Abstract
There is an urgent need for effective and easily accessible interventions targeting young adults’ social connection. This study tests whether engaging in prosocial behavior can mitigate social disconnection using an acts of kindness intervention that can be easily integrated into people’s daily routine. University students were randomly assigned to one of two kinds of 14-day kindness exercises (regular or anonymous) or an active control activity. 388 participants completed diary assessments of social contact and loneliness before and after the intervention. Results showed that the intervention promoting prosocial engagement increased social contact (especially with close others) and reduced daily loneliness for lonely participants. Anonymous kindness did not yield these outcomes, suggesting that direct contact with recipients may be an active ingredient driving such effects. This research provides a self-delivered and low-cost intervention that holds promise to reduce both objective social isolation and subjective feelings of loneliness among young adults.
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Note The left panel shows the 2-way interaction of time and condition for participants with low trait loneliness, while the right panel shows the 2-way interaction for participants with high trait loneliness. **p < .01
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Data Availability
Data, code for the analysis, and all study materials are available at: (https://osf.io/b374j/?view_only=4ad548aba61e40f5b48a34ad347f9c5f).
Notes
We preregistered a second hypothesis about the intervention’s effects on perceptions of others and self-focus; since this paper focuses on the effects on daily social connection, our coverage of the second hypothesis is limited to a brief summary of relevant results in the discussion section. Full details and results for the second hypothesis can be found in the in supplemental materials (See Table S3 and Table S4 in supplemental materials).
Although diary-assessed subjective well-being outcomes were included in data, we have not included relevant details and analyses in the main text. See Pre- and Post-intervention Diary Assessment of Subjective Well-being in supplemental materials for full details.
The entire study procedure for each participant spanned 3 to 4 weeks, including a pre-intervention assessment period, a 2-week intervention period, and a post-intervention assessment period. Data collection for the study began on September 15, 2019 and concluded on March 27, 2020. On March 16, 2020, the university halted in-person research due to COVID-19 concerns. We fianlized data collection for those participants already in the intervention period, or who had completed it, by moving their post-intervention sessions online. Considering the potential influences of pandemic-related changes, we controlled for “post-pandemic” (1 = data collected on/after March 16, 2020, 0 = before). A total of 229 participants completed either the intervention or post-intervention assessments after this date.
We additionally tested whether trait levels of loneliness would moderate the intervention effect on diary-assessed sense of belonging, but did not find any significant 3-way interactions among time, condition, and baseline trait loneliness (AK vs Control: b = − 0.07, SE = 0.17, p = .69; AAK vs Control: b = − 0.17, SE = 0.18, p = .35).
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Acknowledgements
We thank Jane Chen, Jayani Mehta, Lior Torgeman, Natalie Lui, Sophie Wensel Jensen, Xiaohan Lin for their help with participant recruitment.
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This work was supported by a grant from the UBC Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) General Research Fund to F.S.C., who is also supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award and a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar award. Y.A.L. is supported by a UBC International Doctoral Fellowship, a Mitacs Accelerate Fellowship, and the UBC Public Scholar Initiative.
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Conceptualization: Y. Archer Lee and F. Chen; Methodology: Y. Archer Lee, G. Li, and F. Chen; Formal Analysis: Y. Archer Lee and Y. Guo; Investigation: Y. Archer Lee, Y. Guo, and F. Chen; Writing—Original Draft Preparation: Y. Archer Lee and Y. Guo; Writing—Review & Editing: G. Li and F. Chen; Supervision: F. Chen; Project Administration: Y. Archer Lee and Y. Guo.
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Archer Lee, Y., Guo, Y., Li, G. et al. Prosocial Behavior as an Antidote to Social Disconnection: The Effects of an Acts of Kindness Intervention on Daily Social Contact and Loneliness. J Happiness Stud 25, 39 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-024-00742-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-024-00742-x