679. Happy Spending and Joyful Climate Action with Elizabeth Dunn

About this episode

Elizabeth Dunn is a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, and director of their Happiness Lab. She’s also the co-author of two books, Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species and Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. Greg and Elizabeth discuss how her work links common errors in forecasting happiness with misunderstandings about carbon impact. Elizabeth argues that experiences generally bring more lasting joy than material goods do because of comparison and hedonic adaptation. However, savoring and creating scarcity can renew enjoyment. She shares experiments showing people become happier when spending money on others, with studies…