Host: Can money buy you happiness? Research published today in the journal of science says, “yes it can”, if you give it away to help others. Joining us is Jennifer Harstein, clinical psychologist at St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital here in New York. Jennifer, good morning.

Jennifer: Good morning.

Host: Okay, the study gives money to two groups of people. One group says “go out and spend money on yourself”. The other group, “go out to spend it to help others”. The second group feels better about themselves. Are you surprised about that?

Jennifer Harstein: A little bit. You know, it's counter-intuitive. We think, take care of ourselves, to use our money to spend on ourselves, when in fact it looks like giving it forward, paying it forward to someone else makes us feel better. What is it about that? Probably the social connectedness.

Host: Yeah, is it a question of how much you give to others, or is it just the whole fact that you've given money to someone else?

Jennifer Harstein: It can be as little as five dollars, it can be buying your friend a cup of coffee and saying, “hey, it's on me”. It doesn't matter how much, but it's something about the act of giving, and historically the best thing that people like to do is spend time with their friends, do things for their friends, and even give to charity, so it ties into things that generally build up happiness in the long term.

Host: And these times, we have stories everyday of people who have overextended themselves, using their credit card, etcetera, etcetera, to buy toys to make them feel better. Is it safe to assume from this study that in fact they're not feeling better?

Jennifer Harstein: In the short term they're absolutely feeling better, but once you kind of lose the excitement of that it doesn't matter anymore. So in the long term you want to build up things that over time will sustain that happiness, and giving does.

Host: Also, a Pew Research Center study found that as income rose so did happiness. How do we reconcile that?

Jennifer Harstein: Well, I think that if you have more income you are more stable economically, so it takes away a huge amount of pressure. You don't have to be nervous about where your next meal's coming, if you're gonna be able to send you kid, you know, get new clothes for you kid, send them to school. So it takes away a whole element of pressure, so now your happiness can be higher, and you can do other things that make you feel good. Give to other people, do for yourself, do for your family.

Host: Have we seen study results like this before, or is this brand new?

Jennifer Harstein: It's something that has been studied over time, and the question is really, how is it working? How does it change? How does it adapt over time? I think the idea of giving to others is a new idea and hopefully will set the precedent for us to do this down the road, maybe we can have some national changes.

Host: We'll go to Sachs later and you can pay.

Jennifer Harstein: Perfect!

Host: I want you to feel better. Thank you very much.