Does being in a good mood make you more generous? Researchers say yes and charities should take note

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Those ads showing caged dogs and desperate looking cats while Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” played in the background have been not just effective at making viewers sad, but also remarkably successful at raising money for the American Societ...

NEW YORK — Those ads showing caged dogs and desperate looking cats while Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan's “Angel” played in the background have been not just effective at making viewers sad, but also remarkably successful at raising money for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals since 2007.

However, a new study shows other strategies may also be effective at motivating people to give, apart from all that “ sadvertising.” Maybe try “Hakuna Matata.”

The study from Nathan Chan, assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Casey Wichman, assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, found that people in good moods are more likely to donate to a charitable cause.

The study gathered posts made to Twitter, the social media platform now called X, from people who gave to Wikipedia and posted a hashtag acknowledging the donation. The researchers analyzed the posts from before and after the users made a donation and found that it improved shortly before they gave.

“It suggests that rather than this conventional notion that people give because it makes them feel good about themselves for doing the right thing, we found that people were in a good mood prior to donating, and that’s potentially the causal factor for why they decided to give," Wichman said.

The findings indicate charities may want to improve a potential donor's mood before making the ask, Wichman said.

Their study isn't the first to find a connection