So I want to talk today about money and happiness, which are two things a lot of us spend a lot of our time thinking about, either trying to earn them or trying to increase them. And a lot of us resonate with this phrase, we see it in religions and self-help books: money can't buy happiness. And I want to suggest today that, in fact, that's wrong.
Danes bi rad govoril o dveh stvareh - o denarju in sreči, gre za dve zadevi, o katerih ljudje veliko razmišljamo - ali ju poskušamo zaslužiti ali pa povečati. In veliko si nas ponavlja ta stavek. V verskih knjigah in v knjigah za samopomoč beremo, da denar ne more kupiti sreče. In danes vam želim povedati, da to ne drži.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
I'm at a business school, so that's what we do. So that's wrong, and in fact, if you think that, you're just not spending it right. So instead of spending it the way you usually spend it, maybe if you spent it differently, that might work a little bit better. Before I tell you the ways you can spend it that will make you happier, let's think about the ways we usually spend it that don't, in fact, make us happier. We had a little natural experiment. So CNN, a little while ago, wrote this interesting article on what happens to people when they win the lottery. It turns out people think when they win the lottery their lives will be amazing. This article's about how their lives get ruined. What happens when people win the lottery is, one, they spend all the money and go into debt; and two, all of their friends and everyone they've ever met find them and bug them for money. It ruins their social relationships, in fact. So they have more debt and worse friendships than they had before they won the lottery.
Sem na poslovni šoli in to pač tam počnemo. To torej ne drži in če v bistvu mislite tako, denarja le ne zapravljate za prave stvari. Če bi denar enkrat za spremembo porabili za kaj drugega kot običajno, če bi ga morda porabili drugače, bi se moja trditev zdela nekoliko bolj verjetna. In preden vam povem, kako denar porabiti tako, da vas bo to osrečilo, pomislimo, kako ga običajno zapravimo, kar nas v bistvu ne naredi nič srečnejših. Naredili smo manjši resnični poskus. Na CNN so pred kratkim napisali ta zanimiv članek, ki govori o tem, kaj se zgodi ljudem, ko zadenejo na loteriji. Ljudje mislijo, da bo njihovo življenje, ko zadenejo na loteriji, postalo čudovito. Ta članek govori o tem, kako si uničijo življenje. Torej, kaj se zgodi, ko ljudje zadenejo na loteriji: prvič, zapravijo ves denar in zapadejo v dolgove, in drugič, vsi njihovi prijatelji in znanci jih poiščejo in jim težijo za denar. In tako se pravzaprav uničijo njihovi medosebni odnosi. Tako so v večjih dolgovih in imajo slabše odnose s prijatelji, kot preden so zadeli na loteriji. Zanimivo pri tem članku je bilo,
What was interesting about the article was, people started commenting on the article, readers of the thing. And instead of talking about how it made them realize that money doesn't lead to happiness, everyone started saying, "You know what I'd do if I won the lottery ...?" and fantasizing about what they'd do. Here's just two of the ones we saw that are interesting to think about. One person wrote, "When I win, I'm going to buy my own little mountain and have a little house on top."
da so ga bralci začeli komentirati. Namesto da bi govorili o tem, kako so se po tem, ko so članek prebrali, začeli zavedati, da denar ne prinese sreče, so vsi takoj začeli govoriti: "Če bi zadel na loteriji, bi ..." in fantazirati o tem, kaj bi naredili. Tukaj sta dva komentarja, o katerih je res zanimivo razmisliti. Nekdo je napisal: "Če zadenem, si bom kupil svojo lastno goro in na vrhu postavil hišico."
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
And another person wrote, "I would fill a big bathtub with money and get in the tub while smoking a big fat cigar and sipping a glass of champagne." This is even worse: "... then I'd have a picture taken and dozens of glossies made. Anyone begging for money or trying to extort from me would receive a copy of the picture and nothing else."
Nekdo drug pa je napisal: "Veliko banjo bi napolnil z denarjem, ležal v njej in kadil veliko cigaro ter srkal šampanjec." Ta je pa še hujša: "Potem bi se fotografiral in razvil na ducate fotografij na najboljšem bleščečem papirju. Vsak, ki bi me prosil za denar ali me izsiljeval, bi dobil tako fotografijo in čisto nič drugega."
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
And so many of the comments were exactly of this type, where people got money and, in fact, it made them antisocial. So I told you it ruins people's lives and their friends bug them. Also, money often makes us feel very selfish and we do things only for ourselves. We thought maybe the reason money doesn't make us happy is that we're spending it on the wrong things; in particular, we're always spending it on ourselves. And we wondered what would happen if we made people spend more of their money on others. So instead of being antisocial with your money, what if you were more pro-social with it?
In bilo je še veliko podobnih komentarjev, v kateri so ljudje dobili denar in zaradi tega postali asocialni. Povedal sem vam, da denar ljudem uniči življenje in da jim drugi težijo zanj. Še to, zaradi denarja pogosto postanemo zelo sebični in vse delamo le sami zase. Mogoče pa je razlog za to, da nas denar ne osreči v tem, da ga vedno potrošimo za napačne stvari, še posebej pa v tem, da ga vedno zapravimo le zase. Pomislili smo, kaj bi se zgodilo, če bi ljudje več denarja zapravili za druge. Kaj če bi namesto tega, da ves denar obdržite zase, postali malo bolj družbeno usmerjeni glede svojega denarja?
We thought, let's make people do it and see what happens. Let's have some people do what they usually do, spend money on themselves, and let's make some people give money away, and measure their happiness and see if, in fact, they get happier. The first way we did this was, one Vancouver morning, we went out on the campus at University of British Columbia, approached people and said, "Do you want to be in an experiment?" They said, "Yes." We asked them how happy they were, and then gave them an envelope. One of the envelopes had things in it that said, "By 5pm today, spend this money on yourself." We gave some examples of what you could spend it on. Other people got a slip of paper that said, "By 5pm today, spend this money on somebody else." Also inside the envelope was money.
In tako smo se odločili, da to preizkusimo na ljudeh in vidimo, kaj se bo zgodilo. Nekaj ljudi naj počne, kar običajno počnejo, in naj zapravijo denar zase, nekaj ljudem pa naročimo, naj denar dajo drugim, mi pa bomo ocenili stopnjo zadovoljstva in videli, ali postanejo srečnejši. In tako smo naredili. V Vancouvru smo nekega jutra odšli v študentsko naselje Univerze Britanska Kolumbija in ljudi vprašali, če bi hoteli sodelovati v poskusu. Strinjali so se. Vprašali smo jih, kako srečni so, nato pa smo jim dali kuverto. V eni od kuvert je pisalo: "Do petih popoldne ves ta denar zapravi zase." Dali smo jim nekaj predlogov, kako lahko porabijo denar. Drugi pa so zjutraj dobili listek, na katerem je pisalo: "Do petih popoldne ta denar porabite za nekoga drugega." V kuverti je bil tudi denar.
And we manipulated how much money we gave them; some people got this slip of paper and five dollars, some got this slip of paper and 20 dollars. We let them go about their day and do whatever they wanted. We found out they did spend it in the way we asked them to. We called them up and asked them, "What did you spend it on? How happy do you feel now?" What did they spend it on? These are college undergrads; a lot of what they spent it on for themselves were things like earrings and makeup. One woman said she bought a stuffed animal for her niece. People gave money to homeless people. Huge effect here of Starbucks.
Vsem tudi nismo dali enako veliko denarja. Nekateri so dobili listek in pet dolarjev. Drugi so dobili listek in 20 dolarjev. Rekli smo jim, da lahko gredo po svojih opravkih in počenjo, kar jih je volja. Ugotovili smo, da so denar res porabili tako, kot smo jim naročili. Zvečer smo jih poklicali in jih vprašali, kako so porabili denar in kako srečne se počutijo sedaj. Za kaj so porabili denar? Šlo je za študente in z denarjem, ki so ga porabili zase, so si kupili na primer uhane ali ličila. Neka ženska je rekla, da je za svojo nečakinjo kupila plišasto igračo. Denar so dali brezdomcem. Starbucks je imel ogromen vpliv. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Če daš študentom pet dolarjev, jih povežejo s kavo
So if you give undergraduates five dollars, it looks like coffee to them, and they run over to Starbucks and spend it as fast as they can. Some people bought coffee for themselves, the way they usually would, but others bought coffee for somebody else. So the very same purchase, just targeted toward yourself or targeted toward somebody else. What did we find when we called at the end of the day? People who spent money on others got happier; people who spent it on themselves, nothing happened. It didn't make them less happy, it just didn't do much for them.
in kakor hitro morejo, odhitijo v Starbucks. Nekateri so si privoščili svojo običajno kavo, drugi pa so rekli, da so kavo kupili nekomu drugemu. Isti nakup, ki ga lahko namenimo sebi ali nekomu drugemu. Kaj smo ugotovili, ko smo ljudi zvečer poklicali? Ljudje, ki so denar porabili za druge, so bili srečnejši. Pri ljudeh, ki so denar zapravili zase, se ni zgodilo nič. Niso bili nič manj srečni, to enostavno ni kaj dosti vplivalo nanje.
The other thing we saw is the amount of money doesn't matter much. People thought 20 dollars would be way better than five. In fact, it doesn't matter how much money you spent. What really matters is that you spent it on somebody else rather than on yourself. We see this again and again when we give people money to spend on others instead of on themselves. Of course, these are undergraduates in Canada -- not the world's most representative population. They're also fairly wealthy and affluent and other sorts of things.
Videli smo tudi, da vsota denarja ne igra kakšne posebne vloge. Ljudje so pač mislili, da je 20 dolarjev bolje kot 5. Pravzaprav sploh ni važno, koliko denarja si zapravil. Kar res šteje, je to, da si denar namesto sebi namenil nekomu drugemu. To opažamo vedno znova in znova, ko ljudem damo denar in jim rečemo, naj ga namesto zase porabijo za druge. Seveda, tu gre za kanadske študente, ki niso ravno najbolj reprezentativen svetovni vzorec. So razmeroma premožni in še vse ostalo.
We wanted to see if this holds true everywhere in the world or just among wealthy countries. So we went to Uganda and ran a very similar experiment. Imagine, instead of just people in Canada, we say, "Name the last time you spent money on yourself or others. Describe it. How happy did it make you?" Or in Uganda, "Name the last time you spent money on yourself or others and describe that." Then we asked them how happy they are, again. And what we see is sort of amazing, because there's human universals on what you do with your money, and real cultural differences on what you do as well. So for example, one guy from Uganda says this: "I called a girl I wished to love." They basically went out on a date, and he says at the end that he didn't "achieve" her up till now.
Hoteli smo preveriti, ali to drži tudi povsod drugje po svetu ali le v bogatih državah. Zato smo šli v Ugando in tam naredili podoben poskus. Če si predstavljate, v Kanadi smo rekli: "Povejte, kdaj ste nazadnje porabili denar za nekoga drugega. Opišite to. Kako srečne ste se počutili po tem?" V Ugandi pa: "Povejte, kdaj ste denar porabili zase ali za druge ljudi in opišite to." In potem smo jih spet vprašali, kako srečni so. Kar opažamo, je kar presenetljivo, saj med ljudmi obstajajo čisto univerzalni načini, kaj narediti z denarjem, hkrati pa glede tega tudi prave kulturne razlike. Na primer, en fant iz Ugande je rekel tole. Rekel je: "Poklical sem ljubljeno dekle." V bistvu sta šla na zmenek in na koncu pravi, da je do sedaj ni osvojil.
(Laughter)
Tu je fant in Kanade.
Here's a guy from Canada. Very similar thing. "I took my girlfriend out for dinner. We went to a movie, we left early, and then went back to her room for ... cake," just cake.
Zelo podobna zadeva. "Svoje dekle sem peljal na večerjo. Šla sva v kino, zgodaj odšla in se vrnila v njeno sobo ter si privoščila ..." torto - le kos torte. Univerzalno za vse ljudi - če denar porabiš za druge,
(Laughter)
Human universal: you spend money on others, you're being nice. Maybe you have something in mind, maybe not. But then we see extraordinary differences. So look at these two. This is a woman from Canada. We say, "Name a time you spent money on somebody else." She says, "I bought a present for my mom. I drove to the mall, bought a present, gave it to my mom." Perfectly nice thing to do. It's good to get gifts for people you know. Compare that to this woman from Uganda: "I was walking and met a longtime friend whose son was sick with malaria. They had no money, they went to a clinic and I gave her this money." This isn't $10,000, it's the local currency. So it's a very small amount of money, in fact. But enormously different motivations here. This is a real medical need, literally a lifesaving donation. Above, it's just kind of, I bought a gift for my mother.
si dober do njih. Mogoče se ti kaj plete po glavi, mogoče ne. Ampak opažamo ogromne razlike. Poglejmo si ti dve izjavi. Tu gre za žensko iz Kanade. Vprašali smo: "Kdaj ste porabili denar za koga drugega?" Ona je odgovorila: "Svoji mami sem kupila darilo. Odpeljala sem se v nakupovalno središče, kupila darilo in ga dala svoji mami." Čisto lepa gesta. Lepo je obdarovati svoje bližnje. Primerjajte to z žensko iz Ugande. "Med pešačenjem sem srečala dolgoletno prijateljico, katere sin je zbolel za malarijo. Bili so brez denarja, sin je bil v bolnici in jaz sem ji dala ta denar." Tu ne gre za 10.000 dolarjev, gre za lokalno valuto. Pravzaprav gre za zelo malo denraja. A motivacija tu je popolnoma drugačna. Gre za resnično zdravstveno potrebo, dobesedno za donacijo, ki rešuje življenje. Zgoraj gre pač za "mami sem kupila darilo".
What we see again, though, is that the specific way you spend on other people isn't nearly as important as the fact that you spend on other people in order to make yourself happy, which is really quite important. So you don't have to do amazing things with your money to make yourself happy. You can do small, trivial things and still get the benefits from doing this. These are only two countries. We wanted to look at every country in the world if we could, to see what the relationship is between money and happiness.
Kar spet vidimo, je to, da način, kako denar porabite za druge, ni niti približno tako pomemben, kot je dejstvo, da ste ga porabili za druge zato, da bi osrečili sebe, kar je res precej pomembno. Da bi se osrečili, vam denarja ni treba nameniti za neke izjemne stvari. Lahko naredite majhne, nepomembne stvari in še vedno doživite vse dobrobiti takih dejanj. Gre za le dve državi. Hoteli smo iti še korak naprej in pogledati v vsako državo, v katero smo lahko, in videti, kakšen je odnos med denarjem in srečo. Podatke smo dobili od organizacije Gallup,
We got data from the Gallup Organization, which you know from all the political polls happening lately. They asked people, "Did you donate money to charity recently?" and, "How happy are you with life in general?" We can see what the relationship is between those two things. Are they positively correlated, giving money makes you happy? Or are they negatively correlated? On this map, green will mean they're positively correlated, red means they're negatively correlated. And you can see, the world is crazily green. So in almost every country in the world where we have this data, people who give money to charity are happier people than people who don't give money to charity. I know you're looking at the red country in the middle. I would be a jerk and not tell you what it is, but it's Central African Republic. You can make up stories. Maybe it's different there for some reason. Just below that to the right is Rwanda, though, which is amazingly green.
ki jo poznate po vseh političnih raziskavah, ki so bile opravljene v zadnjem času. Ljudi so spraševali: "Ste v zadnjem času darovali denar v dobrodelne namene?" Vprašali so jih tudi: "Kako zadovoljni ste na splošno s svojim življenjem?" In lahko vidimo, v kakšnem odnosu sta ti dve stvari. Sta pozitivno povezani? To, da daruješ denar, te osreči. Ali sta v negativen odnosu? Na tem zemeljevidu zelena pomeni, da sta v pozitivnem odnosu, rdeča pa pomeni, da sta v negativnem odnosu. Lahko vidite, da je svet nenormalno zelen. Torej so ljudje v skoraj vsaki državi na svetu, za katero imamo te podatke, če darujejo denar v dobrodelne namene, srečnejši kot tisti, ki tega ne počno. Vem, da vsi gledate tole rdečo državo na sredini. Lahko bi bil kreten in vam ne bi povedal, za kaj gre, a v bistvu gre za Centralnoafriško republiko. Lahko napletate razne zgodbe. Lahko gre za take ali drugačne razloge. Pod njo se nahaja Ruanda, ki je presenetljivo zelena. Torej skoraj povsod, kamor pogledamo,
So almost everywhere we look, we see that giving money away makes you happier than keeping it for yourself. What about work, which is where we spend the rest of our time, when we're not with the people we know. We decided to infiltrate some companies and do a very similar thing. These are sales teams in Belgium. They work in teams, go out and sell to doctors and try to get them to buy drugs. We can look and see how well they sell things as a function of being a member of a team. We give people on some teams some money "Spend it however you want on yourself," just like we did with the undergrads in Canada. To other teams we say, "Here's 15 euro. Spend it on one of your teammates. Buy them something as a gift and give it to them. Then we can see, we've got teams that spend on themselves and these pro-social teams who we give money to make the team better. The reason I have a ridiculous pinata there is one team pooled their money and bought a pinata, they smashed the pinata, the candy fell out and things like that. A silly, trivial thing to do, but think of the difference on a team that didn't do that at all, that got 15 euro, put it in their pocket, maybe bought themselves a coffee, or teams that had this pro-social experience where they bonded together to buy something and do a group activity. What we see is that the teams that are pro-social sell more stuff than the teams that only got money for themselves.
vidimo, da darovanje denarja ljudi bolj osreči, kot če bi ga imeli le zase. Kaj pa vaša služba, kjer preživite ves preostanek svojega časa, ko niste z ljudmi, ki jih poznate? Odločili smo se, da bomo šli v nekaj podjetij in poskusili s podobno zadevo. To so prodajne skupine v Belgiji. Delajo v skupinah; na terenu prodajajo zdravnikom in jih prepričujejo, da kupijo zdravila. Lahko pogledamo in vidimo, kako dobro prodajajo, ker so del skupine. Nekaterim ekipam damo več denarja za lastno porabo in rečemo: "Potrošite ga zase, kakor hočete," tako kot smo naredili s študenti v Kanadi. Drugim ekipam pa damo 15 evrov in jim naročimo, naj jih ta teden porabijo za druge člane ekipe. "Kupite jim kako darilo." Potem lahko vidimo, kaj se zgodi z ekipami, kjer ljudje denar porabijo zase, in s temi drugimi bolj socialnimi ekipami, ki imajo denar zato, da izboljšajo delovanje tima. Tule imam tole smešno igračko, to pa zato, ker je ena od ekip s skupnim denarjem kupila to stvarco, potem so jo skupaj razbili in iz nje so se vsuli bonboni. Zelo neumna, trivialna stvar, ampak pomislite na razlike med ekipo, ki ni storila tega, kjer so ljudje svojih 15 evrov in jih pospravili v žep si morda privoščili kavo, ter ekipo, ki je imela to prosocialno izkušnjo, ki jih je povezala v skupno aktivnost. Vidimo, da so ekipe, ki so bolj prosocialne, uspešnejše pri prodaji kot tiste, ki spravijo denar zase.
One way to think of it is: for every 15 euro you give people for themselves, they put it in their pocket and don't do anything different than before. You don't get money from that; you lose money, since it doesn't motivate them to perform better. But when you give them 15 euro to spend on their teammates, they do so much better on their teams that you actually get a huge win on investing this kind of money.
Na to lahko gledamo tudi tako: za vsakih 15 evrov, ki jih ljudje dobijo zase, ta denar spravijo v žep in ne spremenijo ničesar. Od tega ni dobička. Pravzaprav je izguba, saj jih denar ne motivira, da bi bolje delali. Ko pa jim date 15 evrov, da jih porabijo za sodelavce, veliko bolje delajo v ekipi, tako da imate od takega vložka pravzaprav velik dobiček.
You're probably thinking to yourselves, this is all fine, but there's a context that's incredibly important for public policy, and I can't imagine it would work there. And if he doesn't show me that it works here, I don't believe anything he said. I know what you're all thinking about are dodgeball teams.
Vem, da si morda mislite, to je vse super, ampak v kontekstu javnih politik to ne more delovati. In če mi ta človek ne dokaže, da deluje tudi tam, mu ne bom verjel niti besedice. Verjetno razmišljate o igrah z žogo, kjer je treba zadeti nasprotnika.
(Laughter)
(smeh)
This was a huge criticism that we got, that if you can't show it with dodgeball teams, this is all stupid. So we went and found these dodgeball teams and infiltrated them, and did the exact same thing as before. So we give people on some teams money to spend on themselves. Other teams, we give them money to spend on their dodgeball teammates. The teams that spend money on themselves have the same winning percentages as before. The teams we give the money to spend on each other become different teams; they dominate the league by the time they're done.
Kritizirali so nas, češ, če ne deluje pri igrah z žogo, potem je to vse neumnost. Zato smo šli iskat take ekipe in se infiltrirali vanje. Naredili smo isto stvar kot prej. Nekaterim ekipam smo naročili, naj denar potrošijo zase. Drugim smo ga dali, naj ga potrošijo na druge člane ekipe. Tisti, ki so ga porabili zase, so imeli enak odstotek zmag kot prej. Tisti, ki so ga porabili za druge, so postali drugačne ekipe in so na koncu ciklusa dominirali v svoji ligi.
Across all of these different contexts -- your personal life, you work life, even things like intramural sports -- we see spending on other people has a bigger return for you than spending on yourself. So if you think money can't buy happiness, you're not spending it right. The implication isn't you should buy this product instead of that product, and that's the way to make yourself happier. It's that you should stop thinking about which product to buy for yourself, and try giving some of it to other people instead.
V vseh teh različnih kontekstih... v osebnem življenju, na delovnem mestu, celo pri športih na omejenem igrišču... vam trošenje denarja v korist drugih prinese večji dobiček, kot če bi ga porabili zase. Zato bom rekel samo: če mislite, da vam denar ne more kupiti sreče, ga ne trošite pravilno. Ne mislim, da bi morali kupiti ta izdelek namesto onega in se tako bolj osrečiti. Morali bi nehati razmišljati o tem, kaj kupiti zase, temveč namesto tega kaj dati drugim.
And we luckily have an opportunity for you. DonorsChoose.org is a nonprofit for mainly public school teachers in low-income schools. They post projects like, "I want to teach Huckleberry Finn and we don't have the books," or, "I want a microscope to teach my students science and we don't have a microscope." You and I can go on and buy it for them. The teacher and the kids write you thank-you notes, sometimes they send pictures of them using the microscope. It's an extraordinary thing.
In na srečo imate priložnost. DonorsChoose.org je neprofitna organizacija predvsem za učitelje v javnih šolah z nizkimi dohodki. Oni pripravijo projekte, recimo: "Svojemu razredu bi rad predstavil Huckleberryja Finna, a nimamo knjig." ali: "Potrebujem mikroskop, da bi učil o znanosti, pa ga nimamo." Lahko jim ga kupite. Učitelj se vam bo zahvalil. Učenci vam bodo hvaležni. Morda vam bodo poslali fotografije, kako uporabljajo mikroskop. To je nekaj neverjetnega.
Go to the website and start yourself on the process of thinking less about "How can I spend money on myself?" and more about "If I've got five dollars or 15 dollars, what can I do to benefit other people?" Ultimately, when you do that, you'll find you benefit yourself much more.
Pojdite na spletno stran in se pridružite procesu, kjer ne boste razmišljali, kako porabiti denar zase, temveč o tem, kako s petimi ali petnajstimi dolarji pomagati drugim ljudem. Kajti videli boste, da boste s tem veliko bolj koristili sebi.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(aplavz)