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Double your happiness by being together

Money can't buy you love, but data shows that it may also cost you your humanity. Research has just barely scratched the surface of the relationship between money and mindset, but what's come up so far ain't pretty. We'll investigate what is lost as the money begins to roll in, and - thankfully - how to hold on to the things money can't buy.
Let's start with what money costs us.
Courtesy: Ever heard this one? What's the difference between a catfish and a BMW owner? One is a bottom-feeding scum sucker, and the other is a fish. Unfortunately, a 2012 study carried out along a Northern California roadway revealed that BMW owners often live up to this bad reputation. During the study, a researcher repeatedly posed as a pedestrian standing at a crosswalk, ready to cross the street as a car approached.
When the research team created a five-tiered system, with low-value, dilapidated "category 1" cars at the bottom and luxury "category 5" vehicles at the top, like BMWs, a pattern was evident. Every single category 1 car stopped for the pedestrian while almost 50 per cent of the category 5 vehicles blew through the crosswalk, leaving the hapless pedestrian in a cloud of exhaust.
Empathy: Studies found that people of lower socioeconomic status could read others' expressions and emotions more readily than their wealthier counterparts. Participants were given a picture of a ladder with rungs labeled 1-10 and were asked to self-identify their social class by choosing a corresponding rung. The lowest rungs represented those who are the worst off, and the highest rungs were those who are the best off. The participants were asked to participate in a hypothetical job interview. Afterwards, each participant rated how strongly they felt a variety of emotions.
But then, there was a twist: they were also asked to rate how strongly they thought their counterpart felt each emotion. Lower-class participants were able to judge the emotions of their interview partner with more accuracy than higher-class participants.
Compassion: Participants were tasked with watching two videos while connected to a heart rate monitor. One was instructional video where a woman explained how to build a patio wall, while the other was a documentary clip of kids with cancer going through chemotherapy.
All participants reported, on average, feeling five times as much compassion while watching the cancer video as they did while watching the patio video. But there was a correlation between how much compassion they felt and their social class: Lower-class participants reported feeling significantly greater compassion for the kids with cancer.
Helpfulness: Simply thinking about money can change a person's behaviour. Participants played Monopoly with a confederate for seven minutes. Then they filled out some bogus forms and got up to leave, thinking the study was over. But it had only just begun. As each participant began to leave, a researcher carrying a pile of office supplies walked in front of them and accidentally-on-purpose spilled a box of exactly 27 pencils. This was the real test: How many pencils would each person pick up?
The good news: No one sidestepped the mess. Every single person helped pick up the pencils. However, the group that had been primed with thoughts of wealth picked up significantly fewer.
Ethics: A final study was elegant in its simplicity. Participants were primed to think of themselves as higher-class or lower-class. Then, after filling out some forms as a distraction, they were shown a jar of candy and told it was for kids participating in studies in another lab. Those who were primed to think of themselves as comparatively wealthy really did take (more) candy from a baby.
One factor may be the mindset of independence versus interdependence. Second, the mindset of independence and the idea of self-sufficiency are often intertwined.
To wrap up, happiness definitely includes comfort and security, but it also requires community, togetherness, and feeling part of something larger than yourself. Indeed, it brings life to the saying, "Some people are so poor, all they have is money."
-Psychology Today
Ellen Hendriksen, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders