When loved ones come to us with their pain, we do our best to comfort them. But support should not be viewed as an act of pure altruism. Recent research proves that comforting others is good for ourselves.
Negative emotions often feel too personal and cause us to withdraw from others, but the best way to deal with them is to reach out to people. By supporting others, we develop emotional skills that help us deal with our own problems. This conclusion was reached by two groups of scientists when they summed up the results of studies that were carried out independently of each other.
How do we help ourselves
The first study was conducted by a group of psychologists from Columbia University led by Bruce Dore. As part of the experiment, 166 participants communicated for three weeks on a social network that scientists created specifically for working with experiences. Before and after the experiment, participants completed questionnaires that assessed various aspects of their emotional life and well-being.
On the social network, participants posted their own entries and commented on the posts of other participants. They could leave three types of comments, which correspond to different ways of managing emotions:
Confirmare — when you accept and understand the experiences of another person: «I sympathize with you, sometimes problems fall on us like cones, one after another.»
Reevaluare — when you offer to look at the situation differently: «I think we need to take into account also …».
Indicație de eroare — when you draw a person’s attention to thinking errors: «You divide everything into white and black», «You cannot read other people’s thoughts, do not think for others.»
Participants from the control group could only post notes about their experiences and did not see other people’s posts — as if they were keeping an online diary.
By helping others manage their emotions, we train our own emotion regulation skill.
At the end of the experiment, a pattern was revealed: the more comments a person left, the happier he became. His mood improved, symptoms of depression and a tendency to unproductive reflection decreased. In this case, the type of comments he wrote did not matter. The control group, where members posted only their own posts, did not improve.
The authors of the study believe that the positive effect is partly due to the fact that commentators began to look at their own lives in a different light more often. By helping others cope with their emotions, they trained their own emotion regulation skill.
It does not matter how they helped others: they supported, pointed out errors in thinking, or offered to look at the problem in a different way. The main thing is interaction as such.
How we help others
The second study was conducted by Israeli scientists — clinical psychologist Einat Levi-Gigi and neuropsychologist Simone Shamai-Tsoori. They invited 45 pairs, in each of which they chose a test subject and a regulator.
The subjects viewed a series of depressing photographs, such as images of spiders and crying children. Regulators saw the photos only briefly. Then, the pair decided which of the two given emotion management strategies to use: reappraisal, meaning to interpret the photo in a positive way, or distraction, meaning to think about something else. After that, the subject acted in accordance with the chosen strategy and reported how he felt as a result.
The scientists noticed that the regulators’ strategies worked more effectively and the subjects who used them felt better. The authors explain: when we are under stress, under the yoke of negative emotions, it can be difficult to understand what is best for us. Looking at the situation from the outside, without emotional involvement, reduces stress levels and improves emotion regulation.
The main skill
When we help another to deal with their negative emotions, we also learn to better manage our own experiences. At the heart of this process is the ability to look at the situation through the eyes of another person, to imagine yourself in his place.
In the first study, researchers assessed this skill indirectly. The experimenters calculated how often commentators used words related to another person: “you”, “your”, “you”. The more words were associated with the author of the post, the higher the author rated the usefulness of the comment and expressed gratitude more actively.
In the second study, participants took a special test that assessed their ability to put themselves in the place of another. The more points regulators scored in this test, the more successful their chosen strategies worked. Regulators that could look at the situation from the subject’s point of view were more effective at relieving their partner’s pain.
Empathy, that is, the ability to see the world through the eyes of another person, benefits everyone. You don’t have to suffer alone. If you feel bad, seek help from other people. This will improve not only your emotional state, but theirs too.