Do virtues like being compassionate increase your well-being?

"Virtues such as compassion, patience, and self-control may be beneficial not only for others but also for oneself, according to new research my team and I published in the Journal of Personality in December 2025. Philosophers from Aristotle to al-Fārābī, a 10th-century scholar in what is now Iraq, have argued that virtue is vital for well-being. Yet others, such as Thomas Hobbes and Friedrich Nietzsche, have argued the opposite: Virtue offers no benefit to oneself and is good only for others."

"Many studies have found that generosity is associated with happiness, and that encouraging people to practice kindness increases their well-being. But other virtues seem less enjoyable. For example, a compassionate person wants to alleviate suffering or misfortune, but that requires there be suffering or misfortune. Patience is possible only when something irritating or difficult is happening. And self-control involves forgoing one's desires or persisting with something difficult."

"Our goal was to assess the degree to which, in those moments, they were compassionate, patient, and self-controlled. We also assessed their level of well-being: how pleasant or unpleasant they felt, and whether they found their activities meaningful. One study, with adolescents, used the experience sampling method, in which people answer questions at random intervals throughout the day. The other, studying adults, used the day reconstruction method, in which people answer questions about the previous day."

Compassion, patience, and self-control can coincide with greater momentary pleasantness and a heightened sense of meaningfulness even when those virtues arise amid suffering, irritation, or personal restraint. Two methods captured daily moments: experience sampling with adolescents and day reconstruction with adults, yielding 43,164 moments from 1,218 people. Moment-level assessments measured how compassionate, patient, and self-controlled people felt and their concurrent affective valence and perceived meaningfulness. Generosity aligns with happiness, while compassion, patience, and self-control often occur in unpleasant contexts but nonetheless relate to well-being and meaningful activity across diverse everyday situations.

Read at Fast Company