Last Updated on August 16, 2024 by Brenda

4:52 PM

Be sure to watch the episode on Spotify Here

Kindness (noun): the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate; a kind act. — English Oxford Living Dictionaries

The Quay County Health Council has been working on changing community perception and encouraging people to be kinder to each other with a variety of activities. 

Our search on available research showed us how Kindness Spreads in a Community.  Studies find that when we witness kindness, we’re inspired to be kind ourselves.  This is the basis of the pay it forward campaign.    Have you seen this occur in your life.  Do you want to do something kind after you see others do kind acts?  We would like to normalize performing kind acts and speaking kindly in our community.   A kind act starts a small ripple and as others pick up on it, it becomes a wave.  Our acts of kindness and generosity can have meaningful ripple effects in our communities.

Here is how it works.  When we see someone being kind or generous, it gives us a warm glowing feeling inside. Researchers call this “moral elevation,” and it not only feels good but inspires us to want to do good ourselves.  Researchers at Berkley synthesized results from 88 experimental studies involving over 25,000 participants to measure how much our own altruism increases after witnessing someone acting “prosocially” by showing empathy or doing something kind for someone.  The researchers also wanted to understand the reasons why witnessing goodness inspires people and to identify the factors that increase or decrease their response.

Their analysis showed a moderately strong effect, where people witnessing altruism tended to follow suit themselves. That means that when people model kind and helpful behavior, it has a healthy impact on spreading kindness in a community.  Their research showed that prosocial behaviors are contagious.

Researchers then examined whether people in the experiments may have simply been feeling pressured to “look good” by being more giving. But they found this didn’t seem to matter, as people often gave in ways they assumed would be anonymous. 

The researchers considered whether people were just copying behaviors they’d seen someone else doing. But they found that witnesses of kindness often helped in ways that did not match what they’d observed. For example, participants might have witnessed a person giving aid to someone who’d fallen on the street and end up donating more to charity when given the opportunity to pay it forward.  People resonate with the underlying reason for doing good and become motivated themselves to spread the goodness. This suggests people are prosocial by nature and just waiting for inspiration to act.

Interestingly, research showed that it didn’t seem to matter how people witnessed a kind act. They could have read about it, watched a TV show where characters acted altruistically, or actually been present when someone helped another person. The effect was the same: They would act more generously themselves afterward.  This is the basis of our Social Media focus on Kindness.  Seeing posts and videos about kind acts can increase the ripple.

They learned that by nature women were more likely to pay it forward than men.  Women were found to be more responsive to kindness modeling and that they tended to prioritize relating to others and getting along with them more than men.  This is often their role in the family as a nurturer.

Finally, research showed that it did matter what kind of response to the kindness people observed. If witnesses saw kind people being praised or even rewarded with money, they were more likely to pay kindness forward themselves. This is the basis of our ambassador program.  We are arming our ambassadors with cute stickers to give out when they witness a kind act with the phrase “Thank you for being kind.”

There are many personal benefits from being kind as well.  The researchers found that people who were kind tended to be higher in “eudemonic happiness” (a sense of meaning and purpose in life) more than “hedonic happiness” (a sense of pleasure and comfort). Perhaps this makes sense, given that being kind involves effort that could make people feel better about themselves and their abilities, which would provide a sense of meaning.

People who are kind tended to have higher self-esteem and a sense of self-efficacy. To a lesser degree, they also experience less depression and anxiety and improve physical health—with the links to health being strongest in older adults.  There is a study showing the impact of volunteering and performing kind acts on the overall improved health of those over 65.  Think about the older people you know, which ones seem to be in better health?

Kind people experience more happiness and have happier memories. A simple intervention of counting acts of kindness for one week can lead to increased happiness and gratitude. This suggests that happiness is a human strength that influences well-being and contributes to good social relationships.

Kindness doesn’t require grand gestures. Even small acts, like thanking a cashier or holding the door open for someone, can make a positive difference and improve the day for someone or yourself.  The one thing we have control over every day is our attitude and how we respond to things.  So choose to smile and making a conscious effort to look for ways to make kind gestures will help your day go well.

Be inspired by this episode to spread kindness in your own community. Here are a few ideas:

• Post about something good that happened in your day on social media
• Smile at someone you don’t know.
• Offer to help someone in need.
• Pay for the coffee of the person behind you in line.
• Write a thank-you note to someone who has made a difference in your life.

Are you interested in learning more?  Here is a great resource:  https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_kindness_spreads_in_a_community