Are the benefits of prosocial spending and buying time moderated by age, gender, or income?

Abstract

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.