Another concern about focusing too much on the happiness benefits of giving is that “giving” is a large category, and the forms of “giving” which have the largest benefit to the world are not necessarily the ones that produce the most happiness. (Eliezer has made a similar point.)
One of the published studies on this topic (Aknin et al., 2011) found that thinking about money spent on a close friend or family member produced more happiness than money spent on a more distant acquaintance, which suggests that the happiness boost may be strongest for relatively low-impact forms of giving which have more immediate/direct/local relevance to the donor. Another paper (Aknin et al., in press) focused on charitable giving and provides some evidence that people are happier when they perceive their donation as having a positive impact, but it’s not clear that this happiness scales with the magnitude of the impact (and it seems likely to be influenced by things like the identifiability of the beneficiaries and the vividness of the benefit).
Aknin et al. 2011 (“It’s the recipient that counts”) and Aknin et al. in press (“Making a difference matters”) can both be downloaded on Elizabeth Dunn’s webpage.
Another concern about focusing too much on the happiness benefits of giving is that “giving” is a large category, and the forms of “giving” which have the largest benefit to the world are not necessarily the ones that produce the most happiness. (Eliezer has made a similar point.)
One of the published studies on this topic (Aknin et al., 2011) found that thinking about money spent on a close friend or family member produced more happiness than money spent on a more distant acquaintance, which suggests that the happiness boost may be strongest for relatively low-impact forms of giving which have more immediate/direct/local relevance to the donor. Another paper (Aknin et al., in press) focused on charitable giving and provides some evidence that people are happier when they perceive their donation as having a positive impact, but it’s not clear that this happiness scales with the magnitude of the impact (and it seems likely to be influenced by things like the identifiability of the beneficiaries and the vividness of the benefit).
Aknin et al. 2011 (“It’s the recipient that counts”) and Aknin et al. in press (“Making a difference matters”) can both be downloaded on Elizabeth Dunn’s webpage.