Spending Money Or Time Others:a Comparative Study Of Their Effects On Well-being

Prosocial behavior has been widely studied in social psychology.The current research mainly focuses on two types of prosocial behavior,spending time on others and spending money on others.We compared the effects of spending time and spending money to help others on the helper's well-being(i.e.,positive/negative affect,life satisfaction,and meaning).Meanwhile,we examined the roles of satisfaction of three basic psychology needs(i.e.,autonomy,relatedness and competence)and positive impact in the association between helping and well-being.There are three experiments in this study.Study 1 used a recall paradigm.We asked participates to recall their experiences of either spending time or money on others,and measured need satisfaction and well-being.To control for individual differences in recalling,Study 2 employed a within-subjects design.In addition,we controlled for the closeness between help provider and receiver,and also measured perceived positive impact of the helping behavior.Study 3 was a laboratory study in which we controlled the background,target,and amount of helping behavior.The current studies yield several important findings.First,both Studies 1 and 2 show that recalling an experience of spending time on others better meets the needs of relatedness and competence than recalling an experience of spending money on others;Second,when the background,target and amount of helping are strictly controlled(Study 3),the differences in terms of need satisfaction diminished;Third,compared with spending money on others,spending time others engenders more negative affect(Studies 1 and 3),and this effect is mediated by emotion involvement(Study 3);Finally,need satisfaction and perceived positive impact predict well-being in both types of helping.