Different Path to Happiness: The Role of Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction in Benefiting Close and Distant Others

Numerous studies show that prosocial behavior leads to positive emotional outcomes for the actor, yet does it matter, who the beneficiary is? The present paper explores differential effects of helping acts towards close versus distant recipients on subjective well-being and the role that basic psychological needs play in this relationship. Two studies using event-recall (N = 127) and interventional (N = 305) designs in Russian samples were conducted to test our hypotheses. Study 1 showed that performing acts of kindness towards family and friends (compared to a control condition) led to higher satisfaction of the needs for relatedness and morality, while helping strangers increased only the latter. Study 2 failed to unconditionally replicate the prosocial-happiness link; however, when the need for competence was controlled for, helping both types of recipients was shown to provide higher event-level well-being outcomes. The positive effect of prosocial acts toward strong ties was mediated by relatedness and morality satisfaction, while when the recipient was a stranger, the effect was accounted for by fulfilling the needs for morality and autonomy. No significant event-level well-being differences were detected between those helping close versus distant others and no differences in positive affect, negative affect or life satisfaction emerged between the three conditions. The paper provides support for the importance of the self-perceived impact for the success of kindness interventions. We conclude with a discussion of implications for kindness interventions towards different recipients.