It's official! Money can buy you happiness

Researchers have suggested that happiness can be bought by money, if it is spent in the right way.

Harvard Business School associate professor Michael Norton and University of British Columbia professor Elizabeth Dunn wrote a book called 'Happy Money: The Science of Spending,' News.com.au reported.

The book is based on 10 years of research that was undertaken in Canada, the US, Uganda and South Africa and shows that changing the way a person spends even small amounts of money can lead to a raise in happiness.

To prove their point, the authors conducted a test in which they handed out Starbucks gift cards at a university campus.

The authors said that they told one group of people to head to Starbucks and buy something for themselves and told another group to pass their gift card along to someone else.

Another group was told to use the gift card to buy something for someone else, the only additional requirement being that they hung out with that person at Starbucks.

The authors found that the group who treated someone else and shared in that experience with them were the happiest.