IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecl/stabus/2129.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Getting the Most out of Giving: Pursuing Concretely-Framed Prosocial Goals Maximizes Happiness

Author

Listed:
  • Rudd, Melanie

    (Stanford University)

  • Aaker, Jennifer

    (Stanford University)

  • Norton, Michael I.

    (Harvard University)

Abstract

Across six field and laboratory experiments, participants given a concretely-framed prosocial goal (e.g., making someone smile, increasing recycling) felt happier after performing a goal-directed act of kindness than did those who were assigned a functionally similar, but more abstractly-framed, prosocial goal (e.g., making someone happy, saving the environment). This effect was driven by differences in the size of the gap between participants' expectations and reality: Compared to those assigned to pursue an abstractly-framed prosocial goal, those assigned to pursue a concretely-framed goal perceived that the actual outcome of their goal-directed efforts more accurately matched their expectations, causing them to experience a greater boost in personal happiness. Further, participants were unable to predict this effect, believing that pursuing abstractly-framed prosocial goals would have either an equal or greater positive impact on their own happiness.

Suggested Citation

  • Rudd, Melanie & Aaker, Jennifer & Norton, Michael I., 2013. "Getting the Most out of Giving: Pursuing Concretely-Framed Prosocial Goals Maximizes Happiness," Research Papers 2129, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:stabus:2129
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/library/RP2129.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kennon Sheldon & Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2006. "Achieving Sustainable Gains in Happiness: Change Your Actions, not Your Circumstances," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 55-86, March.
    2. Ed Diener & Eunkook Suh & Heidi Smith & Liang Shao, 1995. "National differences in reported subjective well-being: Why do they occur?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 7-32, January.
    3. Grant, Adam M. & Sonnentag, Sabine, 2010. "Doing good buffers against feeling bad: Prosocial impact compensates for negative task and self-evaluations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 13-22, January.
    4. Nancy Morrow-Howell & Jim Hinterlong & Philip A. Rozario & Fengyan Tang, 2003. "Effects of Volunteering on the Well-Being of Older Adults," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 58(3), pages 137-145.
    5. R. Vermunt & E. Spaans & F. Zorge, 1989. "Satisfaction, happiness and well-being of Dutch students," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 1-33, February.
    6. Ying Zhang & Ayelet Fishbach & Ravi Dhar, 2007. "When Thinking Beats Doing: The Role of Optimistic Expectations in Goal-Based Choice," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 34(4), pages 567-578, July.
    7. Andreoni, James, 1989. "Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1447-1458, December.
    8. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    9. Alex Michalos, 1980. "Satisfaction and happiness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 385-422, December.
    10. Alex Michalos, 1985. "Multiple discrepancies theory (MDT)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 347-413, May.
    11. David Dubois & Derek D. Rucker & Adam D. Galinsky, 2011. "Generous Paupers and Stingy Princes: Power Drives Consumer Spending on Self versus Others," Post-Print hal-00621230, HAL.
    12. Derek D. Rucker & David Dubois & Adam D. Galinsky, 2011. "Generous Paupers and Stingy Princes: Power Drives Consumer Spending on Self versus Others," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 37(6), pages 1015-1029.
    13. Lalin Anik & Lara B. Aknin & Michael I. Norton & Elizabeth W. Dunn, 2009. "Feeling Good about Giving: The Benefits (and Costs) of Self-Interested Charitable Behavior," Harvard Business School Working Papers 10-012, Harvard Business School.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Aoki, Yu, 2014. "Donating Time to Charity: Not Working for Nothing," IZA Discussion Papers 7990, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Koch, Christian, 2013. "The Virtue Ethics Hypothesis: Is there a nexus between virtues and well-being?," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 80054, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    3. Hepworth, Adam & Young Lee, Na & Zablah, Alex R., 2021. "Feeling anxious: The dark side of checkout charity solicitations," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 330-342.
    4. 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.
    5. Qianping Ren & Maoliang Ye, 2017. "Donations Make People Happier: Evidence from the Wenchuan Earthquake," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 517-536, May.
    6. Bechetti, Leonardo & Conzo, Pierluigi & Di Febbraro, Mirko, 2015. "Voluntary Work, Health and Subjective Wellbeing: a Resource for Active Ageing," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201511, University of Turin.
    7. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2006:i:33:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Dwenger, Nadja & Kleven, Henrik & Rasul, Imran & Rincke, Johannes, 2014. "Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Motivations for Tax Compliance. Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment in Germany," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100389, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    9. Nikolova, Milena & Roman, Monica & Zimmermann, Klaus F., 2017. "Left behind but doing good? Civic engagement in two post-socialist countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 658-684.
    10. C. Mónica Capra & Bing Jiang & Yuxin Su, 2022. "Do pledges lead to more volunteering? An experimental study," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 87-100, January.
    11. Cristiano Cechella, 2011. "The Influence Of Cultural Affinity For The Boost Of Brazilian Investment In Portugal," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(1), pages 59-72, June.
    12. D. Sirin Saracoglu & Terry L. Roe, 2004. "Rural-urban Migration and Economic Growth in Developing Countries," 2004 Meeting Papers 241, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    13. Pilar Useche, 2016. "Who Contributes to the Provision of Public Goods at the Community Level? The Case of Potable Water in Ghana," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 34(6), pages 869-888, November.
    14. Andreoni, James & Serra-Garcia, Marta, 2021. "Time inconsistent charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    15. Dean Karlan & John A List, 2012. "How Can Bill and Melinda Gates Increase Other People’s Donations to Fund Public Goods?," Working Papers id:4880, eSocialSciences.
    16. Keval Amin & Erica Harris, 2022. "The Effect of Investor Sentiment on Nonprofit Donations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 175(2), pages 427-450, January.
    17. Freundt, Jana & Lange, Andreas, 2021. "On the voluntary provision of public goods under risk," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    18. Schleich, Joachim & Alsheimer, Sven, 2024. "The relationship between willingness to pay and carbon footprint knowledge: Are individuals willing to pay more to offset their carbon footprint if they learn about its size and distance to the 1.5 °C," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 219(C).
    19. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Meier, "undated". "Pro-Social Behavior, Reciprocity or Both?," IEW - Working Papers 107, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Brunner, Eric & Sonstelie, Jon, 2003. "School finance reform and voluntary fiscal federalism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2157-2185, September.
    21. Dean Karlan & John A. List, 2007. "Does Price Matter in Charitable Giving? Evidence from a Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(5), pages 1774-1793, December.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ecl:stabus:2129. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gsstaus.html .

    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.