Misery, Not Miserly (IMAGE) U.S. National Science Foundation Caption How a person feels impacts routine economic transactions, whether he or she knows it or not. Research shows that people who feel sad and self-focused pay more money for goods than those in more neutral states. In one experiment, primarily conducted by researchers at Carnegie Mellon and Harvard universities, "sad" participants offered almost 300 percent more money than "neutral" participants to buy the same product. Credit 2008 Jupiter Images Corporation Usage Restrictions None License Licensed content Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.