{"title":"A Life Worth Living: Evidence on the Relationship Between Prosocial Values and Happiness.","authors":"Donald P Moynihan, Thomas DeLeire, Kohei Enami","doi":"10.1177/0275074013493657","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Employees with a desire to help others provide benefits to their organization, clients, and fellow workers, but what do they get in return? We argue that the prosocial desire to help others is a basic human goal that matters to an individual's happiness. We employ both longitudinal and cross-sectional data to demonstrate that work-related prosocial motivation is associated with higher subjective well-being, both in terms of current happiness and life satisfaction later in life. Cross-sectional data also suggest that perceived social impact (the belief that one's job is making a difference) is even more important for happiness than the prosocial desire to help. The results show that the relationship between prosocial motivation and happiness is not limited to government employees, suggesting that in this aspect of altruistic behavior, public and private employees are not so different.</p>","PeriodicalId":48009,"journal":{"name":"American Review of Public Administration","volume":"45 3","pages":"311-326"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2015-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0275074013493657","citationCount":"44","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American Review of Public Administration","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074013493657","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2013/7/4 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 44
Abstract
Employees with a desire to help others provide benefits to their organization, clients, and fellow workers, but what do they get in return? We argue that the prosocial desire to help others is a basic human goal that matters to an individual's happiness. We employ both longitudinal and cross-sectional data to demonstrate that work-related prosocial motivation is associated with higher subjective well-being, both in terms of current happiness and life satisfaction later in life. Cross-sectional data also suggest that perceived social impact (the belief that one's job is making a difference) is even more important for happiness than the prosocial desire to help. The results show that the relationship between prosocial motivation and happiness is not limited to government employees, suggesting that in this aspect of altruistic behavior, public and private employees are not so different.
期刊介绍：
The American Review of Public Adminstration (ARPA) aspires to be the premier academic journal in the field of public affairs and public administration. As a peer-reviewed journal with the combined goals of advancing the knowledge of public administration and improving its practice, ARPA features articles that address rapidly emerging issues in public administration and public affairs and is open to both traditional and nontraditional apporaches. ARPA has no methodological bias other than a preference for an analytical approach to the issue(s) being addressed. Of particular interest are theory-based empirical research, commentaries on pressing issues, reviews or syntheses of research, and conceptual/theoretical discussions on or over the boundaries of traditional public administration.
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