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Time Can Make You Happier Than Money
It’s true for all ages and stages — even for recent college graduates, according to a new study
People who value time over money tend to be happier, according to multiple studies. And new research in the journal Science Advances shows that this is particularly true as a person leaves college, facing weighty career choices while perhaps saddled with debt. Graduates who value time over money are more likely to pursue things they enjoy, including hobbies, social relationships, internships, and careers that provide intrinsic satisfaction rather than merely seeking compensation, the study suggests.
Researchers asked 1,000 graduating students at the University of British Columbia to rate how satisfied they felt with their lives overall, and the extent to which they had experienced positive emotions (like joy and happiness) and negative emotions (like sadness and stress) over the past four weeks. A year later, the graduates were surveyed again.
In both surveys, about 62% of them said they value time more than money, and those people were happier. Comparing the time-money trade-off to other well-established happiness factors, the researchers found that valuing time over money brought double the magnitude of happiness related to materialism in general and happiness known to accrue from high parental income. And while the study does not prove cause and effect, it suggests that valuing time over money can also predict how happy the graduates become as adults. The graduates in the study came from families with incomes ranging from low to high, but family socioeconomic status was not predictive of their tendency to prioritize time or money.
“People who value time make decisions based on meaning versus money,” says study leader Ashley Whillans, an assistant professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. “They choose to do things because they want to, not because they have to.”
It must be noted that the study surveyed students at the University of British Columbia in Canada. It’s unclear, without a separate study, how the results might be different among U.S. graduates. Whillans guesses — and she emphasizes that this is a guess — that what matters isn’t where students go to school but how much…
