Study: Brain prefers working for cash

[U-T]

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M...EMPLATE=DEFAULT

ATLANTA (AP) -- It's nicer when you actually earn it. Lottery winners, trust-fund babies and others who get their money without working for it do not get as much satisfaction from their cash as those who earn it, a study of the pleasure center in people's brains suggests.

Emory University researchers measured brain activity in the striatum - the part of the brain associated with reward processing and pleasure - in two groups of volunteers. One group had to work to receive money while playing a simple computer game; the other group was rewarded without having to earn it.

The brains of those who had to work for their money were more stimulated.

"When you have to do things for your reward, it's clearly more important to the brain," said Gregory Berns, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science. "The subjects were more aroused when they had to do something to get the money relative to when they passively received the money."

Berns and other researchers said the study has broader real-world implications, particularly in the age of multimillion-dollar lottery jackpots.

He said that other studies have shown "there's substantial evidence that people who win the lottery are not happier a year after they win the lottery. It's also fairly clear from the psychological literature that people get a great deal of satisfaction out of the work they do."

 

[orangetd88]

You wanna know why those people who won the lottery are not happy a year later? It's because they have blown it all and are in more debt than they were before they won it. LOL

People who win those things don't seem to know what to do with it wonce they get it. Bad investing, most of the time.

This also goes for alot of actors, musicians, and atheletes, as well.

 

[LadyinOrange]

I'll have to take your word for it since I've never won anything.