(Press-News.org) For so many important outcomes in life – applying for jobs, waiting for medical test results – there comes a point when you just have to sit back and hope for the best. But that doesn't mean we always behave that way. New research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that even when an outcome is out of our control we often act as though we can still get on the good side of fate by doing good deeds.
According to lead researcher Benjamin Converse, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Psychology at the University of Virginia, the research was inspired by the kinds of deals many of us seem to make in which we promise ourselves that, if we can just make it through some trying situation, we'll be better citizens in the future. Converse and co-authors Jane Risen and Travis Carter, both of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago, wondered if these kinds of deals might be part of a more general phenomenon in which we intuitively bargain with 'the universe,' however we might define it.
"Everyone is familiar with the basics of reciprocity, the idea that if you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. We wondered if people think this way even when they aren't dealing with another person at all, but rather with the universe," says Converse.
The researchers hypothesized that waiting for an important, uncontrollable outcome may lead people to do good deeds with the implicit expectation that the universe will return the favor, a phenomenon they refer to as "investing in karma."
In the first experiment, Converse and his colleagues primed some participants with thoughts of uncontrollable outcomes, asking them to write about an important, unknown outcome they were currently awaiting, while other participants just wrote about their daily routine. After the study was supposedly over, participants were asked if they wanted to donate their time to participate in additional work for the lab, the proceeds of which would go to provide food for hungry community members or wishes for terminally ill children.
Just as the researchers hypothesized, after reflecting on important, unknown outcomes – such as the results of pregnancy attempts, graduate admissions, and court proceedings (all responses given by participants in the priming condition) – people were more likely to volunteer their time to charities.
Participants in the priming condition were not more likely to volunteer their time for a second task if it was described as 'entertaining' and 'fun' rather than helpful, which suggests that their helping behavior was not related to general agreeableness, a desire for distraction, or an attempt to boost mood. These results suggest that the participants volunteered specifically as way of investing in karma.
These findings were confirmed in a second experiment, in which participants who reflected on an uncontrollable outcome were more likely to make a monetary donation than participants who thought about a controllable unresolved personal dilemma or their personal preferences in making everyday choices.
Following these studies, Converse and his co-authors wanted to see if their findings would hold up in a real-world situation. They found that job fair attendees who had been primed to think about aspects of the job hunt that were outside their control (such as whether new jobs will open up) pledged to donate more of their potential prize money to charity than those who were primed to think about aspects that are within their control (such as learning about the industry).
In their fourth experiment, the researchers wanted to extend the karmic investment hypothesis by examining possible consequences. They surmised that if people do good deeds as a bargain with the universe, they might be more optimistic about the likelihood of receiving their desired outcome.
Again, the researchers recruited job seekers and asked them to complete one of the same surveys from the previous study. They then asked participants if they wanted to complete another 1-minute survey that would add $50 to the lottery prize. This reward opportunity was designed to be so desirable that everyone would accept. For half of the participants, the extra $50 reward would benefit a charity, while the other half of participants would keep the extra reward for themselves.
Participants in the outside-control condition who had fulfilled their karmic bargain by helping charity were the most optimistic about their job prospects, suggesting that our karmic investments may pay off by boosting our optimism about uncontrollable outcomes.
The authors point out that these findings are in some ways quite counterintuitive. "You might expect that people would be more selfish when thinking about the things in life that they want, but that are beyond their control" says Converse. "But we found that this experience makes them more likely to reach out and help, at least when they are given the opportunity to do so."
The researchers believe that investing in karma may be a positive way for us to cope with the otherwise unpleasant experience of just sitting around and waiting. "Even if people don't actually believe in karma, they may still have an intuitive sense that good things happen to good people. If that intuition moves us to donate to a good cause and makes us a little more optimistic in the meantime, that seems like a good thing," they conclude.
###
For more information about this study, please contact: Benjamin A. Converse at converse@virginia.edu.
The APS journal Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology. For a copy of the article "Investing in Karma: When Wanting Promotes Helping" and access to other Psychological Science research findings, please contact Anna Mikulak at 202-293-9300 or amikulak@psychologicalscience.org.
END
Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a new silk-based stabilizer that, in the laboratory, kept some vaccines and antibiotics stable up to temperatures of 140 degrees Fahrenheit. This provides a new avenue toward eliminating the need to keep some vaccines and antibiotics refrigerated, which could save billions of dollars every year and increase accessibility to third world populations.
Vaccines and antibiotics often need to be refrigerated to prevent alteration of their chemical structures; such alteration can result in less potent or ...
Marine scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have linked the decline in growth of Caribbean forereef corals — due to recent warming — to long-term trends in seawater temperature experienced by these corals located on the ocean-side of the reef. The research was conducted on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System in southern Belize.
The results were revealed online in the July 8 issue of Nature Climate Change, a journal that publishes research on the impacts of global climate change and its implications for the economy, policy and the world at large. ...
New research from Norris Cotton Cancer Center estimates, for the first time, the impact of an R rating for movie smoking. James Sargent, MD, co-director of the Cancer Control Research Program at Norris Cotton Cancer Center, emphasizes that an R rating for any film showing smoking could substantially reduce smoking onset in U.S. adolescents -- an effect size similar to making all parents maximally authoritative in their parenting, Sargent says.
"Smoking is a killer. Its connection to cancer, heart attacks, and chronic lung disease is beyond doubt. Kids start to smoke before ...
Researchers have discovered yet another way to harvest small amounts of electricity from motion in the world around us – this time by capturing the electrical charge produced when two different kinds of plastic materials rub against one another. Based on flexible polymer materials, this "triboelectric" generator could provide alternating current (AC) from activities such as walking.
The triboelectric generator could supplement power produced by nanogenerators that use the piezoelectric effect to create current from the flexing of zinc oxide nanowires. And because these ...
PITTSBURGH—Drivers can struggle to see when driving at night in a rainstorm or snowstorm, but a smart headlight system invented by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute can improve visibility by constantly redirecting light to shine between particles of precipitation.
The system, demonstrated in laboratory tests, prevents the distracting and sometimes dangerous glare that occurs when headlight beams are reflected by precipitation back toward the driver.
"If you're driving in a thunderstorm, the smart headlights will make it seem like it's a ...
Newer technologies designed to help people with type 1 diabetes monitor their blood sugar levels daily work better than traditional methods and require fewer painful needle sticks, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.
The research findings, published online in the July 10 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggest that even though these diabetic control technologies are more costly, people with diabetes who use an insulin pump are more satisfied with their treatment and quality of life than those who give themselves insulin shots many times a day.
Researchers ...
In 1928, chemists Otto Diels and Kurt Alder first documented diene synthesis, a chemical reaction important for synthesizing many polymers, alkaloids and steroids. Their work on this mechanism, which came to be known as the Diels–Alder reaction, won them the 1950 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Since then, the iconic reaction has become the most commonly used and studied mechanism in organic chemistry. But what happens during the reaction has never been entirely clear.
Now, Kendall N. Houk, UCLA's Saul Winstein Professor of Organic Chemistry, and colleagues report exactly ...
A new study suggests that echocardiography be included as part of screenings to help identify student athletes with heart problems that could lead to sudden death.
The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study, presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Society of Echocardiography, suggests adding a modified echo to the current practice of taking an EKG, getting a family history and having a physical exam.
"EKG is a good tool, but may not be sensitive enough to catch problems that could lead to sudden death," says Michelle Grenier, MD, a physician ...
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, working with Danish researchers, have developed a novel anticancer drug designed to travel -- undetected by normal cells -- through the bloodstream until activated by specific cancer proteins. The drug, made from a weedlike plant, has been shown to destroy cancers and their direct blood supplies, acting like a "molecular grenade," and sparing healthy blood vessels and tissues.
In laboratory studies, researchers said they found that a three-day course of the drug, called G202, reduced the size of human prostate tumors ...
CAIRNS, Australia and STANFORD, California – 9 July 2012 -- Like their warrior ancestors, leaders of many Pacific Island nations have been making efforts to safeguard their countries, this time by sounding an alarm as the impact of climate change becomes more apparent. Today their efforts received a big boost with the release of a Scientific Consensus Statement on Climate Change and Coral Reefs that is supported by over 2,400 scientists, showing the threats that reef corals are under across the globe and calling for governments worldwide to take steps to protect valuable ...
