Doing Good When You Don't Want To: An Experience Sampling Study Examining Autonomy and Compassionate Action

There is broad support in the literature that people experience enhanced wellbeing after performing prosocial behaviours, such as acts of compassion: doing good makes you feel good (Alden & Trew, 2013; Layous et al., 2017; Mongrain, Chin, & Shapira, 2011; Weinstein & Ryan, 2010). Less well-established, however, are the boundary conditions for this finding: under what circumstances do people fail to feel good despite doing good? Autonomy, one of the central pillars of Self-Determination Theory (SDT, Ryan & Deci, 2000), presents as a prime candidate to elucidate this question. The present study uses an experience sampling methodology to explore how autonomy predicts whether people feel better or worse after helping others. Results from the time-lagged linear mixed model indicate that doing good when you want to (internally motivated) predicted subsequent positive mood, however, doing good when you do not want to (externally pressured), instead predicted subsequent negative mood.