where kindness comes from

Measures of human kindness

1. Genuine kindness (benevolence)
2. Strategic kindness (maximizing gain and avoiding cost or loss)
3. Norm-motivated kindness (reciprocity, helping and punishing to uphold fairness)
4. Self-reported kindness

Factors that matter the most in shaping kindness

• Feelings - i.e. whether we’d report ourselves as having more positive or negative feelings in life - influences our tendency towards genuine kindness.
  • If you’re not often in a bad mood, you’re more likely to behave kindly in an unrequited way.
  • This is consistent with literature saying that personal distress can block social attunement, connection and - as a consequence - even kindness.
• Intelligence. Higher scores of cognitive, attention and IQ tests related to both genuine kindness, but also strategic or norm-motivated kindness.
  • They did not, however, describe themselves as more kind.
  • People with lower intelligence were just as likely to take cost-benefit analysis, reciprocity or reputation into consideration.
• Age, money, family, and sex.
  • As people get older, genuine kindness and norm-motivated kindness falls. It suggests they may be less concerned with reciprocity, fairness and reputation. Their kindness depends more on costs and benefits.
  • As income increased, genuine kindness and strategic kindness falls. This is consistent with literature of the harmful effects on inequality from the privileged. Norm-motivated kindness, however, does not fall with income.

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Source:

• “The Structure of Human Prosociality: Differentiating Altruistically Motivated, Norm Motivated, Strategically Motivated, and Self-Reported Prosocial Behavior
• Where Does Kindness Come From?

[Publisher:: Greater Good Magazine, SAGE Journals] |
[Authors:: Anne Böckler, Anita Tusche, Tania Singer, Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas]