New research shows that helping others may be the key to happiness
Carolyn Schwartz, a research professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, didn't start out looking at the value of helping others. Instead, she wanted to see if receiving monthly peer-support phone calls from fellow multiple sclerosis sufferers would benefit others with the disease.
Helping Others Helps Me: Prosocial Behavior and Satisfaction With Life
Prosocial Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic. PsB is a broad category of behaviors that "attend to the benefit or welfare of another person(s)" (Burks and Kobus, 2012, p. 319), and focuses on "observable actions that benefit others regardless of whether there are costs to the helper or issues such as self-sacrifice" (Burks and Kobus, 2012, p. 319).
When Doing Good Boosts Health, Well-Being
WASHINGTON — Performing acts of kindness and helping other people can be good for people's health and well-being, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. But not all good-hearted behavior is equally beneficial to the giver. The strength of the link depends on many factors, including the type of kindness ...
Why asking for help is hard, but people want to help more than
Asking for help is hard, but others want to help more than we often give them credit for, says Stanford social psychologist Xuan Zhao. We shy away from asking for help because we don't want to ...
Can Helping Others Help You Find Meaning in Life?
New research is finding that being kind and giving to others can make our lives feel more meaningful. The idea that helping others is part of a meaningful life has been around for thousands of years. Aristotle wrote that finding happiness and fulfillment is achieved "by loving rather than in being loved.". According to the psychologist ...
Help others—be happy? The effect of altruistic behavior on
In the current research, we argue that because the notion of altruism differs across cultures, the outcome of helping behavior—particularly its effect on happiness—vary across cultures. Research has shown that altruistic behavior increases the helper's happiness and promotes positive emotions (for a review, see Aknin and Whillans, 2020).
The Science of Helping Out
To help yourself, start by helping others. Much of the scientific research on resilience — which is our ability to bounce back from adversity — has shown that having a sense of purpose, and ...
Cultivating empathy
To develop empathy that actually helps people requires strategy. "If you're trying to develop empathy in yourself or in others, you have to make sure you're developing the right kind," said Sara Konrath, PhD, an associate professor of social psychology at Indiana University who studies empathy and altruism.
The Compassionate Instinct
In other research by Emory University neuroscientists James Rilling and Gregory Berns, participants were given the chance to help someone else while their brain activity was recorded. Helping others triggered activity in the caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate, portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience ...
2. Caring for ourselves so we can care for others
Viktor E. Frankl (1945, p. 165) declared, "The meaning of life is to help others find the meaning of theirs". Arguably, the need for empathy, compassion and meaning in the lives of our patients, families, colleagues and ourselves has never been greater. To care for others with compassion is why we became nurses (Vachon, 2016). The rapid ...
7 Scientific Benefits of Helping Others
When one person performs a good deed, it causes a chain reaction of other altruistic acts. One study found that people are more likely to perform feats of generosity after observing another do the ...
Helping Others Dampens the Effects of Everyday Stress
Providing help to friends, acquaintances, and even strangers can mitigate the impact of daily stressors on our emotions and our mental health, according to research published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Our research shows that when we help others we can also help ourselves ...
The Secret to Happiness Is Helping Others
Scientific research provides compelling data to support the anecdotal evidence that giving is a powerful pathway to personal growth and lasting happiness. ... Helping others may just be the secret ...
Francis Flynn: What Makes People Want to Help Others?
What inspires people to act selflessly, help others, and make personal sacrifices? Each quarter, this column features one piece of scholarly research that provides insight on what motivates people to engage in what psychologists call "prosocial behavior"— things like making charitable contributions, buying gifts, volunteering one's time, and so forth.
Why We Help Others: The Science of Empathy and Altruism (Positive
Instead, it seems that doing good things for other people is actually beneficial for us as well. Another line of research has looked at how prosocial behavior can have benefits for the helper. Studies have suggested that spending money on other people seems to increase our own happiness, and behaving prosocially may even be linked to having a ...
Helping Others: Definition, Benefits, & Examples
There are many benefits to helping others beyond the good we put into the world. For example, helping others is associated with greater health, well-being, and longevity (Post, 2014). Research has also shown that helping others can improve self-confidence, self-awareness, self-esteem, and reduced symptoms of depression (Schwartz & Sendor, 1999).
Why Giving Is Good for Your Health
A 'helper's high'. Giving can stimulate your brain's mesolimbic pathway, or reward center, while releasing endorphins. That can lead to a "helper's high" that boosts self-esteem ...
How Helping Others Can Help At-Risk People
How Helping Others Can Help At-Risk People. According to a new study, even people who have committed crimes feel good when they give to others. Past research has shown that helping others has a wide variety of benefits: Being kind and helpful can make us happier, give us a sense of purpose and meaning, and even lower our blood pressure. People ...
Help others—be happy? The effect of altruistic behavior on happiness
In the current research, we argue that because the notion of altruism differs across cultures, the outcome of helping behavior—particularly its effect on happiness—vary across cultures. Research has shown that altruistic behavior increases the helper's happiness and promotes positive emotions (for a review, see Aknin and Whillans, 2020).
Selfless volunteering might lengthen your life, research suggests
Comment: People who volunteer may live longer than those who don't, as long as their reasons for volunteering are to help others rather than themselves, suggests new research published online in the APA journal Health Psychology. This was the first time research has shown volunteers' motives can have a significant impact on life span.
Help Others
Consider some recent research: Students who performed five acts of kindness a day increased their happiness. Providing emotional support to others significantly decreased the harmful health effects of certain kinds of stress among older people. People who donated money to charity got a boost in a feel-good part of the brain, as revealed in ...
The Role of Religion, Spirituality and/or Belief in Positive
Though not prominent in the current study, other research has highlighted that in ill-health, people may suffer from feelings of abandonment or punishment by God or a higher being [43,52] ... For example, the Local Government Association has recently explored how working with faith groups can help promote health and well-being, ...
Volunteering to help strangers seen as greater contribution than caring
Americans believe volunteering to help strangers contributes more to society than providing care for family or friends, even though they contribute billions of dollars' worth of labor in unpaid ...
Putting the Community in Community Research
Having a more engaged and active relationship-building approach empowers communities. It strengthens relationships between researchers and communities, which will result in more effective, and hopefully successful, research. So the implications are great. Communities of color have historically been under-represented—or worse—in research ...
Principle of Care and Giving to Help People in Need
There has not been research testing predictions about the principle of care, empathic concern, and charitable giving to help people in need. In contrast, for other helping behaviours there have been many previous empirical studies of the dispositional empathic concern-helping hypothesis (for reviews see the studies with adult participants ...
Why reaching out to communities is key to putting people first in research
Covid-19 highlighted that those communities worst hit by the pandemic were also less likely to be engaging with research - either as public contributors or as study participants. The same pattern is played out repeatedly. It challenges not only our fairness as a research community but our seriousness about tackling health inequalities. Reaching out
Three Receive Nobel in Economics for Research on Global Inequality
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award Sveriges Riksbank Prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel for 2024 to Daron Acemoglu, MIT, Cambridge, USA.
The Case for Ozempic as a Addiction Treatment Keeps Getting Better
Newly published research is the latest to suggest that semaglutide and other GLP-1 drugs can help treat people's addiction to both opioids and alcohol. GLP-1 drugs have been a valuable treatment ...
Struggling to Discuss the Election in Class? These 5 Steps Can Help
Luckily, the science of emotional intelligence —the mindset, skills, and strategies that help us identify and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others—offers a way forward in dealing ...
Liabilities and Capital: Other Factors Draining Reserve Balances ...
Units: Billions of U.S. Dollars, Not Seasonally Adjusted Frequency: Weekly, Ending Wednesday Notes: Feb 1984 - Dec 1990: Annual Statistical Digest, various issues, Table 2. Jan 1991 to date: Federal Reserve Board, H.4.1. Reserve balances with Federal Reserve Banks are the difference between "total factors supplying reserve funds" and "total factors, other than reserve balances, absorbing ...
COMMENTS
Carolyn Schwartz, a research professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, didn't start out looking at the value of helping others. Instead, she wanted to see if receiving monthly peer-support phone calls from fellow multiple sclerosis sufferers would benefit others with the disease.
Prosocial Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic. PsB is a broad category of behaviors that "attend to the benefit or welfare of another person(s)" (Burks and Kobus, 2012, p. 319), and focuses on "observable actions that benefit others regardless of whether there are costs to the helper or issues such as self-sacrifice" (Burks and Kobus, 2012, p. 319).
WASHINGTON — Performing acts of kindness and helping other people can be good for people's health and well-being, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. But not all good-hearted behavior is equally beneficial to the giver. The strength of the link depends on many factors, including the type of kindness ...
Asking for help is hard, but others want to help more than we often give them credit for, says Stanford social psychologist Xuan Zhao. We shy away from asking for help because we don't want to ...
New research is finding that being kind and giving to others can make our lives feel more meaningful. The idea that helping others is part of a meaningful life has been around for thousands of years. Aristotle wrote that finding happiness and fulfillment is achieved "by loving rather than in being loved.". According to the psychologist ...
In the current research, we argue that because the notion of altruism differs across cultures, the outcome of helping behavior—particularly its effect on happiness—vary across cultures. Research has shown that altruistic behavior increases the helper's happiness and promotes positive emotions (for a review, see Aknin and Whillans, 2020).
To help yourself, start by helping others. Much of the scientific research on resilience — which is our ability to bounce back from adversity — has shown that having a sense of purpose, and ...
To develop empathy that actually helps people requires strategy. "If you're trying to develop empathy in yourself or in others, you have to make sure you're developing the right kind," said Sara Konrath, PhD, an associate professor of social psychology at Indiana University who studies empathy and altruism.
In other research by Emory University neuroscientists James Rilling and Gregory Berns, participants were given the chance to help someone else while their brain activity was recorded. Helping others triggered activity in the caudate nucleus and anterior cingulate, portions of the brain that turn on when people receive rewards or experience ...
Viktor E. Frankl (1945, p. 165) declared, "The meaning of life is to help others find the meaning of theirs". Arguably, the need for empathy, compassion and meaning in the lives of our patients, families, colleagues and ourselves has never been greater. To care for others with compassion is why we became nurses (Vachon, 2016). The rapid ...
When one person performs a good deed, it causes a chain reaction of other altruistic acts. One study found that people are more likely to perform feats of generosity after observing another do the ...
Providing help to friends, acquaintances, and even strangers can mitigate the impact of daily stressors on our emotions and our mental health, according to research published in Clinical Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Our research shows that when we help others we can also help ourselves ...
Scientific research provides compelling data to support the anecdotal evidence that giving is a powerful pathway to personal growth and lasting happiness. ... Helping others may just be the secret ...
What inspires people to act selflessly, help others, and make personal sacrifices? Each quarter, this column features one piece of scholarly research that provides insight on what motivates people to engage in what psychologists call "prosocial behavior"— things like making charitable contributions, buying gifts, volunteering one's time, and so forth.
Instead, it seems that doing good things for other people is actually beneficial for us as well. Another line of research has looked at how prosocial behavior can have benefits for the helper. Studies have suggested that spending money on other people seems to increase our own happiness, and behaving prosocially may even be linked to having a ...
There are many benefits to helping others beyond the good we put into the world. For example, helping others is associated with greater health, well-being, and longevity (Post, 2014). Research has also shown that helping others can improve self-confidence, self-awareness, self-esteem, and reduced symptoms of depression (Schwartz & Sendor, 1999).
A 'helper's high'. Giving can stimulate your brain's mesolimbic pathway, or reward center, while releasing endorphins. That can lead to a "helper's high" that boosts self-esteem ...
How Helping Others Can Help At-Risk People. According to a new study, even people who have committed crimes feel good when they give to others. Past research has shown that helping others has a wide variety of benefits: Being kind and helpful can make us happier, give us a sense of purpose and meaning, and even lower our blood pressure. People ...
In the current research, we argue that because the notion of altruism differs across cultures, the outcome of helping behavior—particularly its effect on happiness—vary across cultures. Research has shown that altruistic behavior increases the helper's happiness and promotes positive emotions (for a review, see Aknin and Whillans, 2020).
Comment: People who volunteer may live longer than those who don't, as long as their reasons for volunteering are to help others rather than themselves, suggests new research published online in the APA journal Health Psychology. This was the first time research has shown volunteers' motives can have a significant impact on life span.
Consider some recent research: Students who performed five acts of kindness a day increased their happiness. Providing emotional support to others significantly decreased the harmful health effects of certain kinds of stress among older people. People who donated money to charity got a boost in a feel-good part of the brain, as revealed in ...
Though not prominent in the current study, other research has highlighted that in ill-health, people may suffer from feelings of abandonment or punishment by God or a higher being [43,52] ... For example, the Local Government Association has recently explored how working with faith groups can help promote health and well-being, ...
Americans believe volunteering to help strangers contributes more to society than providing care for family or friends, even though they contribute billions of dollars' worth of labor in unpaid ...
Having a more engaged and active relationship-building approach empowers communities. It strengthens relationships between researchers and communities, which will result in more effective, and hopefully successful, research. So the implications are great. Communities of color have historically been under-represented—or worse—in research ...
There has not been research testing predictions about the principle of care, empathic concern, and charitable giving to help people in need. In contrast, for other helping behaviours there have been many previous empirical studies of the dispositional empathic concern-helping hypothesis (for reviews see the studies with adult participants ...
Covid-19 highlighted that those communities worst hit by the pandemic were also less likely to be engaging with research - either as public contributors or as study participants. The same pattern is played out repeatedly. It challenges not only our fairness as a research community but our seriousness about tackling health inequalities. Reaching out
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award Sveriges Riksbank Prize in economic sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel for 2024 to Daron Acemoglu, MIT, Cambridge, USA.
Newly published research is the latest to suggest that semaglutide and other GLP-1 drugs can help treat people's addiction to both opioids and alcohol. GLP-1 drugs have been a valuable treatment ...
Luckily, the science of emotional intelligence —the mindset, skills, and strategies that help us identify and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others—offers a way forward in dealing ...
Units: Billions of U.S. Dollars, Not Seasonally Adjusted Frequency: Weekly, Ending Wednesday Notes: Feb 1984 - Dec 1990: Annual Statistical Digest, various issues, Table 2. Jan 1991 to date: Federal Reserve Board, H.4.1. Reserve balances with Federal Reserve Banks are the difference between "total factors supplying reserve funds" and "total factors, other than reserve balances, absorbing ...