ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH Labovitz School of Business & Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 11 E. Superior Street, Suite 210, Duluth, MN 55802 Is It About Giving Or Receiving? the Determinants of Kindness and Happiness in Paying It Forward Minah H. Jung, New York University, USA Leif D. Nelson, University of California Berkeley, USA Silvia K. Kurtisa, Georgetown University, USA Three studies examined two forces behind paying-it-forward: reciprocation and generosity. In the absence of direct social pressure, generosity had a stronger influence on behavior than reciprocation. However, giving did not make people feel happier than receiving a kind act. Gift-givers and receivers displayed asymmetric beliefs about their and others’ happiness. [to cite]: Minah H. Jung, Leif D. Nelson, and Silvia K. Kurtisa (2015) ,"Is It About Giving Or Receiving? the Determinants of Kindness and Happiness in Paying It Forward", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 43, eds. Kristin Diehl and Carolyn Yoon, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 270-275. [url]: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/1020359/volumes/v43/NA-43 [copyright notice]: This work is copyrighted by The Association for Consumer Research. For permission to copy or use this work in whole or in part, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at http://www.copyright.com/.