Ten things we learned from the world’s largest study of kindness
By Claudia Hammond, presenter of Radio 4's The Anatomy of Kindness
Although the world might not feel like a very kind place at the moment, this might be just the time when acts of kindness matter the most.
Back in August 2021 we launched The Kindness Test on Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 4. It was an online study created by a team at the led by psychologist Prof Robin Banerjee. People could choose whether to take part, and as more than 60,000 did, this is now the world’s largest in-depth study on kindness. Here are some of the things we learned…
1. Kind acts are very common
Three-quarters of people told us they received kindness from close friends or family quite often or nearly all the time. And when we asked about the most recent time someone was kind to them, 16% of people said it was within the last hour and a further 43% said it was within the last day. Whatever people’s age or wherever they lived, kindness was very common.
2. The most common kind act is to help people when they ask
You don’t have to scale Everest for charity or save someone from a burning building (wonderful as these acts both are) to practise kindness in everyday life and to make a difference to people. Our study shows how everyday most acts of kindness are.
Helping people when they asked was the most commonly reported kindness. Next came doing favours for friends, opening doors to let people through, helping strangers to pick up things they’d dropped, followed by having concerned feelings for people less fortunate than them.
3. Two thirds of the people think the pandemic has made us kinder
People who took part in The Kindness Test felt that in terms of their lifetimes, levels of kindness had either stayed the same (39%) or declined (36%). Yet the experience during the pandemic seems very different with two thirds of people saying this unprecedented time made people kinder. Perhaps because it was so difficult, people took more time to look after each other and noticed the small kindnesses that can make such a difference.
4. There’s a link between kindness and well-being
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that people who regularly receive lots of acts of kindness have higher levels of well-being. But the study also found that people who carry out more kind acts or even just notice that other people are carrying out kind acts also have higher levels of well-being on average. This fits in with lots of previous research showing that acting kindly makes us feel good.
5. Extroverts give and receive more kindness
Personality had a big impact on how often people said they are kind to others, but also on how kind people are to them. A personality scale was included in The Kindness Test and the people who were kindest were more likely to score high on extroversion, and also on agreeableness and openness. People who score high on openness are imaginative and curious, and like having new experiences.
Of course these are averages, so you can be quiet and not keen on new experiences, but still be very kind!
6. People see more acts of kindness at home than anywhere else
When we asked people where kindness takes place, the home came top, followed by medical settings, the workplace, green spaces and shops. The places where people saw the fewest kind acts were online, on public transport and in the street.
The good news was that people generally agreed that kindness was valued at work, especially in social work, healthcare, hospitality and education.
7. Women carry out slightly more kind acts on average and so do people who are religious
Of course we have to rely on self-reports in this study, so there is a possibility that women and religious people feel that they ought to say that they are kind in order to look good. But plenty of people are prepare to admit they’re not very generous, for example, and previous studies have shown that we are quite good at judging our own levels of kindness. So I’m inclined to take people at their word.
8. We worry about our offers of kindness being misinterpreted
People were asked what might stop them from being kind and the top reason they gave was that they were afraid their actions might be misinterpreted. People also said that they didn’t have enough time to be as kind as they’d like to and half said social media played a part in stopping them being kinder.
9. People who talk to strangers see and receive more kindness
What’s interesting about this one, is that this difference between those who do and don’t talk to strangers, persisted even when personality was taken into account. So it’s not just that the extroverts are more likely to be kind and also, because they’re extroverts, more likely to talk to strangers. Whatever personality you have, the more you talk to strangers, then on average the more kindness you receive, but also the more kindness you notice going on around you.
10. Income makes little difference to how kind people are
How much money people earn had zero correlation with overall reports of being kind. But we did also ask people to imagine they had received an unexpected windfall of £850 and how much of it they might give away. While some were honest enough to say none of it, the average amount people said they would give away was £252. People with the lowest incomes tended to say they would give away lower amounts on average, which makes sense because they could least afford to, but interestingly the people with the highest incomes also gave away the least.
How kind are you?
Imagine you are on your way to meet a friend for a picnic and are carrying a basket full of food. You pass someone sitting alone on a bench looking thin, unkempt and possibly hungry. Would you stop and give them something from your picnic basket?
In our study, two thirds of people said they would give the person something from their basket. And 18% of people even said they would let the person choose whatever they wanted
Hear more results from the study in The Anantomy of Kindness.
Find out more
Hear more results from our kindness study in Radio 4's The Anantomy of Kindness.
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