Results of four experiments reveal a counterintuitive solution to the common problem of feeling that one does not have enough time: Give some of it away. Although the objective amount of time people have cannot be increased (there are only 24 hours in a day), this research demonstrates that people’s subjective sense of time affluence can be increased. We compared spending time on other people...

Money and time are both scarce resources that people believe would bring them greater happiness. But would people prefer having more money or more time? And how does one’s preference between resources relate to happiness? Across studies, we asked thousands of Americans whether they would prefer more money or more time. Although the majority of people chose more money, choosing more time was associated with...

Around the world, increases in wealth have produced an unintended consequence: a rising sense of time scarcity. We provide evidence that using money to buy time can provide a buffer against this time famine, thereby promoting happiness. Using large, diverse samples from the United States, Canada, Denmark, and The Netherlands (n = 6,271), we show that individuals who spend money on time-saving services report greater...

The present study examines momentary experiences of happiness and meaning, two components of well-being, by using an experience sampling method. Participants included 603 Korean adults, who generated 24,430 responses over the course of 2–4 weeks. Results revealed that reported levels of happiness and meaning fluctuated substantially over the course of a day and that contextual factors, such as daily activities, social interaction partners, day of...

최근 많은 연구들을 통해 경험 구매 (경험하기 위한 소비)가 물질 구매 (소유하기 위한 소비)에 비해 행복에 더 유리하다는 것이 밝혀져 왔으나, 아직 경험/물질 구매의 구분에 대해서는 해결되지 않은 문제들이 남아있다. 본 연구에서는 경험 구매와 물질 구매 사이의 애매한 경계에 대한 두 가지 질문들을 다루고자 한다. 첫째, 행복한 사람일수록 같은 구매라도 더 경험재에 가깝게 인식하는가? 둘째, 자신의 구매를 경험재에 가깝게 생각하면, 실제로 더 행복해지는가? 실험 방법과...

The literature on happiness abounds with evidence suggesting that good social relations are essential for one’s happiness and that happier individuals are more socially oriented. However, there is a dearth of research on people’s valuations of such relational experiences. The present study investigates the relationship between happiness and the value ascribed to interpersonal and social experiences. In Study 1, participants (Korean undergraduate students) indicated the...

The present study aims to replicate and extend previous findings on the aversive effects of materialism on wellbeing. In numerous past studies, sufficient amount of information about psychological and social traits about materialists that are related to diminished happiness have been provided. However, they have neglected to examine materialists in daily life. This study overcomes such limitation by assessing materialists’ happiness at both chronic and...

A previous study on the relationship between subjective well-being (SWB) and hedonic editing—the process of mentally integrating or segregating different events during decision-making—showed that happy individuals preferred the social-buffering strategy more than less happy individuals. The present study examined the relationship between SWB, social-buffering and hedonic outcomes in daily life. In Study 1, we used web-based diaries to measure the frequency with which individuals utilised...

Although several studies have investigated the neural mechanism of social comparison, it remains unclear whether and how cultural membership, particularly independent versus interdependent cultures, may differentially shape the neural processes underlying social comparison. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we examined the behaviors and neural response patterns of Korean (i.e., interdependent culture) and American (i.e., independent culture) participants while performing a financial...

Which friend do you want to spend time with—a happy friend who performs better than you or an unhappy friend who performs worse than you? The present research demonstrates that in such conflicting situations, when the desires for companionship and comparison are pitted against each other, one’s level of happiness plays an important role in one’s choice. Using hypothetical scenarios, we found that compared with...