Happiness seems to be a social emotion. Feeling stressed after a long day at work? We treat ourselves with a bubble bath.
Are you not feeling well? Give yourself a dessert.
Do you feel frustrated after a fight with a friend? You skip your workout and look for an extra scoop of ice cream.
The message is clear: If you want to feel happy, you need to focus on your own desires and expectations. However, this is not the advice many people get as they grow up. Indeed, most of the world's religions (and grandmothers everywhere) have always encouraged people to focus first on others and then on themselves.
Psychologists refer to such behavior as prosocial behavior and many recent studies have shown that when people have a prosocial focus by doing good deeds for others, their own happiness increases.
But how does prosocial behavior compares to treating yourself in terms of happiness? And does taking care of yourself really makes you feel happy?
In a recent study published in the journal of Emotion, Katherine Nelson-Coffey and her colleagues answer these questions through their research results.
The study
Participants were divided into four groups and were given new instructions each week for four weeks.
One group was instructed to do random acts of kindness for themselves (such as going shopping or enjoying a favorite hobby). The second group was instructed to do good deeds for others (such as visiting an elderly relative or helping someone carry groceries). The third group was instructed to do good deeds to improve the world (such as recycling or donating to charity). The fourth group was instructed to monitor their daily activities.
Each week, participants reported their activities from the previous week, as well as their experience of positive and negative emotions.
At the beginning, and finally again two weeks after the four-week period, participants completed a questionnaire to assess their psychological well-being. As a measure of overall happiness, the questionnaire included questions about psychological, social, and emotional wellbeing.
The results
The results of the study were impressive. Only participants who participated in prosocial behavior showed improvements in psychological well-being.
Participants who engaged in prosocial behavior showed an increase in positive emotions from one week to the next. In turn, this increase in emotions such as happiness, joy, and enjoyment predicted an increase in psychological flourishing at the end of the study. In other words, positive emotions seemed to be a critical component linking prosocial behavior to increased prosperity.
But what about people who took care of themselves?
They did not show the same increase in positive emotions or psychological flourishing as those who did good deeds. In fact, people who took care of themselves did not differ in positive emotions, negative emotions or psychological flourishing during the study compared to those who simply monitored their daily activities.
This research does not suggest that we should not take care of ourselves, love ourselves when we need to or spend some time relaxing. However, the results of this study strongly suggest that we are more likely to reach higher levels of happiness when we display prosocial behavior and show kindness to others through our actions.
Nelson-Coffey, S. K., Fritz, M. M., Lyubomirsky, S., & Cole, S. W. (2017). Kindness in the blood: A randomized controlled trial of the gene regulatory impact of prosocial behavior. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 81, 8–13.