It is noted by a recent study, that people feel good when they make a donation for a charitable purpose. A twist in the former statement is they feel even better while making the donation directly to the needy. Making donation in a way that tends to build up social connection makes people feel good.
This new study suggests for the very first time that how social connection can help convert a generous behaviour into good positive feelings for the donor.
Lara Aknin of Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, and colleagues at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver and Harvard Business School, Massachusetts, US, desired to test as to when the emotional benefits of donating in the form of charity become embed.
The researchers led out three studies of charitable donations, to be a bit more precise, prosocial spending, and they noticed that the act of spending money on the needy or shelling money for charities lead to the great happiness and generates social connection.
The study concluded that people who are the donors are at cloud nine while giving to a charity via a friend, relative or some known person rather than randomly making an anonymous donation to a generous cause.
This recent study has its implications for non- profit organisations in hope to add upon donations, this suggests that recruiting advocates and giving in to them boost up their social connections could prove to be beneficial for the donors too, as stated by the researchers.
“While additional factors other than social connection likely influence the happiness gained from pro-social spending our findings suggest that putting the social in prosocial is one way to transform good deeds into good feelings,” the team said.
The research will be published in the International Journal of Happiness and Development.
