IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jhappi/v19y2018i8d10.1007_s10902-017-9918-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Prosocial Spending and Subjective Well-Being: The Recipient Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Wuke Zhang

    (Zhejiang University)

  • Mingliang Chen

    (Zhejiang University)

  • Ying Xie

    (Zhejiang University)

  • Zhen Zhao

    (Zhejiang University)

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that people are happier after spending money on others (prosocial spending) rather than spending on themselves (personal spending). This relationship between prosocial spending and well-being has been proved to be reliable across countries and ages. However, the happiness of recipients has been frequently ignored in past prosocial behavior studies, and only a few studies have explored the effect of givers’ voluntary intention on recipients’ well-being and responses. Considering that the purpose of prosocial spending is to benefit both spenders and recipients, this study attempts to investigate the relationships among gift attractiveness, positive perceived intention, willingness-to-accept (WTA) and subjective well-being (SWB) of recipients in prosocial spending. The results of a large scale survey demonstrate that both gift attractiveness and positive perceived intention are positively related to recipients’ willingness-to-accept. And willingness-to-accept is positively associated with recipients’ SWB. More importantly, willingness-to-accept mediates both the relationship between gift attractiveness and SWB, and the relationship between positive perceived intention and SWB. Some implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Wuke Zhang & Mingliang Chen & Ying Xie & Zhen Zhao, 2018. "Prosocial Spending and Subjective Well-Being: The Recipient Perspective," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(8), pages 2267-2281, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:19:y:2018:i:8:d:10.1007_s10902-017-9918-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s10902-017-9918-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10902-017-9918-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10902-017-9918-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Cummins, 2000. "Personal Income and Subjective Well-being: A Review," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 133-158, June.
    2. Sonja Lyubomirsky & Heidi Lepper, 1999. "A Measure of Subjective Happiness: Preliminary Reliability and Construct Validation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 46(2), pages 137-155, February.
    3. Aaron Ahuvia, 2002. "Individualism/Collectivism and Cultures of Happiness: A Theoretical Conjecture on the Relationship between Consumption, Culture and Subjective Well-Being at the National Level," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 23-36, March.
    4. Lara B. Aknin & Elizabeth W. Dunn & Gillian M. Sandstrom & Michael I. Norton, 2013. "Does social connection turn good deeds into good feelings? On the value of putting the 'social' in prosocial spending," International Journal of Happiness and Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(2), pages 155-171.
    5. Lara B. Aknin & Christopher P. Barrington-Leigh & Elizabeth W. Dunn & John F. Helliwell & Robert Biswas-Diener & Imelda Kemeza & Paul Nyende & Claire E. Ashton-James & Michael I. Norton, 2010. "Prosocial Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal," NBER Working Papers 16415, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. İlhan Yalçın & Asude Malkoç, 2015. "The Relationship Between Meaning in Life and Subjective Well-Being: Forgiveness and Hope as Mediators," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 915-929, August.
    7. Marios Koufaris, 2002. "Applying the Technology Acceptance Model and Flow Theory to Online Consumer Behavior," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 13(2), pages 205-223, June.
    8. Monica Guillen-Royo, 2008. "Consumption and Subjective Wellbeing: Exploring Basic Needs, Social Comparison, Social Integration and Hedonism in Peru," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 89(3), pages 535-555, December.
    9. Daniel Kahneman & Peter P. Wakker & Rakesh Sarin, 1997. "Back to Bentham? Explorations of Experienced Utility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(2), pages 375-406.
    10. Lara Aknin & Elizabeth Dunn & Michael Norton, 2012. "Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion: Evidence for a Positive Feedback Loop between Prosocial Spending and Happiness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 347-355, April.
    11. Bruce Headey & Ruud Muffels & Mark Wooden, 2008. "Money Does not Buy Happiness: Or Does It? A Reassessment Based on the Combined Effects of Wealth, Income and Consumption," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 87(1), pages 65-82, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jing Li & Meilin Yao & Hongrui Liu, 2021. "From Social Support to Adolescents’ Subjective Well-Being: the Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation and Prosocial Behavior and Gender Difference," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 14(1), pages 77-93, February.
    2. Baojie Zhang & Lifeng Yang & Xiangyang Cheng & Feiyu Chen, 2021. "How Does Employee Green Behavior Impact Employee Well-Being? An Empirical Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(4), pages 1-19, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Liselot Hudders & Mario Pandelaere, 2012. "The Silver Lining of Materialism: The Impact of Luxury Consumption on Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 411-437, June.
    2. Devrim Dumludag, 2015. "Consumption and life satisfaction at different levels of economic development," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 62(2), pages 163-182, June.
    3. Bernhard Christoph, 2010. "The Relation Between Life Satisfaction and the Material Situation: A Re-Evaluation Using Alternative Measures," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 98(3), pages 475-499, September.
    4. Miha Dominko & Miroslav Verbič, 2022. "The effect of subjective well‐being on consumption behavior," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 876-898, June.
    5. Dajana Barbić & Irena Palić, 2023. "Rich student, happy student: The case study of Croatia," EFZG Working Papers Series 2305, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb.
    6. Mostafa E. Shahen & Shibly Shahrier & Koji Kotani, 2019. "Happiness, Generativity and Social Preferences in a Developing Country: A Possibility of Future Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-17, September.
    7. De Neve, Jan-Emmanuel & Diener, Ed & Tay, Louis & Xuereb, Cody, 2013. "The objective benefits of subjective well-being," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 51669, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Ruut Veenhoven & Felicia Chiperi & Xin Kang & Martijn Burger, 2021. "Happiness and Consumption: A Research Synthesis Using an Online Finding Archive* â€," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, March.
    9. Ad Bergsma & Monika Ardelt, 2012. "Self-Reported Wisdom and Happiness: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 481-499, June.
    10. Hilke Brockmann, 2012. "Das Glück der Migranten: eine Lebenslaufanalyse zum subjektiven Wohlbefinden von Migranten der ersten Generation in Deutschland," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 504, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    11. Hagit Sabato & Sapir Bar-Ilan, 2023. "Pleasure or Meaning: Subjective Well-Being Orientations and the Willingness to Help Close Versus Distant Others," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(6), pages 2013-2037, August.
    12. Wang, Xia & Tong, Luqiong, 2015. "Hide the light or let it shine? Examining the factors influencing the effect of publicizing donations on donors’ happiness," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 418-424.
    13. Emma Pleeging & Martijn Burger & Job Exel, 2021. "The Relations between Hope and Subjective Well-Being: a Literature Overview and Empirical Analysis," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 1019-1041, June.
    14. Govindamal Thangiah & Mas Ayu Said & Hazreen Abdul Majid & Daniel Reidpath & Tin Tin Su, 2020. "Income Inequality in Quality of Life among Rural Communities in Malaysia: A Case for Immediate Policy Consideration," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(23), pages 1-19, November.
    15. Erik Angner, 2011. "Current Trends in Welfare Measurement," Chapters, in: John B. Davis & D. Wade Hands (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Recent Economic Methodology, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Ozge Gokdemir, 2015. "Consumption, savings and life satisfaction: the Turkish case," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 62(2), pages 183-196, June.
    17. Kumar, Ajay & Paul, Justin & StarÄ ević, SlaÄ‘ana, 2021. "Do brands make consumers happy?- A masstige theory perspective," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    18. Lara Aknin & Elizabeth Dunn & Michael Norton, 2012. "Happiness Runs in a Circular Motion: Evidence for a Positive Feedback Loop between Prosocial Spending and Happiness," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 347-355, April.
    19. Rehdanz, Katrin & Maddison, David, 2005. "Climate and happiness," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 111-125, January.
      • Katrin Rehdanz & David J. Maddison, 2003. "Climate and Happiness," Working Papers FNU-20, Research unit Sustainability and Global Change, Hamburg University, revised Apr 2003.
    20. John F. Helliwell & Lara B. Aknin & Hugh Shiplett & Haifang Huang & Shun Wang, 2017. "Social Capital and Prosocial Behaviour as Sources of Well-Being," NBER Working Papers 23761, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:19:y:2018:i:8:d:10.1007_s10902-017-9918-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.