WASHINGTON– The holiday season is a time to give thanks, to give gifts – and for many, a time to give back.
Food banks, senior meal delivery services and other U.S. charities typically see a surge in volunteering between Thanksgiving and the end of the year. But there are good reasons to volunteer at any time of year.
Alfred Del Grosso volunteers every week to work lunch at Shepherd’s Table, a food bank in Silver Spring, Maryland. “I feel more connected to the broader community,” he said.
Most Thursdays, the retired chemist from Kensington, Md., also volunteers a helping hand to help clear fallen trees and brush from local trails with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club. “It’s mostly volunteers who help maintain the trails,” he said.
Researchers who study human evolution and social psychology say that giving back is deeply rooted in human nature. Volunteers say they feel closer connections to the communities they serve.
“When we are grateful for everything we have, it motivates us to do good things for other people who have helped us, and also to do good things for new people,” said Sarah Schnitker, a psychologist at Baylor University.
“There’s a beautiful reciprocal upward spiral between gratitude and generosity,” often heightened during holiday periods, she said.
For many in the United States, the season most associated with giving, receiving, and volunteering runs from Thanksgiving to Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Years.
But around the world, a season or festival of giving is present in many cultures, said Amrisha Vaish, a developmental psychologist at the University of Virginia.
“Almost every culture has public events or festivals that allow people to express gratitude,” she said. “In Hinduism, Divali is a time of lights, celebration and good food, but also a time when people give gifts to really express what people mean to them.”
For Muslims, Ramadan, which ends with the holiday of Eid al-Fitr, is a time of reflection, gratitude and acts of charity. Many Buddhist traditions also emphasize gratitude.
The common purpose of these seasons, which also include non-religious acts of service, is to strengthen our natural tendencies to cooperate, Vaish said.
“Over the course of human evolutionary history, which spans hundreds of thousands of years, we have had to cooperate in order to work together and survive as a species,” she said.
“We don’t have sharp claws, or high speed, or many other natural abilities. But what we do have is that we are super cooperators; we can do more in groups than alone.”
Of course, humans are not always cooperative and generous – sometimes we are also selfish and stubborn.
The tension between selfishness and altruism was recognized even by Darwin, said Michael Tomasello, a psychologist at Duke University. “That’s why life is so complicated. We have all these patterns mapped together.”
But reflecting gratefully on what we have and seeing others do good can encourage our more generous tendencies, experts say.
At the individual level, “giving, volunteering and generosity have the capacity to increase our sense of meaning and purpose in life,” said Jenae Nelson, a developmental psychologist at Brigham Young University.
“There is a rapid surge of dopamine, sometimes called the ‘helper effect.’ But there’s also this deeper reward of helping us establish purpose and meaning,” she said. “By helping others and believing that small acts can change the world, you can bring coherence to your own life. »
After Mia Thelen retired from nursing in Owosso, Michigan, she began volunteering with the American Red Cross, beginning by manning the office phones during blood drives before gradually taking on more organizational and administrative responsibilities.
“It’s a good way to spend your time, making other people’s lives a little easier,” Thelen said. “I wanted to do something that helps the community.”
“And I’m learning a lot: I’m learning computer skills, I’m learning communication skills. I have great co-volunteers.” She likes feeling more connected with her neighbors.
Another common holiday tradition — sending greeting cards to family and old friends — also offers an opportunity to strengthen or renew social bonds, something people are often surprisingly reluctant to do, said Lara Aknin, a social psychologist at Simon Fraser University.
Her research showed that “people are actually reluctant to contact old friends, they fear being a burden or an inconvenience,” she said. But on the other hand, “people who have just heard from old friends report that it’s a really positive experience.”
So go ahead and write those cards or make those phone calls, she said. Use the holidays as an excuse to reconnect and share a laugh or a hot drink.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
