“This one’s on me!”: Differential well-being effects of self-centered and recipient-centered motives for spending money on others

Past research reliably shows that spending money on others (termed prosocial spending) makes people happier than spending money on oneself. The present research tested whether the happiness benefits of prosocial spending may be reduced when spending money on others for self-centered reasons—to benefit the self—than when done for recipient-centered reasons—to benefit the recipient. Four specific spending motives—spending on others to...