full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Michael Norton: How to buy happiness

Unscramble the Blue Letters


So almost everywhere we look, we see that giving money away makes you happier than keeping it for yourself. What about work, which is where we spend the rest of our time, when we're not with the people we know. We decided to infiltrate some companies and do a very saiilmr thing. These are sales teams in Belgium. They work in tames, go out and sell to doctors and try to get them to buy drugs. We can look and see how well they sell things as a function of being a member of a team. We give people on some teams some money "Spend it however you want on yourself," just like we did with the urnedgards in Canada. To other teams we say, "Here's 15 euro. Spend it on one of your tametemas. Buy them something as a gift and give it to them. Then we can see, we've got teams that spend on themselves and these pro-social teams who we give money to make the team better. The rsaeon I have a ridiculous pinata there is one team pooled their money and bought a pinata, they smashed the pnatia, the candy fell out and things like that. A silly, tiirval thing to do, but think of the deriffnece on a team that didn't do that at all, that got 15 euro, put it in their pocket, maybe bought themselves a coffee, or teams that had this pro-social experience where they bonded together to buy something and do a gruop aicvttiy. What we see is that the teams that are pro-social sell more stuff than the teams that only got money for themselves.

Open Cloze


So almost everywhere we look, we see that giving money away makes you happier than keeping it for yourself. What about work, which is where we spend the rest of our time, when we're not with the people we know. We decided to infiltrate some companies and do a very _______ thing. These are sales teams in Belgium. They work in _____, go out and sell to doctors and try to get them to buy drugs. We can look and see how well they sell things as a function of being a member of a team. We give people on some teams some money "Spend it however you want on yourself," just like we did with the __________ in Canada. To other teams we say, "Here's 15 euro. Spend it on one of your _________. Buy them something as a gift and give it to them. Then we can see, we've got teams that spend on themselves and these pro-social teams who we give money to make the team better. The ______ I have a ridiculous pinata there is one team pooled their money and bought a pinata, they smashed the ______, the candy fell out and things like that. A silly, _______ thing to do, but think of the __________ on a team that didn't do that at all, that got 15 euro, put it in their pocket, maybe bought themselves a coffee, or teams that had this pro-social experience where they bonded together to buy something and do a _____ ________. What we see is that the teams that are pro-social sell more stuff than the teams that only got money for themselves.

Solution


  1. activity
  2. pinata
  3. undergrads
  4. trivial
  5. reason
  6. similar
  7. teams
  8. difference
  9. teammates
  10. group

Original Text


So almost everywhere we look, we see that giving money away makes you happier than keeping it for yourself. What about work, which is where we spend the rest of our time, when we're not with the people we know. We decided to infiltrate some companies and do a very similar thing. These are sales teams in Belgium. They work in teams, go out and sell to doctors and try to get them to buy drugs. We can look and see how well they sell things as a function of being a member of a team. We give people on some teams some money "Spend it however you want on yourself," just like we did with the undergrads in Canada. To other teams we say, "Here's 15 euro. Spend it on one of your teammates. Buy them something as a gift and give it to them. Then we can see, we've got teams that spend on themselves and these pro-social teams who we give money to make the team better. The reason I have a ridiculous pinata there is one team pooled their money and bought a pinata, they smashed the pinata, the candy fell out and things like that. A silly, trivial thing to do, but think of the difference on a team that didn't do that at all, that got 15 euro, put it in their pocket, maybe bought themselves a coffee, or teams that had this pro-social experience where they bonded together to buy something and do a group activity. What we see is that the teams that are pro-social sell more stuff than the teams that only got money for themselves.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
spend money 4
give money 4
spent money 4
give people 4
bought coffee 2
giving money 2
dodgeball teams 2


Important Words


  1. activity
  2. belgium
  3. bonded
  4. bought
  5. buy
  6. canada
  7. candy
  8. coffee
  9. companies
  10. decided
  11. difference
  12. doctors
  13. drugs
  14. euro
  15. experience
  16. fell
  17. function
  18. gift
  19. give
  20. giving
  21. group
  22. happier
  23. infiltrate
  24. keeping
  25. member
  26. money
  27. people
  28. pinata
  29. pocket
  30. pooled
  31. put
  32. reason
  33. rest
  34. ridiculous
  35. sales
  36. sell
  37. silly
  38. similar
  39. smashed
  40. spend
  41. stuff
  42. team
  43. teammates
  44. teams
  45. time
  46. trivial
  47. undergrads
  48. work