The COVID-19 pandemic poses significant threat to humans’ physical and mental wellbeing. In response, there has been an urgent “call to action” for psychological interventions that enhance positive emotion and psychological resilience. Extending upon past research documenting the wellbeing benefits of generous action, we conducted two online pre-registered experiments (N =1,623) during the pandemic in which participants were randomly assigned to engage in other- or self-beneficial action. Specifically, participants made charitable donations or gained money for themselves (Experiment 1); purchased COVID-19-related or COVID-19-unrelated items for someone else or for themselves (Experiment 2). Results showed that prosocial behavior led to greater positive affect, meaningfulness, empathy and social connectedness. Affect benefits were detectable whether prosocial spending was COVID-19-related or not. These findings provide support for one strategy to bolster wellbeing during the pandemic – generous action – which may also promote cooperation and social cohesiveness needed to contain and overcome the virus.
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