Analyse af Michael Nortons TED Talk 'How to buy happiness'

Michael Norton is a social science researcher who made an experiment about the term “money buys happiness”. Him and his team decided to do an experiment because they wanted to see the affect when people spent money on others and not themselves.

In Michael Norton’s TED-talk “How to buy happiness” he speaks about money, and how they in fact can buy happiness. He made an experiment where he gave strangers money to spend on themselves, or other people. He asked the participants how happy they were, and then let them spend the money on themselves or others. At night he called the participants of the experiment and asked them how happy they were. The majority of the people who spend the money on others got happier than the ones who spend them on themselves. The intention behind giving the TED-talk is to inform people how they are misinterpreting how money brings people happiness. He seems very convincing in his speech and his message is very clear. Michael Norton wants to convince us that the term “money buys happiness” is in fact true. We just misunderstand what it really means and misunderstand how to use the money.

. “Across all 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.” (9.30)