Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior

Feeling Good about Giving 4

causes happiness, and that these relationships may run in a circular fashion, such that happy
people give more, then feel happier, then give more, and so on. Second, however, we consider
the possible negative implications of advertising these well-being benefits in an effort to increase
charitable behavior: When people start to give for “selfish” reasons - in order to feel good -
instead of altruistic reasons - to help others - such extrinsic motivations may crowd out intrinsic
motivation to help; as a result, helping behavior might increase in the short term as people seek
benefits, but decrease in the long-term as people’s inherent interest in the welfare of others
declines.

Happier People Give More

One of the first experimental studies to demonstrate that happiness increases charitable
behavior was conducted by Isen and Levin (1972), who showed that after experiencing positive
events (such as receiving cookies, or finding a dime left in a payphone), participants were more
likely to help others: Thus, people who felt good were more likely to provide help. Replicating
this effect in a different context, Aderman (1972) induced either an elated or depressed state by
having participants read statements designed to induce these moods. Participants in a positive
mood were more likely to help with a favor to the researcher during the experiment, and even
promised to help by participating in a second experiment. Other positive mood states have also
been shown to increase altruism; feelings of competence, for example, have been shown to
increase helping and volunteering behavior (Harris & Huang 1973; Kazdin & Bryan 1971), as
has succeeding on tasks (Isen, 1970).

Young children exhibit similar effects of mood on helping. Rosenhan, Underwood, and
Moore (1974) randomly assigned second and third graders to positive or negative mood
conditions by having them reminisce about mood appropriate memories. To strengthen the mood

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