Random Acts of Gratuitous Kindness

On occasion I have critiqued the advice columns that appear in New York Magazine. I am grateful to the magazine for offering an unadulterated vision of what therapists are really doing. Better them than me.

Yet, the magazine also offers a section called “Science of Us” where it reports on the latest findings from the world of social psychology. I have often linked to these columns. I find them enlightening and useful, a worthy counterpoint to the drivel that passes as advanced therapeutic wisdom.

Now, Cari Romm reports on a new study that affirms the results of a prior study performed by Jennifer Trew and Lynn Alden. Links here and here. All of them measure the impact of what are called prosocial actions in your everyday life. In the new study Alex Fradera examined what happened when people responded to the boorish behavior of co-workers with acts of kindness.

In another context, it’s called the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have others do unto you… which means do not return an insult with an insult, do not return obnoxious behavior with obnoxious behavior or even with calls to shut it the hell down. If you want people to behave better toward you do not police their bad behavior. Act better toward them. Who knew?

Now social psychology has demonstrated the point. Romm presents the argument:

Maybe you have a co-worker who constantly chews really loudly, or a cubicle neighbor with a B.O. situation, or one who insists on making overly personal phone calls from their desk. For the love of god, Bill, it’s not that hard to step into the hallway….

It’s fair if putting on your headphones and Gchatting snarky commentary to a friend can sometimes feel like the only way to make it through the day. But according to a study recently published in the journal Emotion and highlighted by Alex Fradera at BPS Research Digest, being nice to your co-workers — not just tolerating them, but actively working to make their day more pleasant — can make things better for you, too.

To be more specific, Romm offers an example:

Next time Bill’s complaining loudly on the phone about his hangover, then, maybe bring him a cup of coffee. Even if he doesn’t deserve it, the rest of the office might.

And, prosocial behaviors are contagious. When someone acts kindly toward you, you are more likely to do a good deed toward someone else:

The acts of kindness don’t go unnoticed. The receivers observed more prosocial behaviors in the office and by the end of the study, they were reporting ten times more prosocial behaviors than the controls. In addition, receivers’ level of “felt autonomy” – essentially how much they felt in control of their days at work – were higher than controls over the course of the study… One month after the study ended, the receivers were also enjoying significantly higher levels of happiness than controls.

And also:

Just as important, these gestures seemed to create something of a snowball effect: The workers on the receiving end then turned around and did something nice for another one of their colleagues, going out of their way to show goodwill three times as often as employees in the control group, who hadn’t been the beneficiary of any planned acts of kindness.