The Physiological Effects of Motivation and Emotion

目前的项目旨在了解帮助需要帮助的人--亲社会行为--是否能减轻帮助者的压力。这是一个明显重要的话题。 社会心理学已经确定，帮助他人的人会得到个人奖励，比如情绪高涨。 此外，最近的研究还发现，帮助他人的人寿命更长，享受更好的帮助，并且从伴随配偶丧失的抑郁症状中恢复得更快。 然而，目前还没有实验研究来解决帮助行为的生理后果，或者心理益处是否介导了帮助诱导的益处。为了解决这种理解上的差距，这项拟议中的研究考察了帮助行为对心血管的影响。这一假设，即帮助行为加速心血管从压力诱导的经历中恢复，将在一项涉及50名男性和50名女性参与者的研究中进行测试。这一过程包括操纵换位思考和诱导对有需要的人的同理心。 心血管恢复的非侵入性措施（例如，心率、血压）将用于评估恢复时间。该研究还包括同理心和积极情绪的测量，以检查情绪是否介导了帮助行为和从压力体验中恢复之间的联系。这项工作有望进一步了解如何帮助他人促进福祉和长寿。

The current project seeks to understand whether helping others in need --prosocial behavior-- reduces the stress of the helper. This is a topic of obvious importance. Social psychology has determined that individuals who help others receive personal awards such as elevated moods. In addition, recent work has also found that people who help others live longer, enjoy better help, and recover better faster from depressive symptoms that accompany spousal loss. However, there are no experimental investigations that address either the physiological consequences of helping behavior, or whether psychological benefits mediate the helping-induced benefits. To address this gap in understanding, the proposed study examines the cardiovascular effects of helping behavior. The hypothesis, that helping behavior speeds the cardiovascular recovery from a stress-inducing experience, will be tested in a study involving 50 male and 50 female participants. The procedure involves the manipulation of perspective-taking and inducement of empathic concern for a person in need. Non-invasive measures of cardiovascular recovery (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure) will be used to assess recovery time. The study also includes measures of empathy and positive emotions to examine whether emotions mediate a link between helping behavior and recovery from the stressful experience. This work promises to further understanding of how helping others promote well-being and longevity.