World Happiness Report 2023 114 giving: by concealing asymmetries in the relative status of the altruist and beneficiary, it may yield higher well-being for the beneficiary. Alternately, when beneficiaries anticipate being able to pay forward the help they received, their subjective well-being is also improved.35 The motivation perceived to drive acts of altruism also shapes its effects on beneficiaries. Altruism’s effects on beneficiaries’ well-being (e.g., positive affect, vitality, and self-esteem) seem to be especially robust when the beneficiary believes that the altruist personally chose to help and was intrinsically motivated to do so.36 By contrast, if recipients perceive the altruistic acts as having been performed for selfish (as opposed to benevolent) reasons, their sense of self-esteem may decrease, which can lead to feelings of sadness and anxiety.37 In some cases, receiving help may also elicit feelings of indebtedness and mixed emotional reactions in recipients.38 For example, recipients of help sometimes experience guilt, indebtedness, or negative mood after someone has sacrificed for them.39 As these findings demonstrate, altruism’s effects on the recipient’s well-being can be moderated by its effects on specific emotions. The emotion that may most reliably link altruism to improved well-being is gratitude.40 When helping elicits feelings of gratitude in recipients, they reliably experience increases in well-being. Gratitude is typically experienced by recipients when the altruistic actor helped (or was perceived to have helped) voluntarily and autonomously rather than under duress.41 Gratitude is consistently related to various positive well-being outcomes, including positive affect, optimism, and perceived closeness to others.42 Gratitude’s effects on well-being may even potentially yield improvements in objective health indices as well, such as improved sleep and inflammatory markers.43 In addition, gratitude may make beneficiaries more likely to engage in future altruism themselves.44 This may yield
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NzQwMjQ=