Kindness is a type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward in return. It is a subject of interest in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

, and

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

. It can be directed towards one's self or other people, and is present across multiple different species and cultures.

History

In English, the word ''kindness'' dates from approximately 1300, though the word's sense evolved to its current meanings in the late 1300s.

In society

Human

mate choice Mate choice is one of the primary mechanisms under which evolution can occur. It is characterized by a "selective response by animals to particular stimuli" which can be observed as behavior.Bateson, Paul Patrick Gordon. "Mate Choice." Mate Choi ...

studies suggest that both men and women value kindness in their prospective mates, along with

intelligence Intelligence has been defined in many ways: the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. It can be described as t ...

, physical appearance, attractiveness, and

age Age or AGE may refer to: Time and its effects * Age, the amount of time someone has been alive or something has existed ** East Asian age reckoning, an Asian system of marking age starting at 1 * Ageing or aging, the process of becoming older ...

In psychology

Studies at Yale University used games with babies to conclude that kindness is inherent to human beings. There are similar studies about the root of empathy in infancy – with motor

mirroring Mirroring is the behavior in which one person subconsciously imitates the gesture, idiolect, speech pattern, or attitude of another. Mirroring often occurs in social situations, particularly in the company of close friends or family, often going ...

developing in the early months of life, and leading (optimally) to the concern shown by children for their peers in distress. Barbara Taylor and Adam Phillips stressed the element of necessary realism in adult kindness, as well as the way "real kindness changes people in the doing of it, often in unpredictable ways". Behaving kindly may improve a person's measurable

well-being Well-being is what is Intrinsic value (ethics), ultimately good for a person. Also called "welfare" and "quality of life", it is a measure of how well life is going for someone. It is a central goal of many individual and societal endeavors. ...

. Many studies have tried to test the hypothesis that doing something kind makes a person better off. A meta-analysis of 27 such studies found that the interventions studied (usually measuring short-term effects after brief acts of kindness, in

WEIRD Weird may refer to: Places * Weird Lake, a lake in Minnesota, U.S. People *"Weird Al" Yankovic (born 1959), American musician and parodist Art, entertainment, and media Literature * '' Weird US'', a series of travel guides * ''The Weird'', a 20 ...

research subjects) supported the

hypothesis A hypothesis (: hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. A scientific hypothesis must be based on observations and make a testable and reproducible prediction about reality, in a process beginning with an educated guess o ...

that acting more kindly improves your well-being.

Teaching kindness

Kindness is most often taught by parents to children and is learned through observation and some direct teaching. Studies have shown that through programs and interventions kindness can be taught and encouraged during the first 20 years of life. Further studies show that kindness interventions can help improve well-being with comparable results as teaching gratitude. Similar findings have shown that organizational level teaching of kindness can improve the well-being of adults in college.

References

External links

*
A UK independent, not-for-profit organisation

Random Acts of Kindness Foundation

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{{Authority control Giving Virtue Concepts in ethics Seven virtues Fruit of the Holy Spirit Emotions Moral psychology Empathy