How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

Random Acts of Kindness

Techniques > Happiness > Random Acts of Kindness

Description

Be surprisingly generous to strangers and maybe people you know too. Do things that surprise them and maybe restore their faith in human nature. Seek to create delight and wide smiles.

Just a few of the things you can do:

Give more than you might to a waiter or a homeless person.
When you mow the front lawn, do it for the people next door too.
When going through a road toll, pay for the person behind you as well.
Offer to give a lost-looking tourist a free walking tour of the city.
Give up your seat on the train for a tired stranger.
Take your partner out for an expensive meal when they are least expecting it.

Discussion

When you are unexpectedly kind to others, then perhaps after the initial shock (and realizing you are not asking for anything), they will be highly delighted. And if you are empathizing with them, then you will also experience a reflected pleasure.

Other than the initial cost of creating pleasure in others, there is no further cost to you, and you can reflect warmly on the happiness you have caused on many future occasions.

There are even more benefits to kindness. Fowler and Christakis (2010) also found that when you are kind to another person, through social contagion they are likely to be kind to others. So with a single act you can cause a ripple of kindness that spreads across the world. Within a group of people, that kindness is also likely to return to you by some other route.

Random Acts of Kindness

Description

Discussion

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