Abstract
Engaging in prosocial behavior promotes well-being. Yet, this effect may depend on many factors. We reported three studies (total N = 873) examined whether individuals higher on relative deprivation would experience lower meaning after prosocial engagement in samples of Chinese university students. Study 1 showed that although individuals who scored higher on a relative deprivation scale were more likely to engage in prosocical behavior, they reported lower levels of self-concordance of the behavior and lower post-behavior meaning in life. Studies 2 and 3 replicated these findings with experimentally-induced relative deprivation and different types of prosocial behavior, and also provided preliminary evidence on the mediating role of social connection in the relationship between relative deprivation and meaning of prosocial engagement. These findings have significant implications for our understanding of the heterogeneous impact of prosocial behavior on well-being, as well as the insidious consequences of relative deprivation.
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Notes
Sheldon et al., (2017) suggests that the items evidence a simplex structure, where the correlations among items distant from each other are lower than correlations among items near each other. Therefore, as the scale does not yield a single underlying component, computing an alpha makes little sense. Yet, the difference score still gives parsimonious, “valid and important information about the person’s entire motivational system” (p. 1218).
We also administered the other two subscales of the measure, competence and autonomy. Participants in the relative deprivation group tended to report lower levels of autonomy (M = 4.59, SD = 1.20 vs. M = 4.88, SD = 1.25, t(228) = 1.81, p = .072) and competence (M = 4.71, SD = 1.34 vs. M = 5.01, SD = 1.17, t(228) = 1.82, p = .071) than those in the control condition. Yet, the differences were not statistically significant. In addition, for exploratory purposes, we also measured self-worth with the two items borrowed from Klein (2016; Study 3), and perceived prosocial impact with the brief beneficence satisfaction scale (Martela & Ryan, 2016a). However, neither self-worth (M = 5.35, SD = 1.13 vs. M = 5.52, SD = 1.04, t(228) = 1.18, p = .23) nor prosocial impact (M = 5.40, SD = 1.25 vs. M = 5.67, SD = 1.11, t(228) = 1.72, p = .087) was significantly different between the two groups.
In addition, we also conducted causal mediation analyses to examine the mediation effect of self-concordance and social connection respectively (Valente et al., 2020). Based on the counterfactual framework, causal mediation analysis discomposes the total causal effect of an independent variable (X) on an outcome (Y) into natural direct effect (NDE), which corresponds to the effect of X on Y with the mediator (M) being fixed, and natural indirect effect (NIE), which captures the effect of M on Y with X held constant (Pearl, 2014). It relaxes some assumptions and addresses potential biases of traditional mediation analysis (Nguyen et al., 2021). The analyses yielded significant indirect effect of self-concordance (as indicated by NIF), b = -0.27, SE = 0.12, t = -2.29, p = .022, 95% CI [-0.51, − 0.0.069], as well as of social connection, b = -0.23, SE = 0.11, t = -2.02, p = .043, 95% CI [-0.47, -0.049].
The indirect effect of self-concordance remained significant with all the other variables we measured (i.e., competence, autonomy, self-worth and perceived social impact) being controlled for, β = − 0.040, SE = 0.019, t = -2.15, p = .031, 95% CI [-0.087, − 0.011]. However, the indirect effect of social connection became non-significant, β < 0.001, SE = 0.011, t = -0.026, p = .98, 95% CI [-0.027, 0.017]. The reason lay in the high associations between social impact with both social connection and task meaning. When social impact was removed, the indirect effect of social connection was only a little below significance, β = − 0.042, SE = 0.024, t = -1.77, p = .077, 95% CI [-0.11, − 0.007].
We don’t have any clear hypotheses about how meaning in life in the pro-self groups would be different from each other or from other groups. Hence, the estimation was conducted based on the two prosocial groups which included half the total sample size.
We donated CNY482 in total to the Project Amity Bakery sponsored by the Amity foundation after the study was terminated.
As in Study 2, we also measured autonomy, competence, prosocial impact and self-worth. Autonomy was higher among the proself than the prosocial group, F(1, 430) = 4.77, p = .029, ηp2 = 0.010, so was competence, F(1, 430) = 4.42, p = .036, ηp2 = 0.010. By contrast, perceived prosocial impact was higher among the prosocial than the proself group, F (1, 430) = 30.73, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.067. Other effects on these variables were all non-significant. In addition, the moderated mediation effect of social connection remained significant with all these variables being controlled for, β = − 0.059, t = -2.07, p = .039, 95% CI [-0.12, − 0.008].
As in Study 2, we also conducted a causal mediation analysis and found that the NIE was significant, b = -0.29, SE = 0.13, t = -2.22, p = .026, 95% CI [-0.56, -0.040].
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This research was supported by grant from the National Social Science Foundation of China allocated to the first author (Grant No. 19BSH129).
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Dr. Hong Zhang and Ms. Yongle Ding conceptualized the study. Ms. Yongle Ding and Ms. Li Wei did the data collection, preparation and analyses. Dr. Hong Zhang drafted the manuscript, and all authors participated in the revision of the manuscript.
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Zhang, H., Ding, Y., Wei, L. et al. Personal Relative Deprivation Reduces the Meaningfulness of Engaging in Prosocial Behavior (7,756 Words). J Happiness Stud 24, 35–56 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-022-00579-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-022-00579-2