Making a Difference Matters: Impact Unlocks the Emotional Benefits of Prosocial Spending

By L. Aknin, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Adam M. Grant, Michael I. Norton. 2013

230 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract When does giving lead to happiness? Here, we present two studies demonstrating that the emotional benefits of spending money on others ( prosocial spending ) are unleashed when givers are aware of their positive impact. In Study 1, an experiment using real charitable appeals, giving more money to charity led to higher levels of happiness only when participants gave to causes that explained how these funds are used to make a difference in the life of a recipient. In Study 2, participants were asked to reflect upon a time they spent money on themselves or on others in a way that either had a positive impact or had no impact. Participants who recalled a time they spent on others that had a positive impact were happiest. Together, these results suggest that highlighting the impact of prosocial spending can increase the emotional rewards of giving.

Subfields: Safety Research, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/392b8c6e868d0b2ccf92c4e7a3349e264e566dd2

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Safety Research

1. Agota Kun
2. Peter Gadanecz
3. Christian J Resick

In Social Psychology

1. Agota Kun
2. Ping Shao
3. M. Hargis
4. Peter Gadanecz
5. Christian J Resick

Citations in the corpus

• Workplace happiness, well-being and their relationship with psychological capital: A study of Hungarian Teachers (2019, methodology): “Some of the measurements (Acton and Glasgow 2015; Aknin et al. 2013; Avey et al. 2011) have not yet been validated in Hungarian, therefore we used our own translations, and the PERMA questionnaire (Baumann 2012) is relatively new (published in 2017 by Kun et al.) therefore it still lacks reference…”
• Egoistic norms, organizational identification, and the perceived ethicality of unethical pro-organizational behavior: A moral maturation perspective (2020, methodology): “This method has been used by other researchers to capture evaluations of recalled situations and also to predict participants’ willingness to engage in similar behaviors (e.g. Aknin et al., 2013; Galinsky et al., 2003).”