 | This articleis missing information about the philosophical and religious aspects of kindness. Please expand the article to include this information. Further details may exist on thetalk page.(May 2025) |
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 inphilosophy,religion, andpsychology.
It can be directed towards one's self or other people, and is present across multiple different species and cultures.
In English, the wordkindness dates from approximately 1300, though the word's sense evolved to its current meanings in the late 14th century.[1]
Humanmate choice studies suggest that both men and women value kindness in their prospective mates, along withintelligence,physical appearance, attractiveness, andage.[2]
TheNew Zealand the Prime MinisterJacinda Ardern believed that leadership should espouse kindness when she led the country through theCovid-19 pandemic, theChristchurch mosque shootings, and the Whakaari volcanic eruption.[3]
Studies at Yale University used games with babies to conclude that kindness is inherent to human beings.[4] There are similar studies about the root of empathy in infancy[5] – with motormirroring developing in the early months of life,[6] and leading (optimally) to the concern shown by children for their peers in distress.[7]: 112
Barbara Taylor andAdam Phillips stressed the element of necessary realism[jargon] in adult kindness, as well as the way "real kindness changes people in the doing of it, often in unpredictable ways".[7]: 96 & 12
Behaving kindly may improve a person's measurablewell-being. 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, inWEIRD research subjects) supported thehypothesis that acting more kindly improves your well-being.[8]
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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.[9] Further studies show that kindness interventions can help improve well-being with comparable results as teaching gratitude.[10] Similar findings have shown that organizational level teaching of kindness can improve the well-being of adults in college.[11]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)A psychologist probes how altruism, Darwinism, and neurobiology mean that we can succeed by not being cutthroat.
The dictionary definition ofkindness at Wiktionary| Four cardinal virtues |
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| Three theological virtues |
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| Seven lively virtues versus Seven deadly sins | ||
| Related concepts | ||
