Study: Receiving Better than Giving
A new study has shown that the act of giving is of little to no benefit to a person's health, less than that which is conferred by the act of receiving.
The study, sponsored by the Carlyle Group, debunks the long held belief that the performance of charitable, selfless behaviors is inherently better than the passive act of accepting desirable goods and services.
"The hypothesis that being a nice person is good for you is erroneous. Our research proves this without equivocation," remarked Dr. Vincent Burr, the project's principal investigator.
Burr and his team prompted random groups of both healthy and chronically ill test subjects to engage in benevolent acts, monitoring their impact on an array of major physiological and mental health indexes, including immune function, wound healing, cardiovascular health, cognition, metabolism, and memory.
"The normal subjects exhibited little to no positive response to the stimuli while those with cancer and other terminal diseases died as expected," reported Burr, "In addition, one individual who had been suffering from depression committed suicide after a day spent volunteering in a burn unit."
Positive health responses were registered in many study subjects after they were paid for their participation, however.
"Subjects were not initially informed that they would be compensated, so their financial remuneration was a surprise – an unexpected stimulus that elicited less than unexpected results," said Burr.
Burr expounded: "Though the act of giving, whether it be of money or things of monetary value such as food or time, might render 'warm fuzzy' feelings, the analogy of a drug addict squandering his resources for a succession of increasingly short-term highs is apt. The subject soon finds they need to give more and more away to achieve the same fleeting high, resulting in the depletion of essential personal resources and thereby incurring stress," he said, "Meanwhile, those who receive experience more security, less stress, and therefore better health."