This study was published in the journal PNAS. The goal was to examine what happens when you give people free money and ask them to spend it on whatever they want, would it make them happier?
The experiment
200,000 people earning less than $123,000 were given $10,000 and asked to spend it all within three months and write down how happy they were every month.
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Another group of 100,000 people weren’t given any money but they were asked to also record how happy they felt each month.
By asking participants to rate their level of life satisfaction on a range from 1 to 7, as well as how frequently they felt happy or sad, on a scale from 1 to 5, the researchers were able to determine how happy people were.
The result
After their three months of spending, the group that received $10,000 reported feeling happier than the group that did not. After another three months had gone, the people who received money continued to report higher levels of happiness than before the experiment began.
The data is still being analysed to determine what they bought to make them happy, but perhaps it was the lightheadedness of not worrying about basic bills and buying things that made them happier.
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