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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: 2, Interesting) by therainingmonkey on Tuesday August 23 2022, @04:25PM (1 child)
If I look after your dog while you're away and you lend me a powertool, we both feel a kind of debt to the other which doesn't exactly balance out, and we enter a reciprocal spiral. By introducing money, the debt is calculated exactly, paid off completely and forgotten about; therefore he suggests only non-financial exchanges build community.
I don't know how you'd test it, but that's only one of the many intriguing theses in a fascinating book.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 23 2022, @06:48PM
Ask women? I think they have more of a sense that the dog-watching and power-tool lending are (to mismangle a metaphor) have elements more like covalent bonds than ionic bonds, but that description is a little fuzzy. The dog-watching and power-tool lending do involve caretaking for important things belonging to each other as well.
One similar example is eBay reputation. You could buy and sell a bunch of Visa gift cards on the site and while no actual money would change hands, it would be simple enough to inexpensively grow your reputation. That reputation then makes you a more desirable buyer and seller, in a market model that encompasses buyers and sellers along with goods and services. Escrow services obviate the need for trust, but you could say that the option to not use them sort of "creates a market" in reputation or trust.