Most people would rather take a high-paying job with longer work hours than a lower-paying job that would make them happier, a new study shows. 
 
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 Given the choice, most people would take a high-paying job with longer work hours over a good-paying job with reasonable demands on their time, a new study shows. 
 
 In fact, most of the study participants said they'd choose a high-paying job even if it only permitted them to get six hours of sleep a night and would bring them less happiness overall, the researchers said. 
 
 In the study, 2,699 participants were asked to consider a variety of scenarios: One scenario involved choosing between a job that paid $80,000 a year with reasonable work hours that would permit 7.5 hours a night of sleep, or a higher-paying $140,000-a-year job with long work hours and time for only six hours of sleep. Participants were also asked questions about which option they thought would make them happier. 
 
 Despite the probability that the less-demanding, lower-paying job would allow them more sleep, free time and make them happier overall, participants tended to choose the higher-paying job. 
 
 In another scenario, participants had to choose between two options: a salary of 20 percent less than their current salary that would mean a move to the city where your friends live; and a salary of 10 percent more than their current salary that would mean a move to a city where you don't know anyone. 
 
 "We found that people make trade-offs between happiness and other things," study researcher Alex Rees-Jones, an economics doctoral student at Cornell, said in a statement. "For example, they explicitly told us in the free response sections that they would be happier one way, but their family would be happier if they took higher-paying options." [Read: Happiest States Are Wealthy and Tolerant] 
 
 The findings suggest happiness may not be a person's main goal in life. "You might think of happiness as the ultimate goal that people pursue, but actually, people think of goals like health, family happiness, social status and sense of purpose as sometimes competing with happiness," Rees-Jones said. 
 
 When asked whether they would regret any cases where they had a discrepancy between their choice and well-being, 23 percent of participants said yes, with the vast majority saying no. In addition, only 7 percent of participants said they were making a mistake in their choices. 
 
 "Overall, this indicates that many are willing to pursue a course that sacrifices happiness in favor of other important goals," said Rees-Jones. "These respondents seem to indicate that maximizing happiness was not perceived to be in their own best interest." 
 
 The study will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal American Economic Review. 
 
 You can follow LiveScience writer Remy Melina on Twitter @remymelina. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook. ||||| For people who wish there were more hours in the day, spending a bit of money to get rid of onerous tasks would make them much happier, but researchers say very few actually make the investment. 
 
 A study by the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found buying time makes people happier than buying material things. 
 
 UBC psychology professor and study author Elizabeth Dunn said although the idea of being happier by having someone clean your home or do other unwanted chores seems obvious, the study found even small investments like shopping at a more expensive, but closer-to-home, grocery store makes a difference. 
 
 Protects from time stress 
 
 "Theoretically what we think is that buying time protects people from the negative effects of time stress in daily life," she said. "When you're rushing around, feeling pressed for time, that seems to take a bit of a toll on people's day-to-day happiness." 
 
 Researchers gave 60 people taking part in the study in Vancouver $40 to spend on two weekends. The first time they were told to use the money on any material item they wanted. 
 
 Dunn said people reported buying a nice bottle of wine, clothes and board games. Researchers then surveyed the group to determine their level of happiness following the purchase of the item. 
 
 On the second weekend, participants were tasked to use the money to save them time — such as taking a taxi instead of public transit, have someone mow their lawn, and in one case having a "neighbour boy" run errands. 
 
 Better than shopping 
 
 Dunn said they compared the group's level of happiness following both instances of spending, and found people were much happier when they bought themselves more time. 
 
 Surprisingly, Dunn said only two per cent of the group reported that they would spend money on things that would give them more time. 
 
 "It's not what comes to mind to people as a way to increase their happiness and the rates at which people are engaging in this type of expenditure are surprisingly low," Dunn said. 
 
 That attitude wasn't limited to the Vancouver participants. 
 
 The study also surveyed 850 millionaires in the Netherlands and found almost half of them don't spend money to outsource their most disliked tasks. 
 
 Many could but don't outsource 
 
 Buying more time requires the means to do so, Dunn said. But a survey of 6,000 people in Canada, the U.S. and Europe showed those who have a bit of discretionary income would benefit from spending it on getting rid of the chores they dread. 
 
 The minority of people who do buy time-saving tools typically spend $80 to $100 a month, Dunn said, adding the study shows even $40 can make a difference. 
 
 Even if you don't have tonnes of money, using money to get rid of your disliked tasks may be a pretty smart decision, - Elizabeth Dunn, UBC psychology professor 
 
 "People who don't feel like they're rolling in dough may feel like that's a frivolous way to spend money, but what our research is showing is that even if you don't have tonnes of money, using money to get rid of your disliked tasks may be a pretty smart decision," she said. 
 
 Guilt factor 
 
 The reason behind people's aversion to treating themselves to time savers is unclear. Dunn said her team's best guess is that people feel guilty spending money on things they could do themselves. 
 
 "People may feel like I can do this so I should do this, and so I hope our research helps to break through that perhaps misguided cultural assumption," she said. 
 
 Dunn said her team intends to do a follow-up study to better understand why people don't spend money to buy time, and see how age, gender, ethnicity or other characteristics play into the reasoning.
– Money cannot buy happiness, but most people would choose it anyway, says a new study of more than 2,600 people published in the American Economic Review. For example, if the choice is between a job that pays $80,000 a year and lets you get seven and a half hours of sleep a night, and a job that pays $140,000 a year but allows for just six hours' sleep, most people pick the higher-paying job. Other questions asked about salary versus living close to friends, going home for Thanksgiving versus saving for a vacation, and similar choices. It's not just about greed, though. Often, people say that more money will mean more family happiness, even if their own happiness is diminished. Status, purpose, and health all also factored into decision-making, often beating out happiness. "We found that people make trade-offs between happiness and other things," says one of the paper's authors, according to LiveScience. “People treat happiness as a commodity and are willing to make tradeoffs.”