Prosociality as a means to buffer loneliness and strengthen well-being

Abstract

Loneliness is an escalating and deleterious issue with serious consequences to health and well-being. We examined if communal orientation, or being motivated to help others, may be associated with less loneliness, and in turn, greater personal and relationship well-being. Study 1 (N = 247) and 2 (N = 310) were 14-day daily experience studies with longitudinal follow-ups. Across both studies, we found that helping dispositions were associated with less loneliness, and in turn, predicted greater daily and sustained well-being across a variety of measures, including satisfaction with life, positive affect, negative affect, meaning in life, psychological richness, romantic relationship quality, and friendship quality. We found that these results could not be fully explained by participants’ extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. We conducted additional exploratory analyses testing alternative models. Overall, we found that people who tend to help others more experience a myriad of rewards, including less loneliness and strengthened well-being.