When it comes down to it, most people coming for psychotherapy do so because they are unhappy. We live in a paradise, and one might look out across the Great Sound, or gaze at the horizon at Daniel’s Head as the sun is going down and wonder how anyone could be unhappy in a place like this. I learned some time ago, however, that place is important, but it’s not everything. One can have a hellish experience in paradise.If it’s not a matter of living in a beautiful place, then it’s often a matter of having a lot of beautiful things. Does spending money on “stuff” make a person happy? There is a common myth that material possessions don’t make a person happy. This seems a bit like the poor person telling himself the rich man doesn’t really have it as good as he does. Other people would claim that the person with the best toys is actually happier. Interestingly, social psychologists investigated this issue. In a series of studies conducted by Peter Caprariello and Harry Reis, which were written up in an article for The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers investigated the relationship between what people spent their money on and how relatively happy they were with what they got. Time after time the results reinforced themselves. For most people spending money on things, material possessions, only makes one more happy than being alone. That is, put another way, if one is a loner to begin with, then getting and playing with a lot of toys can camouflage the fact that one IS alone. The larger finding in these studies is that people prefer to spend money to obtain experiences than to spend money to get more things. Further to that, what makes having an experience more fun is that people do it with other people. Having solitary experiences is not the same thing.Perhaps this is no news flash. Someone might say, “I did not need a psychology research project to tell me that I prefer being out doing things with other people over sitting alone in my house playing with my toys.” For some people, though, I imagine they might be saying, “Not me. I’d rather be by myself with my video games and my brand new surround-sound, high-definition TV than to have to fuss with other people and their demands.” Preferences. We’re all different, but the study I referred to does show that for the majority of people doing things with others makes them happy. One might say, it’s the happiness that is rewarding, and it’s the happiness that motivates them to spend their money on experiences with others instead of things one usually enjoys by oneself.That brings me to the subject of motivation. Why do people do what they do, whatever they do?Quite a number of researchers from various places collaborated in a study published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology to refine the understanding of the kinds of values that go into motivation. What they devised was a way to understand such motivation: “Values form a circular motivational continuum. The theory defines and orders 19 values on the continuum based on their compatible and conflicting motivations…” Listed with their motivational descriptors these values are as follows:l Self-directed thought as the freedom to cultivate one’s own ideas and abilitiesl Self-directed action as the freedom to determine one’s own actionsl Stimulation as excitement, novelty, and changel Hedonism as pleasure and sensuous gratificationl Achievement as success according to social standardsl Power (dominance) as power through exercising control over peoplel Power (resources) as power through control of material and social resourcesl Face as the security and power one experiences through maintaining one’s public image and avoiding humiliationl Personal security as safety in one’s immediate environmentl Societal security as safety and stability in the wider societyl Tradition as maintaining and preserving cultural, family, or religious traditionsl Conformity as compliance with rules, laws, and formal obligationsl Conformity as avoidance of upsetting or harming other peoplel Humility as in recognising one’s insignificance in the larger scheme of thingsl Benevolence (dependability) as being a reliable and trustworthy member of the groupl Benevolence (caring) as devotion to the welfare of group membersl Universalism (concern) as commitment to equality, justice, and protection for all peoplel Universalism (nature) as preservation of the natural environmentl Universalism (tolerance) as acceptance and understanding of those different from oneselfTo the degree that any of these are my values, then I am motivated to live in accord with them, to maximise them in my life, to pursue them in my living among other people. If it is important to me to be self-directed in both thought and action, to have power (dominance), to have success, and to save face, then I am going to spend my resources to create situations in which these kinds of things are my experiences. They will characterise my relationships with other people, but that does not mean that the other people will have a good time while I am in charge and saving my own face. If I pursue my own values at the expense of other people’s values, I can be blissfully ignorant that they think little of me as a person. Conversely, if my values end up confirming and supporting other people, then it is quite possible that I could be liked and well thought of, but never really sense it.What makes you happy: spending money on experience with others that is only self-oriented or experience with others that makes significant room for the values and needs of others?