Report Shows Money Can Buy Happiness As Billionaires Give Millions to Prove Statement Is Accurate
- A new report has suggested that money can indeed be a source of happiness for individuals and households
- The age-old debate was tested by giving a group of households free money for a period of 6 months and were required to spend it all within three months.
- Meanwhile, according to another study, Nigerians are among the world's least happy people
A new study published in the journal PNAS has proven that money can indeed buy happiness.
The conclusion was reached after researchers tested 200 people for six months.
During the research, the 200 poor and rich participants received a one-time free sum of $10,000(N4.45m) with the instruction to spend all in the first three months.
Source: Facebook
The money sent to the participants came from two anonymous wealthy donors and was distributed on PayPal through a partnership with the organization TED, NBS reports.
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Result of the research on happiness
Participants who received the money were asked to keep a monthly diary of how pleased they felt, as was a control group of 100 persons who did not receive any money.
The researchers examined happiness by asking respondents to rate their level of satisfaction with their life on a scale of 1 to 7, as well as how frequently they experienced good feelings like happy and negative feelings like despair on a scale of 1 to 5.
After three months of spending, the group (poor) that received $10,000 reported higher levels of happiness than those who did not. After three months, the recipients still reported higher levels of happiness than when the test began.
However, the rich group did not report noticeable improvements in their happiness.
The participants recorded how they spent their money, but the researchers are still analyzing the data to see whether any types of purchases led to the most happiness.
Who are the participants
Those in the study came from three low-income countries — Brazil, Indonesia, and Kenya — and four high-income countries: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the U.S.
The findings indicated that participants from low-income countries gained three times as much happiness as those from high-income countries. And people who earned $10,000 a year gained twice as much happiness as those making $100,000 annually.
Part of the report reads:
"Ten thousand dollars in certain places around the world can really buy you a lot, some people spent a lot of the money paying down their mortgage or doing a big renovation on their house."
How the participants were selected
The study participants did not know what they were signing up for at first: In December 2020, TED invited people on Twitter to apply for a "mystery experiment" that would be "exciting, surprising, somewhat time-consuming, possibly stressful, but possibly also life-changing."
A few months later, a select group got emails telling them they would receive $10,000.
Bank tellers, clerks lead list of jobs that will continue to disappear in 2023
Meanwhile, in another report Legit.ng has revealed how technological advances will affect the type of jobs in 2023.
These threats are across different sectors from banking to construction more persons are likely to face job losses
The list complied provided insights to jobs that are more likely to be affected or disappear completely.
Source: Legit.ng
