Reader’s Corner: Go Shopping

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We know that money doesn’t buy happiness. Yet, sometimes shopping does make people feel better; or at least they think it does. So here’s the question, can buying something in particular make you happier than something else?

A study published last year in Psychological Science tried this experiment:

They gave vouchers to extraverts and introverts to either buy a drink or a book. Along the way, participants repeatedly completed a measure of positive and negative mood so that the researchers c...