Kindness continued

 4. There’s a link between kindness and well-being

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that people who regularly receive lots of acts of kindness have higher levels of well-being. But the study also found that people who carry out more kind acts or even just notice that other people are carrying out kind acts also have higher levels of well-being on average. This fits in with lots of previous research showing that acting kindly makes us feel good.

5. Extroverts give and receive more kindness

Personality had a big impact on how often people said they are kind to others, but also on how kind people are to them. A personality scale was included in The Kindness Test and the people who were kindest were more likely to score high on extroversion, and also on agreeableness and openness. People who score high on openness are imaginative and curious and like having new experiences.

Of course, these are averages, so you can be quiet and not keen on new experiences, but still be very kind!

6. People see more acts of kindness at home than anywhere else

When we asked people where kindness takes place, the home came top, followed by medical settings, the workplace, green spaces and shops. The places where people saw the fewest kind acts were online, on public transport and in the street.

The good news was that people generally agreed that kindness was valued at work, especially in social work, healthcare, hospitality and education.

7. Women carry out slightly more kind acts on average and so do people who are religious

Of course, we have to rely on self-reports in this study, so there is a possibility that women and religious people feel that they ought to say that they are kind in order to look good. But plenty of people are prepared to admit they’re not very generous, for example, and previous studies have shown that we are quite good at judging our own levels of kindness. So, I’m inclined to take people at their word.

8. We worry about our offers of kindness being misinterpreted

People were asked what might stop them from being kind and the top reason they gave was that they were afraid their actions might be misinterpreted. People also said that they didn’t have enough time to be as kind as they’d like to be, and half said social media played a part in stopping them from being kinder.

9. People who talk to strangers see and receive more kindness

What’s interesting about this one, is that this difference between those who do and don’t talk to strangers, persisted even when personality was considered. So, it’s not just that extroverts are more likely to be kind and also, because they’re extroverts, more likely to talk to strangers. Whatever personality you have, the more you talk to strangers, then on average the more kindness you receive, but also the more kindness you notice going on around you.

10. Income makes little difference to how kind people are

How much money people earn had zero correlation with overall reports of being kind. But we did also ask people to imagine they had received an unexpected windfall of £850 and how much of it they might give away. While some were honest enough to say none of it, the average amount people said they would give away was £252. People with the lowest incomes tended to say they would give away lower amounts on average, which makes sense because they could least afford to, but interestingly the people with the highest incomes also gave away the least.