The Science of Giving with Dr. Sara Konrath

Your research shows a link between empathy, generosity, and personal wellbeing.

What does the science say about how giving can impact our mental and physical health?

It's pretty good news.

This can range anywhere from happiness, like just that feeling of joy, to more purpose in life or deeper meaning, less depressive symptoms.

So it kind of really goes deep.

And, and the psychological wellbeing also lasts for a longer time than our typical type of happiness, which can be fleeting.

So it's kind of a long-lasting way to build up not only someone else's happiness by being kind to them, but also your own.

And then that spills into sort of even deeper physiological outcomes.

So for example, I've done some research showing that people who are more empathetic, when they're doing something a little stressful, they have sort of a physiological protective system, a buffer.

Normally, our stress hormones would really increase any time we're going through a stressful event, um, but people who have high empathy have a, have a smaller increase in stress hormones, so it's protective.

And there's also research showing that even if you just, in the moment, change your mindset and think about how you can help others when you're in a stressful situation, that has immediate effects on your stress hormones.

So if you think about that in the long term, if you are giving to others and you're happier and your stress is being more regulated, that's gonna have long-term implications for health.

And I've also tracked older adults to see what happens if they give, or what happens if they see themselves as kind and generous.

And what we find is both giving time and seeing oneself as a giving person are associated with a lower risk of mortality several years later.

So there's this really sort of short-term and also long-term implication when people are generous, but the research shows that most people don't know.

Like when you ask them, like, "What's gonna make you happier? Like, spending money on yourself or giving it away?" Like, the most common answer is, "Well, of course I'll feel good if I treat myself," right? That's what we think.

I think we're in a society that promotes that.

But the reality is when you actually measure it and look at what, what's actually making people hap- happy in the moment, they're feeling better from giving to others.