DiscoverNudgeA year-long happiness experiment: Try one new thing a week (did it work?)
A year-long happiness experiment: Try one new thing a week (did it work?)

A year-long happiness experiment: Try one new thing a week (did it work?)

Update: 2025-05-26
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This behavioural scientist spent one year doing a new thing every week.


He tried acupuncture, gambling, day-trading and dancing.


He visited Just Stop Oil meetups, cuddle workshops, and psychic readings.


He killed a chicken, drank breastmilk, and bungee jumped.


Did it make him happy? (And is there science to back up his ideas?


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Sources: 


Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59(2), 177–181.


Boothby, E. J., Clark, M. S., & Bargh, J. A. (2014). Shared experiences are amplified. Psychological Science, 25(12), 2209–2216.


Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2003). To do or to have? That is the question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(6), 1193–1202.


Yang, Y., Liu, R.-D., Ding, Y., Lin, J., Ding, Z., & Yang, X. (2024). Time distortion for short-form video users. Computers in Human Behavior, 150, 107192.


Access the bonus episode: https://nudge.kit.com/64d1602e73



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A year-long happiness experiment: Try one new thing a week (did it work?)

A year-long happiness experiment: Try one new thing a week (did it work?)

Phill Agnew