The Relationship Between Prosociality, Meaning, and Happiness in Everyday Life

Brodie C. Dakin (), Nicholas P. Tan, Tamlin S. Conner and Brock Bastian
Additional contact information
Brodie C. Dakin: University of Queensland
Nicholas P. Tan: The University of Melbourne
Tamlin S. Conner: University of Otago
Brock Bastian: The University of Melbourne

Journal of Happiness Studies, 2022, vol. 23, issue 6, No 19, 2787-2804

Abstract: Abstract Prosocial behaviors benefit others, but what benefits do they hold for those who enact them? Prosociality can enhance the actor’s well-being, yet whether it is one’s sense of happiness or meaning that is impacted, and how this plays out in everyday life, has received limited attention. We address this gap in knowledge by examining how prosociality is related to daily meaning and happiness across two large daily diary studies in two countries. Study 1 (N = 1140) revealed that changes in one’s subjective sense of prosociality was uniquely associated with both daily meaning and happiness. Study 2 (N = 217) found that self-reported prosocial behavior was also clearly linked to increases in daily meaning, and modestly associated with daily happiness. Altogether, our findings suggest that the subjective sense of prosociality is associated with meaning and happiness, and that performing prosocial acts may be particularly relevant to experiencing meaning.

Keywords: Prosocial behavior; Well-being; Meaning in life; Happiness; Daily diary study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10902-022-00526-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:jhappi:v:23:y:2022:i:6:d:10.1007_s10902-022-00526-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... fe/journal/10902/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10902-022-00526-1

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Happiness Studies is currently edited by Antonella Delle Fave

More articles in Journal of Happiness Studies from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().