Nice gesture
Study shows friendliness is contagious
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When bad news overwhelms us and the global situation seems hopeless, we need a light at the end of the tunnel: kindness. Good thing it’s contagious according to this study!
You know that feeling after you do something nice? For example, donate something, bake your grandmother’s favorite cake or give a sympathetic ear to a casual acquaintance on the street so that she can talk about something. It doesn’t matter whether it’s emotional or material: In moments like this you gave something. And maybe even expect something in return. A “thank you”, a compliment, double what we gave.
Kind gesture: when we give, we feel good
A study from the UT Austin McCombs School of Business and the University of Chicago found that people who give tend to focus more on the action itself. Those who receive are much more focused on the warming, soothing feeling that comes with the kind gesture of their counterpart. Action-focused givers can limit themselves from being more social and helpful through their expectations. Totally understandable. Because if you only give because you expect something from it, you will probably be disappointed more often at the end of the day. And those who do it just for their own well-being don’t get the full benefits of giving: “Being nice makes us feel good about ourselves, but what we don’t understand is how good it makes the other person feel,” explains marketing assistant professor Amit Kumar. “And the fact that you are kind to others gives immense value to what they receive from you.”
A risk of infection that we are happy to expose ourselves to
To assess this, Kumar and Nicholas Epley conducted the following experiment in the lab: Before a game was played, study participants received a gift either from the lab kiosk or from other participants. Everyone who received a gift was asked to split $100 between themselves and an unknown recipient. The two scientists found that the participants who received a gift from others were much more generous to strangers: they shared the $100 more fairly. On average, they gave $48.02, while those with the more impersonal lab kiosk gift gave just $41.20.
Kumar states: Those who have received something out of the act of kindness feel a greater willingness to render this “service” to others: “Generosity is contagious.” A prosocial act, i.e. doing something consciously and voluntarily solely to make others happy, works like a pyramid scheme. The recipients pass it on, which can spread friendliness.
Source: University of Texas at Austin