In the last two decades, social psychologists have identified several key spending strategies that promote happiness such as making time-saving purchases (buying time) and spending money on others ...(prosocial spending). Although the emotional benefits of these two spending strategies are well-documented in the current literature, it is unclear whether the effectiveness of these strategies vary depending on individual characteristics. To address this research gap, we surveyed an economically diverse sample of 15,545 Americans about their subjective well-being, spending behavior, personal values and beliefs, as well as demographics including age, gender, and income. Across demographic groups, spending money on others was robustly related to happiness. Spending money on others was also associated with greater happiness regardless of whether participants believed that they would be happier spending money on others. In contrast, the relationship between buying time and happiness was somewhat less reliable. Although gender and personal income did not moderate the relationship between buying time and happiness, the relationship was only marginally significant for men, and non-significant within each income bracket. Our results also indicated that those who valued money over time were significantly happier when they used money to buy time, whereas those who valued time over money reported similar levels of happiness whether or not they bought time. Taken together, the present research shows that the relationship between prosocial spending, buying time, and subjective well-being is largely consistent across the different demographic groups we examined.
Under what conditions does prosocial spending promote happiness? In a series of appropriately powered and pre-registered experiments, the present research revisited the role of impact, social ...connection, and perceived choice in maximizing the emotional benefits of spending money on others. In two exploratory studies, we found that happy (vs. less happy) prosocial spending experiences were marked by higher levels of impact, social connection and perceived choice (Study 1a and 1b). Consistent with these initial findings, three pre-registered studies confirmed that spending money on others was particularly rewarding when people were able to see the difference their generosity made (Study 2); when they felt a sense of social connection to the person or cause they were helping (Study 3); and when they felt that the decision to help was freely chosen (Study 4). Together, our findings corroborate previous research on impact, social connection and perceived choice, and highlight the importance of considering these key variables when evaluating old and new evidence on the emotional benefits of prosocial spending. In addition, our findings suggest that charitable organizations and policymakers should review their current solicitation strategies and pay more attention to people's sense of impact, connection and choice when seeking charitable donations.
Social connection plays a central role in people’s everyday lives. Although researchers have traditionally focused on the benefits of experiencing an enduring sense of social connection, recent ...research has also begun to explore the contextual factors that shape momentary feeling of social connection. To date, however, no psychological scales have been developed to measure state social connection. To address this gap, we developed the 10-item UBC State Social Connection Scale (UBC-SSCS). In Study 1, we generated and refined our initial pool of items and confirmed our hypothesized factor structure in a large university sample. In Studies 2 to 3, we established several forms of validity. We provide foundational evidence that the UBC-SSCS is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing momentary feelings of social connection. Our exploratory findings also suggest that researchers can substantially increase their statistical power using state (vs. trait) measures to capture fluctuations in feelings of social connection.
Can we encourage people to prepare for a natural disaster by altering the way that scientific information about risk is presented? In assessing the risk posed by a particular hazard, people tend to ...be guided more strongly by their emotional reactions than by logical or statistical analysis; human beings are driven to protect themselves from risks that that they have actually experienced, that are easy to envision, or that are linked to vivid, concrete images. Thus, even if people recognize that earthquakes pose an important threat, they may be unmotivated to take action to prepare for this abstract risk in the absence of direct personal experience. Harnessing past research and theorizing, we developed a novel intervention to transform scientific information into vivid, emotionally evocative imagery. In a pre-registered study, 411 participants were shown publicly available statistics or a vivid, scientifically-grounded image of what a local school would look like after a major earthquake. When invited to sign a petition to make schools safer, 77.3% participants agreed after looking at the image compared to 68% who agreed after looking at statistics. These findings suggest that using vivid images to communicate scientific information can be an effective strategy for motivating people to support risk mitigation initiatives.
Research indicates that spending money on others-prosocial spending-leads to greater happiness than spending money on oneself (e.g., Dunn, Aknin, & Norton, 2008, 2014). These findings have received ...widespread attention because they offer insight into why people engage in costly prosocial behavior, and what constitutes happier spending more broadly. However, most studies on prosocial spending (like most research on the emotional benefits of generosity) utilized small sample sizes (n < 100/cell). In light of new, improved standards for evidentiary value, we conducted high-powered registered replications of the central paradigms used in prosocial spending research. In Experiment 1, 712 students were randomly assigned to make a purchase for themselves or a stranger in need and then reported their happiness. As predicted, participants assigned to engage in prosocial (vs. personal) spending reported greater momentary happiness. In Experiment 2, 1950 adults recalled a time they spent money on themselves or someone else and then reported their current happiness; contrary to predictions, participants in the prosocial spending condition did not report greater happiness than those in the personal spending condition. Because low levels of task engagement may have produced these null results, we conducted a replication with minor changes designed to increase engagement; in this Experiment 3 (N = 5,199), participants who recalled a prosocial (vs. personal) spending memory reported greater happiness but differences were small. Taken together, these studies support the hypothesis that spending money on others does promote happiness, but demonstrate that the magnitude of the effect depends on several methodological features.
The therapeutic applications of many anticancer or antimicrobial metal complexes often suffer from low solubility and low stability in physiological conditions or from drug resistance. To circumvent ...these problems, nanoparticle systems that allow controlled release and specific accumulation in the targeted disease tissue are of advantage for efficient treatment with minimal toxicity. The focus of this Research News is metal‐based nanomaterials comprising anticancer gold(III)/platinum(II) complexes or antimicrobial silver, highlighting the controlled‐release properties of self‐assembled metal systems.
Nanoparticle medicines that allow controlled release and specific accumulation in the targeted disease tissue are of significant advantage for efficient treatment with minimal side effects. Particularly, nanomaterials comprising gold(III)/platinum(II) complexes or silver showing higher therapeutic efficiency are promising anticancer and/or antimicrobial agents.
The synthesis of metal nanoparticles by using bacteria is of growing interest in nanobiotechnology as well as in the study of microbial metal metabolism. Some silver-resistant bacteria can produce ...considerable amounts of silver particles when exposed to silver salts at high concentration but the mechanism of biosynthesis is unknown. In this work, an Escherichia coli strain that carries chromosomally encoded silver resistance determinants has been shown to produce silver nanoparticles in the periplasmic space when it was exposed to Ag(i) salts, providing a prototypical model for studying the biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles. The synthesized silver nanoparticles are in the form of a zero-valent metallic silver lattice, and the production of which was observed to be favorable under anaerobic conditions, suggestive of the biological reduction of Ag super(+) ions. As the microbial c-type cytochromes are known to mediate respiratory reduction of metal ions, their role in the biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles was examined. A deletion mutant of the cytoplasmic membrane-anchored tetra-heme c-type cytochrome subunit of periplasmic nitrate reductase (NapC) showed markedly reduced production of silver nanoparticles. On the other hand, re-introduction of the NapC could recover the biosynthesis of the silver nanoparticles. This study has identified a molecular mechanism of biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles involving c-type cytochromes, having implications in the bioenvironmental process of mineralization and the synthetic biology of metal nano-materials.
Introduction: Some aspects of the treatment protocol for breast cancer during pregnancy (PrBC) have not been thoroughly studied. This study provides clarity regarding the safety of the use of ...125I-seeds as a localization technique for breast-conserving surgery in patients with PrBC. Methods: To calculate the exposure to the fetus of one 125I-seed implanted in a breast tumor, we developed a model accounting for the decaying 125I-source, time to surgery, and the declining distance between the 125I-seed and the fetus. The primary outcome was the maximum cumulative fetal dose of radiation at consecutive gestational ages (GA). Results: The cumulative fetal dose remains below 1 mSv if a single 125I-seed is implanted at a GA of 26 weeks. After a GA of 26 weeks, the fetal dose can be at a maximum of 11.6 mSv. If surgery takes place within two weeks of implantation from a GA of 26 weeks, and one week above a GA of 32 weeks, the dose remains below 1 mSv. Conclusion: The use of 125I-seeds is safe in PrBC. The maximum fetal exposure remains well below the threshold of 100 mSv, and therefore, does not lead to an increased risk of fetal tissue damage. Still, we propose keeping the fetal dose as low as possible, preferably below 1 mSv.
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