McMahan, E. A., et al. (2016). Some Implications of Believing That Happiness Involves the Absence of Pain: Negative Hedonic Beliefs Exacerbate the Effects of Stress on Well-Being.

One common belief about happiness, espoused to varying degrees by both researchers and laypeople alike, is that happiness involves a lack of negative hedonic experiences. In the current investigation, we examine whether individual differences in endorsement of this belief, termed negative hedonic belief, moderate the effects of stress on happiness and several indicators of well-being. …

Myers, D. G., & Diener, E. (1995). Who is happy?. Psychological science, 6(1), 10-19.

A flood of new studies explores people’s subjective well-being (SWB) Frequent positive affect, infrequent negative affect, and a global sense of satisfaction with life define high SWB These studies reveal that happiness and life satisfaction are similarly available to the young and the old, women and men, blacks and whites, the rich and the working-class …

Dunn, E. W., et al. (2010). On the costs of self-interested economic behavior: How does stinginess get under the skin?. Journal of Health Psychology, 15(4), 627-633.

The present study examined how financial decisions ‘get under the skin’. Participants played an economic game in which they could donate some of their payment to another student. Affect was measured afterward and salivary cortisol was measured before and afterward. Participants who kept more money for themselves reported less positive affect, more negative affect, and …

Norton, M., &Avery, J. (2011). The Pepsi Refresh Project: A Thirst for Change. Harvard Business School Marketing Unit Case No. 512-018.

In 2010, for the first time in 23 years, PepsiCo did not invest in Super Bowl advertising for its iconic brand. Instead, the company diverted $20 million to the social media-fueled Pepsi Refresh Project: PepsiCo’s innovative cause-marketing program in which consumers submitted ideas for grants for health, environmental, social, educational, and cultural causes. Consumers voted …

Norton, M. I., &Ariely, D. (2011). Building a better America—One wealth quintile at a time. Perspectives on psychological science, 6(1), 9-12.

Disagreements about the optimal level of wealth inequality underlie policy debates ranging from taxation to welfare. We attempt to insert the desires of “regular” Americans into these debates, by asking a nationally representative online panel to estimate the current distribution of wealth in the United States and to “build a better America” by constructing distributions …

Oishi, S., Kesebir, S., & Diener, E. (2011). Income inequality and happiness. Psychological science, 22(9), 1095-1100.

Using General Social Survey data from 1972 to 2008, we found that Americans were on average happier in the years with less national income inequality than in the years with more national income inequality. We further demonstrated that this inverse relation between income inequality and happiness was explained by perceived fairness and general trust. That …

Bassett, D. R., Pucher Jr, J., Buehler, R., Thompson, D. L., & Crouter, S. E. (2008). Walking, cycling, and obesity rates in Europe, North America, and Australia.

Purpose: This study was designed to examine the relationship between active transportation (defined as the percentage of trips taken by walking, bicycling, and public transit) and obesity rates (BMI ≥ 30 kg · m−2) in different countries. Methods: National surveys of travel behavior and health indicators in Europe, North America, and Australia were used in …

Krishna, A. (2011). Can supporting a cause decrease donations and happiness? The cause marketing paradox. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 21(3), 338-345.

In two laboratory and one pilot field study, we demonstrate that cause marketing, whereby firms link products with a cause and share proceeds with it, reduces charitable giving by consumers, even when it is costless to the consumer to buy on CM (versus not); further, instead of increasing total contribution to the cause, it can …

Dunn, E. W., Huntsinger, J., Lun, J., &Sinclair, S. (2008). The gift of similarity: How good and bad gifts influence relationships. Social Cognition, 26(4), 469-481.

We tested the hypothesis that gifts act as markers of interpersonal similarity for both acquaintances and close relationship partners. Participants were led to believe that a new opposite sex acquaintance (Experiment 1) or romantic partner (Experiment 2) had selected either a desirable or undesirable gift for them. In Experiment 1, men viewed themselves as less …

Aknin, L. B., et al. (2011). It& #39;s the recipient that counts: Spending money on strong social ties leads to greater happiness than spending on weak social ties. PloS one, 6(2), e17018.

Previous research has shown that spending money on others (prosocial spending) increases happiness. But, do the happiness gains depend on who the money is spent on? Sociologists have distinguished between strong ties with close friends and family and weak ties—relationships characterized by less frequent contact, lower emotional intensity, and limited intimacy. We randomly assigned participants …