The subjective experience of generosity

Generous deeds are among the building blocks of good social relations. However, although extensive theoretical and empirical work has been devoted to the topics of helping behavior and prosocial attitudes, there is no systematic research on the subjective experiences of people when they act generously. I therefore decided to begin my exploration of generosity with a phenomenological approach, which requires no a priori assumptions about what generosity is or how it is experienced by different people. This is the approach taken by Mikulincer, Shaver, and Slav (2006) in their examinations of the experience of other prosocial tendencies, such as gratitude and forgiveness. Following some basic conceptual considerations, in this chapter I review findings for my program of research on what people are thinking and feeling when they engage in behavior that they perceive as generous. I describe the construction of a new self-report measure based on my phenomenological explorations of generosity, and I show how the new measure relates to other individual-difference measures. I conclude with a brief discussion of the theoretical implications of my research.