ArticleApplied psychology. Health and well-being2026
Cooking for others is food for the soul: Consistent momentary, but mixed trait-level well-being benefits for home cooks.
Article in Applied psychology. Health and well-being, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Cooking for others is food for the soul: Consistent momentary, but mixed trait-level well-being benefits for home cooks.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Prosocial behavior can promote well-being, yet the effects of everyday acts-such as cooking for others-remain understudied. Across four studies (N > 1,500), we developed and validated a Prosocial Cooking Scale and examined its well-being effects using cross-sectional surveys and ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Cross-sectional analyses linked prosocial cooking to greater positive affect-but also higher negative affect-at the between-person level. EMA studies revealed within-person benefits: Individuals reported increased positive affect and subjective happiness-and, in our larger community-based sample, higher self-esteem, vitality, and lower negative affect-during prosocial cooking episodes. However, trait-level associations were modest and inconsistent, emerging most reliably for positive affect. Notably, benefits-including positive affect and self-esteem-were strongest for introverts, supporting a person-activity fit perspective. These findings highlight prosocial cooking as an accessible act conferring well-being gains, and illustrate how EMA captures the impact of kindness in everyday life.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.