ABSTRACT

Americans are guaranteed the right to ‘pursue happiness’ for themselves. But might they be better off if they pursued happiness for others? In five studies, we compared the two strategies, showing that, ironically, the second pursuit brings more personal happiness than the first. Retrospective study 1 (N = 123) and experimental studies 2 (N = 96) and 3 (N = 141) show that trying to make someone else happy leads to greater subjective well-being than trying to make oneself happy. In all three studies, relatedness need-satisfaction mediated the condition differences. Study 4 (N = 175) extended the findings by showing that trying to make others happy is more personally beneficial than when others try to make us happy. Study 5 (N = 198) found that feeding strangers’ parking meters produced the effect even though the participant did not interact with the targeted other.

摘要

美国人被保障为自己“追求幸福”的权利。但是，如果他们为别人追求幸福，他们会不会过得更好？在五项研究中，我们比较了这两种策略，讽刺的是，第二种追求比第一种更能带来个人幸福感。回顾性研究 1 ( N = 123) 和实验研究 2 ( N = 96) 和 3 ( N = 141) 表明，与试图让自己快乐相比，试图让别人快乐会带来更大的主观幸福感。在所有三项研究中，相关性需求 - 满足介导了条件差异。研究 4 ( N = 175) 扩展了研究结果，表明试图让他人快乐比他人试图让我们快乐对个人更有益。研究 5 (N = 198）发现，即使参与者没有与目标对象互动，喂陌生人的停车咪表也会产生效果。