1002
00:50:49,436 --> 00:50:53,196
Speaker 4: That said, we found that there were detectable benefits for

1003
00:50:53,476 --> 00:50:57,436
Speaker 4: individuals making up to one hundred and twenty three thousand

1004
00:50:57,436 --> 00:51:00,796
Speaker 4: dollars per year. Ninety nine percent of the world's population

1005
00:51:01,076 --> 00:51:03,316
Speaker 4: makes less than that, and so I do think it

1006
00:51:03,396 --> 00:51:08,716
Speaker 4: speaks to the incredible potential power of redistribution of wealth

1007
00:51:08,796 --> 00:51:11,276
Speaker 4: to more happiness as we move into the future.

1008
00:51:13,036 --> 00:51:25,716
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Dunn, thank you so much. That was spectacular. Thank you. Okay, Well,

1009
00:51:25,796 --> 00:51:28,316
Speaker 3: that's all for today. A reminder that if you'd like

1010
00:51:28,356 --> 00:51:31,636
Speaker 3: to dig deeper into this conversation about the power of generosity,

1011
00:51:31,956 --> 00:51:36,196
Speaker 3: please consider reading my book Infectious Generosity or listening to it.

1012
00:51:36,756 --> 00:51:39,876
Speaker 3: Thanks to the Incredible Generosity of a Dona in the

1013
00:51:39,876 --> 00:51:42,996
Speaker 3: TED community. You can claim a free copy of the

1014
00:51:42,996 --> 00:51:47,756
Speaker 3: book by heading to Ted dot com slash Generosity. Next

1015
00:51:47,756 --> 00:51:51,316
Speaker 3: week is our final episode of this season. We'll be

1016
00:51:51,356 --> 00:51:55,516
Speaker 3: speaking with a visionary in the world of philanthropy, Natalie Cargill,

1017
00:51:55,756 --> 00:52:00,076
Speaker 3: whose work we actually just referenced here with Litz about

1018
00:52:00,356 --> 00:52:03,516
Speaker 3: the potential for truly big scale philanthropy. She's done a

1019
00:52:03,556 --> 00:52:07,556
Speaker 3: fascinating and essential mission to replace pessimism about the world's

1020
00:52:07,556 --> 00:52:11,036
Speaker 3: biggest problems with plans for actually solving them. And if

1021
00:52:11,076 --> 00:52:13,956
Speaker 3: you're keen to start your own generosity journey but not

1022
00:52:13,956 --> 00:52:17,156
Speaker 3: sure where to start, I would love you to check

1023
00:52:17,156 --> 00:52:20,836
Speaker 3: out a new tool that we've created called Tig. Tig

1024
00:52:20,916 --> 00:52:24,076
Speaker 3: is an AI assistant that can help you brainstorm ideas

1025
00:52:24,116 --> 00:52:26,596
Speaker 3: for what you can do with a little generosity and

1026
00:52:26,676 --> 00:52:29,836
Speaker 3: creativity in your own life or community. It's actually really

1027
00:52:30,076 --> 00:52:32,716
Speaker 3: fun to play with, and you can find Tig at

1028
00:52:32,956 --> 00:52:36,956
Speaker 3: infectious generosity dot org. The Ted Interview is part of

1029
00:52:36,996 --> 00:52:40,196
Speaker 3: the Ted Audio Collective, a collection of podcasts dedicated to

1030
00:52:40,236 --> 00:52:44,476
Speaker 3: sparking curiosity and sharing ideas that matter. This episode was

1031
00:52:44,516 --> 00:52:47,636
Speaker 3: produced by Jess Shane, our team who are there at

1032
00:52:47,636 --> 00:52:53,036
Speaker 3: the back includes Constanza Gaiado, Grace Rubinstein, Van van Cheng,

1033
00:52:53,396 --> 00:52:58,476
Speaker 3: Michelle quint Roxanne high Lash and Danielle Ballereso. This show

1034
00:52:58,556 --> 00:53:01,756
Speaker 3: is mixed by Sarah Bruguer and it was co created

1035
00:53:02,196 --> 00:53:10,076
Speaker 3: by you, our amazing live audience here in Vancouver. All right,

1036
00:53:10,116 --> 00:53:11,956
Speaker 3: If you like this show, please do share it with

1037
00:53:11,996 --> 00:53:15,396
Speaker 3: others wherever you can. Thanks so much for listening until

1038
00:53:15,436 --> 00:53:15,836
Speaker 3: next week