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From the article, “There is research suggesting that people who are in better health are more likely to volunteer, but because scientists are very well aware o
by tomlue 6y ago
From the article,
“There is research suggesting that people who are in better health are more likely to volunteer, but because scientists are very well aware of that, in our studies we statistically control for that,” says Sara Konrath
- mewpmewp2 6y agoI wonder how it is possible to control for that? They mentioned only controlling for health, but what about thousands of other things? Few as an example: 1. Individuals who do high risk activities might be less likely to do volunteer work. 2. Individuals who simply have bad habits in life might be less likely to volunteer. 3. People who die earlier won't even make it far enough to be in position to donate. 4. Poor people are less likely to be able to donate and can get less care for medicine, have worse conditions generally. I see thousands of such examples, I don't think it's possible to control for all of that, is it? You would have to 1) List all of those things that should be controlled. I imagine already this to be an amazing feat. 2) Somehow gather all this data from people.
- tyu2 6y agoExactly, it's not possible to control for that, just propaganda to promote volunteering as a good thing.
- cpncrunch 6y agoIf you read the article you'll see they did a prospective trial where they assigned either wait-list or volunteering to two groups. This wasn't just looking at correlations between volunteering and health.
- mewpmewp2 6y agoI did read the article. The second study also raises many questions. What is meant by wait-listing? Does it mean their future is unclear and for this reason could their stress levels be higher? Was maybe tutoring itself the activity that worked well not the kindness part in particular? But anyway intuitively I believe volunteering and kindness do have health benefits, definitely reduces stress, feelings of guilt and just in general makes you feel better about yourself. So from this mental state there might be health benefits. And while chemical levels differed it is still unclear what health effects there were. Being "linked" doesn't say much.
- treeman79 6y agoI love volunteering. Best feeling I the world. My health is in shambles. So these days I have to take pride in just making sure kids have food. Horrible feeling when people ask for help, and I know I’ll just be a burden.
- tyu2 6y agoHow on earth can they control for that in short term studies? Is it even possible to get any statistical significance on that? Smells like bullshit, there is no way there is causation on health from volunteering. Think about it, if you are volunteering you are likely to not just have good health, but afford good health care, have plenty of free time for various activities, less stress in life, enjoy and seek social activities, outdoor activities, etc. All those things could impact health, but not volunteering itself.
- cpncrunch 6y agoIf you read the article, it gives more details. For example, they did a controlled trial on two groups of students: one group was put on a waitlist, the other group given tutoring tasks. The tutoring group had lower levels of inflammatory markers.
- nhumrich 6y agoThe same wat you control for anything. You assign a group to do a specific thing. If a certain group performs better, its due to the task not preconditions, because the tasks were assigned, not observed and the selection process is random.