“Money can buy happiness” or “money can’t buy happiness…” These are phrases we hear often by people who have a lot of money and no money at all. But how true is it? Money can buy happiness, according to a study, but up to a point…
A study published in PNAS provides causal evidence that money significantly increases happiness. The experiment, which was carried out on 10 thousand dollars given to people from different backgrounds and cultures in 7 different countries, reveals that money can buy happiness.
The experiment was conducted by targeting 3 low-income countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Kenya, and 4 high-income countries such as Australia, Canada, the UK and the USA. In the experiment, in which 300 people participated in total, 10 thousand dollars were sent to each of the 200 participants for one time, and they were asked to spend this money as they wished within 3 months.
At the end of the experiment, it was concluded that the participants who received the 10 thousand dollars felt themselves happier than those who did not receive any money, while the happiness levels of those who were already living in higher-income countries among those in the group who received the money did not rise much. So the conclusion of the study is that while a $10,000 given to those with no money brings more happiness than those with money, money can only buy happiness up to a point. As the feeling of satisfaction increases, money does not make you happy as much as it used to be, as another result of the research draws attention.