Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor

Curry, Oliver Scott; Rowland, Lee A.; Lissa, Caspar J. van; Zlotowitz, Sally; McAlaney, John; Whitehouse, Harvey

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2018.02.014

Cited by 356 publications

(312 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…Results from the alternative model suggest that prosocial bystander behavior positively relates to virtues and happiness in adolescence. This evidence is consistent with past literature that reports a positive impact of prosocial behavior in virtues development (Lerner et al, 2003;Dunn et al, 2014;Aknin et al, 2015;Carlo et al, 2015;Fu et al, 2017;Al-yaaribi et al, 2018;Curry et al, 2018;Bieda et al, 2019). Although the mechanism underlying this relationship remains unclear, the current body of the literature suggests that the effect of happiness in prosocial behavior is related to adolescents' perceptions about positive consequences of their behavior in their own and others' wellbeing (Bierhoff, 2002;Rudd et al, 2014;Paulus and Moore, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Forgiveness, Gratitude, Happiness, and Prosocial Bystander Behavior in Bullying

et al. 2020

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The relationships among character strengths (forgiveness and gratitude), happiness, and prosocial bystander behavior in bullying were analyzed. The sample includes 500 (early adolescents) and 500 (middle adolescents) of both genders, between 12 and 18 years old (M age = 14.70, SD = 1.58). Two structural equation models were calculated. Results of the first model indicated that forgiveness, gratitude, and happiness had a direct positive relation with prosocial bystander behavior. Furthermore, human strengths were indirectly related to prosocial behavior in bullying for this effect in happiness. The second model showed that prosocial bystander behavior had a positive effect on human strengths and happiness. Multigroup analyses indicated that gender and stage of adolescence did not moderate the relations found in the model. Overall findings suggest a reciprocal relationship between character strengths, happiness, and prosocial bystander behavior.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Forgiveness, Gratitude, Happiness, and Prosocial Bystander Behavior in Bullying

et al. 2020

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“…Curricula to educate premedical, medical, and other healthcare professional students should include efforts to foster compassionate behavior, because such behavior likely causes healthcare providers as well as their patients to be happier [1,2]. Humanistic values are believed to "animate" compassionate professional behavior [3], and these values include accountability, altruism, duty, excellence, honor, integrity, and respect for others [4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fostering Empathy, Implicit Bias Mitigation, and Compassionate Behavior in a Medical Humanities Course

Schwartz

Horst

Fisher

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Increases in compassionate behavior improve patient outcomes and reduce burnout among healthcare professionals. We predicted that selecting and performing service-learning projects by teams of prospective medical students in a Medical Humanities course would foster students’ compassion by raising their reflective capacity, empathy, and unconscious bias mitigation. In class, we discussed difficulties in communication and implicit bias. In this observational study, teams wrote individual and team critical reflections on these class discussions and their service-learning experiences, and we analyzed these reflections for dissonance, self-examination, bias mitigation, dissonance reconciliation, and compassionate behavior. Thirty-two students (53% female) completed the Reflective Practice Questionnaire and the Jefferson Scale of Empathy before the course in August 2019 and after it in December 2019. In December, students were surveyed concerning their attitudes toward team service-learning projects and unconscious bias. The students reported changes in their behavior to mitigate biases and become more compassionate, and their reflective capacity and empathy grew in association with discussions and team service-learning experiences in the course. Virtually all students agreed with the statement “Unconscious bias might affect some of my clinical decisions or behaviors as a healthcare professional,” and they worked to control such biases in interactions with the people they were serving.

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“…Finally, we analyze the frequency of personal preferences that people exhibited across all of our studies and found that, when studies included the binary choice of either compensating or punishing, participants consistently preferred compensation over punishment. This is interesting because although compensating is psychologically rewarding (Curry et al 2018), neurobiological research suggests that people find punishing more rewarding than compensating (Stallen et al, 2018). When the additional options of choosing a mixed response (partly punish, partly compensate) or choosing non-intervention were provided, participant showed the strongest preference for not intervening in the situation, followed by a preference for mixed response.…”

Section: Part 7: Frequency Of Preferences Across Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reputational and cooperative benefits of third-party compensation

Patil¹,

Dhaliwal²,

Cushman³

2018

Preprint

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Sometimes people intervene in others’ conflicts—so called “third-party responding”. In some cases, third parties punish perpetrators; in others, they aid victims. Across 22 studies (N > 20,000), we provide a comprehensive examination of the consequences of this choice between punishment and compensation. What do people infer from, and how do they respond to, the choice of punishment versus compensation? We find that compensating victims leads to greater reputational and cooperative benefits than punishing perpetrators. In fact, even people who themselves prefer to punish still prefer social partners who compensate. We also find that the signal that is sent via third-party compensating may be an honest signal of trustworthiness. Furthermore, we find that people accurately anticipate that observers would prefer them to compensate victims than to punish perpetrators and that participants personal decisions about whether to compensate or punish is based in part on the belief that the social norm is to compensate. These findings provide an extensive analysis of the causes and consequences of third-party responding to moral violations.

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Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor

Cited by 356 publications

References 76 publications

Forgiveness, Gratitude, Happiness, and Prosocial Bystander Behavior in Bullying

Forgiveness, Gratitude, Happiness, and Prosocial Bystander Behavior in Bullying

Fostering Empathy, Implicit Bias Mitigation, and Compassionate Behavior in a Medical Humanities Course

Reputational and cooperative benefits of third-party compensation

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