The results of this experiment may surprise us. In a revealing experiment by psychologist Elizabeth Dunn, at the University of British Columbia, participants received a sum of money and half of the participants were instructed to spend the money on themselves while the other half was told to spend the money on others. The study published in the academic journal Science shows participants who had spent money on others felt significantly happier than those who had spent money on themselves.

Furthermore, Lara Aknin and colleagues at the University of British Columbia shows that even children as young as two, experienced more happiness giving treats to others than receiving treats themselves!

I bet many of you are surprised. I guess we’re naturally fond of making our children happy by giving them treats and never tried the other way round. I recommend you test this research out. Start teaching your children to give treats to others and watch if this is true.

You can view Elizabeth Dunn’s video on this topic and others on Utube. On this topic view http://www.thelavinagency.com/speaker-drelizabeth-dunn.html

The researchers established that giving makes us happier than receiving is true across the world, regardless of whether countries are rich or poor. This made me think “No wonder many cultures have gift traditions like the Chinese give at lunar new year the “hong bao” ( red packets containing money for gifts) while throughout the world we have the practice of Christmas giving and New Year gifts, Birthday gifts, Wedding gifts, Valentine gifts and gifts for every celebratory occasion you can think of. The retail business has profited from this of course but they’ve succeeded only because as research now proves, human beings instinctively derive happiness from the act of giving.

But wait, didn’t the Bible teach this same truth. The Bible says: “T’is more blessed to give than to receive.” It is interesting to note that in addition to these science experiments proving that it is more blessed to give than to receive, an extensive body of research by social scientists and psychologists are now providing a huge body of evidence that support many fundamental truths expounded in the Bible. All you have to do is read any of the journals featuring studies and findings of our social psychologists to confirm this.

Notice that in our top universities we have a bunch of passionate intellectuals researching and studying unceasingly and they all somehow agree that Compassion, Unconditional Love and Forgiveness have ensured the survival of the human race.

They even admit that human suffering isn’t entirely negative though unpleasant. I quote below from an article published by Emma Seppala from the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford Medical School, also a blogger for “Psychology Today”.  She writes:

“Decades of clinical research has focused and shed light on the psychology of human suffering. That suffering, as unpleasant as it is, often also has a bright side to which research has paid less attention: compassion. Human suffering is often accompanied by beautiful acts of compassion by others wishing to help relieve it…….. What propels someone to serve food at a homeless shelter, pull over on the highway in the rain to help someone with a broken down vehicle, or feed a stray cat?”

Many of these researchers have discovered that both animals and human beings have what researcher Dacher Keltner at the University of California, Berkeley, termed a “compassionate instinct.” Researcher Jean Decety, at the University of Chicago, showed that even rats are driven to empathize with another suffering rat and to go out of their way to help it out of its quandary. Studies with chimpanzees and human infants also back up these claims. Similarly Michael Tomasello and other scientists at the Max Planck Institute, in Germany, have found that infants and chimpanzees spontaneously engage in helpful behavior and will even overcome obstacles to do so.

Research by David Rand at Harvard University shows that adults’ and children’s first impulse is to help others. Research by Dale Miller at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business suggests that this is also the case of adults, however, worrying that others will think they are acting out of self-interest can stop them from this impulse to help.

Appears to me that from psychological science, we have now a body of evidence revealing that the biblical imprint of God, as in his Goodness, Compassion, Love, Forgiveness is deeply embedded in the living beings he created. I wonder what atheists who believe in reason and science, and dismiss religion as ignorance, will say to this.

This is my food for thought sharing with you as we approach Holy Weekend,
Good Friday and Easter 2015.