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Helping others makes us happier -- but it matters how we do it

4,265,506 views | Elizabeth Dunn • TED2019

Research shows that helping others makes us happier. But in her groundbreaking work on generosity and joy, social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn found that there's a catch: it matters how we help. Learn how we can make a greater impact -- and boost our own happiness along the way -- if we make one key shift in how we help others. "Let's stop thinking about giving as just this moral obligation and start thinking of it as a source of pleasure," Dunn says.

Research shows that helping others makes us happier. But in her groundbreaking work on generosity and joy, social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn found that there's a catch: it matters how we help. Learn how we can make a greater impact -- and boost our own happiness along the way -- if we make one key shift in how we help others. "Let's stop thinking about giving as just this moral obligation and start thinking of it as a source of pleasure," Dunn says.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn more about the Happy Money Movement and how you can find more happiness in your money.

About the speaker

Elizabeth Dunn

Happiness researcher

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Elizabeth Dunn discovers ways that people can optimize their use of time, money and technology in order to maximize their own happiness.

Elizabeth Dunn, Michael Norton | Simon & Schuster, 2014 | Book

Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending

My book with my longtime collaborator Michael Norton (of Harvard Business School) provides an overview of our research showing how and why spending money on others promotes happiness. In addition, we offer four other research-based principles for spending money in happier ways, including buying experiences and delaying consumption. People seem to find it useful. (For example, when it was published, it was selected by the Washington Post as one of their "top 20 books every leader should read").

Aknin, L., Whillans, A. V., Norton, M. I. and Dunn, E. W. | "World Happiness Report 2019," 2019 | Article

"Happiness and prosocial behavior: An evaluation of the evidence"

This brief paper, created for the United Nations 2019 World Happiness Report, provides a detailed yet accessible discussion of the relationship between generosity and happiness, including an assessment of the methodological strengths and weaknesses of research in this area.

Lok, I. and Dunn, E. W. | Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2019 | Article

"Under What Conditions Does Prosocial Spending Promote Happiness?"

If you're interested in digging more deeply into the key catalysts that help turn good deeds into good feelings, this paper provides a thorough review of all existing research in this area, as well as presenting our newest data on this topic. This paper utilizes current best practices in psychology, including pre-registration and openly available data.

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The Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program

If you'd like to learn more about private refugee sponsorship in Canada, including a brief history of this program, this website is a great resource.

Vintage, 2007 | Dan Gilbert | Book

Stumbling on Happiness

One of the great strokes of luck in my life was getting to work on my undergraduate honors thesis with Dan Gilbert. His groundbreaking work on happiness has shaped my thinking on this topic ever since. When people ask me to recommend a book on happiness — out of the many thousands that have been written — this book is always my first pick.

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Samantha Gill's photography

My sister-in-law Samantha Gill took almost all of the photos in my talk of both our refugee sponsorship group and the Plenty of Plates program. See more of her work on Instagram!

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Learn more about the Happy Money Movement and how you can find more happiness in your money.