Research Paper On Happiness

This finding was supported by experimental studies across cultures and ages showing that participants who spent money (or sweets) on others reported higher levels of happiness compared to those who spent money (or sweets) on themselves.

Tags: Jonathan Williams EssaysFormat Of A Scientific Research PaperRead College Essays That WorkedPeer Editing Rubric Creative WritingProcess Analysis Essay PrewritingReview Of The Literature ExampleEssay On Negligence In NursingDissertation LogbookBusiness Plan ReviewsEffective Essay Conclusions

Participants promised to spend money over the next 4 weeks either on others (experimental group) or on themselves (control group).

Here, we report that, compared to controls, participants in the experimental group make more generous choices in an independent decision-making task and show stronger increases in self-reported happiness.

In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (f MRI) to investigate how generosity is linked to happiness on the neural level.

To induce generous behaviour, we used the powerful method of a public pledge.

Then, all participants performed an independent decision-making task, in which they could behave more or less generously while brain activity was measured using f MRI.

At the beginning of the experiment and again after scanning, participants reported their subjective level of happiness.We asked the participants in the experimental group to commit to spending the money on other people of their own choice.Examples included taking others out to dinner or buying gifts for others.Generous behaviour is known to increase happiness, which could thereby motivate generosity.In this study, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging and a public pledge for future generosity to investigate the brain mechanisms that link generous behaviour with increases in happiness.In each trial, the participants were presented with an option that they could accept or reject.Each option was a combination of the benefits for the other person and the participants’ own costs.Specifically, altruistic choice, generous choice and overcoming egocentricity bias have been correlated with functional activity and structural properties of the TPJ.Conversely, other studies have suggested that happiness, due to its connection to reward and pleasure, recruits reward-related brain areas such as the ventral striatum and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).We asked the participants in the control group to commit to spending the money on themselves.Examples included taking oneself out to dinner or buying oneself a gift.(a) First, we informed the participants that we would send them money for the next 4 weeks (25 Swiss francs per week).