Provoking a feeling of surprise or fascination in people can lead them to have a more useful, altruistic and positive social behavior, according to the latest study carried out by the University of California at Irvine (USA) and published by the journal The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology .
“Our research indicates that fascination, while often fleeting and difficult to describe, serves a vital social function . By decreasing the emphasis on the individual self, surprise can encourage people to give up their strict self-interest to improve the well-being of others, ”says study leader Paul Piff.
In all, the scientists conducted five studies in total. In the first one, 1,500 people completed a questionnaire about their predisposition to wonder , discovering a significant association between the tendency to wonder and generosity. In the other experiments, they asked different groups of people (made up of 75 to 254 individuals) to participate in an activity designed to provoke surprise or other neutral states.
The psychologists measured the prosocial behaviors of the participants in each of the experiments with the same conclusion: fascination or surprise has a significant association with prosocial tendencies .
“Across all these different amazement inducers, we found the same kind of effects; people felt less self-centered , and their behaviors became much more pro-social. Fascination contributes to the common good. Can it make us more charitable, more volunteers come forward to help others, or care more about our impact on the environment? Our research suggests that the answer is yes, ”says Piff.
