Helping Others Helps You
Linda J. Waite, Ph.D., University of Chicago
Many people volunteer their time to formal organizations such as churches, hospitals, museums or AYSO. Parents are often drawn into volunteering by their children, helping out the PTA, acting as room parents or running a bake sale. Church members may visit the sick, work in a soup kitchen, or teach in the religious school as part of their role in the community. Half of all adults devote some time to a voluntary organization in any year, with a select few spending many hours helping others by their activities.[i]
At the same time, people provide help and assistance to others informally, perhaps taking their mother to the doctor or shoveling a neighborÕs sidewalk. Some people act as regular caregivers for a disabled parent, in-law or child. Family members provide the vast majority of the care received by those in need, serving a function that may be literally lifesaving, and certainly improving the lives of those who receive the care. In fact, eight out of ten people say that they helped others informally during the last year, often spending a good deal of time doing so.[ii]
Volunteers and informal helpers make the world a better place for others. But current research evidence paints a convincing picture that those who help others benefit in return. One study recruited older adults as helpers in elementary school classrooms. Volunteers saw measurable improvements in their physical functioning as a result of their experience. The reading scores of the children in their classrooms also improved and classroom misbehavior declined.[iii]
And you don’t need to volunteer a lot to reap the rewards; those who devote less than a hundred hours a year - that’s two hours a week - see significantly better health over the next several years than those who were like them at the beginning of the study but did not volunteer.
Volunteering also seems to lead to improvements in emotional well-being, with those who help others showing lower levels of depressive symptoms over the next several years than others with the same characteristics who did not volunteer.[iv]
Some current research that I am doing with Yanni Hao looks at the impact of both volunteering and informal helping on physical and emotional health of older adults over the next eight years. Our results show that volunteering and helping activities at fairly low levels of time involvement have protective effects against the decline of psychological well-being and physical functioning. Those who participate in both activities enjoy a slower rate of health decline than those who do only one or than those who do neither.[v]
Why do people who help others gain in their own physical and mental health? Researchers have suggested a number of possibilities. Helping behavior requires the mobilization of physical activity and cognitive faculties, keeping them strong and functioning. Engaging in helping activities can provide individuals with a sense of purpose and meaning in late life. The altruistic nature of volunteering and informal helping offers a way of gaining social approval and improving self-esteem. And those who work in a soup kitchen get a chance to talk to others while they do so, which increases the chances of that if they need help they will be able to find and mobilize social support and social contacts.
So, jump in, sign up, and enjoy the rewards from the good deeds you do.
[i] Wilson, John, and Marc Musick. 1997. Who Cares? Toward an Integrated Theory of Volunteer Work. American Sociological Review 62(5):694-713.
[ii] Wilson, John, and Marc Musick. 1997. Who Cares? Toward an Integrated Theory of Volunteer Work. American Sociological Review 62(5):. (Oct., 1997), pp. 694-713.
[iii] Rebok, George W. , Michelle C. Carlson, Thomas A. Glass, Sylvia McGill, Joel Hill, Barbara A. Wasik, Nicholas Ialongo, Kevin D. Frick, Linda P. Fried and Meghan D. Rasmussen. 2004. Short-term impact of experience Corps participation on children and schools: Results from a pilot randomized trial. Journal of Urban Health 81(1):79-93.
[iv] Li, Yunqing and Kenneth F. Ferraro. 2005. Volunteering and Depression in Later Life: Social Benefit or Selection Processes? Journal of Health and Social Behavior 46(1):68-84.
[v] Hao, Yanni and Linda J. Waite. 2007. Helping Behavior and Well-Being Among Older Adults. Working Draft. Center on Aging, NORC & University of Chicago.
