A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Stanford and the University of Pittsburgh showed volunteers either a video clip that showed grief following a tragic death or a neutral clip from a nature show. Afterward, participants had the chance to purchase an ordinary item -- a sporty water bottle. They found that people who'd watched the sad video clip offered an average of 300 percent more money for the item than those who had viewed the neutral clip.
"The key contribution our paper adds to the literature is that a high degree of self-focus can carry over to spending," says lead study author Cynthia Cryder, a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University.

Courtesy of
ABC News