Being nice really makes you feel good

Being good towards others is beneficial for you, says a study

• The ‘warm glow’ of kindness is real – even when there’s nothing in it for you
• We feel the benefit of kind acts regardless of whether they are altruistic or strategically motivated
• This raises questions for charities and governments about whether to encourage good behavior by appealing to our warm glow or by the promise of a return on investment

Being generous or kind towards others has its own rewards says a study by University of Sussex. It activates the brain’s reward regions.

After studying the brain scans of over a thousand people making kind decisions, psychologists at the University of Sussex have confirmed that even when there’s nothing in it for you, being nice really does make you feel good.

Many individual studies have hinted that generosity activates the reward network of the brain but this new study from Sussex is the first that brought these studies together, and then split the results into two types of kindness – altruistic and strategic.

The Sussex scientists found that reward areas of the brain are more active – i.e. use up more oxygen – when people act with strategic kindness, when there is an opportunity for others to return the favour.“This major study sparks questions about people having different motivations to give to others: clear self-interest versus the warm glow of altruism,” said Dr Daniel Campbell-Meiklejohn, the study’s lead and Director of the Social Decision Laboratory at the University of Sussex, in a statement. This study was published in NeuroImage.

Jo Cutler, the PhD student who co-authored the study at the University of Sussex, added:

“The finding of different motivations for giving raises all sorts of questions, including what charities and organisations can learn about what motivates their donors. Some museums, for example, choose to operate a membership scheme with real strategic benefits for their customers, such as discounts. Others will ask for a small altruistic donation on arrival. Organisations looking for contributions should think about how they want their customers to feel. Do they want them to feel altruistic, and experience a warm glow, or do they want them to enter with a transactional mind-set?”

Jo Cutler and Dr Campbell-Meiklejohn analysed 36 existing studies relating to 1,150 participants whose brains were scanned with fMRI scans over a ten-year period.