It's often said that money can't buy happiness, although some argue it can, but newly published research suggests that having money - and then spending it on others - might just do the trick.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School teamed up for a series of studies looking at levels of happiness reported by people and how they spent money.
One of the experiments involved recruiting students on campus in Vancouver, giving them $5 or $20 and instructing half of them to spend the money on themselves and the other half to spend it on others.
"What we found was that people were significantly happier at the end of the day if they'd been instructed to spend the money on others rather than on themselves," said one of the authors, Elizabeth Dunn, an assistant professor of psychology at UBC.
The findings are published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
Ms. Dunn said she embarked on the project after being struck by research that seemed to suggest money can't buy happiness.
"That conclusion was based on the broad finding that in general, income is correlated pretty weakly with happiness," she said from Vancouver. "So I think it's fair to say that money doesn't buy happiness, or doesn't buy much happiness, but what seemed wrong to me was to assume that money can't buy happiness."
Ms. Dunn said she wanted to explore whether money might be able to buy happiness if people spent it differently.
"We turned to the psychological literature which suggests that doing good for others is associated with one's own happiness, so doing volunteer work, random acts of kindness and so forth can all promote happiness."
"So we thought, well, money is one vehicle of achieving pro-social goals or of helping others. So what if people used their money to benefit other people?"
Another branch of Ms. Dunn's research, conducted with UBC master's student Lara Aknin and Michael Norton of Harvard, involved a survey of 632 Americans asking them to rate their general happiness, to report income and to estimate how much they spent in a typical month on bills and expenses, gifts for themselves, gifts for others and donations.
"We found that indeed people who spent more of their income on other people, on gifts for others and on charitable donations did, in fact, report greater happiness," Ms. Dunn said.
She cautioned, though, that this didn't tell them anything about causality - only that there's a relationship between spending and happiness.
The team also asked people at a firm in Boston to report how happy they were about a month before receiving a bonus.
The employees received profit-sharing bonuses ranging from $3,000 to $8,000. Then, six to eight weeks later, they reported again on their general happiness and what percentage of the bonus they had spent on bills and expenses, rent or mortgage, buying something for themselves, buying something for someone else, donating to charity, or other spending.
"And what we found was that employees who devoted more of their bonus to others, to charitable gifts ... increased in happiness more as a result of receiving this bonus," Ms. Dunn explained.
Robert Biswas-Diener has done extensive research on happiness, and said these findings add to the scope of knowledge on the topic.
"I think it tells us something very encouraging about our nature as social animals," he said from Portland, Ore.
"And I think it opens the door for a number of questions to be asked about the relationship of money, of charity, of humanitarian work and a sense of happiness."
Mr. Biswas-Diener, who is program director for education and learning at the Centre for Applied Positive Psychology in the United Kingdom, noted the study lumped together all types of giving, and he'd like to see a breakdown.
"There might be a difference in the experience of donating money to a charity that you think is worthwhile versus, you know, buying a gift for your husband or your wife," he observed.
"They both probably pay emotional dividends, but it would be interesting to see if there were differences."
John Zelenski, a psychologist at Carleton University's Happiness Lab who was not involved in this research, was interested in the findings.
"Each of these studies in and of themselves might not be particularly persuasive," he said from Ottawa. "But when you put these things together, that's what makes a strong story."
He said there's a potential to benefit society as a whole, referring to those on the receiving end.
"Not to be too Pollyanna-ish, but it does kind of set the stage for happiness on both sides," he said.
"So if I take my money and I spend it on somebody else, a charitable organization or even a friend or family member, these studies suggest that that will make me happier than if I buy a new pair of jeans or a new TV."
Ms. Dunn said it would be wrong to glean from this research that you should try to get a high-paying job so you can make tons of money and spend it on others so that you'll be happy.
"I think rather, the message is whatever resources you have, whether you have some disposable income, some extra time, some special skills, I think if you devote those resources to helping others, you'll find benefits for your own well-being."