Appealing to rich people's desire to control events is a better tactic to get them to donate to the charity, rather than their community spirit. That's the finding of a psychological study building on previous research which found that the wealthy people value the ability to control the outcome of different events compared to lower-income people.

Donations from high earners were 1.5 times larger when researchers tailored(定制)the words of letters requesting financial support to play on this desire.

Experts from Harvard University wrote to 12,000 alumni of an Ivy League business school—who were earning $ 100,000 (£ 80,000) per year or more—asking them to donate to the school. Two sets of letters were sent out—one saying the “community” needed to take action, while the other called on individual action. The letter were phrased respectively as "Sometimes, one community needs to come forward and support a common goal" or "Sometimes, one person needs to come forward and take individual action”.

Respondents to the second letter gave $ 432 (£ 340) on average compared to the $ 270 (£ 215) average from the first group.

New Scientist Ashley Whillans, who led the research, said, "We think that giving high-income earners a sense of control makes them want to give more.”

For many, it is a journey that you will never give up, and the more you put in, the more you get out. While this kind of attitude may work for some, the latest scientific research suggests that it can also go wrong for many people.

Mauss has shown that seeking happiness can also increase feelings of loneliness and disconnection, perhaps because it causes you to focus your attention on yourself and your own feelings rather than appreciating the people around you. "Self-focus might make me engage with other people less，and I might judge other people more negatively if I think they ‘mess' with my happiness，”Mauss added.

These effects don't end there. Maglio at the University of，Toronto found another way that the conscious happiness-seeking may have the opposite effect: By leading us to feel that time is slipping away. Happiness comes from something pleasant that I can enjoy right now，to something burdensome（难以承担的）that I have to keep working at over and over and over，" Maglio says.

“If you are constantly reminded of your friend enjoying at this beautiful location or at that delicious dinner，I think that might serve as a reminder that other people are happier than you-and kick-start（强力启动）that goal of happiness again. "

Mauss，meanwhile，points out that a lot of research has found that people who take a more “accepting” altitude to bad feelings-rather than constantly trying to fight them as the enemy--actually end up more satisfied with their life over the long-term. When you are trying to be happy，you may become judgmental and disapproving of bad things in your life. . . "For these reasons，she advises people to have a more stoic（苦修的）attitude to life's ups and downs，in which you accept bad feelings as events which last only a short time rather than trying to remove them entirely.

Happiness really is like a shy animal. And once you stop chasing it，you might just find that it appears naturally of its own accord.

1There are no reported sightings of teenage elephants hesitantly sitting down at the family dinner table with earphones in place, occasionally giving one-word answers to parents’ questions.

But they do exhibit other behaviors many parents of human teens would recognize, said Moss, a researcher who has studied elephants in Kenya’s National Park for nearly five decades.

“They’re naïve (天真的). They have a lot to learn and they make mistakes,” Moss said.

This is particularly true for males. She explained: They ruin crops. They get shot. They die. “It’s just like young human males who drive too fast,” Moss said, “and the insurance companies know very well to make them pay higher insurance rates.”

Barbara Natterson, a Harvard biologist pointed out that adolescent animals frequently put themselves in danger intentionally. This behavior is seen throughout the animal world. The adults of any species may consider some actions of their young low-judgment and high-risk; however, these actions actually serve a purpose.

An example is a practice called “predator (捕食者) inspection” which means adolescent animals approach predators rather than run away. The trade-off for the danger is that they can watch, smell and learn about the predator. They gather all kinds of information that can keep them safer as adults.

The idea that adolescents are hard-wired to take these risks can help people understand human teens’ behavior.

“Teens seem driven to try new things and test boundaries in their own version of ‘predator inspection’,” Natterson said. “They try to have as many experiences as they can before they leave the nest.”

Another key aspect of adolescence is an increase in time spent wandering in groups. Adolescence is marked by high levels of peer pressure as well as near-disaster. Scientists have found that adolescents of all kinds are more likely to make dangerous moves while with peers.

Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University, found mice and human group adolescent behavior has something in common. He set up two experiments. One involved mice, half of which were adolescents, drinking ethanol-spiked (添加乙醇的) water. The other involved human teens playing a video game reproducing driving conditions.

“We found that in the presence of peers, adolescent mice drank more than they do when they’re alone,” Steinberg said, “and that the teenagers in the driving study also took more risks when others were around.”

2These findings fit with what Steinberg says is another multi-species adolescent quality: the desire to socialize.

“For the most part, adolescents, human and animal alike, prefer to be with other adolescents,” Steinberg said. “If I say teenagers are social animals, I think the word ‘animal’ is just as important in that sentence as the word ‘social’.”

Both Natterson and Steinberg hope their findings will help people who are raising adolescents.