Study Reveals What Really Makes Someone Kind—and It’s Not What You Think
Summary
A study led by Ohio State University found that people generally judged acts as kind or nice without weighing whether the giver acted purely selflessly. Participants saw “caring” as a higher standard, especially when the gesture came from someone they knew.Key Facts
- The study appeared in the International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology.
- Researchers tested seven features of helpful actions: anonymity, benefit, cost, expectation, planning, warmth, and the relationship between giver and recipient.
- The final study included 736 participants ages 18 to 77.
- Participants rated actions similarly as kind and nice across six of the seven features; cost was the exception.
- Participants considered both high-cost and low-cost actions equally kind, but rated high-cost actions as nicer.
- Actions between people who knew each other were rated as more caring than the same actions between strangers.
- Participants rated high-cost actions as more caring, but not more kind.
- The researchers proposed that caring may be more closely linked to emotion, companionship, and connection.
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