Retraction of "The well-being paradox: Comparing prosocial and self-kindness interventions for mental health benefits" by Naclerio et al. (2024).

Abstract

Reports the retraction of "The well-being paradox: Comparing prosocial and self-kindness interventions for mental health benefits" by Maria E. Naclerio, Lee Lazar, Erica A. Hornstein and Naomi I. Eisenberger (Emotion, Advanced Online Publication, Nov 11, 2024, np). After publication, the first author became aware that data for the self-kindness condition at the post-intervention time points for the depression and anxiety measures did not match the output originally exported from Qualtrics. The second author reported that when they were merging Qualtrics outputs into a single data file for analyses, they experienced repeated software crashes. This technical issue likely caused data cells to be incorrectly merged for the self-kindness condition at the post-intervention time point. Due to the corrupted data, the findings related to the self-kindness group at the post-intervention time point (for depression and anxiety) are incorrect. Data from the other groups and timepoints remain unaffected. This retraction was requested by all authors. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2025-44126-001). A growing body of literature supports the idea that prosocial behavior, or behavior done on behalf of another person, is beneficial to well-being. However, modern society often places a greater emphasis on self-care or "treating yourself" in the pursuit of well-being. To understand the effects of these differing forms of kindness (to others or the self), we conducted a 2-week intervention study in December 2020. Participants (N = 999) were randomly assigned to an other-kindness, self-kindness, or control condition. Participants in the other- and self-kindness groups were asked to perform three acts of kindness each week, while participants in the control condition were not. Of those who completed the intervention (N = 781), we found that participants in the other-kindness (vs. self-kindness and control) group experienced significant decreases in depression, anxiety, and loneliness from pre- to postintervention, offering compelling evidence for the mental health benefits of prosocial behavior. Unexpectedly, we also found that participants in the self-kindness (vs. other-kindness and control) group experienced significant increases in depression and anxiety. While the self-kindness group reported enjoying their acts of kindness more, the other-kindness group felt more connected. Overall, these findings reaffirm the benefits of prosocial behavior on well-being and suggest that self-kindness might not be as positive as it feels. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).