So, I have a pretty fun job, which is to figure out what makes people happy.
It's so fun, it might almost seen a little frivolous, especially at a time where we're being confronted with some pretty depressing headlines.
But it turns out that studying happiness might provide a key to solving some of the toughest problems we're facing.
It's taken me almost a decade to figure this out.
Pretty early on in my career, I published a paper in "Science" with my collaborators, entitled, "Spending Money on Others Promotes Happiness".
I was very confident in this conclusion, except for one thing: it didn't seem to apply to me.
I hardly ever gave money to charity, and when I did, I didn't feel that warm glow I was expecting.
So I started to wonder if maybe there was something wrong with my research or something wrong with me.
My own lackluster emotional response to giving was especially puzzling because my follow-up studies revealed that even toddlers exhibited joy from giving to others.
In one experiment, my colleagues Kiley Hamlin, Lara Aknin and I brought kids just under the age of two into the lab.
