“More Blessed to Give”: Generosity and the Reward System

Paul is saying goodbye to the elders of Ephesus. He reminds them that he worked with his own hands so that he could give, not take, and he closes with a saying of Jesus found nowhere in the Gospels. The setting matters. “Blessed” here is not a promise of a warm feeling. It is a statement about where the good life is found, spoken by a man about to walk into chains. Proverbs puts the same idea in farming terms: the one who waters is watered. Neither text treats giving as a technique for happiness. Both assume that the giver is not left poorer in the ways that matter most.

Giving and happiness. In a short paper in Science, Dunn, Aknin, and Norton (2008) tested the idea three ways. In a nationally representative survey, people who spent more of their income on others reported greater happiness. In a field study of people who received a windfall bonus at work, those who spent more of it on others were happier weeks later. And in an experiment, people randomly assigned to spend a small sum on someone else that day were happier by evening than those told to spend it on themselves. Aknin and colleagues (2013) then asked whether this was a Western quirk. In survey data from 136 countries, rich and poor alike, prosocial spending went with greater happiness. Experiments in Canada, Uganda, and India found that simply recalling a time you spent money on someone else raised happiness. In Canada and South Africa, people randomly assigned to buy items for charity felt better than those who bought the same items for themselves, even when the giving built no social ties.

The brain’s reward system and giving. When people in an fMRI scanner chose to donate real money to charities, the brain’s mesolimbic reward system responded much as it did when they received money themselves (Moll et al., 2006). In a later experiment, Park and colleagues (2017) asked participants to pledge to spend money over the next four weeks either on others or on themselves. The generous-pledge group made more generous choices in the scanner and reported larger increases in happiness. Their generous decisions engaged the temporo-parietal junction, a region involved in thinking about other people, and changed its connection with the ventral striatum, a reward hub. Striatal activity during generous choices tracked how much happier they became.

How big is the effect? A meta-analysis of 27 experiments (N = 4,045) found that performing acts of kindness raises the doer’s well-being by a small to medium amount (δ = 0.28), with no sign of publication bias (Curry et al., 2018). For older adults, a meta-analysis of volunteering found that organized volunteers had a 24% lower risk of death after adjusting for health and other factors. There was preliminary evidence that the link was stronger among people more involved in public religious life (Okun et al., 2013). That last finding is observational. Healthier people may simply volunteer more, and adjustment cannot fully remove that.

What the studies cannot tell us. The happiness gains are modest, and the imaging studies are small. None of this research measures what Jesus meant by “blessed,” which reaches past mood to God’s approval and reward (Matt. 6:3–4). The research fits the text in one narrow way: giving does not seem to leave the giver poorer in spirit, and often leaves him better.

Practice

Living it out

Five practices drawn from this passage. Each says how strong the research behind it is. What the labels mean.

1. 1

   Give on purpose, to a face

   Once a week, spend a small, planned amount on a specific person: a coffee for a coworker, groceries for a widow, a meal for a family with a new baby. Keep it concrete and personal.

   StrongRandomized experiments show that spending on others raises the giver’s happiness more than spending on oneself, across very different countries (Dunn et al., 2008; Aknin et al., 2013).
2. 2

   Make the pledge out loud

   Tell your wife or a brother what you intend to give this month and to whom. A public commitment is part of what changed both behavior and happiness in the imaging study.

   EarlyOne small fMRI experiment used a public pledge (Park et al., 2017). The pledge itself was not compared with giving without one.
3. 3

   Join something that serves on a schedule

   Choose one standing role, such as a food pantry shift, an ushers’ rotation, or tutoring, and keep it for a season.

   ModerateVolunteering is linked to lower mortality in older adults, even after adjusting for health (Okun et al., 2013), but the data are observational.
4. 4

   Do one small act of kindness each day, and name it

   At the end of the day, name to yourself or your wife one thing you did for someone else.

   ModerateKindness interventions raise the doer’s well-being by a small to medium amount (Curry et al., 2018). Expect a modest lift, not a transformation.
5. 5

   Give where no one will thank you

   Make at least one gift each month that no one will trace back to you (Matt. 6:3–4).

   ObedienceObedience. Commended because Scripture commends it. The research on giving does not test secrecy, though the Aknin et al. (2013) experiments found benefits even when giving built no social ties.

Studies cited on this page6

1. ↗ Aknin, L. B., Barrington-Leigh, C. P., Dunn, E. W., Helliwell, J. F., Burns, J., Biswas-Diener, R., Kemeza, I., Nyende, P., Ashton-James, C. E., & Norton, M. I. (2013). Prosocial spending and well-being: Cross-cultural evidence for a psychological universal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(4), 635–652. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031578
2. ↗ Curry, O. S., Rowland, L. A., Van Lissa, C. J., Zlotowitz, S., McAlaney, J., & Whitehouse, H. (2018). Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 76, 320–329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.02.014
3. ↗ Dunn, E. W., Aknin, L. B., & Norton, M. I. (2008). Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science, 319(5870), 1687–1688. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1150952
4. ↗ Moll, J., Krueger, F., Zahn, R., Pardini, M., de Oliveira-Souza, R., & Grafman, J. (2006). Human fronto-mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 103(42), 15623–15628. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0604475103
5. ↗ Okun, M. A., Yeung, E. W., & Brown, S. (2013). Volunteering by older adults and risk of mortality: A meta-analysis. Psychology and Aging, 28(2), 564–577. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031519
6. ↗ Park, S. Q., Kahnt, T., Dogan, A., Strang, S., Fehr, E., & Tobler, P. N. (2017). A neural link between generosity and happiness. Nature Communications, 8, 15964. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15964