Altruism, helping others helps us cope better with stress and also feel much happier. Research results.
Researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine (USA) Emily Ansell, Elizabeth B. Raposa and Holly B. Laws decided to find out if a similar effect works in real life, outside of experimental laboratories.
To participate in the study, which lasted 14 days, they recruited 77 adult volunteers aged 18 to 44 who did not suffer from drug addiction, alcoholism or mental illness.
Pass the tests
- How kind are you?
Every day, volunteers received an automatic message on their smartphone reminding them to submit their daily report (also via smartphone). In the report, they had to indicate what stressful events related to various aspects of life (personal relationships, work or school, household chores, finances, health) occurred during the day. The number of such events showed how stressful that day was for the participant. It was also required to indicate whether the volunteers happened to help someone with something during the day (for example, hold the door, help the children with their homework, ask someone if he needs help).
Volunteers also completed an abridged version of the Positive and Negative Emotions Questionnaire and were asked to rate their psychological well-being during the day on a scale from 1 (poor) to 100 (excellent).
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- Altruism helps overcome social phobia
The results of the study showed that by helping others, participants improved their own well-being. Moreover, the more good deeds they performed, the more positive emotions they experienced on average and the higher their psychological well-being.
Acts of altruism also helped to cope better with stress. The less often the participant helped others, the more negative emotions he experienced as a result of stress. Those who did good deeds especially often, even with a large number of stressful events during the day, experienced no less positive and no more negative emotions than usual. Stress also did not reduce their psychological well-being.
“We were surprised how strong and stable this effect was. For example, if a study participant demonstrated prosocial behavior on stressful days for him, then stress had little to no effect on his positive emotions and only slightly increased the manifestations of negative emotions, ”says Emily Ansell.
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- Be kind – it’s helpful!
At the same time, scientists note that further research is needed to find out whether this effect will manifest itself in groups with greater ethnic and cultural diversity. They are also interested in whether altruistic acts can be recommended as a kind of psychotherapy for people who are constantly under stress and suffering from depression because of this.
Подробнее см. E. Raposa et al. «Prosocial Behavior Mitigates the Negative Effects of Stress in Everyday Life», Clinical Psychological Science, December 2015.