The Study of Happiness and Altruistic Behavior

THE STUDY OF HAPPINESS AND ALTRUISTIC BEHAVIOR

THE STUDY OF HAPPINESS AND ALTRUISTIC BEHAVIOR9

The Study of Happiness and Altruistic BehaviorMollie QuealyDominican University

IntroductionHave you ever wondered if your acts of kindness are really making a difference? Could doing nice things for other people make someone truly happier in their own lives? These are a few questions that sparked our groups interest to find a connection with: happiness and selfless acts, more commonly known as altruism. First and foremost, it is important to know what these concepts mean as a whole. Happiness is defined as a positive emotional state that is non-specific to circumstances or events (Kitayama et al., 1995) (Guzman et al., 2012). Also, altruism is formally defined as a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing anothers welfare (Hubbeling, 2012).None of the studies our group had looked at address the concept of altruism within a young adult population. This is when we came to the conclusion that we could have a useful study by using Altruism and Happiness scales to survey Dominican University students. Studies have shown that altruistic behavior can exist within young children ranging from about 5 to 9, (Rushton, 1976). Our research also states that happy people are more likely to share and commit selfless acts (Grammer and Dunbar, 2007). Also, another Rushton study confirmed that negative behavior, such as aggression is negatively correlated with altruism and positive behavior, such as empathy is positively correlated with altruism (Ruston, et. al, 1986). Lastly, it has been confirmed by Rushton, Chrisjohn and Fekken (1981) that there is truly is an altruistic personality through their research of using nine different measurements, including Rushtons scale, which correlated the best. These studies were just a few examples that properly illustrated the importance and credibility of measuring with the Altruism scale. Specifically, the purpose of our study is to search for a connection between people who commit selfless acts and who consider themselves happy. Our group hypothesizes that happiness and altruism are positively connected. For our research, we conducted a survey containing two happiness scales and one altruistic scale for Dominican students to complete online. This study had a final total of 93 participants from Dominican University.

MethodsMaterialsOur survey started with an informed consent form, which told the participant our intentions of the survey, including the explanation of there being no compensation for their time. Next, there was a mandatory prompt asking if the participant was from Dominican University, and a few other demographic questions such as gender, year in school, and wealth status in relation to other students. After the demographics were done, we decided to include a statement that explains the next step of looking at a few brief scales.We used three likert scales within our survey. The first scale we used measured altruistic behavior, The Rushton Self-Report Altruism Scale (Rushton, 1968). It contained 20 questions with scenarios given as examples of an altruistic act and the participant had to answer how often they would act on the opportunity given for each question. Each question was measured on a seven point scale (7 being very often). The second scale was The Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener, 1985). It measured overall life satisfaction of participants with five questions on a seven point scale. This scale was given to us as our first measure of happiness. The last one was our own creation called The Scale of Emotions, inspired by the credible happiness scale called PANAS (Watson and Clark, 1994). My group liked how the positive and negative emotions in the scale were properly balanced, thus we made one that imitated the style. The scale that we created contained 13 different emotions, 7 positive emotions and 6 negative emotions, and an instruction for the participant to mark how much they generally feel the emotions provided on a 1-5 scale (5 being very often/always). By having both positive and negative emotions, the happiness scale could be unbiased to the participant.By having negative emotions in our scale, we had to make a change to our results before determining its reliability. In order to correctly assess the reliability in our own scale, we recoded numbers 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, and 13 which contained negative emotions such as stress and hostility. ProcedureWe recruited participants face to face. We split up into two groups and passed around a sign-up sheet to anyone who was interested in writing down their email to receive a link for our survey. If students were in the middle of another assignment, they could write their email down and when they received the link, they could take it at their own convenience. We also had each group member ask at least one of their classes to do the survey. Some of us even brought Munchkin donuts for our own form of compensation for taking the survey. Lastly, we sent out the survey to our fellow 290 students to take. The most participants we received was when each of us asked students to complete our survey face to face by either signing up or completing it on one of our group members tablets. We received a total of 102 participants, but 93 participants had completed the full survey. Other than the 93 who completed the survey, there were 9 students who failed to finish the survey in entirety or answered that they were not Dominican students. These participants were not able to be included in the data due to the fact that it would create more skew to include the incomplete data, even if the participants missed one or two questions on a particular scale. Data AnalysisOur group used SPSS software to analyze our data as a whole. We ran Descriptives, Frequencies, Inter-Item Reliability, Convergent Validity tests and made graphs such as histograms, bar graphs and scatterplots to compare each scales results with one another.

Results

Inter-Item ReliabilityThe internal reliability of the Satisfaction with Life Scale was measured using Cronbachs alpha. The scale showed great reliability (alpha=.901, n=93). The Self-Report Altruism scale had a great reliability as well of .908. These results were similar to what we found in our previous research of the altruistic personality (Rushton, et al. 1981). Lastly, the scale that we created, The Scale of Emotions had a good reliability of a .840. DemographicsThe sample had a total of 93 participants, all Dominican University students. We had a total of 29 males (31%) and 64 females (69%). Please see table 2 on page 11 for a detailed description. We also asked the participants which year in school they were and we found that we had data from: 8 Freshman (8.6%), 33 Sophomores (35.5%), 31 Juniors (33.3%), 17 Seniors (18.3%) and 4 Post-Grad students (4.3%). This was a case of convenience sampling and researcher bias because our peers were the easiest to convince to take the survey, especially those who were psychology majors. As a part of the demographics questions we asked about how each participant felt about their wealth status. Choices varied from poor to very good. The results for this question showed that, 10 students (10.8%) rated themselves as having a poor wealth status, 53 students (57%) rated themselves as having a fair wealth status, 28 students (30.1% rated themselves as having a good wealth status and lastly, 2 students (2.2%) rated themselves as having a very good wealth status. The majority of the students expressed that they were not confident about their financial status. I believe this is because of the immense financial stress that young adults are under with the costs of living and being a Dominican student. Non-Demographic VariablesThe best way for my group to develop a better understanding of how each of the scales affected our results, we studied the histograms on SPSS. The altruism data showed a slightly positive skew. This may have been because it was higher than the theoretical midpoint. The midpoint for this scale was a 2.5 on a 5 point scale. The average score for a participant was a 3. The mean that we found for this scale was a 2.7 (SD=.67), 95% CIs [2.57, 2.85].Further, it seemed as though the participants who marked never for a majority of the questions had affected our data. Next, for The Life Satisfaction scale, we found that there was a slightly negative skew. The mean we calculated was a 4.47 score (SD=1.31) and 95% CIs: [4.20, 4.74]. This may have been because the Dominican Students that we surveyed reported being on the higher end of the scale, which makes them happier than the theoretical midpoint. The average participant scored a 4.5 on a 7 point scale, which was higher than the midpoint of 3.5. Finally, for The Scale of Emotions, we found that there was a slightly negative skew as well. The mean we calculated was a 3.43 score with (SD=.52), [3.32, 3.54]. Similar to our other happiness scale, it just displays that Dominican students report being happier than the average had predicted. Specifically, the average participant scored a 3.5 on a 5 point scale, which was higher than the midpoint of 2.5. We can conclude that our research suggests that the participants were fairly happy and positive in their feelings overall. For all descriptives on this scale, please visit table 3 on page 12.For any additional information about these three scales, please see table one (page 11).DescriptivesThe Altruism scale we used was a Self-Report Altruism scale (Rushton, 1974). It contains 20 questions. The questions ranged from (1-7, 7 being very often). The happiness scale that we were given was Dieners Satisfaction with Life scale. This was on a 7 point scale and had 5 questions asking about someones overall satisfaction with their own lives. The average participant seemed to have answered within the middle of the scale or on the higher end of the scale. The happiness scale that we made was called The Scale of Emotions. It had 13 questions and each contained an emotion, positive or negative. This was rated on a 5 point scale (5 being always feel the emotion). Participants scored themselves towards the middle of the scale on average. RelationshipsWe found a moderate and positive relationship between Altruism and Happiness through Dieners Satisfaction with Life scale of (r=.306) with 95% CIs of [.11, .479]. The questions on the Altruism scale had some topics such as helping strangers carry their belongings or giving strangers a ride in your car. The relationship we found between Altruism and The Scale of Emotions was also moderate and positive (r=.286) with 95% CIs of [.088, .462]. To find the most accurate confidence intervals, we used the site: http://vassarstats.net/rho.html.The relationship between The Scale of Emotions we made and to Dieners scale was the strongest (r=.631) with 95% CIs of [.491, .739]. This is likely because it was showing our convergent validity and that both of our happiness scales were both successful within this study by being reliable and accurate. DiscussionTo summarize, our results found that the Life Satisfaction scale had great success as well as the Altruism scale. Through our results, we found that the data did support our hypothesis of altruistic behavior relating to someones happiness. This was shown through our correlations between all the scales and the overall strength of each of the scales we used. Some may say that our study was incorrectly done because our correlation was lower than the standard (.7). However, I believe that our group excelled in our ability to convey our construct through our own version of scientific research. We had very reliable scales and strong convergent validity with happiness. Our correlations make sense with the rest of the data and with our previous research of altruism. Therefore, our data seems to indicate that we have significant information to connect to our previous research. Previous research shows that a .3 is a moderately positive correlation that was shown through altruism (Rushton, 1974). For any additional details on our correlations, please visit table 4 on page 13.Regrettably, with any psychology study, there are interfering variables that could affect our results. Further, I will address some of the third variables that may have affected our final results.First off, we also found that the self-report altruism scale may have had some outdated concept that DU students could not connect with. We realized this when we chose it as our scale, but we found that it was the best choice for an altruism scale because of its credibility and high Cronbachs Alpha shown through previous research (Rushton, 1968). Next, we thought that someones happiness could be more temporary during the school year due to other negative emotions being brought up because of a heavy workload or type of environment. The environment could factor in as a negative interference because almost all of our participants took the survey on campus and being on campus may subconsciously bring up the feeling of being stressed and overwhelmed, which could change results. Also, students could have answered lower on a particular scale of happiness because they were overloaded by the amount of homework or other work that needed to be completed. Plus, we realized that there could have been an interfering variable with the Scale of Emotions. We found that some of the words for the self-report section featuring our own scale of emotions such as stress. We realized that some of the words featured in our scale such as stress would not necessarily reflect unhappiness due to the fact that all college students, happy or not, are almost always under a lot of pressure due to work load and high expectations that are stressors.Lastly, our results regarding the altruism survey could also have had interfering variables causing different results. Our group was hoping that the students who read through the sample scenarios would answer what they would do if they were in that particular situation, rather than if they had been in that situation before. Also, some of the questions (i.e. I have given a charity Christmas card) were not applicable to many college students, therefore, they most likely answered with never which is a one on a seven point scale. A few of the questions on the Rushton scale were outdated which may have also affected peoples ability to relate to the questions on a personal level. This could have been better if the Altruism scale had more applicable questions to people in todays generation.Next, we found from our data that our results had some similarity to our research. First off, our Cronbachs Alpha for the Satisfaction with Life scale was a strong .901. In the scale that we used for Altruism, our Cronbachs Alpha was a strong .908. The confidence intervals we had for each of our scales were narrow. Lastly, in the scale we created, our Cronbachs Alpha was a solid .840. The scales that correlated best with each other were the Scale of Emotions and the Life Satisfaction scale (r=.631). This shows that there is a moderately positive correlation for general Life Satisfaction and for individual emotions relating to overall happiness. I personally expected a higher correlation between the two because the topics were both on happiness, but I understand that the correlation was lower due to the different set up of each scale, one being longer than the other and one being asking about feelings about ones life as a whole versus feelings about life at this general time. The next best correlation was between the Altruism scale and the Life Satisfaction scale (r=.306). Similar results were found in Rushtons naturalistic study relating to measuring childrens altruism (Rushton, 1974). He found a .3 correlation when measuring principle characteristics of altruism. This explains the lack of a strong correlation between life satisfaction and someone who is altruistic. The scales that had the weakest correlation was between the Altruism scale and the Scale of Emotions (r=.286). This shows that individual emotions reflecting ones general happiness has the least amount of correlation, but nevertheless had some significance to our results. Further, our data suggests that age could be a factor in the results of our surveys because of life experience and each participants sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately, we cannot say this for sure because we had a small sample size. We can confirm this by looking at our graphs for Altruism, Happiness and Subjective Well-Being. Our histograms show that there was a slight skew for each of our graphs, two being a negative skew and one being a positive skew. Someone who is studying this in the future should look at a larger sample size to see a larger correlation between age and each of the variables.Most importantly, we followed all ethical procedures through our survey by keeping participants confidential and informing them of the details of our study.In conclusion, our research, prior and post survey, brought up many fascinating questions in our group. Is altruism something that is truly selfless? Are there different categories of altruism or is it considered a nominal construct? Something that a future researcher could do would be to create their own altruistic scale that could be applicable to college students or a young generation in general. It would be fascinating to see an instance of convergent validity within Altruism measurements. We can only hope that future student researchers will have the opportunity to look further into our interests in this topic.

Tables and Figures for The Study of Happiness and Altruistic Behavior Study

Table 1Descriptive Statistics for Non-Demographic VariablesScaleNMinMaxMeanStd. Deviation95% CI Lower Bound95% CI Upper BoundSEM

Self Report Altruism Scale931.554.252.71.672.572.85.07

Satisfaction with Life Scale931.07.04.471.314.214.74.14

Scale of Emotions931.854.853.44.523.343.54.053

Table 2:Descriptives of GenderPlease select your gender:

FrequencyPercentValid PercentCumulative Percent

ValidMale2931.231.231.2

Female6468.868.8100

Total93100100

Table 3Descriptives Of The Scale of EmotionsDescriptives

StatisticStd. Error

SOE_OverallMean3.43510.05382

95% Confidence Interval for MeanLower Bound3.3282

Upper Bound3.542

5% Trimmed Mean3.4507

Median3.5385

Variance0.269

Std. Deviation0.51906

Minimum1.85

Maximum4.85

Range3

Interquartile Range0.65

Skewness-0.4770.25

Kurtosis0.7470.495

Table 4: Correlations For Demographic And Non-Demographic Variablesaltruismsubjective wellbeingself perception of emotionsgenderschool yearwealth status

altruismPearson Correlation1.306**.286**0.1050.076

Sig. (2-tailed)0.0030.0050.3160.467

N9393939393

subjective wellbeingPearson Correlation.306**1.631**00.183

Sig. (2-tailed)0.00300.9980.079

N9393939393

self perception of emotionsPearson Correlation.286**.631**1-0.0590.048

Sig. (2-tailed)0.00500.5760.648

N9393939393

genderPearson Correlation0.1050-0.0591-0.011

Sig. (2-tailed)0.3160.9980.5760.914

N9393939393

school yearPearson Correlation0.0760.1830.048-0.0111

Sig. (2-tailed)0.4670.0790.6480.914

N9393939393

wealth statusPearson Correlation0.032.266**0.1490.1350.142

Sig. (2-tailed)0.7640.010.1540.1960.175

N9393939393

AppendixThe scale we have chosen to help us measure level of altruistic behavior is featured below:

The Self Report Altruism Scale[Rushton, J. P., Chrisjohn, R. D., & Fekken, G. C. (1981). The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 2, 293-302.]

Instructions: Check the category on the right that conforms to the frequency with which you have carried out the following acts.

NeverOnceMore than onceOftenVery often

1. I have helped push a strangers car out of the snow.

2. I have given directions to a stranger.

3. I have made change for a stranger.

4. I have given money to a charity.

5. I have given money to a stranger who needed it (or asked me for it).

6. I have donated goods or clothes to a charity.

7. I have done volunteer work for a charity.

8. I have donated blood.

9. I have helped carry a strangers belongings (books, parcels, etc.).

10. I have delayed an elevator and held the door open for a stranger.

11. I have allowed someone to go ahead of me in a lineup (at photocopy machine, in the supermarket).

12. I have given a stranger a lift in my car.

13. I have pointed out a clerks error (in a bank, at the supermarket) in undercharging me for an item.

14. I have let a neighbor whom I didnt know too well borrow an item of some value to me (e.g., a dish, tools, etc.)

15. I have bought charity Christmas cards deliberately because I knew it was a good cause.

16. I have helped a classmate who I did not know that well with a homework assignment when my knowledge was greater than his or hers.

17. I have before being asked, voluntarily looked after a neighbors pets or children without being paid for it.

18. I have offered to help a handicapped or elderly stranger across a street.

19. I have offered my seat on a bus or train to a stranger who was standing.

20. I have helped an acquaintance to move households.

Satisfaction With Life Scale : Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale.Journal of Personality Assessment,49, 71-75.Below are five statements that you may agree or disagree with. Using the 1 - 7 scale below, indicate your agreement with each item by placing the appropriate number on the line preceding that item. Please be open and honest in your responding.

7 - Strongly agree 6 - Agree 5 - Slightly agree 4 - Neither agree nor disagree 3 - Slightly disagree 2 - Disagree 1 - Strongly disagree____ In most ways my life is close to my ideal. ____ The conditions of my life are excellent.____ I am satisfied with my life.____ So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.____ If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing. 31 - 35 Extremely satisfied 26 - 30 Satisfied 21 - 25 Slightly satisfied 20 -Neutral 15 - 19 Slightly dissatisfied 10 - 14 Dissatisfied 5 - 9 Extremely dissatisfied

Scale of Emotions-Please rate to the best of your ability of how you feel generally.

NeverRarelySometimesOftenAlwaysMotivatedSocialStressedOutgoingContentAfraidBitterAcceptedIrritableEnergeticOptimisticDetachedHostile

Informed ConsentThe informed consent addressed to our research participants will appear as such:Hello and thank you for your time. You have been selected to take part in a voluntary study, for Psychology 290, measuring your level of happiness and level of altruism. If you continue further with this study, you will be taking part in three brief questionnaires about happiness and altruism as well as answering some brief demographics questions, such as age, gender, school year, etc. If for any reason you need to clarify any of the questions, please let one of the researchers know. The survey as a whole is expected to take no longer than a half hour. Your information will be confidential and will only be used for the purpose of the researchers results. There are no further risks that will be present within the study. Results of each participant will remain anonymous. Unfortunately, there will be no compensation. If you are uncomfortable at any point with the questions, you may remove yourself from the survey without penalty. If you decide later that you do not want your results analyzed, please contact Ashley, Gio, Korina or Mollie via email (see bottom for contact information) to clarify your needs. Any and all questions are welcome. Again, thank you very much for your participation!_ Agree_Disagree

Contact Information:Mollie Quealy- queamoll@my.dom.eduGiovanni Castillo- castgiov@my.dom.eduAshley Gettes- gettashl@my.dom.eduKorina Rodarte- rodakori@my.dom.edu*Note: We will assign a number to your name after collecting this information. Your confidentiality will be protected.

Debriefing Statement

To all of our dedicated participants:

Hello, thank for your participation in our study-every participant counts! We are looking to find if altruism has a positive connection to the level of happiness that one experiences. By using the Rushton Altruism Scale, our own measurement of happiness, and the Edward Diener Happiness Scale in conjunction, we hope to find a strong, positive correlation between happiness and altruism. The Rushton Scale is on a five point scale, never to very often. The Edward Diener scale is on a seven point scale, seven being the highest and one being the lowest. Our own measurement of happiness is, also, on a five point scale from never to always.This study was important to us because we wanted to see if there was any connection between someones happiness and someones selfless acts. There have been similar studies looking for connections in the past, but we wanted to find out the connection for ourselves. This study requires no post-interview check -up. Again, we want to thank you for your time and participation. We hope that you enjoyed the survey as a whole.Studies in the past that we reviewed included: Altruism at an early age along with children in school Socialization and The Altruistic Behavior of Children (Rushton, 1976), Smiles When Sharing (Mehu, Grammer, Dunbar, 2007) and The Altruistic Personality and The Self-Report Altruism Scale (Rushton, Chrisjohn, Fekken, 1981).

ReferencesDiener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The Satisfaction with Life Scale.Journal of Personality Assessment,49, 71-75.

De Guzman, A. B., Silva, K. E. M., Silvestre, J. Q., Simbillo, J. G. P., Simpauco, J. J. L., Sinugbuhan, R. J. P., . . . Siy, M. R. C. (2012). For your eyes only: A Q-methodology on the ontology of happiness among chronically ill filipino elderly in a penal institution. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(5), 913-930. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10902-011-9298-y

Hubbeling, D. (2012). Review of altruism in humans. Evolutionary Psychology, 10(1), 95-99. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.dom.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1492675984?accountid=10528

Mehu, M., Grammer, K., & Dunbar, R. I. M. (2007). Smiles when sharing. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28(6), 415-422.

Rushton, J. P., Chrisjohn, R. D., & Fekken, G. C. (1981). The altruistic personality and the self-report altruism scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 2(4), 293-302. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.dom.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/616639012?accountid=10528Rushton, J. P., Fulker, D. W., Neale, M. C., Nias, D. K., & Eysenck, H. J. (1986). Altruism and aggression: the heritability of individual differences. Journal of personality and social psychology, 50(6), 1192.

Rushton, J. P. (1976). Socialization and the altruistic behavior of children. Psychological Bulletin, 83(5), 898-913. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.83.5.898

Watson, D., & Clark, L. (1999, August 1). Manual for PANAS. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from http://www2.psychology.uiowa.edu/faculty/watson/PANAS-X.pdf

Confidence Interval of rho. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2014, fromhttp://vassarstats.net/rho.html