How to buy happiness | Michael Norton

Translator: Jenny Zurawell

翻译人员: 建松 刘 校对人员: Xianlin Song

我今天想来谈谈金钱和幸福

So I want to talk today about money and happiness,

这两样东西

which are two things a lot of us spend a lot of our time thinking about,

我们很多人会花时间和精力

去尝试着争取更多的（金钱和幸福）

either trying to earn them or trying to increase them.

And a lot of us resonate with this phrase,

我们对此深有体会

在很多宗教和自我激励的书中，我们常常看到一个观点

we see it in religions and self-help books:

“金钱不能带来幸福”

money can't buy happiness.

但我今天想告诉你其实恰恰相反

And I want to suggest today that, in fact, that's wrong.

（笑声）

(Laughter)

我来自商学院，这是我们的作风。

I'm at a business school, so that's what we do.

所以说那个观点是错的，实际上，如果你认真想想，

So that's wrong,

and in fact, if you think that, you're just not spending it right.

那是因为你花钱花错地方了

So instead of spending it the way you usually spend it,

如果你反思下自己花钱的方式，

或许你会尝试改变一下，

maybe if you spent it differently, that might work a little bit better.

那样做也许会更有效果

在我告诉你通过花钱来让自己感觉更幸福的方法之前，

Before I tell you the ways you can spend it that will make you happier,

让我们想想我们通常是怎么花的

let's think about the ways we usually spend it

其实它们并没有让我们感觉更幸福

that don't, in fact, make us happier.

我们做了一个小实验

We had a little natural experiment.

CNN在不久之前发表了一篇有意思的文章

So CNN, a little while ago, wrote this interesting article

它是关于彩票中奖者的经历的

on what happens to people when they win the lottery.

It turns out people think when they win the lottery

很多人都以为当他们彩票中奖之后，生活会变得超好

their lives will be amazing.

但这篇文章却是描述了他们的生活是如何被毁掉的

This article's about how their lives get ruined.

这些人中奖后到底做了些什么事情呢

What happens when people win the lottery

第一，他们花光了所有的钱而且又欠下了一屁股债

is, one, they spend all the money and go into debt;

第二，他们所有的朋友和曾经的熟人

and two, all of their friends and everyone they've ever met

都来找他们要钱

find them and bug them for money.

这实际上毁掉了他们的人际关系

It ruins their social relationships, in fact.

所以相比于中奖之前

So they have more debt and worse friendships

他们欠下了更多的债，也失去了朋友

than they had before they won the lottery.

但这篇文章有意思的地方在于

What was interesting about the article was,

读者们在该文章底部做出的评论

people started commenting on the article, readers of the thing.

这些人并没有说

And instead of talking about how it made them realize

为什么这些金钱没有带来幸福

that money doesn't lead to happiness,

而是马上开始说

everyone started saying, "You know what I'd do if I won the lottery ...?"

“你知道假如是我中奖，我会怎么做。。。。。。"

并且幻想着他们中奖后的事情

and fantasizing about what they'd do.

我从中找出了两个值得大家思考的评论

Here's just two of the ones we saw that are interesting to think about.

有位读者写到：”我中奖后，要买座小山，

One person wrote, "When I win, I'm going to buy my own little mountain

还要在上面建座小房子。“

and have a little house on top."

（笑声）

(Laughter)

And another person wrote, "I would fill a big bathtub with money

又有一个人写到：”我会把这些钱放到一个大浴缸里面，

and get in the tub while smoking a big fat cigar

然后躺进这个浴缸里面抽上一只大雪茄

最后再来上一瓶香槟酒。“

and sipping a glass of champagne."

This is even worse: "... then I'd have a picture taken

接下来更糟糕了，”我要拍张照片，

照片中会有很多金光闪闪的东西。“

and dozens of glossies made.

Anyone begging for money or trying to extort from me

任何向我要钱的人

都会得到这个照片，其它东西都免谈。

would receive a copy of the picture and nothing else."

（笑声）

(Laughter)

And so many of the comments were exactly of this type,

还有很多评论都是这种类型的

当他们获得金钱

where people got money and, in fact, it made them antisocial.

事实上，他们会变得不爱交际

So I told you it ruins people's lives and their friends bug them.

所以我说，这些中奖的人的生活会被毁掉，他们会不断受到朋友的骚扰

Also, money often makes us feel very selfish

并且，金钱通常让我们变得自私

因为我们通常只想做对自己有利的事情

and we do things only for ourselves.

We thought maybe the reason money doesn't make us happy

也许金钱不能使我们变得开心的真正原因

是因为我们并没有正确地使用它

is that we're spending it on the wrong things;

确切地讲，我们花钱总是为了自己

in particular, we're always spending it on ourselves.

我一直想知道

And we wondered what would happen

if we made people spend more of their money on others.

将金钱花在别的人身上会发生什么

与其得到金钱之后变得有反社会倾向

So instead of being antisocial with your money,

what if you were more pro-social with it?

我们何不将这些钱回馈给社会呢？

We thought, let's make people do it and see what happens.

于是我们试着让别人这样做，看看会发生什么

所以我们不妨让一部分人按照原来的方式处理这些金钱

Let's have some people do what they usually do,

把它花到自己的身上

spend money on themselves,

而让另一部分人捐出这些钱

and let's make some people give money away,

然后我们测一测他们的幸福感，看看到底这样做会不会让他们变得更快乐

and measure their happiness and see if, in fact, they get happier.

这就是我们的第一种实验方式

The first way we did this was, one Vancouver morning,

在温哥华的早上，我们走在英属哥伦比亚大学

we went out on the campus at University of British Columbia,

的校园里

approached people and said, "Do you want to be in an experiment?"

我们遇到了一些学生然后问他们：”你们愿意加入我们的实验吗？“

他们回答：”行啊。”

They said, "Yes."

我们问这些人他们有多幸福，然后给他们每人一个信封

We asked them how happy they were, and then gave them an envelope.

其中一个信封里写着：

One of the envelopes had things in it that said,

“在今天下午五点之前，把这些钱全部花到自己身上。“

"By 5pm today, spend this money on yourself."

我们会给他们一些关于如何花掉这些钱的建议

We gave some examples of what you could spend it on.

另外一些人也会收到这样的信封，里面会写到：

Other people got a slip of paper that said,

“请在今天下午五点之前，把这些钱全部花在别人的身上。”

"By 5pm today, spend this money on somebody else."

同样信封里装有一些钱

Also inside the envelope was money.

我们事先安排好了信封里的钱数

And we manipulated how much money we gave them;

所以一些人会得到一张纸和5美元

some people got this slip of paper and five dollars,

而另一些人会得到一张纸和20美元

some got this slip of paper and 20 dollars.

我们让这些人自由地安排自己这一天的生活

We let them go about their day and do whatever they wanted.

这些人的确按照我们的要求花掉了那笔钱

We found out they did spend it in the way we asked them to.

晚上的时候，我们把他们召集起来，问他们：

We called them up and asked them, "What did you spend it on?

“你用这些钱干了什么，现在你感觉有多幸福”

How happy do you feel now?"

那么他们是怎么花掉这笔钱的呢？

What did they spend it on?

These are college undergrads;

因为大部分人还在读大学，所以那些要求把钱花在自己身上的人

a lot of what they spent it on for themselves

都为自己买了耳环和化妆品

were things like earrings and makeup.

其中的一个女生说她为她的侄女买了一个填充动物玩具

One woman said she bought a stuffed animal for her niece.

也有一些人把这些钱给了流浪汉

People gave money to homeless people.

还有很多人把钱花在了星巴克

Huge effect here of Starbucks.

(Laughter)

（笑声）

So if you give undergraduates five dollars,

所以如果你给一个大学生5美元，他们很可能用它来买咖啡

it looks like coffee to them,

and they run over to Starbucks and spend it as fast as they can.

他们会在最短的时间内走进星巴克，把这笔钱花掉

一些人会为自己买一份咖啡，他们平常也是这样做的

Some people bought coffee for themselves, the way they usually would,

但是也有一些人说他们为别人买了咖啡

but others bought coffee for somebody else.

所以我们由此可以发现，一样的钱

So the very same purchase,

有人花在了自己的身上

just targeted toward yourself or targeted toward somebody else.

有人花在了别人的身上

What did we find when we called at the end of the day?

当我们晚上把他们召集起来，我们有什么样的发现呢？

我们发现，那些把钱花在别人身上的人变得更加快乐

People who spent money on others got happier;

而那些把钱花在自己身上的人，情绪上并没有什么变化

people who spent it on themselves, nothing happened.

他们并没有变得更加不开心，他们只是没有变得更加开心

It didn't make them less happy, it just didn't do much for them.

我们的另一个发现是钱的数量在这里并没有起到太大的作用

The other thing we saw is the amount of money doesn't matter much.

一些人或许会觉得20美元一定比5美元更加让人感到开心

People thought 20 dollars would be way better than five.

但是事实上，你花了多少钱并不重要

In fact, it doesn't matter how much money you spent.

真正重要的是，你把钱花在了别人的身上

What really matters is that you spent it on somebody else

而不是你自己身上

rather than on yourself.

每次当我们把钱给别人并要求他们把钱花在他人身上时

We see this again and again

when we give people money to spend on others instead of on themselves.

我们都会得到相同的结论

Of course, these are undergraduates in Canada --

当然了，这些人只是加拿大的大学生

他们并不能代表世界上其他地方的人

not the world's most representative population.

他们相对来说还是比较富裕的人群

They're also fairly wealthy and affluent and other sorts of things.

所以我们想知道这个结论在世界其他地方是不是也同样成立

We wanted to see if this holds true everywhere in the world

或者只在富人阶层成立

or just among wealthy countries.

So we went to Uganda and ran a very similar experiment.

所以我们去了乌干达，做了一个相同的实验

大家不妨想象一下，这些人不是加拿大人

Imagine, instead of just people in Canada, we say,

在加拿大，我们曾问到：你最近一次为你自己或别人花钱是什么时候？

"Name the last time you spent money on yourself or others.

试着描述一下 你当时感觉到多少幸福呢

Describe it. How happy did it make you?"

在乌干达，我们问了同样的问题：你最近一次为自己或别人花钱是什么时候？

Or in Uganda, "Name the last time you spent money on yourself or others

试着描述一下当时的感受

and describe that."

然后我们问他们自己感觉到多少的幸福

Then we asked them how happy they are, again.

我们发现了一些惊人的结论

And what we see is sort of amazing,

因为人们在花钱时都会受到人类共性的影响

because there's human universals on what you do with your money,

同时也会受到文化差异的影响

and real cultural differences on what you do as well.

比如说

So for example, one guy from Uganda says this:

一个乌干达人曾这样说

他说：“我打电话给我暗恋的一个女孩。”

"I called a girl I wished to love."

然后他们一块出去约会

They basically went out on a date,

and he says at the end that he didn't "achieve" her up till now.

然后他又说自己直到现在也没有赢得她的“芳心”

还有一个加拿大人

(Laughter)

Here's a guy from Canada.

他有着非常类似的经历

Very similar thing.

他说: "我把我的女朋友叫出去一起吃晚饭

"I took my girlfriend out for dinner.

我们一起看了电影，然后早早地就离开了电影院

We went to a movie, we left early,

and then went back to her room for ... cake," just cake.

我们一起回到她家里，一起。。。。。。呵呵，只是一起吃蛋糕“

(Laughter)

这就是人类的共性--你把钱花在别人身上

Human universal:

你就会对他们很好

you spend money on others, you're being nice.

也许现在你已经意识到了一些东西，也许你还没有

Maybe you have something in mind, maybe not.

但是我们确实发现了一些明显的差别

But then we see extraordinary differences.

再来看看这两个例子

So look at these two.

This is a woman from Canada.

这里有一位来自加拿大的女性

We say, "Name a time you spent money on somebody else."

我们让她说说她最近一次为别人花钱的场景

She says, "I bought a present for my mom.

她说：”我为我母亲买了一件礼物。“

I drove to the mall, bought a present, gave it to my mom."

”我开车去了商场，买了一件礼物，把它送给了我妈妈。“

她做得很好

Perfectly nice thing to do.

It's good to get gifts for people you know.

为你认识的人买礼物是件很不错的事情

我们现在再把这个例子同那个乌干达女性的例子做个比较

Compare that to this woman from Uganda:

她说：”我当时正在走路，然后遇到了我的一个好友。“

"I was walking and met a longtime friend whose son was sick with malaria.

”她的儿子得了疟疾。“

”他们没有钱治病，当他们去诊所看病的时候我把这笔钱给了他们。“

They had no money, they went to a clinic and I gave her this money."

那不是10，000美元，只是当地的货币

This isn't $10,000, it's the local currency.

So it's a very small amount of money, in fact.

所以事实上那是一笔很少的钱

But enormously different motivations here.

但是在这里它却有了不一样的意义和价值

这是一个真正的医疗需求

This is a real medical need, literally a lifesaving donation.

就像一笔救命的捐款一样

Above, it's just kind of, I bought a gift for my mother.

而上面的例子里，她只是给自己的妈妈买了一份礼物

所以我们会发现

What we see again, though,

你用什么样的方式去把这些钱花到别人身上

is that the specific way you spend on other people isn't nearly as important

并不重要

as the fact that you spend on other people in order to make yourself happy,

真正重要的是

你通过这样一种方式

which is really quite important.

使自己变得快乐

So you don't have to do amazing things with your money

所以你不一定非得花钱做一些特殊的事情才能获得快乐

to make yourself happy.

你仍然可以通过做一些微不足道的小事儿来获取快乐

You can do small, trivial things and still get the benefits from doing this.

当然了上面的例子仅仅涉及到了两个国家

These are only two countries.

我们想走得更远 看看世界上每一个国家的情况

We wanted to look at every country in the world if we could,

我们想知道在这些国家中金钱和幸福的关系

to see what the relationship is between money and happiness.

We got data from the Gallup Organization,

我们从盖洛普公司得到了一些数据

which you know from all the political polls happening lately.

如果你接受过政治上的民意调查，那么你一定对它不会陌生

They asked people, "Did you donate money to charity recently?"

他们会问被调查者：“你最近向慈善机构捐过钱吗？”

然后他们会接着问：“ 你平常的生活有多幸福呢？”

and, "How happy are you with life in general?"

然后我们会发现幸福和金钱的关系

We can see what the relationship is between those two things.

它们是正相关的吗？捐钱会使你变得幸福？

Are they positively correlated, giving money makes you happy?

还是说它们是负相关的呢？

Or are they negatively correlated?

在这张地图上，绿色代表正相关

On this map, green will mean they're positively correlated,

红色代表负相关

red means they're negatively correlated.

然后你会发现，整个世界几乎都是绿色的

And you can see, the world is crazily green.

所以在几乎每一个

So in almost every country in the world where we have this data,

我们获取到数据的国家里

people who give money to charity are happier people

那些把钱捐到慈善机构的人

比那些没有这么做的人会更加的幸福

than people who don't give money to charity.

我知道你们现在正在盯着这个位于中间位置的那个红色的国家

I know you're looking at the red country in the middle.

I would be a jerk and not tell you what it is,

如果不告诉你们是什么国家，你们会骂我的

好吧，实际上它是中非共和国

but it's Central African Republic.

You can make up stories.

你可以自己想象一下 也许那里有其它的一些原因

Maybe it's different there for some reason.

它右下方的国家是卢旺达

Just below that to the right is Rwanda, though,

你可以看到那里居然全是绿色

which is amazingly green.

所以几乎在我们调查过的每一个地方

So almost everywhere we look,

we see that giving money away makes you happier

我们都可以看到捐出钱会使你变得更加幸福

而不是你仅仅把钱留给自己

than keeping it for yourself.

What about work, which is where we spend the rest of our time,

那么对于你的工作来说呢？除了与自己熟悉的人在一起

when we're not with the people we know.

我们会把几乎所有的剩余时间花在工作上

We decided to infiltrate some companies and do a very similar thing.

我们决定走进一些公司，然后做相同的调查

这些是来自比利时的销售团队

These are sales teams in Belgium.

They work in teams, go out and sell to doctors

他们以小组为单位工作；他们会对医生进行推销

试着说服那些医生购买他们的药品

and try to get them to buy drugs.

所以我们可以观察到作为团队的一员

We can look and see how well they sell things

as a function of being a member of a team.

他们的销售业绩是如何的

在一些团队中，我们把钱给这些人

We give people on some teams some money

然后告诉他们：“ 用这些钱去买自己想要的东西吧。“

"Spend it however you want on yourself,"

就像当初我们对加拿大的大学生说的一样

just like we did with the undergrads in Canada.

但是在另外一些团队中，我们会告诉他们：”这里有15欧元。“

To other teams we say, "Here's 15 euro. Spend it on one of your teammates.

” 在这一周内把钱花到你其中的一个队友身上吧。“

” 为他们买件礼物然后送给他们。“

Buy them something as a gift and give it to them.

现在我们得到了两组不同的团队 一个把钱花在自己身上

Then we can see, we've got teams that spend on themselves

另一个则是有利他行为的团队

and these pro-social teams who we give money to make the team better.

我们把钱给了这个团队使他们做得更好

The reason I have a ridiculous pinata there

我这里有一个皮纳塔是因为

is one team pooled their money and bought a pinata,

其中的一个团队把钱凑到一起然后买了一个皮纳塔

他们聚到一起，把它打碎然后里面所有的糖果就掉出来了

they smashed the pinata, the candy fell out and things like that.

这看起来是一个很傻，很微不足道的事情

A silly, trivial thing to do,

but think of the difference on a team that didn't do that at all,

但是想想这与那些没有这样做的团队的区别

那些团队里的人得到了15欧元，然后放进了自己的腰包

that got 15 euro, put it in their pocket, maybe bought themselves a coffee,

他们或许会为自己买上一杯咖啡

or teams that had this pro-social experience

而另一些团队会变得有利他性

where they bonded together to buy something and do a group activity.

他们会把钱放到一起，然后买一些东西，做一些集体活动

我们这时会发现，那些更有利他主义倾向的团队的销售业绩

What we see is that the teams that are pro-social sell more stuff

比那些只把钱花在自己身上的团队更好

than the teams that only got money for themselves.

我们不妨分析一下

One way to think of it is: for every 15 euro you give people for themselves,

你把15欧元给了他们

然后他们把钱装进了腰包，他们并没有做任何不同于以前的事情

they put it in their pocket and don't do anything different than before.

你并没有从中得到任何的钱

You don't get money from that;

你实际上亏了钱， 因为你给的那些钱并没有激励他们去做得更好

you lose money, since it doesn't motivate them to perform better.

但是当你给他们15欧元并让他们把钱花在别人身上时

But when you give them 15 euro to spend on their teammates,

他们往往做得更好

they do so much better on their teams

你通过这少量的投资会得到丰厚的回报

that you actually get a huge win on investing this kind of money.

我猜你们大家此时会在心里对自己说：

You're probably thinking to yourselves, this is all fine,

”这是一个好主意。”

but there's a context that's incredibly important for public policy,

但是对于这样的公共政策，一个适宜的外部环境是非常重要的

有一种活动，我不敢想象刚才的那个方法会奏效

and I can't imagine it would work there.

如果我无法亲眼看到这种办法真的奏效的话

And if he doesn't show me that it works here,

我基本上是不会相信他所说的任何事情的

I don't believe anything he said.

我知道你们现在想到的是躲避球运动

I know what you're all thinking about are dodgeball teams.

（笑声）

(Laughter)

This was a huge criticism that we got,

你们会想，如果你不能证明那种方法在躲避球团队也同样奏效的话

that if you can't show it with dodgeball teams, this is all stupid.

那么这个例子就是一个很好的反例，你的那个结论就会很愚蠢

所以我们同样找到了一些躲避球队

So we went and found these dodgeball teams and infiltrated them,

走进他们

然后我们做了相同的调查

and did the exact same thing as before.

一些团队中，我们把钱给他们，让他们把钱花在自己身上

So we give people on some teams money to spend on themselves.

而另一些团队，我们给他们钱

Other teams, we give them money to spend on their dodgeball teammates.

让他们把钱花在团队身上

The teams that spend money on themselves

把钱花在个人身上的团队

have the same winning percentages as before.

他们的胜率和以前一样

但是把钱花在其他队员的团队

The teams we give the money to spend on each other

他们有了改变

become different teams;

they dominate the league by the time they're done.

最后他们成了联赛的赢家

在所有这些不同的情境当中

Across all of these different contexts --

无论是你的个人生活，还是你的工作

your personal life, you work life, even things like intramural sports --

甚至是那些看起来很傻的内部体育运动

we see spending on other people has a bigger return for you

我们都可以发现，把钱花在别人身上往往会比那些把钱花在自己身上

可以得到更多的回报

than spending on yourself.

So if you think money can't buy happiness, you're not spending it right.

所以我觉得如果你认为钱不能买来幸福

那么你一定是没有学会如何花钱

The implication isn't you should buy this product instead of that product,

我的意思是，这不是一个钱的问题

这是一个如何使你自己变得更加幸福的问题

and that's the way to make yourself happier.

事实上，你不应该再想

It's that you should stop thinking about which product to buy for yourself,

给自己买什么东西

而是应该尝试着给点钱给需要帮助的人

and try giving some of it to other people instead.

And we luckily have an opportunity for you.

幸运的是我们恰好为大家准备了这样的一个机会

DonorsChoose.org is a nonprofit for mainly public school teachers

这里有一家“捐助者的选择”的网站，它是一个非盈利机构

它的目标对象是那些学校里的低收入老师

in low-income schools.

They post projects like,

他们会发布一些捐助项目

"I want to teach Huckleberry Finn and we don't have the books,"

比如有的老师会说：“我想在课堂上讲费恩历险记，但是我们没有相关的书籍。”

或者是：“我需要一个显微镜来讲授自然科学。”

or, "I want a microscope to teach my students science

“但是我们现在没有显微镜。”

and we don't have a microscope."

你和我这时就可以花钱为他们买来这些东西

You and I can go on and buy it for them.

这些老师和学生都会给你写感谢信

The teacher and the kids write you thank-you notes,

sometimes they send pictures of them using the microscope.

有时也会给你寄来他们在课堂上使用显微镜的照片

这是一件很令人开心的事情

It's an extraordinary thing.

现在大家就可以登陆这个网站，开始自己的捐助旅程

Go to the website and start yourself on the process of thinking

或者你也可以少想一想 “我可以为自己买些什么” 这样的问题

less about "How can I spend money on myself?"

多想想：如果我今天得到了5美元或15美元

and more about "If I've got five dollars or 15 dollars,

我怎么才能用他们来帮助别人呢？

what can I do to benefit other people?"

因为最后你会发现，其实当你做这些事情的时候，最大的获益人是你自己

Ultimately, when you do that, you'll find you benefit yourself much more.

谢谢

Thank you.

（鼓掌声）

(Applause)