Surprising connections between our well-being and giving, getting, and gratitude

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/sfpa-scb011813.php

Public release date: 19-Jan-2013
Contact: Lisa M.P. Munoz
Society for Personality and Social Psychology

January 19, 2013 – New Orleans – We all know that getting a good night's sleep is good for our general health and well-being. But new research is highlighting a more surprising benefit of good sleep: more feelings of gratitude for relationships.

"A plethora of research highlights the importance of getting a good night's sleep for physical and psychological well-being, yet in our society, people still seem to take pride in needing, and getting, little sleep," says Amie Gordon of the University of California, Berkeley. "And in the past, research has shown that gratitude promotes good sleep, but our research looks at the link in the other direction and, to our knowledge, is the first to show that everyday experiences of poor sleep are negatively associated with gratitude toward others – an important emotion that helps form and maintain close social bonds."

Social psychologists are increasingly finding that "prosocial" behavior – including expressing gratitude and giving to others – is key to our psychological well-being. Even how we choose to spend our money on purchases affects our health and happiness. And children develop specific ways to help others from a very young age.

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Just as expressing gratitude confers benefits, so too does giving to others. New research shows that people all around the world – from Canada to Uganda, from South Africa to India – derive more happiness from spending money on others than they do on themselves.

"For the first time, we show that giving away money or spending it on others confers the ironic psychological benefit of increasing the giver's sense of wealth," says Michael Norton of Harvard Business School and co-author with Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia of the upcoming book Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending. In a suite of new, not-yet published, studies, Norton and colleagues showed that charitable giving makes people feel wealthier.

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In related research, psychologists are finding that spending money on experiential purchases, such as vacations, concerts, and meals out, tends to bring us more happiness than material purchases, such as clothing, jewelry, or electronic gadgets. Amit Kumar and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University are investigating one potential explanation for this difference: that experiences prompt storytelling more than possessions do.

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The roots for how we give to others form at a very young age. Children, it turns out, are very sophisticated givers – not only coming to someone's aid when needed but also coming up with the best strategy for doing so, often independent of an adult's instruction.

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"These results suggest that children are able to help adults and peers already by the preschool years in rather complex ways, even when the beneficiary is misguided about what he or she wants," Olson says. "Children don't just blindly do as they are requested, but rather consider a person's goal and consider alternative possible ways to achieve that goal."


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