Published: 2013-01-20 years Updated: 2022-02-24
Author: Social Personality and Social Psychology | Contact: spsp.org
Peer-reviewed publications: N / A
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Summary: New research highlights the surprising benefits of better sleep and greater gratitude for relationships. In one study, researchers reported that Americans who earn less than $20,000 a year give a higher percentage of their income to charity than others who earn up to $300,000 a year. five. This study builds on other recent work published by Norton and colleagues in the journal Psychological Science that shows that spending time with others – from helping with homework to shoveling one’s driveway neighbors – really makes people feel that they have more time.
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Main announcement
The Surprising Link Between Our Happiness and Giving, Receiving, and Gratitude – We all know that getting a good night’s sleep is good for our general health and well-being. But new research is highlighting a more surprising benefit of good sleep: a greater sense of gratitude towards relationships.
Amie Gordon of the University said: “A lot of research highlights the importance of a good night’s sleep for physical and psychological health. California, Berkeley. “And in the past, research has shown that gratitude promotes good sleep, but our study looks at the link in the other direction and to our knowledge, this is the first study for this.” found that the daily experience of poor sleep was negatively associated with gratitude for others – an important emotion that helps form and maintain close social bonds.”
Social psychologists are increasingly finding that “pro-social” behavior – which includes expressing gratitude and giving back to others – is key to our psychological well-being. Even how we choose to spend our money on purchases affects our health and happiness. And children develop specific ways to help others from a very young age. Gordon and other researchers will present some of these latest findings at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) annual meeting today in New Orleans.
Sleep to feel grateful
A large number of studies have documented that people who feel grateful are happier and healthier. In three new studies, Gordon and Serena Chen, also of the University of California, Berkeley, explored how poor sleep affects people’s feelings of gratitude.
In the first study, people who had a hard night’s sleep were less grateful after listing five things in their life that they appreciated more than those who had slept well the night before. The researchers adjusted the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, which measures sleep quality and hours spent, among other variables, to assess the previous night’s sleep.
In the second study, participants recorded their sleep from the night before for two weeks and their feelings of gratitude. The researchers found a decline in gratitude related to poor sleep, and the participants said they felt more selfish on those days.
The last study looked at opposite-sex couples and found that people tend to feel less grateful for their romantic partner if they or their partner often don’t get a good night’s sleep.
“In line with this finding, people who reported feeling less appreciated by their partner if they or their partner tended to have poor sleep,” says Gordon. passed on to partners,” said Gordon.
“Poor sleep isn’t just experienced in isolation,” says Gordon. “Instead, it affects our interactions with others, such as our ability to be grateful, an important social emotion.”
Give money to feel rich
Just as expressing gratitude benefits, so does giving to others. New research shows that people around the world – from Canada to Uganda, from South Africa to India – get more happiness from spending money on others than on themselves.
Michael Norton of Harvard Business School and co-author with Elizabeth Dunn of British University said: The book’s Columbia is coming soon. Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending. In a series of new, unpublished studies, Norton and colleagues have shown that philanthropy makes people feel richer.
This study builds on other recent work published by Norton and colleagues in the journal Psychological Science that shows that spending time with others – from helping with homework to shoveling one’s driveway neighbors – really makes people feel that they have more time.
“In fact, giving away time alleviates people’s sense of time hunger even more than receiving the sudden gusts of leisure time.”
The fact that people feel wealthier spending money on others may explain why poor people are more likely to give away a portion of their income than members of the middle class. In one study, researchers reported that Americans who earn less than $20,000 a year give a higher percentage of their income to charity than others who earn up to $300,000 a year. five.
“Our results show that when poor people give money away, that action can alleviate their feelings of poverty,” says Norton. “More broadly than this specific benefit, our investigation contributes to the growing body of research documenting the benefits of pro-social behavior, including greater happiness, lower mortality, and lower mortality rates. mortality and better immune function.”
Buy experiences to feel happy
In related research, psychologists have found that spending money on experiential purchases, such as vacations, concerts, and dining out, tends to give us more happiness than material purchases, such as clothes, jewelry or electronic devices. Amit Kumar and Thomas Gilovich of Cornell University are exploring a potential explanation for this difference: that experience tells stories faster than possession.
In the new study, they asked participants to recall an important experiential purchase or an important material purchase. They then asked them how much they said about the purchase they recalled, and questions regarding the satisfaction they obtained with the purchase. Participants rated experience satisfaction higher with the property, which is because they were more likely to talk about the experience with others.
In another experiment, researchers measured what happens when people can’t talk about their purchases. They asked participants if they would be willing to pay to be able to talk about a beach vacation (buying the experience) or an electronic item (buying ingredients). “Participants are more likely to switch from a better purchase they can’t talk to to a less buy that they can talk about in experiential terms than in physical terms,” Kumar said. .
“Health can be improved by shifting the balance of spending in our consumer society away from material wealth and toward experiential things,” says Kumar. “This study also shows that there are benefits not only by motivating people to choose experiences over owning, but also by encouraging people to share stories about their experiences.”
Know what is best to help others
The roots of the way we give to others are formed at a very young age. As it turns out, children are very sophisticated givers – not only supporting someone when needed, but also coming up with the best strategy to do so, often independent of adult guidance.
In new research, Kristina Olson of Yale University and Alia Martin have found that children often act out, thinking they know better than others what is best for them or others. In a series of experiments, researchers investigated whether 3-year-olds would help someone by ignoring a specific request and instead offering a better alternative.
In one study, for example, when an experimenter asked a child about a particular marker, but the child knew that marker was inactive, the child would instead present a marker. better mark. In another study, a pre-recorded child asked the child participant to give her a piece of chocolate through a tube that was supposed to connect them. If the participant knows that chocolate makes another child sick, the participant will decide to snack the child with fruit instead.
“Perhaps most provocatively, children will selectively decide not to help in this way if they don’t like the person,” says Olson. “For example, if a former tester is malicious, children will not warn adults of a possible hazard – such as something sharp in the container they are approaching – but will if the tester is not malicious.”
“These results suggest that children can help adults and their peers from the preschool years in rather complex ways, even when beneficiaries misunderstand what they want,” says Olson. . “Children not only follow orders blindly, but also consider a person’s goal and consider alternative ways to achieve it.”
A press conference about this study “Give, Receive and Grateful” took place on January 19, 2013, at the SPSP annual meeting. More than 3,600 scientists attended the meeting in New Orleans from January 17 to 19.
SPSP promotes scientific research that explores how people think, behave, feel, and interact. The Society is the largest organization of social and personality psychologists in the world.
Reference Source(s):
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• Citation of this Page (APA): Personality and Psychosocial Association. (2013, January 20). Connection between Happiness, Giving, Receiving, Gratitude. The world of people with disabilities. Accessed October 29, 2022 from www.disabled-world.com/health/giving.php
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