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Accepting help creates hope
Three sources of hope
A global study asked people everywhere what gives them hope when life is hard. The themes were common across countries, and the biggest were doing something to help someone else, being thanked by someone you helped, and seeing somebody else do something to help another person. All three remain available to a person who feels hopeless.
The loop of receiving help
Accepting help sits inside the same loop. When someone helps you, receiving that support is another source of hope. The helper feels better and more hopeful, and you get a chance to thank them, which is a huge source of hope in itself. That makes hope possible for both people, and helping someone else afterward is another way into the cycle.
The brain picks up on all of this. Seeing yourself do good, appreciate good, or allow help reminds it that you are good and that life is worth living.
How can a thank-you change what people do?
Adam Grant and Francesca Gino reported in 2010 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that fundraising callers at a university who received a brief thank-you from the director made 50 percent more calls in the following week. Another experiment found that students who received a note of appreciation from a peer were more likely to help a different person afterward. The researchers found that thanks increased the helper's feeling of social worth. The effect did not require a large or elaborate gesture.
Why does watching kindness make people want to help?
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt named this feeling elevation in 2000: the warm, uplifted response to seeing moral beauty in another person. People who feel elevated report wanting to become better themselves and to help others. In studies by Haidt's group, people who watched a video of someone's generosity were more likely to volunteer afterward. Elevation is linked to a feeling of warmth in the chest and, in some studies, to the release of oxytocin.
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