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"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
— The Dalai Lama
Though there is some debate, most researchers agree that compassion is associated with better short and long-term mental and physical health. So, can changing your daily behaviors to include more compassionate acts increase your overall happiness? Researchers have shown that, yes, in fact it will.
In the article "Practicing Compassion Increases Happiness and Self Esteem", psychologists Myriam Mongrain, Jacqueline Chin and Leah Shapira studied the relationship between compassion and well-being. They recruited 719 people as young as 17 to as old as 72 years to take part in a compassion intervention. They explain that "participants in the compassion group were required to interact with someone in a supportive and caring way [i.e., to act compassionately towards someone for 5-15 minutes] on a daily basis for 1 week." The researchers noted examples of compassion included "talking with a homeless person" or "simply being more loving to those around you." The compassionate action exercise was "compared to an early memories control condition in which participants [wrote] a detailed description of an early memory on a daily basis for 1 week."
The study examined reported depression, self-esteem, and happiness, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after the experiment. Even though the compassion exercise only lasted 1 week, those in the compassionate action group were found to have significantly higher happiness and self-esteem, and lower depression, six months later. So in just 15 minutes a day, you could potentially raise your happiness.
Beyond The Purchase is a website dedicated to understanding the psychology behind spending decisions and the relationship between money and happiness. We study how factors like your values and personality interact with spending decisions to affect your happiness. At Beyond The Purchase you can take quizzes that help you understand what motivates your spending decisions, and you’ll get personalized feedback and tips. For example:
How do you score on the five fundamental dimensions of personality? Take our Big Five personality test and find out.
How do you feel about your past, present, and future? Take the Time Attitudes Survey and learn about your relation with time.
How happy are your Facebook updates? We can analyze your last 25 Facebook status updates and determine how happy you have been.
How happy is your subconscious? Take our Happiness IAT and find out.
With these insights, you can better understand the ways in which your financial decisions affect your happiness. To read more about the connection between money and happiness, go to the Beyond the Purchase blog.
