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When Do Good Deeds Lead to Good Feelings? Eudaimonic Orientation Moderates the Happiness Benefits of Prosocial Behavior

Engaging in prosocial behavior is considered an effective way to increase happiness in a sustainable manner. However, there is insufficient knowledge about the conditions under which such a happiness effect occurs. From a person-activity congruence perspective, we proposed that an individual’s eudai...

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Autores principales: Lai, Weipeng, Yang, Zhixu, Mao, Yanhui, Zhang, Qionghan, Chen, Hezhi, Ma, Jianhong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312963/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32517165
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114053
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author Lai, Weipeng
Yang, Zhixu
Mao, Yanhui
Zhang, Qionghan
Chen, Hezhi
Ma, Jianhong
author_facet Lai, Weipeng
Yang, Zhixu
Mao, Yanhui
Zhang, Qionghan
Chen, Hezhi
Ma, Jianhong
author_sort Lai, Weipeng
collection PubMed
description Engaging in prosocial behavior is considered an effective way to increase happiness in a sustainable manner. However, there is insufficient knowledge about the conditions under which such a happiness effect occurs. From a person-activity congruence perspective, we proposed that an individual’s eudaimonic orientation moderates the effect of prosocial behavior on happiness, whereas hedonic orientation does not. For this purpose, 128 participants were assigned to play a game in which half of them were explained the benevolence impact of playing the game (the benevolence condition), and the other half played the same game without this knowledge (the control condition). Participants’ eudaimonic and hedonic orientations were assessed before the game, and their post-task happiness were measured after the game. The results showed that participants in the benevolence condition reported higher post-task positive affect than those in the control condition. Furthermore, this happiness effect was moderated by participants’ eudaimonic orientation—participants with high eudaimonic orientation reaped greater benefits from benevolence, and their hedonic orientation did not moderate the relationship between benevolence and happiness. The importance of the effect of person-activity congruence on happiness is discussed, along with the implications of these findings for sustainably pursuing happiness.
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spelling pubmed-73129632020-06-29 When Do Good Deeds Lead to Good Feelings? Eudaimonic Orientation Moderates the Happiness Benefits of Prosocial Behavior Lai, Weipeng Yang, Zhixu Mao, Yanhui Zhang, Qionghan Chen, Hezhi Ma, Jianhong Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Engaging in prosocial behavior is considered an effective way to increase happiness in a sustainable manner. However, there is insufficient knowledge about the conditions under which such a happiness effect occurs. From a person-activity congruence perspective, we proposed that an individual’s eudaimonic orientation moderates the effect of prosocial behavior on happiness, whereas hedonic orientation does not. For this purpose, 128 participants were assigned to play a game in which half of them were explained the benevolence impact of playing the game (the benevolence condition), and the other half played the same game without this knowledge (the control condition). Participants’ eudaimonic and hedonic orientations were assessed before the game, and their post-task happiness were measured after the game. The results showed that participants in the benevolence condition reported higher post-task positive affect than those in the control condition. Furthermore, this happiness effect was moderated by participants’ eudaimonic orientation—participants with high eudaimonic orientation reaped greater benefits from benevolence, and their hedonic orientation did not moderate the relationship between benevolence and happiness. The importance of the effect of person-activity congruence on happiness is discussed, along with the implications of these findings for sustainably pursuing happiness. MDPI 2020-06-06 2020-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7312963/ /pubmed/32517165 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114053 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Lai, Weipeng
Yang, Zhixu
Mao, Yanhui
Zhang, Qionghan
Chen, Hezhi
Ma, Jianhong
When Do Good Deeds Lead to Good Feelings? Eudaimonic Orientation Moderates the Happiness Benefits of Prosocial Behavior
title When Do Good Deeds Lead to Good Feelings? Eudaimonic Orientation Moderates the Happiness Benefits of Prosocial Behavior
title_full When Do Good Deeds Lead to Good Feelings? Eudaimonic Orientation Moderates the Happiness Benefits of Prosocial Behavior
title_fullStr When Do Good Deeds Lead to Good Feelings? Eudaimonic Orientation Moderates the Happiness Benefits of Prosocial Behavior
title_full_unstemmed When Do Good Deeds Lead to Good Feelings? Eudaimonic Orientation Moderates the Happiness Benefits of Prosocial Behavior
title_short When Do Good Deeds Lead to Good Feelings? Eudaimonic Orientation Moderates the Happiness Benefits of Prosocial Behavior
title_sort when do good deeds lead to good feelings? eudaimonic orientation moderates the happiness benefits of prosocial behavior
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7312963/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32517165
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17114053
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