PROVED!  IT IS MORE BLESSED TO GIVE – AT 1:58 P.M. ET:   We now have a study that demonstrates the old wisdom that it is more blessed to give than to receive.  From Study Finds:

CHICAGO — In this season of giving and getting, the findings are in. It is more blessed to give than to receive.

According to two new studies conducted by researchers with the University of Chicago and Northwestern University, giving to others rather than to ourselves makes us happier.

Have you ever noticed that your enjoyment in a repeated activity or event decreases over time no matter how wonderful it is? When this happens, you are experiencing what researchers call hedonic adaptation. The joy of having our own desires met is always fleeting. Perhaps surprisingly, however, giving to others creates a more lasting happiness.

“If you want to sustain happiness over time, past research tells us that we need to take a break from what we’re currently consuming and experience something new,” says study co-author Ed O’Brien, of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, in a release from the Association for Psychological Science. “Our research reveals that the kind of thing may matter more than assumed: Repeated giving, even in identical ways to identical others, may continue to feel relatively fresh and relatively pleasurable the more that we do it.”

In the first experiment, 96 college student participants were given $5 each day for five days. The students were told to spend the money on exactly the same thing each day. Some of the participants were randomly assigned to spend the money on themselves, while some were assigned to spend the money on others — maybe an online donation to the same charity each day or even cash placed in a tip jar at the same café.

Participants self-reported at the end of each day how they felt about the money they had spent, and how they rated their overall happiness.

The results of the daily spending challenge showed a clear pattern. While participants began with very similar levels of happiness, the students who had spent money on themselves felt decreasingly happy over the five-day period. Conversely, participants who gave their money to someone else, however, continued to feel the same level of joy on the fifth day as they did on the first day.

COMMENT:   A very good lesson in life, and one with moral and religious implications.

December 25, 2018