October 19, 2023 • 48 mins
In the tradition of our episodes on forgiveness and revenge, comes the third installment in the Emotional Roller Coaster trilogy. Kindness, it turns out, really does make the world go round.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Heayan, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and Chuck's here
and Jerry's here and this is Stuff you should Know
and it's a podcast and the three of us are
part of it.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, this is an article on the science of kindness,
which somehow put me in a bad mood. I don't
know what that says about me. I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I don't know why either. It's very odd, but I
kind of know what you're talking about. If we're like,
the topic overall that we're going to talk about, I
think is going to bring joy to people. But they'll
get angry along the way. But hopefully when by the
time we're done, those who are still listening will be like,
all right, I'm feeling good again.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
All right, let's talk about it, and let's start with animals,
because in fact, we can direct people too. We did
a great episode I think on animal altruism.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Is that what it was called, Yeah, biological altruism something
like that, where we talked about this sort of leading
fact as we lead into humans and kindness, the fact
that you know, animals all throughout.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
The animal world display acts of kindness, and many times
they are altruistic in that they're not looking for anything
other than to help out their bird meat or monkey
meat or ant meat.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, you short on last minute gift ideas, go look
in on what the macaques are given each other kindness.
So it's in animals, we know that, we have evidence
of it. Yeah, it's also in humans. We have pretty
good evidence of that too, that kindness is a thing.
But it definitely seems the fact that it's in animals
as well suggests that it's in us on some genetic level.
(01:50):
It's not just society being like be kind rewind, you know,
like like there's an actual imperative, a biological imperative for it.
And what's odd about is that most people would think
that flies in the face of survival of the fittest. Basically,
Darwin's whole jam that you know, looking out for number
one is kind of it might not be the antithesis
(02:12):
of kindness, but it certainly doesn't go hand in hand.
And yet when you dig into Darwin you're like, oh,
he was actually big time into kindness.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, he talked, He wrote a lot of stuff about
communities cooperating and not just like hey, it's better if
you cooperate and to go kill that wooly mammoth. But
but like compassion and empathy are are are markers of
a healthy community and a community that will survive in
a fitter way.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, Like if Tuktok pushed jib Job out of the
way right as he was about to throw a spear
into the wooly mammoth, JibJab took took, took the shot
and took the mammoth down and got all the praise.
He's got hurt feelings between him and jib Job, right.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
He's got to go to Jim introducing a new character.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yes, it's happening before your very.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Eyes, while it's exciting in you're sixteen.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, so like in those communities and communities now, like
the thing that just kind of keeps things not just
going the you can go as a society in a
dystopian manner, but it's not a good society. It's not thriving.
I think the thing that makes it thrive, and then
a thriving society is much more likely to survive and
reproduce because everybody wants it to because they're having a
(03:25):
great time. Are things like kindness it's one of those
lubricators that helps us society go from surviving to thriving.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I agree. And it's also something that you know you see, well,
hopefully you see firsthand when you have a kid. If
you don't, that doesn't mean that you know your child
is broken, because there are all kinds of reasons that
a kid may not just sort of be innately kind.
They might not like you, maybe you're the problem, dad,
(03:56):
But the study after study has shown that men children
are sort of innately kind to other people. And that,
of course, this is just me editorializing the second part,
and it is later as you grow up and be
a cynical adult, is when those kindnesses go away. But
you see examples all the time when you have a kid,
(04:17):
of your kid and other children and their friends and
classmates being kind to one another, and it's it is
truly heartwarming to see and makes you think, like, oh,
like maybe because this is what we're kind of talking about,
like are we innately good people like as humans? And
those examples kind of indicate that, yeah, we maybe are
good humans to begin with, like, and we're going to
(04:40):
talk about a lot of studies and experiments in this episode,
but This one was one where they had a kid
and they had some treats like little candies or something.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
They had goldfish or Teddy grams.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I was just I was trying to not name check,
but sure.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Those are money treats, man, they deserve, like we need
to lay it out there just how valuable these treats were.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And then they had these little puppet puppets. I was
gonna say puppet things, but puppets are puppets. So what
they would do was and what they're trying to get
at is like how happy did because you know, that's
sort of at the root of all all this is like,
and we'll talk later about when you receive a kindness.
Of course that makes sense that you're gonna feel great,
(05:24):
but does it feel good and make you happy to
do a kindness? And so they had this little puppets
and they said, all right, we're going to give these
puppets a goldfish sometimes and we're going to see how
happy that makes you. A little kid, We're going to
give you a goldfish to give to that puppet. We're
gonna see how happy that makes you. And then we're
(05:45):
gonna also just give you a bunch of goldfish and
say those are yours, but maybe you should give the
puppet one of your own. And the ones where the
like the happiest kids were the ones where they are
instances at least, were the ones where the kids gay
of their own stash, of their own head stash right
to these puppets.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Like they were happy seeing the puppet get a treat, sure,
but they were happier to give that puppet a treat
of its own, right.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, And they weren't necessarily doing that so they would
look good for the study.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It seems exactly these were toddlers. I think they were
two or less two or younger. There's another study that
kind of found something similar that paid attention to little
kids and how they responded to a grown up needing help,
and they showed that kids definitely do enter distress might
(06:39):
be kind of a harsh word for it, but there's
a concern state that's much better. They are concerned. And
apparently you can track that by your pupils dilating. And
this is the Max Planck Institute, so they're pretty legit,
but they were tracking kids pupils dilating. So an adult
would drop something and have trouble picking it up and
the kids pupils would dilate, so they were concerned. The
(07:01):
kids became happiest or became less concerned or unconcerned when
they were able to help, But then second to that,
they were also unconcerned. They stopped feeling concerned after they
saw somebody else help the grown up. So it's not
like you were saying, it's not just about getting credit.
It's not just about thinking you're making adults happy. Like
(07:24):
these kids were genuinely relieved to see somebody getting help
even when they couldn't help them, And that helps underscore
the idea that yeah, or were biologically kind in our genes.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Did the people who organize the study account did they
make sure they just accounted for the dilation of pupils
by making sure testing these kids for methan fetibine us.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Oh yeah, that's that's step one a p test.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, all right, that checks out. Then.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, and the ones who they find outside of the
lab hours before sunrise digging a hole inexplicably, they pretty
much just get them out of the population right away.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So people have been trying to I guess group and
measure and come up with scales on how to measure
kindness and happiness and stuff like that for a long
long time. And one way to measure it that they've
come up with is something called the Interpersonal Reactivity Index,
(08:24):
which is sort of an empathy measurement, which is great.
There's another one called the Inventory of Strengths that looks
at behavior treats kindness as a behavior. But these researchers
at Huddlesfield University of Huddlesfield in the UK in twenty seventeen,
they're like, all right, let's create a scale that's going
to measure like different aspects of being kind and see
(08:47):
if we can group them. And they did. They had
a forty item question in airon ended up clustering into
three groups, the first one being benign tolerance, which it's
like an everyday kindness, like hey you got groceries, why
don't you take my seat on the subway? That kind
of thing. Yeah, it's a kindness, Yeah, it's an everyday
(09:08):
sort of kindness. Empathetic responsivity responsivity yeah yeah, is the
next one, and that is a more emotional and then
much more personal and much more specific to a person.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Right, like this is somebody you have what they consider
strong ties to like a close friend or a family
member or something like that. So you're doing something kind
to them maybe when they need help, responding to them empathetically.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Which is great, really really well said yeah. And then
the last one is principal proaction, and this is altruism
but a little less emotional, like, you know, go look
at my record books. I give a lot of money
to charity.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Sure. So what they found though, so all of the
forty questions on the inventory, those they all basically clustered
into those three umbrellas. But they found three different things
that were common to all three of the little islands
of kindness, and those were they were, Yeah, Islands of
(10:08):
Kindness is a great band name, You're right, synthpop. Sure,
so they were I feel sorry for other people when
they experience problems. I like to make other people feel happy,
and people think I have a soft heart. And what
they came to, uh to kind of identify those three
things together that showed up under principal pact proaction, empathetic responsivity,
(10:33):
and benign tolerance. They can they said that that's your
core kindness. But that's that's the that's the basic thing
that makes people genuinely kind. Those are the things that
if you put those three things together, you have a
kind person. You can have other people doing kind things,
but they're not necessarily kind. And they even had a
measurement of unkindness. Nine of the questions were basically like
(10:56):
are you a jerk? Answer yes or no? They're like,
come on, answer that was question two. Be honest was
question three, and so on and so forth. And they
found that people who rated as unkind, say in one thing,
I think maybe benign tolerance, they still rated highly in
empathetic responsivity or principal pro action. So it's not like
(11:17):
even if you're unkind on paper that you don't do
kind things. What they were saying is genuinely kind people
check those three boxes.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah. I think on the questionnaire it should say are
you a jerk? And the only option is no? And
then the next question is do other people think you're
a jerk? And the only option is yes. Between those
two is the truth. They also found that women scored
higher than men generally speaking, and very specifically on benign
(11:47):
tolerance and principal pro action. Yeah, and this was very interesting.
There was no overall difference based on the age of
the participant, but if you were over forty, then you
would score higher on Prince pro action, which kind of
makes sense if that's like giving to charity, because I mean,
I don't think I had enough money to even give
(12:09):
to charity when I was younger.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I think too, that's that's also a measure of like replacing,
like adding distance to your kindness, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, sure, it's not just like donating.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
You don't show up at like the house that the
charity is, like, you know, supporting, you're just giving to
that charity.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah. And also you know I said that I didn't
have enough money to give to charity. That's not true you.
I'm not gonna say always there are people that are
genuinely living like week to week and day to day
with their finances, so I'm not talking about that. But
in my twenties I could have, you know, not done
(12:49):
the one thing to give ten dollars to another thing.
You know what I'm saying. I know it was, But
you can't give time if you don't have money. It's
just another way to be cheir.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So one thing about that though, real quick before you
move on. I remember plenty of studies have turned up
that people of middle to lower socioeconomic status tend to
give more to charity than people higher up in the
socioeconomic status.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, is that more total monies are more like based
on their relative income?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I think yeah, I think relatively speaking, yeah, because I mean,
you know, like a billionaire could give a million dollars
and be like eat my dust. Right, lower socioeconomic people,
but that you know, relative to their wealth, it's not
really that big of a deal. Whereas somebody lower on
the scale or with less money, they gave a thousand dollars,
(13:41):
that might mean a lot more than a million dollars
to a billionaire.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, and boy, what a lesson to Let's say you're
a single parent with a few kids and you're really struggling.
What a lesson to your kids to be like, you
know what, I found a twenty dollars bill a day
and we're going to put two dollars in this eyes can.
That seems like he needs it more than we do,
even but.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
We're gonna get it and change. So it sounds like
a lot because he's not paying attention, but he'll hear it.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Go get two hundred pennies. Said, should we take a break?
Oh yeah, all right, let's take a break. We'll be
right back, all right. We've talked about the runners high before,
(14:47):
that uphooric sense that a runner can feel at a
at a certain mile on the road or in the
woods or wherever you're running. Can you get a runner
sigh on a treadmill?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Oh yeah, anytime, anytime you're exerting your body running for
a while.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Okay, I didn't have. I had something to do with
the environment and fresh air and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It might trigger it a little faster, who knows, but yes,
you can.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Right all that to say, there's a helper's high that
they found. This is in the nineteen eighties that they
first reclued into this, and that is just what you
might think is after doing a kindness to someone, you
might feel a sense of exhilaration, you might feel a
very nice period of calm afterward. They have found, depending
(15:31):
on the kindness I guess in the person, that can
really get you going for a few weeks sometimes. And
this is really interesting, I thought, psychologically, are these next
couple of things is that you can get that same
high just by thinking back on that kindness you did
like a month ago.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Heck yeah, that's interesting. But if
you stop and think about it, it's anecdotally speaking of
course that works like that, but when you see it
on paper, it's kind of astounding that you can think
about something like you said you did a month ago
and feel good about it all over again. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, And we do know that there are literal physical
symptoms of kindnesses and the effect like better immune function,
your stress hormones are going to go down and stuff
like that. But it makes me wonder, if you, like,
if you can call up that kindness you did a
month ago when you're starting to feel like you're getting
a cold, would that literally help you avoid a cold? Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, absolutely, without a question. Okay, it's a good reason
to be kind Yeah, and have a good memory. Yeah,
there's there's another so another way you could put kindness.
It's probably not exactly interchangeable, but it's close enough. It's
pro social behavior. Yeah, because I don't think we said
something that's really important. Kindness is it's it's it's action.
(16:53):
It's always an action, like it's not just thinking something.
Thinking something is not kindness. You can have kind thought, sure,
but kindness is always an action and in fact, kindness
dot org, which is a nonprofit that's basically like a
that supports kindness research. They say that kindness is a
meta value which is just right out of the gate,
(17:13):
knocks your socks off, and that it encompasses acts of altruism, empathy, justice, respect,
and more. And that is always an action, often done
with the intention to benefit and sometimes but not always,
driven by emotion, which I mean if you get to
define kindness there, it is right there. And another way
to explain that is saying pro social behavior, you're acting
(17:35):
in a way that is kind, right, So people have
studied pro social behavior more than they've studied kindness, So
you can kind of take some of those pro social
behavior studies and apply them to kindness research too. And
that's exactly what a twenty twenty meta analysis did from
Hong Kong Polytechnic.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
You that's right, great school, it's got to be right.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, I was reading about it. I think it's actually
one of the best schools in the world. Yeah. See,
And they do not have a mask guy. As far
as they could tell, it's either an owl or winning
the Pooh. I couldn't make heads or tails of some
of the photos.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Let's go with me the pooh go poos. All right,
So they did a meta analysis like you're saying, in
twenty twenty and found that pro social behavior that you
so aptly defined was very closely linked with something called
I'm gonna call it udae amonic well being I think so,
or either that or you demonic maybe that's a silent eye,
who knows, But that is a happiness. That is, it's
(18:39):
sort of happiness. Plus it's associated with more meaning and
more purpose than an ordinary happiness, like oh boy, this
ice cream tastes good.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, and I've seen so you have well being. I've
seen you demonic well being or happiness as well, doing
like you're doing stuff that makes you happy rather than
just feeling happy, and that in and of itself as
a component of well being that's pretty cool. So there's
also that same I think meta analysis turned up that
(19:08):
if you help somebody informally, you typically receive more personal benefits,
like more happiness or a sense of reward than you
do if you're formally you know, being kind, like organizing
a charity or even writing a check to charity.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
That makes sense, yeah, because it's like a surprise for
you as well. If it's an opportunity to perform a kindness.
And by the way, I don't only say a kindness
because of the gentleman from Winnebago Man, the Great Great documentary.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, I remember that, but I don't remember him saying
a kindness.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, he said all the time, do me a kindness,
and you know, yeah, get me a coffee.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
But it kind of fits though, because a kindness is
an act. So it's like it turns it into an
action almost by making it a noun or.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, yeah, an adverb?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Is that an adverb?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
No, it's not an advert.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I'm about as good at English as I am at math.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
No that's not true. Oh thanks, you're much gooder at English.
So oh, I don't even know where I was going
with this, because all I can think about is Winnibigo Man.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
You were talking about, Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
The surprise of a kindness that presents itself, that you
can like, all of a sudden, you're at the grocery
store and there's an opportunity for you to perform a kindness.
That I get that that might mean more to you
than on a happiness level than like organizing a charity
because organizing a volunteer day or something is a lot
of work, and it can be a pain, and there
(20:42):
can be frustrations, and even though the end result is
you've done something well, at the end of that day,
you probably sit in your chair and you're like, oh man,
that was a lot. But when you just do a
small kindness, it's a surprise for you, and so of
course you're going to be like, that was the best
thing ever. I was just the best dude, and it
only took me thirty seconds.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, And what's neat is there's other research, so we'll
talk about down the line that basically finds that surprise
is an element of the happiness that can come out
of acts of kindness.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So yeah, I think there's definitely something to that.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Chuck, Yeah, and the best way to scare people.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
So there's another study. I've got another study at my sleeve.
You want to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
They were trying to say, Okay, like, great job coming
up with a kindness skill. But what are we really
measuring here? Are we measuring actual acts of kindness making
people happy? Or is there some other thing that we
don't realize We're measuring. So they actually very cleverly kind
of broke it out into a few components and they
had people either do something kind for others, an active kindness,
(21:46):
something kind for themselves still an active kindness, but not
for anybody else, totally extroverted behavior that's not kindness, So
maybe striking up a neutral conversation about the weather with
a stranger it is hot, right, or doing something that's
open minded but it's not social and it's not kind.
(22:08):
And the example that Olivia gave was engaging with art,
like going to see you know, going to a museum, right, Okay,
all of those things can make you happy. And the
University of California psychologists wanted to see if we were
accidentally measuring that, and what they found is that the
people who did acts of kindness for other people were
far and away happier than the other three groups.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, pretty interesting. And in that little bit you mentioned,
one of the things that covered for was doing a
kindness for yourself. There was a twenty nineteen paper from
Oxford University where they found that acts of kindness to
other people and acts of kindness to yourself had about
(22:50):
the same positive effect on your happiness and I didn't
read that as like, oh, well, that just shoots holes
in the previous theory. I saw it as like, well, yeah,
your brain is still receiving those triggers that like you're
doing a kindness and you're a person too, and you
need kindness is to be done for you, and if
(23:11):
you're the one doing it, then great. Exactly, you know
you should be kind to yourself.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Be kind to yourself.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
That's right, and rewind So I.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Saw something explained like the feeling that you get from
the helpers high, explained by pointing out that acts of
kindness are actually an exertion for us, just like exercises
an exertion. Anything beyond what we need to do to
survive that day is technically an exertion, and our bodies
created this reward system to overcome the sense of exertion
(23:43):
or pain or sore muscles or loss of giving up
your goldfish treat to a puppet and flooding us with
chemicals that make us feel better. So that totally explains
the biochemical basis for that Helper's high, for the sense
of being rewarded by doing an act of kindness or
(24:04):
just a kindness, and that it's kind of apparently centrally
located in the vegas nerve, which, if you'll remember from
More Organism episode, is really responsible for that. It's a
huge part of the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system, which is
the opposite of flight. It's like chill and chill instead
(24:25):
of fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, like getting your breathing under control and your tummy
feeling good and your heart rate a little lower, stuff
like that. We talked about it quite a few times.
I feel like over the years, it's only in mammals.
It's very unique to mammals. And because it is a
part of that autonomic nervous system, it's connected to like
(24:48):
basically all the organs right, Like, it's affecting everything inside
your body, which is great, and it's you know, what's
going to give you that warm feeling when it's active,
when you've done a kindness to someone, that's where that
warm feeling is coming from, basically.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, and specifically it's oxytocin. They've linked that to kindness
and that helper's high and that is it's frequently called
the love hormone. It's it is around from every event,
like a mother holding a newborn baby. Skin to skin
for the first time. That's a huge oxytocin release. To
(25:25):
doing an active kindness for somebody, is that warm feeling
in your chest, that feeling that where like you just
suddenly are like I could if I really thought about it,
I could cry right now, Like you just feel so
good and just overwhelmed with positive feelings. That's oxytocin, and
acts of kindness have been shown to release oxytocin. That
seems to be part of the basis of that helper's high. So, however,
(25:49):
you can get oxytocin, get it, that's my motto.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, totally an interesting thing to jumping back a sec
to that twenty nineteen Oxford paper that talked about doing
a kindness on oneself. I found this particularly interesting. Okay,
just witnessing an act of kindness can also have a
similar effect on you, which is amazing, And that makes
(26:15):
me wonder if our old friend's mirror neurons are not
involved somehow.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, yeah, I would think so, because empathy has to
be involved, Like you have to feel something towards somebody
who you're helping, or else you just wouldn't even think
to help them. You'd probably just be like huh huh
you know m hm. So yeah, if empathy is involved
in the mirror, neurons have to be involved. It's just
the way it goes.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Friend, But we've I mean, who hasn't watched the one
of those internet videos on Instagram or wherever where you
see a real kindness and you know they got that
piano music plan and all of a sudden you're tearing
up like your body is firing all those same neurons, apparently,
(27:00):
according to Oxford, as if you had done that kindness yourself, right,
like feel good neurons.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
You got that rascal for that veteran, like you did that.
For all intents and purposes, none of us have to
do anything. As long as there's some people out there
doing kindnesses and posting those videos on the internet, the
rest of us can just get the benefits from it
without having a lift a finger.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, and you go into your therapist and they're they're like,
I know you have a problem with uh empathy and kindnesses?
Did you do any this week? And you're like, yeah,
I watch like three videos.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Exactly make you feel great. Yeah, So should we take
another break and then come back and talk about how
it helps people who kindness is given to. Sure, Okay,
we're going to do that. So I think it's beyond
(28:12):
ridiculous to say that a person who is the beneficiary
of an act of kindness gets something out of it too.
They literally get something out of it in a lot
of times, like if it's a veteran and the rascal
that a bunch of people donated to buy him, it
can be a goldfish treat, like they benefit in that sense,
(28:35):
but they also benefit emotionally as well. And what they
found in a bunch of different studies is kind of
what we were talking about before that other elements like surprise,
just the gesture, the thought, Like they say it's the
thought that counts well. Some kind of studies have basically
turned that up that if you don't just think about it,
but you actually follow through, the people are more moved
(28:58):
by the thought, by the gesture than they are by
the goldfish treat or the rascal. Although I mean, if
you give somebody a rascal, they're probably going to be
pretty happy.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
What's a rascal?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Oh, it's a little mobilized get around kart that you
see people riding. Oh Okayan stage or immobility.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I got you all right, I didn't know those were
called rascals.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That is the original trading it for one of the brands,
and it's just it's become kind of a proprietary eponym, Okay,
at least in my house.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah. So one of the experiments they did to test
this was in nineteen ninety five. They looked at unhoused
folks who went to the ER a lot for treatment.
And they had a controlled group who just got their
regular old er visit, and then they had another group
(29:49):
that had that visit plus student volunteers who would chat
them up, talk about stuff and life and listen to
them and held conversations and maybe gave them a goldfish
or something. And they found that the members of the
test group were twice as likely to rate their care
higher sure, which you know makes perfect sense, and that
(30:11):
and this was interesting. The number of ER visits among
that group dropped by a third. Yeah, which I guess
indicates that they're healthier.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I guess the researchers took it to mean that the
unhoused people who show up to the r over and
over and over again are basically showing up until they
feel like they're being treated like a human being and
that that group were satisfied that they had received good
care for once and they stopped coming back to try to,
you know, get it out of the people in the er.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Oh, and that is really interesting because another way to
think of that is like, why didn't the people who
got that warm care want to come back and say, like, boy,
that was you know, that was pretty great that goldfish.
I had a nice conversation with.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
A student I totally thought the same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
So there's another study that involved cupcakes, and who doesn't
want to talk about that.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
It's a good one.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
It is, it's a great one. So the researchers gave
strangers or study participants a cupcake and said, here you go,
here's a cupcake. You can do whatever you want with it,
but you can also give it to a stranger if
you like. And apparently eighty percent of the participants gave
their cupcake away. Well I want to know those twenty percent.
(31:28):
I hope they didn't tell them what they were actually studying,
because I think you'd really have some real soul searching
to do after you find out that you're part of
the twenty percent who kept the cupcake for yourself in
a kindness study.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah, they tell them that, like, your mouth is full
of cupcake, and they revealed that to you, and you're like.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
What, Yeah, it's just going to spit it back into
the little wrapper and put it back and then go
give it to a stranger.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, and that's when they reveal the milk that you
don't get.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So the eighty percent of people who gave their cupcake away,
they asked them, how do you think how like how
much of an impact do you think this gesture is
going to have? And this is a really important thing
that they turned up that the people who received the
cupcake rated their happiness is higher than the person who
(32:17):
gave them the cupcake expected it to be, like a
lot higher. And that's kind of a human flaw. Like
we're we have genetic programming to be kind, we also
have genetic programming to second guess ourselves and be self
conscious and that prevents us from doing acts of kindness
in a lot of ways. And even when we do
(32:38):
acts of kindness, we underestimate their effect. But the other
part of that cupcake study that I found interesting is
that the people who got the cupcake basically said it
was the surprise that made it such a great happy
experience for them.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, Like the people who got the cupcake, the twenty
percent who ate it, mm hmm. They rated their happiness,
and I'm sure they're fairly happy, but not nearly as
happy at the people that were surprised by a stranger
right giving him them a cupcake.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah. So I feel like we fairly well established that
being kind is a good thing and that it exists. Yeah,
almost almost. What about your family, though, because think about this, Yeah,
giving a cupcakes to a stranger who you're never going
to see again, there's nothing but pretty much an upside
(33:31):
to that. It's all upside totally. But if you gave
your cupcake away to a family member, you're going to
see that family member later that day after they had
a rough day at the office, and they're probably not
feeling much gratitude towards you for the cupcake you gave
them earlier in the day, even though you're still feeling
good about yourself for having given them your cupcake. And
(33:51):
therein lies the big rub with acts of kindness in
what are known as strong tie relationships like your family.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, and it seems in the case of family and
I would imagine this might go for like very close
friend groups as well, but I'm just speculating. But in
this study in twenty seventeen, they showed a very strong
correlation in the happiness level, not being dictated by, but
being influenced by whether or not these acts of kindness
(34:23):
were noticed and acknowledged. Sure, so, they got people that newlyweds,
people had just gotten married, and they said, spend a
couple of weeks recording instances instance instance oh Man times
in which one spouse would help out their partner put
aside their own like if you're in the middle doing something,
(34:44):
you would stop with a small act of kindness that
your partner needs in that moment. And then also while
you're doing this, record your emotional state. And they found
that acts of kindness that had the most impacts on
both the giver and the receiver was when they were
noticed and acknowledged. And also found unsurprisingly that when there
maybe surprisingly yeah for sure, when the receiver did not
(35:06):
consciously notice that it still resulted in improved moods for
both especially the giver.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Sure, but they were like, these people are in the
honeymoon phase of their relationship. Exactly if we did the
same experiment ten years down the road, would that second
part still hold up? And there's a group. There's a
pair of researchers. There are a couple, John and Julie Gotman,
and they are incredibly famous, incredibly well researched and well
(35:35):
read and well cited, like couples researchers like they're the
real deal, legit.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, a marriage therapist, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
They actually are the ones who teach the marriage therapists
who go teach other marriage therapists, like they're doing like
really great firsthand research. And one of the things they
found over the course of the career is that acts
of kindness, even incredibly small acts of kindness, they can
take the the form of a huh, when your spouse
is telling you about something you couldn't care less about
(36:05):
and you're actually really busy, just that counts as an
act of kindness. And that the couples who give one
another more active kindness than not. I think they came
up with some ratio of like four positive interactions to
one negative interaction is like the key to success. That
those couples who did more kind things to one another
(36:25):
had you know, much more successful and lasting marriages and
that again, those acts can be very very small and
they still have a big impact.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, because what they're talking about and this is something
I've seen in my own marriage at like Emily and
I've been together for over twenty years now, like all
in and once you get into the multiple decade span,
you find and you would be wise to learn how
to do this more, but you find that attention is
(36:56):
one of the biggest parts of being happily married. Sure,
and that go you know, that jibes with what you
were talking about there with the study or that you know,
the gotman stuff with like you know, I think when
you've been with someone for a long time, you find
yourself in your routines and like, oh, I'm reading this thing.
And but like Emily will come home with a story
(37:18):
about something that just happened, and like the spouse's wise
who will stop what they're doing just for a moment
and pay attention to them in a real way and
do more than a huh like, oh wow, that's really
cool that that happened to you today, and chances are
you can probably get back to what you're doing. The
unwise person does not, or they put out that they
(37:40):
have to stop what they're doing, or that their attention
is diverted, and that, my friend, is not a recipe
for success. And I'm having to continually sort of in
a like train myself still because I think certain people
have deficits when it comes to stuff like that. And
also just there's so much stuff now when you know
(38:02):
it was a lot easier before there were smartphones and
the internet and like constant other things that are distracting you.
But you were wise to sort of try and be
aware of those distractions to pay attention to your family
and your spouse.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So the way that the Gotments put it is that
when your spouse or your friend or whoever is meaningful
to you brings up something and saying something that is
asking for your attention, they're making a bid for attention,
and you have a choice. Like you said, you can
pay attention to them, that's what they call turning toward
You can snap at them for always bothering you when
(38:37):
you're trying to read, or you can ignore them, which
is not as bad as snapping at them all the time.
But when those ignoring instances add up, it can have
a really harmful impact on the relationship. So I guess
the upshot of this is that the gotments prove that
a successful relationship is exhausting, right, and you never.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Get to read the stuff you want to read on
your phone? Am I right?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Guys, you're always bothering me.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I guess we should talk a little bit here towards
the end about gratitude and guilt, because acts of kindness,
many times will spring from guilt. And here's the thing
with guilt, Like being consumed by guilt is no good
for anybody, But a little bit of guilt every now
(39:31):
and then can lead to more generosity. And the Catholics,
I feel like it's almost more of a It's not like, oh,
I feel so guilty so I have to do this.
It's just like, boy, I feel a little guilty, so
I'm just a little more aware and on point and
(39:53):
trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yeah, especially if you know you've hurt someone's feelings and
that's what you're feeling guilty about, that's going to turn
your kindness into hyperdrive. But researchers have found that your
your kindness is being laser focused on that person. You're
marshaling all of your kindness resources and you're focusing on
that poor person who probably doesn't even want to talk
to you right now, but you're like, I gotta be
(40:16):
kind to you because I feel so guilty. And what
they found is that actually that kind that level of
kindness excludes other people. You're walking past other chances to
be kind to other people who need acts of kindness
because you're so focused on this person. So that guilty
sense that can bring you to acts of kindness can
very easily become overraw and overblown, and nobody.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Wins, right. And they've also found that ignoring like that
could cause you to ignore did you already say that
ignore other people?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Pretty much? Yeah, you're you're you're you're not paying attention
to other people's needs and just focusing on the person
who's mattitude because you feel guilty.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
The gratitude piece I don't fully understand in this context,
because they have found in experiment it's a gratitude does
seem to encourage generosity when even when it costs you something.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah, normally, like people are in a good mood, or
if you're in a good mood, you will probably do
like acts of kindness. Holding a door for somebody doesn't
cost you a thing, it's an act of kindness. People
consider that a kind gesture. But if you feel gratitude
because somebody else did something nicier, or you're just happy
to be alive, you feel that sense of gratitude, you're
(41:26):
actually more likely to give somebody your only cupcake like something.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
That's okay, all right, yeah, that makes sense, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
And then the other thing about it, though, is that
it doesn't even have to be gratitude toward the person
who gave you that cupcake, or you don't have to
do something back to them. You can actually take that
gratitude and give it to a third party, which is
pretty cool, like that whole pay it forward thing. But
what another study found, I think back in two thousand
(41:53):
and six, they found that that third that paying it
forward thing is unconscious and that when they needed it out, hey,
you did a really nice thing for this other person,
the third party, because the first party did something nice
to you the second party, if that makes sense in
a super legal jargon way right, And when they told
(42:13):
them that, that sense of gratitude just kind of vanished,
like when it became conscious, it went away, but unconsciously,
they were more prone to help other people commit acts
of kindness for other people because they were feeling gratitude
that somebody else did something nice for them.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Have you ever seen we talked a little bit about
I think you should leave the Sketch Show from Tim Robinson.
Did you ever watch any of it?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah? Yeah, I've watched it all.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Oh okay, it always makes me think the pay it
forward thing. Maybe I don't know. They're all great, but
one of his best, my favorite sketches ever of his
is the drive through when of buying paying for someone's
drive through behind you and then he speeds around and
then you know, fifty nine burgers, fifield milkshakes, one hundred
(42:59):
pe fifty coffees. Yeah so funny. Yeah, yeah, oh boy,
I love that guy. What else, Chuck, Well, we can
wrap it up with a little bit on compassion fatigue.
Doing kindnesses is great, but they have found that if
you are someone who works in an industry where you
have to have a lot of compassion, if you're a
(43:20):
hospice nurse, if you are a single parent and you
have a child with high needs, if you work at
a shelter for unhoused people and you're just constantly having
to give of yourself every day that you know, you
can exhaust yourself of that, and it can be very
(43:41):
difficult to work those hours of being nothing but empathetic
all day long and doing kindnesses all day long. And
that's compassion fatigue. You can have mood swings, you can
be irritable, you can be anxious and depressed, and like,
bad things can happen. So that's like why you need
to take care of yourself, Like self care is so
(44:03):
important when you have a situation like that.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Yeah, you can also lose your general like basic drive
for compassion. Like you could start being like I don't
care about any of these people that I'm treating in
the er anymore.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah, so burned out. That's tough stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yes, Fortunately that's pretty limited to certain occupations or situations
like people taking care of a loved one at home
twenty four to seven basically. And yeah, there's a lot
of resources. If you are thinking that you might have
compassion fatigue, you should just start reading about it on
the web and there's a lot of really good solutions
to that that can help.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Yeah, take it easy on yourself because it's painful to
admit sometimes that stuff is very hard and that you
feel resentment and like it's human like let yourself up. Sure. Nice, Nice,
that's what I say.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
And there's one last thing about kindness that I thought
was really great, Like it can be hard to be mindful,
it can be hard to cultivate attitude. Like those aren't
just things that just snap into into mind like when
you want them to write. The great thing about kindness
is it's an action. So you can just do it,
like you don't have to Like, it's not something you
(45:12):
have to cultivate or work on or a mindset you
have to be in.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, you can just do it.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
And again, as we've shown as study after study after
study after study has shown it's beneficial to you and
the receiver and it keeps society going, so said Darwin,
So do it.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, do a little experiment if you if you find
you're having a very blue period, try holding open that door,
do a kindness or two and see what that does
for you. And just just chart it and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Very nice. Well, since Chuck said chart it, everybody, that
means it's time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Uh, I'm gonna call this sportsy. I thought this was interesting. Okay,
this was in regards to our bad business moves, bad
business decisions. Sure, and this was a good one. And
as an NBA fan, I can't believe I didn't know this.
And you're an NBA fan too, Yes, you'll appreciate this. Hey, guys,
(46:10):
was late to the show, discovered you during the pandemic,
and was happy to have your voices in my ears
through those long days on the worst ish business deals.
I thought i'd share one of my favorites. When the
ABA merged with the NBA back in the seventies, some
teams became NBA franchises, like the Nets and Indiana and
San Antonio and Denver, the Nuggets. The rest were bought
(46:32):
out by the NBA. Like you know, hey, I'm sorry,
Kentucky Colonels will give you three million dollars to stop
being an ABA team.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
You know you're bad if somebody pays you three million
dollars to stop playing.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
The owners of the Saint Louis, well, they just had
to make them go way, you know. The owners of
the Saint Louis Spirit, the Silna Brothers, negotiated a smaller
deal two point two million, which included a share of
television rights in Perpo two oh up through twenty thirteen.
This earned the silma's about three hundred million dollars for
not operating an NBA team from the seventies. In twenty fourteen,
(47:11):
the NBA finally bought themselves out of that clause by
an agreement of a lump sum five hundred million dollar payment.
What so, the silma's total pocket was eight hundred million
dollars from the NBA. To not have an NBA team
may not be the worst business deal of all time,
may have been the worst in pro sports worst I
(47:32):
guess for the NBA. Sure, that's amazing. I'd never heard that.
So that is from Steve Sonon in Seattle. Sorry about
the super Sonics Washington.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Thanks Steve. That was a great That was a great one.
I had not heard anything about that, and.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
It's kind of crazy to hear some It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Some people in Kentucky making eight hundred million dollars. Northern
Kentucky probably too. Yeah, if you want to get in
touch with this, like Steve did, you can send us
an email. Send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts, Myheart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Heayan, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and Chuck's here
and Jerry's here and this is Stuff you should Know
and it's a podcast and the three of us are
part of it.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, this is an article on the science of kindness,
which somehow put me in a bad mood. I don't
know what that says about me. I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I don't know why either. It's very odd, but I
kind of know what you're talking about. If we're like,
the topic overall that we're going to talk about, I
think is going to bring joy to people. But they'll
get angry along the way. But hopefully when by the
time we're done, those who are still listening will be like,
all right, I'm feeling good again.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
All right, let's talk about it, and let's start with animals,
because in fact, we can direct people too. We did
a great episode I think on animal altruism.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Is that what it was called, Yeah, biological altruism something
like that, where we talked about this sort of leading
fact as we lead into humans and kindness, the fact
that you know, animals all throughout.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
The animal world display acts of kindness, and many times
they are altruistic in that they're not looking for anything
other than to help out their bird meat or monkey
meat or ant meat.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Yeah, you short on last minute gift ideas, go look
in on what the macaques are given each other kindness.
So it's in animals, we know that, we have evidence
of it. Yeah, it's also in humans. We have pretty
good evidence of that too, that kindness is a thing.
But it definitely seems the fact that it's in animals
as well suggests that it's in us on some genetic level.
(01:50):
It's not just society being like be kind rewind, you know,
like like there's an actual imperative, a biological imperative for it.
And what's odd about is that most people would think
that flies in the face of survival of the fittest. Basically,
Darwin's whole jam that you know, looking out for number
one is kind of it might not be the antithesis
(02:12):
of kindness, but it certainly doesn't go hand in hand.
And yet when you dig into Darwin you're like, oh,
he was actually big time into kindness.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah, he talked, He wrote a lot of stuff about
communities cooperating and not just like hey, it's better if
you cooperate and to go kill that wooly mammoth. But
but like compassion and empathy are are are markers of
a healthy community and a community that will survive in
a fitter way.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, Like if Tuktok pushed jib Job out of the
way right as he was about to throw a spear
into the wooly mammoth, JibJab took took, took the shot
and took the mammoth down and got all the praise.
He's got hurt feelings between him and jib Job, right.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
He's got to go to Jim introducing a new character.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yes, it's happening before your very.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Eyes, while it's exciting in you're sixteen.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, so like in those communities and communities now, like
the thing that just kind of keeps things not just
going the you can go as a society in a
dystopian manner, but it's not a good society. It's not thriving.
I think the thing that makes it thrive, and then
a thriving society is much more likely to survive and
reproduce because everybody wants it to because they're having a
(03:25):
great time. Are things like kindness it's one of those
lubricators that helps us society go from surviving to thriving.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
I agree. And it's also something that you know you see, well,
hopefully you see firsthand when you have a kid. If
you don't, that doesn't mean that you know your child
is broken, because there are all kinds of reasons that
a kid may not just sort of be innately kind.
They might not like you, maybe you're the problem, dad,
(03:56):
But the study after study has shown that men children
are sort of innately kind to other people. And that,
of course, this is just me editorializing the second part,
and it is later as you grow up and be
a cynical adult, is when those kindnesses go away. But
you see examples all the time when you have a kid,
(04:17):
of your kid and other children and their friends and
classmates being kind to one another, and it's it is
truly heartwarming to see and makes you think, like, oh,
like maybe because this is what we're kind of talking about,
like are we innately good people like as humans? And
those examples kind of indicate that, yeah, we maybe are
good humans to begin with, like, and we're going to
(04:40):
talk about a lot of studies and experiments in this episode,
but This one was one where they had a kid
and they had some treats like little candies or something.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
They had goldfish or Teddy grams.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
I was just I was trying to not name check,
but sure.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Those are money treats, man, they deserve, like we need
to lay it out there just how valuable these treats were.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
And then they had these little puppet puppets. I was
gonna say puppet things, but puppets are puppets. So what
they would do was and what they're trying to get
at is like how happy did because you know, that's
sort of at the root of all all this is like,
and we'll talk later about when you receive a kindness.
Of course that makes sense that you're gonna feel great,
(05:24):
but does it feel good and make you happy to
do a kindness? And so they had this little puppets
and they said, all right, we're going to give these
puppets a goldfish sometimes and we're going to see how
happy that makes you. A little kid, We're going to
give you a goldfish to give to that puppet. We're
gonna see how happy that makes you. And then we're
(05:45):
gonna also just give you a bunch of goldfish and
say those are yours, but maybe you should give the
puppet one of your own. And the ones where the
like the happiest kids were the ones where they are
instances at least, were the ones where the kids gay
of their own stash, of their own head stash right
to these puppets.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Like they were happy seeing the puppet get a treat, sure,
but they were happier to give that puppet a treat
of its own, right.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Yeah, And they weren't necessarily doing that so they would
look good for the study.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
It seems exactly these were toddlers. I think they were
two or less two or younger. There's another study that
kind of found something similar that paid attention to little
kids and how they responded to a grown up needing help,
and they showed that kids definitely do enter distress might
(06:39):
be kind of a harsh word for it, but there's
a concern state that's much better. They are concerned. And
apparently you can track that by your pupils dilating. And
this is the Max Planck Institute, so they're pretty legit,
but they were tracking kids pupils dilating. So an adult
would drop something and have trouble picking it up and
the kids pupils would dilate, so they were concerned. The
(07:01):
kids became happiest or became less concerned or unconcerned when
they were able to help, But then second to that,
they were also unconcerned. They stopped feeling concerned after they
saw somebody else help the grown up. So it's not
like you were saying, it's not just about getting credit.
It's not just about thinking you're making adults happy. Like
(07:24):
these kids were genuinely relieved to see somebody getting help
even when they couldn't help them, And that helps underscore
the idea that yeah, or were biologically kind in our genes.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Did the people who organize the study account did they
make sure they just accounted for the dilation of pupils
by making sure testing these kids for methan fetibine us.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Oh yeah, that's that's step one a p test.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, all right, that checks out. Then.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, and the ones who they find outside of the
lab hours before sunrise digging a hole inexplicably, they pretty
much just get them out of the population right away.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
So people have been trying to I guess group and
measure and come up with scales on how to measure
kindness and happiness and stuff like that for a long
long time. And one way to measure it that they've
come up with is something called the Interpersonal Reactivity Index,
(08:24):
which is sort of an empathy measurement, which is great.
There's another one called the Inventory of Strengths that looks
at behavior treats kindness as a behavior. But these researchers
at Huddlesfield University of Huddlesfield in the UK in twenty seventeen,
they're like, all right, let's create a scale that's going
to measure like different aspects of being kind and see
(08:47):
if we can group them. And they did. They had
a forty item question in airon ended up clustering into
three groups, the first one being benign tolerance, which it's
like an everyday kindness, like hey you got groceries, why
don't you take my seat on the subway? That kind
of thing. Yeah, it's a kindness, Yeah, it's an everyday
(09:08):
sort of kindness. Empathetic responsivity responsivity yeah yeah, is the
next one, and that is a more emotional and then
much more personal and much more specific to a person.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Right, like this is somebody you have what they consider
strong ties to like a close friend or a family
member or something like that. So you're doing something kind
to them maybe when they need help, responding to them empathetically.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Which is great, really really well said yeah. And then
the last one is principal proaction, and this is altruism
but a little less emotional, like, you know, go look
at my record books. I give a lot of money
to charity.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Sure. So what they found though, so all of the
forty questions on the inventory, those they all basically clustered
into those three umbrellas. But they found three different things
that were common to all three of the little islands
of kindness, and those were they were, Yeah, Islands of
(10:08):
Kindness is a great band name, You're right, synthpop. Sure,
so they were I feel sorry for other people when
they experience problems. I like to make other people feel happy,
and people think I have a soft heart. And what
they came to, uh to kind of identify those three
things together that showed up under principal pact proaction, empathetic responsivity,
(10:33):
and benign tolerance. They can they said that that's your
core kindness. But that's that's the that's the basic thing
that makes people genuinely kind. Those are the things that
if you put those three things together, you have a
kind person. You can have other people doing kind things,
but they're not necessarily kind. And they even had a
measurement of unkindness. Nine of the questions were basically like
(10:56):
are you a jerk? Answer yes or no? They're like,
come on, answer that was question two. Be honest was
question three, and so on and so forth. And they
found that people who rated as unkind, say in one thing,
I think maybe benign tolerance, they still rated highly in
empathetic responsivity or principal pro action. So it's not like
(11:17):
even if you're unkind on paper that you don't do
kind things. What they were saying is genuinely kind people
check those three boxes.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah. I think on the questionnaire it should say are
you a jerk? And the only option is no? And
then the next question is do other people think you're
a jerk? And the only option is yes. Between those
two is the truth. They also found that women scored
higher than men generally speaking, and very specifically on benign
(11:47):
tolerance and principal pro action. Yeah, and this was very interesting.
There was no overall difference based on the age of
the participant, but if you were over forty, then you
would score higher on Prince pro action, which kind of
makes sense if that's like giving to charity, because I mean,
I don't think I had enough money to even give
(12:09):
to charity when I was younger.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I think too, that's that's also a measure of like replacing,
like adding distance to your kindness, you know.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Yeah, sure, it's not just like donating.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
You don't show up at like the house that the
charity is, like, you know, supporting, you're just giving to
that charity.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah. And also you know I said that I didn't
have enough money to give to charity. That's not true you.
I'm not gonna say always there are people that are
genuinely living like week to week and day to day
with their finances, so I'm not talking about that. But
in my twenties I could have, you know, not done
(12:49):
the one thing to give ten dollars to another thing.
You know what I'm saying. I know it was, But
you can't give time if you don't have money. It's
just another way to be cheir.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So one thing about that though, real quick before you
move on. I remember plenty of studies have turned up
that people of middle to lower socioeconomic status tend to
give more to charity than people higher up in the
socioeconomic status.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, is that more total monies are more like based
on their relative income?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I think yeah, I think relatively speaking, yeah, because I mean,
you know, like a billionaire could give a million dollars
and be like eat my dust. Right, lower socioeconomic people,
but that you know, relative to their wealth, it's not
really that big of a deal. Whereas somebody lower on
the scale or with less money, they gave a thousand dollars,
(13:41):
that might mean a lot more than a million dollars
to a billionaire.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, and boy, what a lesson to Let's say you're
a single parent with a few kids and you're really struggling.
What a lesson to your kids to be like, you
know what, I found a twenty dollars bill a day
and we're going to put two dollars in this eyes can.
That seems like he needs it more than we do,
even but.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
We're gonna get it and change. So it sounds like
a lot because he's not paying attention, but he'll hear it.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
Go get two hundred pennies. Said, should we take a break?
Oh yeah, all right, let's take a break. We'll be
right back, all right. We've talked about the runners high before,
(14:47):
that uphooric sense that a runner can feel at a
at a certain mile on the road or in the
woods or wherever you're running. Can you get a runner
sigh on a treadmill?
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Oh yeah, anytime, anytime you're exerting your body running for
a while.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Okay, I didn't have. I had something to do with
the environment and fresh air and stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
It might trigger it a little faster, who knows, but yes,
you can.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
Right all that to say, there's a helper's high that
they found. This is in the nineteen eighties that they
first reclued into this, and that is just what you
might think is after doing a kindness to someone, you
might feel a sense of exhilaration, you might feel a
very nice period of calm afterward. They have found, depending
(15:31):
on the kindness I guess in the person, that can
really get you going for a few weeks sometimes. And
this is really interesting, I thought, psychologically, are these next
couple of things is that you can get that same
high just by thinking back on that kindness you did
like a month ago.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Heck yeah, that's interesting. But if
you stop and think about it, it's anecdotally speaking of
course that works like that, but when you see it
on paper, it's kind of astounding that you can think
about something like you said you did a month ago
and feel good about it all over again. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, And we do know that there are literal physical
symptoms of kindnesses and the effect like better immune function,
your stress hormones are going to go down and stuff
like that. But it makes me wonder, if you, like,
if you can call up that kindness you did a
month ago when you're starting to feel like you're getting
a cold, would that literally help you avoid a cold? Oh?
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, absolutely, without a question. Okay, it's a good reason
to be kind Yeah, and have a good memory. Yeah,
there's there's another so another way you could put kindness.
It's probably not exactly interchangeable, but it's close enough. It's
pro social behavior. Yeah, because I don't think we said
something that's really important. Kindness is it's it's it's action.
(16:53):
It's always an action, like it's not just thinking something.
Thinking something is not kindness. You can have kind thought, sure,
but kindness is always an action and in fact, kindness
dot org, which is a nonprofit that's basically like a
that supports kindness research. They say that kindness is a
meta value which is just right out of the gate,
(17:13):
knocks your socks off, and that it encompasses acts of altruism, empathy, justice, respect,
and more. And that is always an action, often done
with the intention to benefit and sometimes but not always,
driven by emotion, which I mean if you get to
define kindness there, it is right there. And another way
to explain that is saying pro social behavior, you're acting
(17:35):
in a way that is kind, right, So people have
studied pro social behavior more than they've studied kindness, So
you can kind of take some of those pro social
behavior studies and apply them to kindness research too. And
that's exactly what a twenty twenty meta analysis did from
Hong Kong Polytechnic.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
You that's right, great school, it's got to be right.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, I was reading about it. I think it's actually
one of the best schools in the world. Yeah. See,
And they do not have a mask guy. As far
as they could tell, it's either an owl or winning
the Pooh. I couldn't make heads or tails of some
of the photos.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Let's go with me the pooh go poos. All right,
So they did a meta analysis like you're saying, in
twenty twenty and found that pro social behavior that you
so aptly defined was very closely linked with something called
I'm gonna call it udae amonic well being I think so,
or either that or you demonic maybe that's a silent eye,
who knows, But that is a happiness. That is, it's
(18:39):
sort of happiness. Plus it's associated with more meaning and
more purpose than an ordinary happiness, like oh boy, this
ice cream tastes good.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yeah, and I've seen so you have well being. I've
seen you demonic well being or happiness as well, doing
like you're doing stuff that makes you happy rather than
just feeling happy, and that in and of itself as
a component of well being that's pretty cool. So there's
also that same I think meta analysis turned up that
(19:08):
if you help somebody informally, you typically receive more personal benefits,
like more happiness or a sense of reward than you
do if you're formally you know, being kind, like organizing
a charity or even writing a check to charity.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
That makes sense, yeah, because it's like a surprise for
you as well. If it's an opportunity to perform a kindness.
And by the way, I don't only say a kindness
because of the gentleman from Winnebago Man, the Great Great documentary.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, I remember that, but I don't remember him saying
a kindness.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, he said all the time, do me a kindness,
and you know, yeah, get me a coffee.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
But it kind of fits though, because a kindness is
an act. So it's like it turns it into an
action almost by making it a noun or.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, yeah, an adverb?
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Is that an adverb?
Speaker 2 (20:04):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
No, it's not an advert.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
I'm about as good at English as I am at math.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
No that's not true. Oh thanks, you're much gooder at English.
So oh, I don't even know where I was going
with this, because all I can think about is Winnibigo Man.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
You were talking about, Oh.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
The surprise of a kindness that presents itself, that you
can like, all of a sudden, you're at the grocery
store and there's an opportunity for you to perform a kindness.
That I get that that might mean more to you
than on a happiness level than like organizing a charity
because organizing a volunteer day or something is a lot
of work, and it can be a pain, and there
(20:42):
can be frustrations, and even though the end result is
you've done something well, at the end of that day,
you probably sit in your chair and you're like, oh man,
that was a lot. But when you just do a
small kindness, it's a surprise for you, and so of
course you're going to be like, that was the best
thing ever. I was just the best dude, and it
only took me thirty seconds.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, And what's neat is there's other research, so we'll
talk about down the line that basically finds that surprise
is an element of the happiness that can come out
of acts of kindness.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
So yeah, I think there's definitely something to that.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Chuck, Yeah, and the best way to scare people.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
So there's another study. I've got another study at my sleeve.
You want to hear about it.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Let's hear it.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
They were trying to say, Okay, like, great job coming
up with a kindness skill. But what are we really
measuring here? Are we measuring actual acts of kindness making
people happy? Or is there some other thing that we
don't realize We're measuring. So they actually very cleverly kind
of broke it out into a few components and they
had people either do something kind for others, an active kindness,
(21:46):
something kind for themselves still an active kindness, but not
for anybody else, totally extroverted behavior that's not kindness, So
maybe striking up a neutral conversation about the weather with
a stranger it is hot, right, or doing something that's
open minded but it's not social and it's not kind.
(22:08):
And the example that Olivia gave was engaging with art,
like going to see you know, going to a museum, right, Okay,
all of those things can make you happy. And the
University of California psychologists wanted to see if we were
accidentally measuring that, and what they found is that the
people who did acts of kindness for other people were
far and away happier than the other three groups.
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Yeah, pretty interesting. And in that little bit you mentioned,
one of the things that covered for was doing a
kindness for yourself. There was a twenty nineteen paper from
Oxford University where they found that acts of kindness to
other people and acts of kindness to yourself had about
(22:50):
the same positive effect on your happiness and I didn't
read that as like, oh, well, that just shoots holes
in the previous theory. I saw it as like, well, yeah,
your brain is still receiving those triggers that like you're
doing a kindness and you're a person too, and you
need kindness is to be done for you, and if
(23:11):
you're the one doing it, then great. Exactly, you know
you should be kind to yourself.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Be kind to yourself.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
That's right, and rewind So I.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Saw something explained like the feeling that you get from
the helpers high, explained by pointing out that acts of
kindness are actually an exertion for us, just like exercises
an exertion. Anything beyond what we need to do to
survive that day is technically an exertion, and our bodies
created this reward system to overcome the sense of exertion
(23:43):
or pain or sore muscles or loss of giving up
your goldfish treat to a puppet and flooding us with
chemicals that make us feel better. So that totally explains
the biochemical basis for that Helper's high, for the sense
of being rewarded by doing an act of kindness or
(24:04):
just a kindness, and that it's kind of apparently centrally
located in the vegas nerve, which, if you'll remember from
More Organism episode, is really responsible for that. It's a
huge part of the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system, which is
the opposite of flight. It's like chill and chill instead
(24:25):
of fight or flight.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
Yeah, like getting your breathing under control and your tummy
feeling good and your heart rate a little lower, stuff
like that. We talked about it quite a few times.
I feel like over the years, it's only in mammals.
It's very unique to mammals. And because it is a
part of that autonomic nervous system, it's connected to like
(24:48):
basically all the organs right, Like, it's affecting everything inside
your body, which is great, and it's you know, what's
going to give you that warm feeling when it's active,
when you've done a kindness to someone, that's where that
warm feeling is coming from, basically.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, and specifically it's oxytocin. They've linked that to kindness
and that helper's high and that is it's frequently called
the love hormone. It's it is around from every event,
like a mother holding a newborn baby. Skin to skin
for the first time. That's a huge oxytocin release. To
(25:25):
doing an active kindness for somebody, is that warm feeling
in your chest, that feeling that where like you just
suddenly are like I could if I really thought about it,
I could cry right now, Like you just feel so
good and just overwhelmed with positive feelings. That's oxytocin, and
acts of kindness have been shown to release oxytocin. That
seems to be part of the basis of that helper's high. So, however,
(25:49):
you can get oxytocin, get it, that's my motto.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, totally an interesting thing to jumping back a sec
to that twenty nineteen Oxford paper that talked about doing
a kindness on oneself. I found this particularly interesting. Okay,
just witnessing an act of kindness can also have a
similar effect on you, which is amazing, And that makes
(26:15):
me wonder if our old friend's mirror neurons are not
involved somehow.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Well, yeah, I would think so, because empathy has to
be involved, Like you have to feel something towards somebody
who you're helping, or else you just wouldn't even think
to help them. You'd probably just be like huh huh
you know m hm. So yeah, if empathy is involved
in the mirror, neurons have to be involved. It's just
the way it goes.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Friend, But we've I mean, who hasn't watched the one
of those internet videos on Instagram or wherever where you
see a real kindness and you know they got that
piano music plan and all of a sudden you're tearing
up like your body is firing all those same neurons, apparently,
(27:00):
according to Oxford, as if you had done that kindness yourself, right,
like feel good neurons.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
You got that rascal for that veteran, like you did that.
For all intents and purposes, none of us have to
do anything. As long as there's some people out there
doing kindnesses and posting those videos on the internet, the
rest of us can just get the benefits from it
without having a lift a finger.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, and you go into your therapist and they're they're like,
I know you have a problem with uh empathy and kindnesses?
Did you do any this week? And you're like, yeah,
I watch like three videos.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
Exactly make you feel great. Yeah, So should we take
another break and then come back and talk about how
it helps people who kindness is given to. Sure, Okay,
we're going to do that. So I think it's beyond
(28:12):
ridiculous to say that a person who is the beneficiary
of an act of kindness gets something out of it too.
They literally get something out of it in a lot
of times, like if it's a veteran and the rascal
that a bunch of people donated to buy him, it
can be a goldfish treat, like they benefit in that sense,
(28:35):
but they also benefit emotionally as well. And what they
found in a bunch of different studies is kind of
what we were talking about before that other elements like surprise,
just the gesture, the thought, Like they say it's the
thought that counts well. Some kind of studies have basically
turned that up that if you don't just think about it,
but you actually follow through, the people are more moved
(28:58):
by the thought, by the gesture than they are by
the goldfish treat or the rascal. Although I mean, if
you give somebody a rascal, they're probably going to be
pretty happy.
Speaker 1 (29:07):
What's a rascal?
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Oh, it's a little mobilized get around kart that you
see people riding. Oh Okayan stage or immobility.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I got you all right, I didn't know those were
called rascals.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
That is the original trading it for one of the brands,
and it's just it's become kind of a proprietary eponym, Okay,
at least in my house.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah. So one of the experiments they did to test
this was in nineteen ninety five. They looked at unhoused
folks who went to the ER a lot for treatment.
And they had a controlled group who just got their
regular old er visit, and then they had another group
(29:49):
that had that visit plus student volunteers who would chat
them up, talk about stuff and life and listen to
them and held conversations and maybe gave them a goldfish
or something. And they found that the members of the
test group were twice as likely to rate their care
higher sure, which you know makes perfect sense, and that
(30:11):
and this was interesting. The number of ER visits among
that group dropped by a third. Yeah, which I guess
indicates that they're healthier.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I guess the researchers took it to mean that the
unhoused people who show up to the r over and
over and over again are basically showing up until they
feel like they're being treated like a human being and
that that group were satisfied that they had received good
care for once and they stopped coming back to try to,
you know, get it out of the people in the er.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Oh, and that is really interesting because another way to
think of that is like, why didn't the people who
got that warm care want to come back and say, like, boy,
that was you know, that was pretty great that goldfish.
I had a nice conversation with.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
A student I totally thought the same thing.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
So there's another study that involved cupcakes, and who doesn't
want to talk about that.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
It's a good one.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
It is, it's a great one. So the researchers gave
strangers or study participants a cupcake and said, here you go,
here's a cupcake. You can do whatever you want with it,
but you can also give it to a stranger if
you like. And apparently eighty percent of the participants gave
their cupcake away. Well I want to know those twenty percent.
(31:28):
I hope they didn't tell them what they were actually studying,
because I think you'd really have some real soul searching
to do after you find out that you're part of
the twenty percent who kept the cupcake for yourself in
a kindness study.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah, they tell them that, like, your mouth is full
of cupcake, and they revealed that to you, and you're like.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
What, Yeah, it's just going to spit it back into
the little wrapper and put it back and then go
give it to a stranger.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Yeah, and that's when they reveal the milk that you
don't get.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
So the eighty percent of people who gave their cupcake away,
they asked them, how do you think how like how
much of an impact do you think this gesture is
going to have? And this is a really important thing
that they turned up that the people who received the
cupcake rated their happiness is higher than the person who
(32:17):
gave them the cupcake expected it to be, like a
lot higher. And that's kind of a human flaw. Like
we're we have genetic programming to be kind, we also
have genetic programming to second guess ourselves and be self
conscious and that prevents us from doing acts of kindness
in a lot of ways. And even when we do
(32:38):
acts of kindness, we underestimate their effect. But the other
part of that cupcake study that I found interesting is
that the people who got the cupcake basically said it
was the surprise that made it such a great happy
experience for them.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, Like the people who got the cupcake, the twenty
percent who ate it, mm hmm. They rated their happiness,
and I'm sure they're fairly happy, but not nearly as
happy at the people that were surprised by a stranger
right giving him them a cupcake.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah. So I feel like we fairly well established that
being kind is a good thing and that it exists. Yeah,
almost almost. What about your family, though, because think about this, Yeah,
giving a cupcakes to a stranger who you're never going
to see again, there's nothing but pretty much an upside
(33:31):
to that. It's all upside totally. But if you gave
your cupcake away to a family member, you're going to
see that family member later that day after they had
a rough day at the office, and they're probably not
feeling much gratitude towards you for the cupcake you gave
them earlier in the day, even though you're still feeling
good about yourself for having given them your cupcake. And
(33:51):
therein lies the big rub with acts of kindness in
what are known as strong tie relationships like your family.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, and it seems in the case of family and
I would imagine this might go for like very close
friend groups as well, but I'm just speculating. But in
this study in twenty seventeen, they showed a very strong
correlation in the happiness level, not being dictated by, but
being influenced by whether or not these acts of kindness
(34:23):
were noticed and acknowledged. Sure, so, they got people that newlyweds,
people had just gotten married, and they said, spend a
couple of weeks recording instances instance instance oh Man times
in which one spouse would help out their partner put
aside their own like if you're in the middle doing something,
(34:44):
you would stop with a small act of kindness that
your partner needs in that moment. And then also while
you're doing this, record your emotional state. And they found
that acts of kindness that had the most impacts on
both the giver and the receiver was when they were
noticed and acknowledged. And also found unsurprisingly that when there
maybe surprisingly yeah for sure, when the receiver did not
(35:06):
consciously notice that it still resulted in improved moods for
both especially the giver.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Sure, but they were like, these people are in the
honeymoon phase of their relationship. Exactly if we did the
same experiment ten years down the road, would that second
part still hold up? And there's a group. There's a
pair of researchers. There are a couple, John and Julie Gotman,
and they are incredibly famous, incredibly well researched and well
(35:35):
read and well cited, like couples researchers like they're the
real deal, legit.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, a marriage therapist, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
They actually are the ones who teach the marriage therapists
who go teach other marriage therapists, like they're doing like
really great firsthand research. And one of the things they
found over the course of the career is that acts
of kindness, even incredibly small acts of kindness, they can
take the the form of a huh, when your spouse
is telling you about something you couldn't care less about
(36:05):
and you're actually really busy, just that counts as an
act of kindness. And that the couples who give one
another more active kindness than not. I think they came
up with some ratio of like four positive interactions to
one negative interaction is like the key to success. That
those couples who did more kind things to one another
(36:25):
had you know, much more successful and lasting marriages and
that again, those acts can be very very small and
they still have a big impact.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Yeah, because what they're talking about and this is something
I've seen in my own marriage at like Emily and
I've been together for over twenty years now, like all
in and once you get into the multiple decade span,
you find and you would be wise to learn how
to do this more, but you find that attention is
(36:56):
one of the biggest parts of being happily married. Sure,
and that go you know, that jibes with what you
were talking about there with the study or that you know,
the gotman stuff with like you know, I think when
you've been with someone for a long time, you find
yourself in your routines and like, oh, I'm reading this thing.
And but like Emily will come home with a story
(37:18):
about something that just happened, and like the spouse's wise
who will stop what they're doing just for a moment
and pay attention to them in a real way and
do more than a huh like, oh wow, that's really
cool that that happened to you today, and chances are
you can probably get back to what you're doing. The
unwise person does not, or they put out that they
(37:40):
have to stop what they're doing, or that their attention
is diverted, and that, my friend, is not a recipe
for success. And I'm having to continually sort of in
a like train myself still because I think certain people
have deficits when it comes to stuff like that. And
also just there's so much stuff now when you know
(38:02):
it was a lot easier before there were smartphones and
the internet and like constant other things that are distracting you.
But you were wise to sort of try and be
aware of those distractions to pay attention to your family
and your spouse.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So the way that the Gotments put it is that
when your spouse or your friend or whoever is meaningful
to you brings up something and saying something that is
asking for your attention, they're making a bid for attention,
and you have a choice. Like you said, you can
pay attention to them, that's what they call turning toward
You can snap at them for always bothering you when
(38:37):
you're trying to read, or you can ignore them, which
is not as bad as snapping at them all the time.
But when those ignoring instances add up, it can have
a really harmful impact on the relationship. So I guess
the upshot of this is that the gotments prove that
a successful relationship is exhausting, right, and you never.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Get to read the stuff you want to read on
your phone? Am I right?
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Guys, you're always bothering me.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I guess we should talk a little bit here towards
the end about gratitude and guilt, because acts of kindness,
many times will spring from guilt. And here's the thing
with guilt, Like being consumed by guilt is no good
for anybody, But a little bit of guilt every now
(39:31):
and then can lead to more generosity. And the Catholics,
I feel like it's almost more of a It's not like, oh,
I feel so guilty so I have to do this.
It's just like, boy, I feel a little guilty, so
I'm just a little more aware and on point and
(39:53):
trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yeah, especially if you know you've hurt someone's feelings and
that's what you're feeling guilty about, that's going to turn
your kindness into hyperdrive. But researchers have found that your
your kindness is being laser focused on that person. You're
marshaling all of your kindness resources and you're focusing on
that poor person who probably doesn't even want to talk
to you right now, but you're like, I gotta be
(40:16):
kind to you because I feel so guilty. And what
they found is that actually that kind that level of
kindness excludes other people. You're walking past other chances to
be kind to other people who need acts of kindness
because you're so focused on this person. So that guilty
sense that can bring you to acts of kindness can
very easily become overraw and overblown, and nobody.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Wins, right. And they've also found that ignoring like that
could cause you to ignore did you already say that
ignore other people?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Pretty much? Yeah, you're you're you're you're not paying attention
to other people's needs and just focusing on the person
who's mattitude because you feel guilty.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
The gratitude piece I don't fully understand in this context,
because they have found in experiment it's a gratitude does
seem to encourage generosity when even when it costs you something.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yeah, normally, like people are in a good mood, or
if you're in a good mood, you will probably do
like acts of kindness. Holding a door for somebody doesn't
cost you a thing, it's an act of kindness. People
consider that a kind gesture. But if you feel gratitude
because somebody else did something nicier, or you're just happy
to be alive, you feel that sense of gratitude, you're
(41:26):
actually more likely to give somebody your only cupcake like something.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
That's okay, all right, yeah, that makes sense, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
And then the other thing about it, though, is that
it doesn't even have to be gratitude toward the person
who gave you that cupcake, or you don't have to
do something back to them. You can actually take that
gratitude and give it to a third party, which is
pretty cool, like that whole pay it forward thing. But
what another study found, I think back in two thousand
(41:53):
and six, they found that that third that paying it
forward thing is unconscious and that when they needed it out, hey,
you did a really nice thing for this other person,
the third party, because the first party did something nice
to you the second party, if that makes sense in
a super legal jargon way right, And when they told
(42:13):
them that, that sense of gratitude just kind of vanished,
like when it became conscious, it went away, but unconsciously,
they were more prone to help other people commit acts
of kindness for other people because they were feeling gratitude
that somebody else did something nice for them.
Speaker 1 (42:30):
Have you ever seen we talked a little bit about
I think you should leave the Sketch Show from Tim Robinson.
Did you ever watch any of it?
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah? Yeah, I've watched it all.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Oh okay, it always makes me think the pay it
forward thing. Maybe I don't know. They're all great, but
one of his best, my favorite sketches ever of his
is the drive through when of buying paying for someone's
drive through behind you and then he speeds around and
then you know, fifty nine burgers, fifield milkshakes, one hundred
(42:59):
pe fifty coffees. Yeah so funny. Yeah, yeah, oh boy,
I love that guy. What else, Chuck, Well, we can
wrap it up with a little bit on compassion fatigue.
Doing kindnesses is great, but they have found that if
you are someone who works in an industry where you
have to have a lot of compassion, if you're a
(43:20):
hospice nurse, if you are a single parent and you
have a child with high needs, if you work at
a shelter for unhoused people and you're just constantly having
to give of yourself every day that you know, you
can exhaust yourself of that, and it can be very
(43:41):
difficult to work those hours of being nothing but empathetic
all day long and doing kindnesses all day long. And
that's compassion fatigue. You can have mood swings, you can
be irritable, you can be anxious and depressed, and like,
bad things can happen. So that's like why you need
to take care of yourself, Like self care is so
(44:03):
important when you have a situation like that.
Speaker 2 (44:05):
Yeah, you can also lose your general like basic drive
for compassion. Like you could start being like I don't
care about any of these people that I'm treating in
the er anymore.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
Yeah, so burned out. That's tough stuff.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yes, Fortunately that's pretty limited to certain occupations or situations
like people taking care of a loved one at home
twenty four to seven basically. And yeah, there's a lot
of resources. If you are thinking that you might have
compassion fatigue, you should just start reading about it on
the web and there's a lot of really good solutions
to that that can help.
Speaker 1 (44:38):
Yeah, take it easy on yourself because it's painful to
admit sometimes that stuff is very hard and that you
feel resentment and like it's human like let yourself up. Sure. Nice, Nice,
that's what I say.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
And there's one last thing about kindness that I thought
was really great, Like it can be hard to be mindful,
it can be hard to cultivate attitude. Like those aren't
just things that just snap into into mind like when
you want them to write. The great thing about kindness
is it's an action. So you can just do it,
like you don't have to Like, it's not something you
(45:12):
have to cultivate or work on or a mindset you
have to be in.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, you can just do it.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
And again, as we've shown as study after study after
study after study has shown it's beneficial to you and
the receiver and it keeps society going, so said Darwin,
So do it.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, do a little experiment if you if you find
you're having a very blue period, try holding open that door,
do a kindness or two and see what that does
for you. And just just chart it and see what happens.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Very nice. Well, since Chuck said chart it, everybody, that
means it's time for a listener mail.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Uh, I'm gonna call this sportsy. I thought this was interesting. Okay,
this was in regards to our bad business moves, bad
business decisions. Sure, and this was a good one. And
as an NBA fan, I can't believe I didn't know this.
And you're an NBA fan too, Yes, you'll appreciate this. Hey, guys,
(46:10):
was late to the show, discovered you during the pandemic,
and was happy to have your voices in my ears
through those long days on the worst ish business deals.
I thought i'd share one of my favorites. When the
ABA merged with the NBA back in the seventies, some
teams became NBA franchises, like the Nets and Indiana and
San Antonio and Denver, the Nuggets. The rest were bought
(46:32):
out by the NBA. Like you know, hey, I'm sorry,
Kentucky Colonels will give you three million dollars to stop
being an ABA team.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
You know you're bad if somebody pays you three million
dollars to stop playing.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
The owners of the Saint Louis, well, they just had
to make them go way, you know. The owners of
the Saint Louis Spirit, the Silna Brothers, negotiated a smaller
deal two point two million, which included a share of
television rights in Perpo two oh up through twenty thirteen.
This earned the silma's about three hundred million dollars for
not operating an NBA team from the seventies. In twenty fourteen,
(47:11):
the NBA finally bought themselves out of that clause by
an agreement of a lump sum five hundred million dollar payment.
What so, the silma's total pocket was eight hundred million
dollars from the NBA. To not have an NBA team
may not be the worst business deal of all time,
may have been the worst in pro sports worst I
(47:32):
guess for the NBA. Sure, that's amazing. I'd never heard that.
So that is from Steve Sonon in Seattle. Sorry about
the super Sonics Washington.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
Thanks Steve. That was a great That was a great one.
I had not heard anything about that, and.
Speaker 1 (47:46):
It's kind of crazy to hear some It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
Some people in Kentucky making eight hundred million dollars. Northern
Kentucky probably too. Yeah, if you want to get in
touch with this, like Steve did, you can send us
an email. Send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts, Myheart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
Show Links
AboutOrder Our BookStoreSYSK ArmyRSSPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!