Psychological Constructs-Happiness
Introduction of Construct of Interest and Research Question
Happiness is a construct that is highly elusive in modern society. Some philosophers consider happiness as the ultimate goal for human beings, the driving force, and the natural right that human beings have. It is often unclear what it means to be happy since happiness means different things to different people. Psychologists strive to find ways to help improve individuals’ happiness as this is expected to improve individuals’ general well-being. One behavior that is said to improve happiness in both adults and children is prosocial behavior. Human beings are considered prosocial, often sacrificing their resources to help others, including strangers, and this remains puzzling to various researchers. This paper will discuss the link between prosocial behaviors and happiness. The research question is, “Does prosocial behavior impact happiness?”
Article Review
Aknin, L. B., Broesch, T., Hamlin, J. K., & Van de Vondervoort, J. W. (2015). Prosocial behavior leads to happiness in a small-scale rural society. Journal of experimental psychology: General, 144(4), 788-795.
Aknin et al. (2015) investigate the link between happiness and prosocial behavior in a small-scale rural area, Vanuatu, on Tanna Island. Whereas no clear research question has been presented in the article, the authors claim to “explore whether prosocial behavior leads to emotional gains in both adults and 2-5-year-old Tannese children” (Aknin et al., 2015). In Study 1, the adult participants were offered an opportunity to purchase candy for others or themselves before making a report on their negative and positive effects. In study 2, young kids aged 2 to 5 were given candy and requested to either choose to share their own or the researcher’s candies with another person. A videotape was used to record the emotional expressions and then coded at a later time for happiness. The authors claim that in the event that emotive gains of giving would be detected among children and adults, this would offer more support for the probability that individuals from different cultural backgrounds consider generosity rewarding. In the first study, a sample of 26 adults was recruited (45 men and 15 women) through word of mouth and was given 100 Vatu, which is equivalent to $1 or a half day’s wage. The adults were told to make a report of their present hunger and happiness level on a 3-point scale (3- yes; 2- a little; 1- not at all) before the experiment. Afterward, they were given 100 Vatu and an extra 100 and asked to purchase candy (which was rare in the village) for themselves or for someone else.
After the experiment, their emotions, happiness, sadness, pride, strength, and anger, were measured using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. The results showed that adults who opted to purchase candy for others claimed to have elevated degrees of positive affect compared to participants who chose to buy candy for themselves. In the second study, 20 children were used, and a similar experiment was conducted, and similar results were attained among children who chose to share their candy with others. Generosity acts are said to have heightened happiness levels compared to selfish acts. This study has been backed by various other experiments conducted in different countries like Canada, proving that both Western and non-Western countries report higher happiness levels from prosocial behaviors. The only difference is that individuals from richer countries display higher happiness levels when giving costly compared to non-costly goods.
Carlo, G., Knight, G. P., Eisenberg, N., & Rotenberg, K. J. (1991). Cognitive processes and prosocial behaviors among children: The role of affective attributions and reconciliations. Developmental psychology, 27(3), 456-461.
These authors argue that perspective-taking (the ability to tell the difference between one’s own and another’s view) is highly linked with prosocial behavior. Sad emotions portrayed by other people are said to boost helping behavior. In this paper, the authors strive to find the link between affective attributions, cognitive perspective-taking measures, and affective reconciliations to prosocial behaviors. The study assumes that various kinds of sociocognitive skills will be steadily linked to a certain prosocial behavior if such a behavior necessitates that particular kind of social cognition. A total of 89 second-grade children received multiple social cognition indices (one cognitive and two affective). They were provided with a chance to assist a same-sex confederate kid in acquiring toys. In addition, six congruent stories containing two happy, sad, afraid, and angry stories were made, and these stories’ situational cues and facial expressions were consistent.
The results showed that the kids who made sad expressions in the corresponding stories also helped more in the corresponding helping scenarios compared to kids who were not made sad. The conclusion was that helping needed a certain kind of emotional attribution, and reconciliation is said to be highly linked with emotional attribution and reconciliation measures whenever the demands needed by the helping chance corresponded to the demands of the social cognition measures. The ability to tell the feelings of someone as sad can help improve the probability of helping behavior towards that person. This experiment fails to explain why some individuals help others without necessarily having an emotional attachment or cognitive understanding of their needs. Some individuals choose to give because they have the ability to give. However, it helps reinforce the idea of intrinsic prosocial behavior among human beings.
Lai, W., Yang, Z., Mao, Y., Zhang, Q., Chen, H., & Ma, J. (2020). When do good deeds lead to good feelings? Eudaimonic orientation moderates the happiness benefits of prosocial behavior. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(11), 4053-4065.
This article asserts that indulging in prosocial behavior is capable of enhancing happiness, but it seeks to find the circumstances under which this happiness influence kicks in. Lai et al. (2020) proposed that one’s eudaimonic orientation tends to moderate the influence of prosocial behavior on happiness, while hedonic orientation fails to do so. The authors hypothesized that eudaimonic orientation controls the impact of altruism on happiness; hence, individuals with high eudaimonic orientation are expected to report more post-task happiness. The second hypothesis was that hedonic orientation fails to control the impact of altruism on happiness. The authors recruited 131 students from Zhejiang University and compensated them with 15 RMB, which is equivalent to $2.1. The final number of participants was 128. These participants were asked to play a game where half had information about the altruism effect of playing the game, whereas the control group lacked this knowledge.
The hedonic and eudaimonic orientations of the participants were assessed before the game. Then, after the game, the post-task happiness was measured using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, and a Satisfaction with Life Scale was also completed. Results revealed that participants in the altruism condition claimed to have higher post-task positive affect compared to those in the control condition. Additionally, participants with a high eudaimonic orientation are said to have experienced more gains from benevolence, whereas their hedonic orientation failed to control the link between happiness and benevolence. This study brings insight into another aspect of happiness. It suggests that doing good in itself may not bring happiness unless the person lives based on their true self; that is, doing good is something that comes naturally to them.
Martela, F., & Ryan, R. M. (2016). Prosocial behavior increases well-being and vitality even without contact with the beneficiary: Causal and behavioral evidence. Motivation and Emotion, 40(3), 351-357.
Martela and Ryan (2016) investigated how prosocial behavior in itself enhances well-being and vitality even when there is no contact with the beneficiary. The authors claim that most previous studies focused on face-to-face contact with a beneficiary while researching prosocial behaviors and well-being. This might be affected by the heightened sense of relatedness and belongingness due to connecting directly with the other person. In this study, the authors aimed to find how prosocial behaviors influence well-being and vitality where there is no contact. Seventy-six participants were asked to play a computer game in which half were told of the probability of having an anonymous prosocial effect through the gameplay, whereas the other half lacked this information. The negative and positive effects were measured through the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience (SPANE), which normally asks participants the degree to which they experience positive effects like pleasantness and happiness and negative effects like unpleasantness and sadness on a scale of 1 to 5. The experimental group reported more positive affect, vitality, and meaningfulness compared to the control group. They are also said to have performed better in a Stroop task, which showed behavioral evidence of positive impacts of prosocial behavior. However, the authors failed to explain why there was a difference in performance in the Stroop task given to both groups. This is likely to lessen the soundness of the second experiment conducted. This experiment helps back the idea that human beings are intrinsically prosocial and that this behavior helps to enhance the well-being of the giver as it boosts their level of happiness and satisfaction. The feeling of contentment is likely to increase if the recipient is a stranger to the giver.
Song, Y., Broekhuizen, M. L., & Dubas, J. S. (2020). Happy little benefactor: Prosocial behaviors promote happiness in young children from two cultures. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1398-1413.
This article provides information on how prosocial behaviors enhance happiness among young children in Chinese and Dutch cultures. The authors claim that young children tend to show more happiness while sharing instead of receiving treats, which proves that humans are intrinsically prosocial. The aim of the study was to evaluate the link between happiness and prosocial behaviors for young preschoolers and toddlers. The study also sought to find out how resource availability influences the link between prosocial behaviors and happiness and whether a positive link would exist for other prosocial behaviors like empathic helping and instrumental helping. Lastly, the authors aimed to find the role played by positive social feedback in enhancing or lessening happiness. Consent was obtained from parents whose children took part in the experiment, and recruitment was done through word of mouth and posters.
These studies were conducted among Dutch and Chinese children where the children took part in a sharing task which was followed by empathic helping and instrumental helping tasks, after which students who chose to help were praised. A 7-point scale was used to rate the happiness of the children, from 1- not happy to 7- very happy/laughing. In both the Dutch and Chinese studies, results showed consistent results showing that the participants showed elevated happiness levels after giving compared to receiving treats; toddlers manifested increased happiness following instrumental helping, and their level of happiness was unchanged following positive social response, that is, getting a thank you response. The authors concluded that instrumental helping and sharing are emotionally rewarding independent of culture, which supports an evolutionary origin for such behaviors.
References
Aknin, L. B., Broesch, T., Hamlin, J. K., & Van de Vondervoort, J. W. (2015). Prosocial behavior leads to happiness in a small-scale rural society. Journal of experimental psychology: General, 144(4), 788-795.
Carlo, G., Knight, G. P., Eisenberg, N., & Rotenberg, K. J. (1991). Cognitive processes and prosocial behaviors among children: The role of affective attributions and reconciliations. Developmental psychology, 27(3), 456-461
Lai, W., Yang, Z., Mao, Y., Zhang, Q., Chen, H., & Ma, J. (2020). When do good deeds lead to good feelings? Eudaimonic orientation moderates the happiness benefits of prosocial behavior. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(11), 4053-4065.
Martela, F., & Ryan, R. M. (2016). Prosocial behavior increases well-being and vitality even without contact with the beneficiary: Causal and behavioral evidence. Motivation and Emotion, 40(3), 351-357.
Song, Y., Broekhuizen, M. L., & Dubas, J. S. (2020). Happy little benefactor: Prosocial behaviors promote happiness in young children from two cultures. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1-14.
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Question 
After conducting scientific observations about a construct of interest, it is important to have a foundational understanding of existing research on the construct.
Psychological Constructs-Happiness
For this assignment, you are going to identify a psychological construct you would like to know more about, such as life satisfaction, stress, happiness, optimism, etc. Then, identify a research question- what do you want to know about this construct? For example, a research question might be, “Does work impact life satisfaction?” This is an important step. It is critical to identify a research question before finding your articles. This question will guide your search.
Based on the research question, you are going to search for scholarly journal articles about your construct of interest. While Google Scholar can be helpful, you have access to journal databases via the online library. A commonly used database for finding psychological research is APA PsycArticles. For this assignment, use PsycArticles to search and retrieve research articles to study your construct. This assignment is not meant to be a simple Google search. Your articles should be related to a research question and focused on an area of interest. Here is a link to APA PsycArticles through the APUS Online Library: