The Influence Of Pro - Social Spending On Happiness: The Marginal Role Of Interpersonal Intimacy

Now income level has enhanced increasingly. Moreover, pace of life is becoming so fast that time is more and more scarce. As two significant resources in our life, what roles are money and time playing on our happiness? Extant research mainly focus on relationship between money and well-being, most of which are correlation studies. Furthermore, research discussing time and happiness is only just beginning. Existing research shows that prosocial spending can be conductive to happiness compared to personal spending. Meanwhile, interpersonal intimacy is an important influencing factor. Similarly, whether spending time on others can produce positive affect, accordingly whether happiness obtained would vary relying on different interpersonal intimacy remain unclear. There are four experiments in this paper, which target to unveil the above questions.Study1 discusses positive affect prosocial spending of money and time on well-being. In experiment 1a, reminiscence paradigm is used to verify the emotional benefits from spending money on others. In experiment 1b, the situation of plateau response during preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination is present to participants, who are then asked to spend five minutes to write a paragraph of encouragement to others or yourself. Results show emotional gains of giving time to others.Study2 focuses on the effect of interpersonal intimacy emtional rewards from money and time prosocial spending. In experiment 2a, memory paradigm is used onced again to confirm that the happiness effect deriving from prosocial spending money is influenced by interpersonal intimacy. That is to say, giving money to intimate social ties produces more well-being than giving to weaker social ties. In experiment 2b, interpersonal intimacy is manipulated and rarely used word filtering task is used. Supposing that different intimacy of students would like to do research on rarely used word, you are willing to offer your help. After a word filtering task which lasts ten minutes, all participants report their current happiness. Results show that well-being resulting from spending time on others is not affected by interpersonal intimacy. That is to say,well-being of two different levels of interpersonal intimacy exist no significant difference.Based on study1 and study2, we draw the following conclusions:(1)Money prosocial spending is conductive to happiness. Specifically, giving money to Others is conductive to more happiness than giving to oneself.(2) Time prosocial spending provide an effective way to well-being. Specifically, those who giving time to others are more happier than giving to oneself.(3) Interpersonal intimacy influences emotional gains from money prosocial spending.Specifically, those who giving money to intimate social ties are happier than giving to weaker social ties.(4) Interpersonal intimacy does not influence emotional gains from time prosocial spending.Specifically, the emotional rewards deriving from spending time on others and on oneself are the same.