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from the you-got-to-try-a-little-kindness dept.
People are touched by small kindnesses and led to greater generosity, new research shows:
Anyone who has given a friend a ride, baked cookies for a sick family member, or even bought a stranger a cup of coffee knows acts of kindness can enhance happiness.
But such random acts of kindness are still somewhat rare. Texas McCombs Assistant Professor of Marketing Amit Kumar set out to discover why people don't engage in prosocial acts — such as helping, sharing, or donating — more often.
In a new study, Kumar, along with Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, found that people often underestimate how good these actions make recipients feel. Givers tend to focus on the object they're providing or action they're performing, while receivers instead concentrate on the feelings of warmth the act of kindness has conjured up. Givers' "miscalibrated expectations" — that receivers are solely concerned with the gift itself — can function as a barrier to performing more prosocial behaviors.
[...] The researchers' findings offer practical implications and advice for people going about their everyday lives. When people realize their small actions have a large impact, they can choose to be nicer and carry out more acts of random kindness, enhancing both their well-being and that of others.
"Positive interpersonal contact is a powerful source of happiness," Kumar says. "It will make you feel better and someone else feel better, even better than you think they'll feel. A little good doesn't just go a long way — it goes an unexpectedly long way."
See also: Friends Enjoy Being Reached Out to More Than We Think
Journal Reference:
Kumar, A., & Epley, N. (2022). A little good goes an unexpectedly long way: Underestimating the positive impact of kindness on recipients. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. 10.1037/xge0001271
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Monday August 22 2022, @12:43PM (12 children)
1) Letting someone go in front of you to join a queue to pay at a shop if they have a few items and you have a pantechnicon containing the weekly shop.
2) Holding a door open for someone
3) Letting people overtake you on country roads, and generally giving people space in traffic
4) Giving up a seat on public transport to someone who needs it more than you
5) Stepping to the side in walkways to make phone calls/read or send text messages so that other people don't have to change direction or stop walking.
6) When walking in groups, not taking up the whole walkway so that people can easily get past the group in either direction.
Good manners are often micro 'acts-of-kindness' and act as social lubrication, making the giver and the receiver feel better than they would have, so long as the act is acknowledged. Some people are regarded as crass because they do not acknowledge other people making their lives easier for them, even if only in small ways - sometimes this is caused by a sense of entitlement.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aafcac on Monday August 22 2022, @03:48PM
I do think that it's easy to forget the asymmetry of such things. It may not take much effort on your part to do one of those things, but it may mean the world to somebody that's having a cruddy day. Unlike so many other things, this isn't a zero sum game, you can generate a tremendous amount of positivity by just doing such things occasionally. And I do think that when people encounter it, that it does somewhat increase their willingness to do so. In some cases, it may not have even occurred to them that it's even a possiblity to do some of these things.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bart9h on Monday August 22 2022, @04:11PM (1 child)
I don't even consider some items in your list to be kindness. It's acting like a functional member of a society.
For instance, I don't even have to think to do 3, 5 and 6. It's completely automatic.
And if I don't do 1, 2 and 4 I'll just feel bad about myself.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aafcac on Monday August 22 2022, @07:06PM
It really isn't though. For example, the attitude towards lines varies a lot globally. When I was in Italy, the locals formed a line around me at one point. In China, I'd regularly have people trying to elbow their way past me to the front of the line. Giving up your seat to those that need it more is well and good, but it's not always easy to know and can be kind of insulting to those that don't really need it.
The other things are arguably things that ought to be automatic, but really aren't and wouldn't be appreciated if you're just assuming you get to have them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Monday August 22 2022, @07:44PM (6 children)
Many cultures teach their children to behave like this, but western ones mainly taught to follow rules. That's the result of greatly overvaluing law I believe.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @08:29PM (4 children)
???
> greatly overvaluing law
Explain your position please. Would you have us undervalue law (be scofflaws?).
My grand father (b.1910) learned to drive on dirt roads, no lines on the road, very little traffic. For the rest of his life, he barely paid any attention to the lines on the roads--unnerving for passengers, at best!
Or be like much of rural China where my understanding is that the law is still primarily the local strong/rich guy who runs the show for his own benefit.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday August 23 2022, @01:09AM (1 child)
I believe the it point is probably the old adage that obeying the law is the MINIMUM you need to do to participate productively in society. I.e. it's just the starting point. If that's *all* you do, perhaps because you greatly overvalue it, then you're not a good person.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by legont on Tuesday August 23 2022, @01:38AM
Yes, exactly. Note that once population believes it can do anything and everything that does not violates the law, the law has to go deeper and regulate things that normally do not need regulations such as kindness to strangers. At this point bad things start to happen.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Lester on Wednesday August 24 2022, @12:14PM (1 child)
I think that the point is that we are teaching legal=moral, so as long as you don't break laws, nothing to regret of, nothing to give an explanation of, nothing to be held accountable.
Bad manners are not punished by law, so we can be as rude as we want. Being selfishness can't be punished by law, so we can be as selfish as we want. We are creating a civilization of assholes.
Things like bad manners may be punished, not by laws but by social punishment. But we make heroes of winners, no matter their moral behavior, they were smart enough to find legal loopholes and win. Hail!
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday August 24 2022, @07:34PM
Yes many laws are arguably immoral and many important morals are not enshrined in law. And yes, it's a big part of why both civilization and the rest of the planet are becoming really, really messed up!
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @09:45PM
The good thing about "law" is that you can trust that things get done properly (for the most part). In a corrupt system, your shit goes missing and the cops don't care and in the meantime your crappy car broke down and somebody's ripped off your work and got a promotion. And nobody cares because they've got their own problems. And so what if a few votes got missing, it doesn't make any difference anyway.
So yeah, let's not go back to that.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday August 23 2022, @04:19AM (1 child)
Leaving space in traffic is necessary for safety and only about half of people do it, fewer every year. Most states strongly recommend a 3 second gap between cars. That should be considered normal, not a cause for gratitude. Tailgating is threatening and dangerous.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Tuesday August 30 2022, @05:56PM
a few decades ago media were recommending 5 seconds between cars. Have reaction times improved since then?