Money can buy happiness, but only if you spend it on someone else, researchers reported.

    Spending as little as $US5 a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School found.

    Their experiments on more than 630 Americans showed they were measurably happier when they spent money on others -- even if they thought spending the money on themselves would make them happier.

    "We wanted to test our theory that how people spend their money is at least as important as how much money they earn," said Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia.

    They asked their 600 volunteers first to rate their general happiness, report their annual income and detail their monthly spending including bills, gifts for themselves, gifts for others and donations to charity.

    "Regardless of how much income each person made, those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not," Dunn said in a statement.

    Dunn's team also surveyed 16 employees at a company in Boston before and after they received an annual profit-sharing bonus of between $US3000 and $US8000.

    "Employees who devoted more of their bonus to pro-social spending experienced greater happiness after receiving the bonus, and the manner in which they spent that bonus was a more important predictor of their happiness than the size of the bonus itself," they wrote in their report, published in the journal Science.

    They gave their volunteers $US5 or $US20 and half got clear instructions on how to spend it. Those who spent the money on someone or something else reported feeling happier about it.

    "These findings suggest that very minor alterations in spending allocations -- as little as $US5 -- may be enough to produce real gains in happinesson a given day," Dunn said.

    研究人員日前稱，金錢可以買到快樂，但前提是你得把錢花在別人身上。

    英國哥倫比亞大學和哈佛商學院的研究小組發現，每天只需為別人花5美元，就能大大提升快樂感。

    研究人員對630多名美國人所做的實驗表明，即使實驗對象認為為自己花錢會更快樂，但實際結果顯示，他們為別人花錢時其實更加快樂。

    英國哥倫比亞大學的心理學家伊麗莎白•杜恩說：“我們試圖證明‘人們的花錢方式與掙錢多少至少同等重要’。”

    研究人員讓600名志愿者評價自己的總體幸福感，報告年收入以及詳細的月支出情況，包括應付賬單、為自己及他人購買禮物支出以及慈善捐獻。

    杜恩在一份聲明中說：“無論他們掙多少錢，為別人花更多錢的人稱自己的快樂感增強，而為自己花較多錢的人則沒有這種感受。”

    杜恩的研究小組還對波士頓一家公司的16名員工領到年終獎之前和之后的情況進行了調查，年終獎金額從3000美元到8000美元不等。

    研究人員在研究報告中提到：“這些員工領到獎金后，將較多錢花在別人身上的人快樂感更強，他們支配這筆錢的方式比獎金本身的多少對快樂感的影響更大。”該研究報告在《科學》期刊中發表。

    研究人員向志愿者們分發了5美元至20美元金額不等的錢，并向其中一半人說明了該如何花這些錢。結果發現，將錢用于別人或其它事情的人感到更快樂。

    杜恩說：“這些研究結果表明，每天只需稍稍改變支出分配——哪怕為別人花5美元，就能得到更多快樂。”