Feeling Good about Giving 8
At the most basic level, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) evidence shows
that giving money to charity leads to similar brain activity in regions implicated in the
experience of pleasure and reward. In a study conducted by Harbaugh, Mayr, and Burghart
(2007) neural activity was recorded while participants decided how to split a one-hundred dollar
sum between themselves and a local food bank. Results showed that donations of the original
one-hundred dollar sum to the food bank led to activation in the ventral striatum, a brain region
associated with representing the value of a range of rewarding stimuli, from cocaine to art to
attractive faces (Aharon et al., 2001; Vartanian & Goel, 2004; see Elliott, Friston, & Dolan,
2000). Thus, these results suggest that giving (in the form of charitable donations) is inherently
rewarding.
At a very different level of analysis - from brain to nation - Meier and Stutzer (2008)
demonstrated that volunteering increases life satisfaction, through use of the German
Socioeconomic Panel, a longitudinal study of German households. Consistent with other
correlational studies of volunteering and well-being, they found that higher levels of volunteer
work were associated with higher levels of overall life satisfaction. This study, however, is
unique in that it examines the relationship between happiness and volunteer work around the
collapse of the German Democratic Republic, providing a quasi-experimental design.
Specifically, by looking at data collected shortly after the fall of the Berlin wall but prior to the
German reunification, a time when volunteering opportunities dropped dramatically in Eastern
Germany, happiness of East Germans can be compared to a control group who experienced no
change in their volunteer status. Using this design, the authors are able to conclude that helping
others increases well-being. While this study lacks true random assignment, it does offer