What is Unique About Kindness? Exploring the Proximal Experience of Prosocial Acts Relative to Other Positive Behaviors

Abstract

Previous research has identified a robust connection between prosociality and happiness, suggesting that kindness has both hedonic and eudaimonic benefits—in the short term and in the long term. By contrast, our experiment aimed to examine people’s momentary eudaimonic feelings while engaging in kind acts for others. To that end, we randomly assigned participants to one of four positively valenced conditions that varied in their inclusion of potential “active ingredients” of prosocial behavior. Namely, engaging in kind acts for others was compared to engaging in kind acts for oneself (social element removed), extraverted behavior (kindness element removed), and open-minded behavior (both social and kindness elements removed). Participants were assessed five times over 2 weeks, each time reporting on how they felt during their assigned activities. Multilevel models revealed that relative to all other conditions, participants assigned to do kind acts for others reported a greater sense of competence, self-confidence, and meaning while engaging in those acts across the intervention period. Engaging in acts of kindness for others also led to stronger feelings of connection relative to engaging in open-minded behavior or acts of kindness for oneself but did not differ from engaging in extraverted behavior. These results illuminate the experience of positive eudaimonic feelings while one commits kind acts for others and highlight the unique benefits of prosociality compared to other positive behaviors.