There’s a stereotype about people seeking happiness—that all they care about is themselves. They look at the world through rose-colored glasses, and so they refuse to see suffering. If we want to motivate people to care about righting social wrongs, the thinking goes, then we must stoke people’s anger and fear.

Now a new study refutes that narrative. According to the study’s findings, happier people seem to be more likely to take social action than their less happy peers.


Researchers surveyed three different groups of people to see how generally happy they were, then gauged how much they cared about a particular social issue. They also had people report on actions they’d taken in response to the issue, their future plans to take action, and, in some cases, their willingness to sign up on the spot to participate in social action.

The first group consisted of students at the University of Virginia. Following the violent Unite the Right rallies in the summer, students reported on how often they experienced positive and negative emotions over the previous four weeks. Then they were told to write about the thoughts and emotions the rallies had inspired before filling out the questionnaire again, with a focus on how the rallies made them feel.

Afterwards, the students were given a list of 10 possible actions to take in response to the rallies—like writing blog posts, participating in protests, or giving money to a cause—and asked if they had already done the action, planned to do it, or had no intention of doing it. The students were also given an opportunity to join “a community of peers” who were supporting and assisting others encountering racism—a measure of their current interest in activism.

After analyzing the results, researchers found that generally happier students showed more concern about the rallies and were more willing to take part in current action to help the affected community than less happy people—a finding that stands in contrast to many people’s expectations.