科学美国人60秒 为了买到幸福，可以花钱节省时间（在线收听）

We all know money can’t buy happiness. But according to a recent study, there may be a loophole. A team of researchers finds that shelling out for services that save time can bring greater feelings of life satisfaction than, say, simply buying more stuff. The results appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

我们都知道金钱买不到幸福。但据最近的一项研究显示，这句话可能存在一个漏洞。一组研究人员发现，与简单地花钱购买更多东西相比，付钱购买能节省时间的服务会为生活带来更高的满足感。该项研究结果发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上。

It’s safe to say that most of us regularly feel crunched for time. So much so that we are experiencing what Ashley Whillans of the Harvard Business School, the lead author of the study, describes as a “time famine.” And like any famine, this chronic lack of time takes its toll on our health.

可以肯定地说，我们大多数人都经常感到时间紧张。那么，我们就是在经历该研究的首席作者、哈佛商学院的阿什莉·威利斯所说的“时间饥荒”。“跟其他所有饥荒一样，长期时间紧张会对我们的健康造成损害。”

“When we feel like our to-do lists are longer than the hours that we have time in the day to complete them, we can feel like our life is spiraling out of control, thereby undermining our personal well-being.”

“当我们感觉完成任务清单需要的时间比一天中的可用时间要长时，可能就会觉得生活正在失去控制，从而破坏我们的个人幸福。”

Well, if time is money, Whillans and her team wondered whether money that’s used to buy time could offer some relief. Like paying someone else to clean the house, mow the lawn, or deliver the groceries.

好吧，如果时间就是金钱，威利斯和她的团队想知道，用于购买时间的金钱是否会给人带来些许安慰。比如付钱请别人打扫房子、修剪草坪或者送杂货。

To find out, the researchers asked more than 6,000 people from the U.S., Canada, Denmark, and the Netherlands to rate their overall satisfaction with life, and to estimate how much money they lay out each month to outsource unenjoyable daily tasks or otherwise purchase some time off.

为找出答案，研究人员请来自美国、加拿大、丹麦和荷兰的6000多人对他们生活的总体满意度进行评估，并估算他们每个月会花多少钱来将日常琐事进行外包，或者通过其他方式花钱节省时间。

And they found that respondents who willingly swap funds for free time also report feeling more content—regardless of their income or how many hours they work each week.

他们发现，那些愿意用资金来换取自由时光的受访者同时也是感觉更满足的人——不管他们的收入有多少或者每周工作多少小时。

To follow up, the researchers conducted a smaller experiment in which they gave volunteers forty bucks to buy a little something for themselves. The same participants got another forty dollars that they were told to spend on something that would save them time. And again, buying time was more likely to elevate mood and alleviate anxiety.

为了进一步研究，研究人员进行了一项较小的实验：他们给志愿者40美元，让他们去为自己买一些东西。然后再次给同样的参与者40美元，并告知他们要将钱花在可以节省时间的事情上。结果再次显示，花钱节省时间更有可能让人提高情绪，缓解焦虑。

These findings may be hard for some people to, well, buy:

有一些人对于这些发现可能很难……买账：

“Even in a sample of 850 millionaires, just over half of our respondents spent money to buy themselves time. These findings link to a broader literature suggesting that we do not always spend money in ways that promote happiness.”

“即使在对850个百万富翁进行的调查中，也只有超过一半的受访者会花钱为自己节省时间。这些发现恰与一个更广泛的文献相关连，该文献表明人们并不会总是为提升幸福感而花钱。”

Even when we should know better.

甚至在我们知道那样做会更好的情况下。

“Personally I know that when I recently moved to a new city I had a lot of errands to run. I had to let my own data convince me that buying time would make my life easier, less stressful and happier.”

“就我个人而言，当我最近搬到一个新的城市时，我知道我有很多事情要做。我不得不让自己的数据来说服我，花钱购买时间会让我的生活更轻松、更少压力和更快乐。”