This is one of my two favorite t-shirts (the other has a dog and a cat sitting side-by side, under the word “Peace”).  When I wear it, it gets its share of smiles and even the occasional comment – usually something like “Yeah, random acts of kindness!”.   But no one has ever articulated what I believe is true:

Kindness Can Change the World
(one small act at a time)

I recently read an article in the New York Times article entitled, “The Unexpected Power of Random Acts of Kindness” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/well/family/random-acts-of-kindness.html which summarized recent research showing that people who perform acts of kindness tend to underestimate how positive they are.  A recent study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, showed that people often  don’t realize how much the recipient appreciates the kindness they have done.  And researchers believe that that perception may hold many of us back from doing nice things for others more often.

The NYTimes article described eight small experiments, several of which were conducted here in Chicago, at  Maggie Daley Park.  Here’s a description of one of the studies:

“….researchers recruited 84 participants on two cold weekends at the ice skating rink at Maggie Daley Park in Chicago. They were given a hot chocolate from the snack kiosk and were told they could keep it or give it to a stranger as a deliberate act of kindness. The 75 participants who gave away their hot chocolate were asked to guess how “big” the act of kindness would feel to the recipient on a scale from 0 (very small) to 10 (very large), and to predict how the recipient would rate their mood (ranging from much more negative than normal to much more positive than normal) upon receiving the drink. The recipients were then asked to report how they actually felt using the same scales.

In that experiment — and across all others — the people doing the kind thing consistently underestimated how much it was actually appreciated, said one of the study’s authors, Amit Kumar, an assistant professor of marketing and psychology at the University of Texas, Austin.

“We believe these miscalibrated expectations matter for behavior,” he said. “Not knowing one’s positive impact can stand in the way of people engaging in these sorts of acts of kindness in daily life.”  (NYT, 2-8-22)

There is a large body of research that all points to the same message; kindness matters.   But we don’t believe it; when we do acts of kindness, we don’t think it has an impact.

It does.

Maybe we think that it’s a matter of magnitude – that only big kindnesses make a difference.  Nope.

Another group of studies, reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp-pspi0000402.pdf

demonstrated that small gestures like a brief phone call, text, or email had a significant positive impact on the relationship.  In addition, in the 13 studies summarized, with more than 5.900 participants, people consistently underestimated how much the recipient would appreciate their gesture.

There’s also evidence to suggest that a kind act benefits both parties; that the giver of kindness experiences lowering of stress levels and an increase in happiness. I’m reminded of a time, many years ago, when my son Jay had just gotten his driver’s license.  He came home one day, saying that one of his teachers had talked about a movie that depicted the concept of “paying it forward”.  Jay decided to try one of the examples that his teacher mentioned; the next time he was on the tollway he paid his 40 cent toll and then gave the toll worker an additional 40 cents for the car behind him….just for fun.  Jay talked about that for weeks – imagining the happy surprise of the driver behind him when they discovered their toll had already been paid,  For 40-cents, Jay got a dose of happiness that lasted for weeks.  Kindness benefits everyone involved.

It doesn’t take much – a short text message, a brief call, a compliment given at the grocery store, tulips from your backyard.

At a time when we’re all hearing about the epidemic of loneliness in our country; where there is evidence that loneliness is more damaging to our health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, doing a little act of kindness and connecting with each other can make a big difference,  We just have to get over our (incorrect) belief that it doesn’t matter.

Despite what my t-shirt says, it really isn’t free.  The “cost” is a few minutes of our time and a little gesture from our hearts.  And a belief in the power of kindness.

The Jewish faith has a word for it:
tikkun olam (heal the world). 

It starts with each of us.