The Power Of One Act Of Kindness
But how much does witnessing good affect us—and why? A new analysis of decades of research aimed to find out the answers. The results suggest that our acts of kindness and generosity, online or offline, can have meaningful ripple effects in our communities. Pay it forward Pay it forward Researchers synthesized results from 88 experimental studies involving over 25,000 participants to measure how much our own altruism increases after witnessing someone acting “prosocially”—for example, comforting someone who is crying, donating to charity, or acting cooperatively in a competitive game....