Research in the field of psychology suggests that a possible motive for generous behaviour is the increased happiness with which it is associated. However, the exact neural mechanisms through which generosity drives happiness remain unknown.

A recent study by German and Switzerland’s researchers wanted to explore the idea that generous behaviour is driven by the positive emotion that it evokes and investigate how generosity is linked to happiness on the neural level.

The study recruited 50 participants who then randomly assigned to either the experimental or the control group. In the first experiment, they were told to be given 25 Swiss francs in each of the following four weeks. The former group had to spend money on others, and the latter had to spend money on themselves.

The second experiment then had the participants complete an independent decision-making task while the researchers measured their blood-oxygen-level-dependent responses. First, they selected a person to whom they wanted to give a present, and in each trial, presented with an option that they could accept or reject. Each option was a combination of gaining money for the other person and losing money to the participant.

The researchers found that striatal activity during generous decisions is directly related to changes in happiness. This explains how the experimental group, which was more likely to make generous choices than the control group, reported a greater increase in happiness, or what the researchers describes as ‘warm glow’.

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