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The Importance Of Money And Happiness

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Money can buy material things, but can it buy happiness? Money itself cannot buy the chemical reaction in the human brain commonly known as happiness. However, money spent in certain ways and on certain things can temporarily bring about happiness. Spending money on others, being within a certain annual income range, and being adequately supported in financial terms all contribute to temporary happiness. Having money and spending it on others is one way that money brings about momentary happiness. However, some people do the opposite of this; they spend their money on themselves. The majority of the time this leads to antisocial behavior. Michael Norton, author of a TED Talk about money and happiness, is quoted as saying, “people got money and, in fact, it made them antisocial.” It is common sense that one who is unsocial cannot be the happiest they could be. A study conducted on the college campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada proved that spending money on others increases temporary happiness. Participants in the study were given a certain amount of money and were told either to spend it on themselves or on another person. At the end of the study, the conductors of the experiment found that “People who spent money on others got happier; people who spent it on themselves, nothing happened.” Happiness brought from spending money on others does not last forever, but in this case, money did buy momentary happiness. This happens all over the world

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