The scientific case for random acts of kindness

In August, Erin Alexander, 57, sat in the parking lot of a department store in California and wept. Her sister-in-law had recently died, and Ms Alexander was having a hard day.

A barista working in the store was, too. The espresso machine had broken down and she was clearly upset. Ms Alexander – who had stopped crying and gone inside – smiled, ordered an iced green tea and gave the barista words of encouragement. After getting her tea, she noticed a message on the cup: “Erin,” the barista had written next to a heart, “your soul is golden.”

“I’m not sure I even necessarily know what ‘your soul is golden’ means,” said Ms Alexander, who laughed and cried while recalling the incident.

But the warmth of that small and unexpected gesture, from a stranger who had no inkling of what she was going through, moved her deeply. “Of course, I was still really sad,” Ms Alexander said. “But that little thing made the rest of my day.”

New findings, published recently in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, corroborate just how powerful such experiences can be. Researchers found that people who perform a random act of kindness tend to underestimate how much the recipient will appreciate it. And the researchers believe that miscalculation could hold us back from doing nice things for others more often.

“We have this negativity bias when it comes to social connection,” said Marisa Franco, a psychologist, who did not work on the study. “We just don’t think the positive impact of our behaviors is as positive as it is.”

Ms Franco said she hoped the study would inspire more people to be kind to others.

The study comprised eight small experiments that varied in design and participants. In one, for example, graduate students were asked to perform thoughtful acts of their choosing, like giving a classmate a ride home from campus or buying someone a cup of coffee.

In all of the experiments, the people doing the kind thing consistently underestimated how much it was actually appreciated, said one of the study’s authors, Amit Kumar, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin.

“People tend to think that what they are giving is kind of little, maybe it’s relatively inconsequential,” Dr Kumar said. “But recipients are less likely to think along those lines. They consider the gesture to be significantly more meaningful because they are also thinking about the fact that someone did something nice for them.”

The notion that kindness can boost well-being is hardly new. Studies have shown that prosocial behavior – voluntarily helping others – can help lower people’s daily stress levels, and that simple acts of connection, like texting a friend, mean more than many of us realize.

But researchers who study kindness say they hope the new findings strengthen the scientific case for making these types of gestures more often.

“I have found that kindness can be a really hard sell,” said Tara Cousineau, a clinical psychologist. “People desire kindness yet often feel inconvenienced by the thought of being kind.” But, she added, kindness is unlikely to backfire.

Jennifer Oldham, 36, who recently lost her 9-year-old daughter, Hallie, created a Facebook group – Keeping Kindness for Hallie – that encourages random kindness.

“No small act goes unnoticed,” Ms Oldham said. “It will help your own heart, maybe even more than the recipient’s.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.