Helping others improves the psychological state
This conclusion was made by a researcher at the Ronald Franklin Inglehart Laboratory for Comparative Social Research of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) Ekaterina Nastina. This is reported by the press service of the scientific institution.
It is believed that helping relatives can bring more joy than helping strangers. However, the researcher found that the more often people help others — both relatives and outsiders — the more satisfied they are with their lives.
At the same time, the effect of helping loved ones turned out to be more pronounced than the effect of helping strangers. But these differences are insignificant. It should also be noted that as a result of the study, there was no evidence of a decrease in the level of life satisfaction if help is provided too often.
757 people aged 20 to 75 years took part in the test, who answered questions about helping others and passed the Ed Diener Life Satisfaction Scale test.
The study also revealed the influence of age in this matter. It turned out that helping a close circle was less associated with subjective well-being in people over 51 years old compared with young people aged 20-25 years. This is because altruistic behavior can bring more satisfaction in the early stages of personality development, when a person is trying to find his place in society.
As the researcher comments, due to the limited physical and psychological resources, older people, in an attempt to combine several social roles that require prosocial behavior from them, may be particularly susceptible to emotional stress and stress.
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