Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Heayan, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and Chuck's here and Jerry's here and this is Stuff you should Know and it's a podcast and the three of us are part of it.
Yeah, this is an article on the science of kindness, which somehow put me in a bad mood. I don't know what that says about me. I don't know why.
I don't know why either. It's very odd, but I kind of know what you're talking about. If we're like, the topic overall that we're going to talk about, I think is going to bring joy to people. But they'll get angry along the way. But hopefully when by the time we're done, those who are still listening will be like, all right, I'm feeling good again.
All right, let's talk about it, and let's start with animals, because in fact, we can direct people too. We did a great episode I think on animal altruism.
Is that what it was called, Yeah, biological altruism something like that, where we talked about this sort of leading fact as we lead into humans and kindness, the fact that you know, animals all throughout.
The animal world display acts of kindness, and many times they are altruistic in that they're not looking for anything other than to help out their bird meat or monkey meat or ant meat.
Yeah, you short on last minute gift ideas, go look in on what the macaques are given each other kindness. So it's in animals, we know that, we have evidence of it. Yeah, it's also in humans. We have pretty good evidence of that too, that kindness is a thing. But it definitely seems the fact that it's in animals as well suggests that it's in us on some genetic level. It's not just society being like be kind rewind, you know, like like there's an actual imperative, a biological imperative for it.
And what's odd about is that most people would think that flies in the face of survival of the fittest. Basically, Darwin's whole jam that you know, looking out for number one is kind of it might not be the antithesis of kindness, but it certainly doesn't go hand in hand. And yet when you dig into Darwin you're like, oh, he was actually big time into kindness.
Yeah, he talked, He wrote a lot of stuff about communities cooperating and not just like hey, it's better if you cooperate and to go kill that wooly mammoth. But but like compassion and empathy are are are markers of a healthy community and a community that will survive in a fitter way.
Yeah, Like if Tuktok pushed jib Job out of the way right as he was about to throw a spear into the wooly mammoth, JibJab took took, took the shot and took the mammoth down and got all the praise. He's got hurt feelings between him and jib Job, right.
He's got to go to Jim introducing a new character.
Yes, it's happening before your very.
Eyes, while it's exciting in you're sixteen.
Yeah, so like in those communities and communities now, like the thing that just kind of keeps things not just going the you can go as a society in a dystopian manner, but it's not a good society. It's not thriving. I think the thing that makes it thrive, and then a thriving society is much more likely to survive and reproduce because everybody wants it to because they're having a
great time. Are things like kindness it's one of those lubricators that helps us society go from surviving to thriving.
I agree. And it's also something that you know you see, well, hopefully you see firsthand when you have a kid. If you don't, that doesn't mean that you know your child is broken, because there are all kinds of reasons that a kid may not just sort of be innately kind. They might not like you, maybe you're the problem, dad, But the study after study has shown that men children
are sort of innately kind to other people. And that, of course, this is just me editorializing the second part, and it is later as you grow up and be a cynical adult, is when those kindnesses go away. But you see examples all the time when you have a kid, of your kid and other children and their friends and classmates being kind to one another, and it's it is truly heartwarming to see and makes you think, like, oh, like maybe because this is what we're kind of talking about,
like are we innately good people like as humans? And those examples kind of indicate that, yeah, we maybe are good humans to begin with, like, and we're going to talk about a lot of studies and experiments in this episode, but This one was one where they had a kid and they had some treats like little candies or something.
They had goldfish or Teddy grams.
I was just I was trying to not name check, but sure.
Those are money treats, man, they deserve, like we need to lay it out there just how valuable these treats were.
And then they had these little puppet puppets. I was gonna say puppet things, but puppets are puppets. So what they would do was and what they're trying to get at is like how happy did because you know, that's sort of at the root of all all this is like, and we'll talk later about when you receive a kindness. Of course that makes sense that you're gonna feel great, but does it feel good and make you happy to
do a kindness? And so they had this little puppets and they said, all right, we're going to give these puppets a goldfish sometimes and we're going to see how happy that makes you. A little kid, We're going to give you a goldfish to give to that puppet. We're gonna see how happy that makes you. And then we're gonna also just give you a bunch of goldfish and say those are yours, but maybe you should give the
puppet one of your own. And the ones where the like the happiest kids were the ones where they are instances at least, were the ones where the kids gay of their own stash, of their own head stash right to these puppets.
Like they were happy seeing the puppet get a treat, sure, but they were happier to give that puppet a treat of its own, right.
Yeah, And they weren't necessarily doing that so they would look good for the study.
It seems exactly these were toddlers. I think they were two or less two or younger. There's another study that kind of found something similar that paid attention to little kids and how they responded to a grown up needing help, and they showed that kids definitely do enter distress might be kind of a harsh word for it, but there's a concern state that's much better. They are concerned. And
apparently you can track that by your pupils dilating. And this is the Max Planck Institute, so they're pretty legit, but they were tracking kids pupils dilating. So an adult would drop something and have trouble picking it up and the kids pupils would dilate, so they were concerned. The kids became happiest or became less concerned or unconcerned when they were able to help, But then second to that, they were also unconcerned. They stopped feeling concerned after they
saw somebody else help the grown up. So it's not like you were saying, it's not just about getting credit. It's not just about thinking you're making adults happy. Like these kids were genuinely relieved to see somebody getting help even when they couldn't help them, And that helps underscore the idea that yeah, or were biologically kind in our genes.
Did the people who organize the study account did they make sure they just accounted for the dilation of pupils by making sure testing these kids for methan fetibine us.
Oh yeah, that's that's step one a p test.
Yeah, all right, that checks out. Then.
Yeah, and the ones who they find outside of the lab hours before sunrise digging a hole inexplicably, they pretty much just get them out of the population right away.
So people have been trying to I guess group and measure and come up with scales on how to measure kindness and happiness and stuff like that for a long long time. And one way to measure it that they've come up with is something called the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, which is sort of an empathy measurement, which is great. There's another one called the Inventory of Strengths that looks
at behavior treats kindness as a behavior. But these researchers at Huddlesfield University of Huddlesfield in the UK in twenty seventeen, they're like, all right, let's create a scale that's going to measure like different aspects of being kind and see if we can group them. And they did. They had a forty item question in airon ended up clustering into three groups, the first one being benign tolerance, which it's like an everyday kindness, like hey you got groceries, why
don't you take my seat on the subway? That kind of thing. Yeah, it's a kindness, Yeah, it's an everyday sort of kindness. Empathetic responsivity responsivity yeah yeah, is the next one, and that is a more emotional and then much more personal and much more specific to a person.
Right, like this is somebody you have what they consider strong ties to like a close friend or a family member or something like that. So you're doing something kind to them maybe when they need help, responding to them empathetically.
Which is great, really really well said yeah. And then the last one is principal proaction, and this is altruism but a little less emotional, like, you know, go look at my record books. I give a lot of money to charity.
Sure. So what they found though, so all of the forty questions on the inventory, those they all basically clustered into those three umbrellas. But they found three different things that were common to all three of the little islands of kindness, and those were they were, Yeah, Islands of Kindness is a great band name, You're right, synthpop. Sure, so they were I feel sorry for other people when they experience problems. I like to make other people feel happy,
and people think I have a soft heart. And what they came to, uh to kind of identify those three things together that showed up under principal pact proaction, empathetic responsivity, and benign tolerance. They can they said that that's your core kindness. But that's that's the that's the basic thing that makes people genuinely kind. Those are the things that if you put those three things together, you have a kind person. You can have other people doing kind things,
but they're not necessarily kind. And they even had a measurement of unkindness. Nine of the questions were basically like are you a jerk? Answer yes or no? They're like, come on, answer that was question two. Be honest was question three, and so on and so forth. And they found that people who rated as unkind, say in one thing, I think maybe benign tolerance, they still rated highly in
empathetic responsivity or principal pro action. So it's not like even if you're unkind on paper that you don't do kind things. What they were saying is genuinely kind people check those three boxes.
Yeah. I think on the questionnaire it should say are you a jerk? And the only option is no? And then the next question is do other people think you're a jerk? And the only option is yes. Between those two is the truth. They also found that women scored higher than men generally speaking, and very specifically on benign tolerance and principal pro action. Yeah, and this was very interesting.
There was no overall difference based on the age of the participant, but if you were over forty, then you would score higher on Prince pro action, which kind of makes sense if that's like giving to charity, because I mean, I don't think I had enough money to even give to charity when I was younger.
I think too, that's that's also a measure of like replacing, like adding distance to your kindness, you know.
Yeah, sure, it's not just like donating.
You don't show up at like the house that the charity is, like, you know, supporting, you're just giving to that charity.
Yeah. And also you know I said that I didn't have enough money to give to charity. That's not true you. I'm not gonna say always there are people that are genuinely living like week to week and day to day with their finances, so I'm not talking about that. But in my twenties I could have, you know, not done the one thing to give ten dollars to another thing. You know what I'm saying. I know it was, But you can't give time if you don't have money. It's just another way to be cheir.
So one thing about that though, real quick before you move on. I remember plenty of studies have turned up that people of middle to lower socioeconomic status tend to give more to charity than people higher up in the socioeconomic status.
Yeah, is that more total monies are more like based on their relative income?
I think yeah, I think relatively speaking, yeah, because I mean, you know, like a billionaire could give a million dollars and be like eat my dust. Right, lower socioeconomic people, but that you know, relative to their wealth, it's not really that big of a deal. Whereas somebody lower on the scale or with less money, they gave a thousand dollars, that might mean a lot more than a million dollars to a billionaire.
Yeah, and boy, what a lesson to Let's say you're a single parent with a few kids and you're really struggling. What a lesson to your kids to be like, you know what, I found a twenty dollars bill a day and we're going to put two dollars in this eyes can. That seems like he needs it more than we do, even but.
We're gonna get it and change. So it sounds like a lot because he's not paying attention, but he'll hear it.
Go get two hundred pennies. Said, should we take a break? Oh yeah, all right, let's take a break. We'll be right back, all right. We've talked about the runners high before, that uphooric sense that a runner can feel at a at a certain mile on the road or in the woods or wherever you're running. Can you get a runner sigh on a treadmill?
Oh yeah, anytime, anytime you're exerting your body running for a while.
Okay, I didn't have. I had something to do with the environment and fresh air and stuff like that.
It might trigger it a little faster, who knows, but yes, you can.
Right all that to say, there's a helper's high that they found. This is in the nineteen eighties that they first reclued into this, and that is just what you might think is after doing a kindness to someone, you might feel a sense of exhilaration, you might feel a very nice period of calm afterward. They have found, depending on the kindness I guess in the person, that can
really get you going for a few weeks sometimes. And this is really interesting, I thought, psychologically, are these next couple of things is that you can get that same high just by thinking back on that kindness you did like a month ago.
Yeah, it's pretty interesting. Heck yeah, that's interesting. But if you stop and think about it, it's anecdotally speaking of course that works like that, but when you see it on paper, it's kind of astounding that you can think about something like you said you did a month ago and feel good about it all over again. That's pretty cool.
Yeah, And we do know that there are literal physical symptoms of kindnesses and the effect like better immune function, your stress hormones are going to go down and stuff like that. But it makes me wonder, if you, like, if you can call up that kindness you did a month ago when you're starting to feel like you're getting a cold, would that literally help you avoid a cold? Oh?
Yeah, absolutely, without a question. Okay, it's a good reason to be kind Yeah, and have a good memory. Yeah, there's there's another so another way you could put kindness. It's probably not exactly interchangeable, but it's close enough. It's pro social behavior. Yeah, because I don't think we said something that's really important. Kindness is it's it's it's action. It's always an action, like it's not just thinking something.
Thinking something is not kindness. You can have kind thought, sure, but kindness is always an action and in fact, kindness dot org, which is a nonprofit that's basically like a that supports kindness research. They say that kindness is a meta value which is just right out of the gate, knocks your socks off, and that it encompasses acts of altruism, empathy, justice, respect,
and more. And that is always an action, often done with the intention to benefit and sometimes but not always, driven by emotion, which I mean if you get to define kindness there, it is right there. And another way to explain that is saying pro social behavior, you're acting in a way that is kind, right, So people have studied pro social behavior more than they've studied kindness, So you can kind of take some of those pro social
behavior studies and apply them to kindness research too. And that's exactly what a twenty twenty meta analysis did from Hong Kong Polytechnic.
You that's right, great school, it's got to be right.
Yeah, I was reading about it. I think it's actually one of the best schools in the world. Yeah. See, And they do not have a mask guy. As far as they could tell, it's either an owl or winning the Pooh. I couldn't make heads or tails of some of the photos.
Let's go with me the pooh go poos. All right, So they did a meta analysis like you're saying, in twenty twenty and found that pro social behavior that you so aptly defined was very closely linked with something called I'm gonna call it udae amonic well being I think so, or either that or you demonic maybe that's a silent eye, who knows, But that is a happiness. That is, it's
sort of happiness. Plus it's associated with more meaning and more purpose than an ordinary happiness, like oh boy, this ice cream tastes good.
Yeah, and I've seen so you have well being. I've seen you demonic well being or happiness as well, doing like you're doing stuff that makes you happy rather than just feeling happy, and that in and of itself as
a component of well being that's pretty cool. So there's also that same I think meta analysis turned up that if you help somebody informally, you typically receive more personal benefits, like more happiness or a sense of reward than you do if you're formally you know, being kind, like organizing a charity or even writing a check to charity.
That makes sense, yeah, because it's like a surprise for you as well. If it's an opportunity to perform a kindness. And by the way, I don't only say a kindness because of the gentleman from Winnebago Man, the Great Great documentary.
Yeah, I remember that, but I don't remember him saying a kindness.
Yeah, he said all the time, do me a kindness, and you know, yeah, get me a coffee.
Yeah.
But it kind of fits though, because a kindness is an act. So it's like it turns it into an action almost by making it a noun or.
Yeah, yeah, an adverb?
Is that an adverb?
I don't know.
No, it's not an advert.
I'm about as good at English as I am at math.
No that's not true. Oh thanks, you're much gooder at English. So oh, I don't even know where I was going with this, because all I can think about is Winnibigo Man.
You were talking about, Oh.
The surprise of a kindness that presents itself, that you can like, all of a sudden, you're at the grocery store and there's an opportunity for you to perform a kindness.
That I get that that might mean more to you than on a happiness level than like organizing a charity because organizing a volunteer day or something is a lot of work, and it can be a pain, and there can be frustrations, and even though the end result is you've done something well, at the end of that day, you probably sit in your chair and you're like, oh man,
that was a lot. But when you just do a small kindness, it's a surprise for you, and so of course you're going to be like, that was the best thing ever. I was just the best dude, and it only took me thirty seconds.
Yeah, And what's neat is there's other research, so we'll talk about down the line that basically finds that surprise is an element of the happiness that can come out of acts of kindness.
Yeah.
So yeah, I think there's definitely something to that.
Chuck, Yeah, and the best way to scare people.
So there's another study. I've got another study at my sleeve. You want to hear about it.
Let's hear it.
They were trying to say, Okay, like, great job coming up with a kindness skill. But what are we really measuring here? Are we measuring actual acts of kindness making people happy? Or is there some other thing that we
don't realize We're measuring. So they actually very cleverly kind of broke it out into a few components and they had people either do something kind for others, an active kindness, something kind for themselves still an active kindness, but not for anybody else, totally extroverted behavior that's not kindness, So maybe striking up a neutral conversation about the weather with a stranger it is hot, right, or doing something that's open minded but it's not social and it's not kind.
And the example that Olivia gave was engaging with art, like going to see you know, going to a museum, right, Okay, all of those things can make you happy. And the University of California psychologists wanted to see if we were accidentally measuring that, and what they found is that the people who did acts of kindness for other people were far and away happier than the other three groups.
Yeah, pretty interesting. And in that little bit you mentioned, one of the things that covered for was doing a kindness for yourself. There was a twenty nineteen paper from Oxford University where they found that acts of kindness to other people and acts of kindness to yourself had about the same positive effect on your happiness and I didn't read that as like, oh, well, that just shoots holes
in the previous theory. I saw it as like, well, yeah, your brain is still receiving those triggers that like you're doing a kindness and you're a person too, and you need kindness is to be done for you, and if you're the one doing it, then great. Exactly, you know you should be kind to yourself.
Be kind to yourself.
That's right, and rewind So I.
Saw something explained like the feeling that you get from the helpers high, explained by pointing out that acts of kindness are actually an exertion for us, just like exercises an exertion. Anything beyond what we need to do to survive that day is technically an exertion, and our bodies created this reward system to overcome the sense of exertion or pain or sore muscles or loss of giving up your goldfish treat to a puppet and flooding us with
chemicals that make us feel better. So that totally explains the biochemical basis for that Helper's high, for the sense of being rewarded by doing an act of kindness or just a kindness, and that it's kind of apparently centrally located in the vegas nerve, which, if you'll remember from More Organism episode, is really responsible for that. It's a huge part of the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system, which is the opposite of flight. It's like chill and chill instead of fight or flight.
Yeah, like getting your breathing under control and your tummy feeling good and your heart rate a little lower, stuff like that. We talked about it quite a few times. I feel like over the years, it's only in mammals.
It's very unique to mammals. And because it is a part of that autonomic nervous system, it's connected to like basically all the organs right, Like, it's affecting everything inside your body, which is great, and it's you know, what's going to give you that warm feeling when it's active, when you've done a kindness to someone, that's where that warm feeling is coming from, basically.
Yeah, and specifically it's oxytocin. They've linked that to kindness and that helper's high and that is it's frequently called the love hormone. It's it is around from every event, like a mother holding a newborn baby. Skin to skin
for the first time. That's a huge oxytocin release. To doing an active kindness for somebody, is that warm feeling in your chest, that feeling that where like you just suddenly are like I could if I really thought about it, I could cry right now, Like you just feel so good and just overwhelmed with positive feelings. That's oxytocin, and acts of kindness have been shown to release oxytocin. That
seems to be part of the basis of that helper's high. So, however, you can get oxytocin, get it, that's my motto.
Yeah, totally an interesting thing to jumping back a sec to that twenty nineteen Oxford paper that talked about doing a kindness on oneself. I found this particularly interesting. Okay, just witnessing an act of kindness can also have a similar effect on you, which is amazing, And that makes me wonder if our old friend's mirror neurons are not involved somehow.
Well, yeah, I would think so, because empathy has to be involved, Like you have to feel something towards somebody who you're helping, or else you just wouldn't even think to help them. You'd probably just be like huh huh you know m hm. So yeah, if empathy is involved in the mirror, neurons have to be involved. It's just the way it goes.
Friend, But we've I mean, who hasn't watched the one of those internet videos on Instagram or wherever where you see a real kindness and you know they got that piano music plan and all of a sudden you're tearing up like your body is firing all those same neurons, apparently, according to Oxford, as if you had done that kindness yourself, right, like feel good neurons.
You got that rascal for that veteran, like you did that. For all intents and purposes, none of us have to do anything. As long as there's some people out there doing kindnesses and posting those videos on the internet, the rest of us can just get the benefits from it without having a lift a finger.
Yeah, and you go into your therapist and they're they're like, I know you have a problem with uh empathy and kindnesses? Did you do any this week? And you're like, yeah, I watch like three videos.
Exactly make you feel great. Yeah, So should we take another break and then come back and talk about how it helps people who kindness is given to. Sure, Okay, we're going to do that. So I think it's beyond ridiculous to say that a person who is the beneficiary of an act of kindness gets something out of it too.
They literally get something out of it in a lot of times, like if it's a veteran and the rascal that a bunch of people donated to buy him, it can be a goldfish treat, like they benefit in that sense, but they also benefit emotionally as well. And what they found in a bunch of different studies is kind of what we were talking about before that other elements like surprise, just the gesture, the thought, Like they say it's the
thought that counts well. Some kind of studies have basically turned that up that if you don't just think about it, but you actually follow through, the people are more moved by the thought, by the gesture than they are by the goldfish treat or the rascal. Although I mean, if you give somebody a rascal, they're probably going to be pretty happy.
What's a rascal?
Oh, it's a little mobilized get around kart that you see people riding. Oh Okayan stage or immobility.
I got you all right, I didn't know those were called rascals.
That is the original trading it for one of the brands, and it's just it's become kind of a proprietary eponym, Okay, at least in my house.
Yeah. So one of the experiments they did to test this was in nineteen ninety five. They looked at unhoused folks who went to the ER a lot for treatment. And they had a controlled group who just got their regular old er visit, and then they had another group that had that visit plus student volunteers who would chat them up, talk about stuff and life and listen to them and held conversations and maybe gave them a goldfish
or something. And they found that the members of the test group were twice as likely to rate their care higher sure, which you know makes perfect sense, and that and this was interesting. The number of ER visits among that group dropped by a third. Yeah, which I guess indicates that they're healthier.
I guess the researchers took it to mean that the unhoused people who show up to the r over and over and over again are basically showing up until they feel like they're being treated like a human being and that that group were satisfied that they had received good care for once and they stopped coming back to try to, you know, get it out of the people in the er.
Oh, and that is really interesting because another way to think of that is like, why didn't the people who got that warm care want to come back and say, like, boy, that was you know, that was pretty great that goldfish. I had a nice conversation with.
A student I totally thought the same thing.
Yeah, it's interesting.
So there's another study that involved cupcakes, and who doesn't want to talk about that.
It's a good one.
It is, it's a great one. So the researchers gave strangers or study participants a cupcake and said, here you go, here's a cupcake. You can do whatever you want with it, but you can also give it to a stranger if you like. And apparently eighty percent of the participants gave their cupcake away. Well I want to know those twenty percent.
I hope they didn't tell them what they were actually studying, because I think you'd really have some real soul searching to do after you find out that you're part of the twenty percent who kept the cupcake for yourself in a kindness study.
Yeah, they tell them that, like, your mouth is full of cupcake, and they revealed that to you, and you're like.
What, Yeah, it's just going to spit it back into the little wrapper and put it back and then go give it to a stranger.
Yeah, and that's when they reveal the milk that you don't get.
So the eighty percent of people who gave their cupcake away, they asked them, how do you think how like how much of an impact do you think this gesture is going to have? And this is a really important thing that they turned up that the people who received the cupcake rated their happiness is higher than the person who gave them the cupcake expected it to be, like a
lot higher. And that's kind of a human flaw. Like we're we have genetic programming to be kind, we also have genetic programming to second guess ourselves and be self conscious and that prevents us from doing acts of kindness in a lot of ways. And even when we do
acts of kindness, we underestimate their effect. But the other part of that cupcake study that I found interesting is that the people who got the cupcake basically said it was the surprise that made it such a great happy experience for them.
Yeah, Like the people who got the cupcake, the twenty percent who ate it, mm hmm. They rated their happiness, and I'm sure they're fairly happy, but not nearly as happy at the people that were surprised by a stranger right giving him them a cupcake.
Yeah. So I feel like we fairly well established that being kind is a good thing and that it exists. Yeah, almost almost. What about your family, though, because think about this, Yeah, giving a cupcakes to a stranger who you're never going to see again, there's nothing but pretty much an upside
to that. It's all upside totally. But if you gave your cupcake away to a family member, you're going to see that family member later that day after they had a rough day at the office, and they're probably not feeling much gratitude towards you for the cupcake you gave them earlier in the day, even though you're still feeling good about yourself for having given them your cupcake. And therein lies the big rub with acts of kindness in what are known as strong tie relationships like your family.
Yeah, and it seems in the case of family and I would imagine this might go for like very close friend groups as well, but I'm just speculating. But in this study in twenty seventeen, they showed a very strong correlation in the happiness level, not being dictated by, but being influenced by whether or not these acts of kindness
were noticed and acknowledged. Sure, so, they got people that newlyweds, people had just gotten married, and they said, spend a couple of weeks recording instances instance instance oh Man times in which one spouse would help out their partner put aside their own like if you're in the middle doing something, you would stop with a small act of kindness that your partner needs in that moment. And then also while
you're doing this, record your emotional state. And they found that acts of kindness that had the most impacts on both the giver and the receiver was when they were noticed and acknowledged. And also found unsurprisingly that when there maybe surprisingly yeah for sure, when the receiver did not consciously notice that it still resulted in improved moods for both especially the giver.
Sure, but they were like, these people are in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. Exactly if we did the same experiment ten years down the road, would that second part still hold up? And there's a group. There's a pair of researchers. There are a couple, John and Julie Gotman, and they are incredibly famous, incredibly well researched and well read and well cited, like couples researchers like they're the real deal, legit.
Yeah, a marriage therapist, yes, exactly.
They actually are the ones who teach the marriage therapists who go teach other marriage therapists, like they're doing like really great firsthand research. And one of the things they found over the course of the career is that acts of kindness, even incredibly small acts of kindness, they can take the the form of a huh, when your spouse is telling you about something you couldn't care less about and you're actually really busy, just that counts as an
act of kindness. And that the couples who give one another more active kindness than not. I think they came up with some ratio of like four positive interactions to one negative interaction is like the key to success. That those couples who did more kind things to one another had you know, much more successful and lasting marriages and that again, those acts can be very very small and they still have a big impact.
Yeah, because what they're talking about and this is something I've seen in my own marriage at like Emily and I've been together for over twenty years now, like all in and once you get into the multiple decade span, you find and you would be wise to learn how to do this more, but you find that attention is
one of the biggest parts of being happily married. Sure, and that go you know, that jibes with what you were talking about there with the study or that you know, the gotman stuff with like you know, I think when you've been with someone for a long time, you find yourself in your routines and like, oh, I'm reading this thing.
And but like Emily will come home with a story about something that just happened, and like the spouse's wise who will stop what they're doing just for a moment and pay attention to them in a real way and do more than a huh like, oh wow, that's really cool that that happened to you today, and chances are
you can probably get back to what you're doing. The unwise person does not, or they put out that they have to stop what they're doing, or that their attention is diverted, and that, my friend, is not a recipe for success. And I'm having to continually sort of in a like train myself still because I think certain people
have deficits when it comes to stuff like that. And also just there's so much stuff now when you know it was a lot easier before there were smartphones and the internet and like constant other things that are distracting you. But you were wise to sort of try and be aware of those distractions to pay attention to your family and your spouse.
So the way that the Gotments put it is that when your spouse or your friend or whoever is meaningful to you brings up something and saying something that is asking for your attention, they're making a bid for attention, and you have a choice. Like you said, you can pay attention to them, that's what they call turning toward You can snap at them for always bothering you when you're trying to read, or you can ignore them, which is not as bad as snapping at them all the time.
But when those ignoring instances add up, it can have a really harmful impact on the relationship. So I guess the upshot of this is that the gotments prove that a successful relationship is exhausting, right, and you never.
Get to read the stuff you want to read on your phone? Am I right?
Guys, you're always bothering me.
I guess we should talk a little bit here towards the end about gratitude and guilt, because acts of kindness, many times will spring from guilt. And here's the thing with guilt, Like being consumed by guilt is no good for anybody, But a little bit of guilt every now and then can lead to more generosity. And the Catholics, I feel like it's almost more of a It's not like, oh, I feel so guilty so I have to do this.
It's just like, boy, I feel a little guilty, so I'm just a little more aware and on point and trying to do the right thing.
Yeah, especially if you know you've hurt someone's feelings and that's what you're feeling guilty about, that's going to turn your kindness into hyperdrive. But researchers have found that your your kindness is being laser focused on that person. You're marshaling all of your kindness resources and you're focusing on that poor person who probably doesn't even want to talk to you right now, but you're like, I gotta be
kind to you because I feel so guilty. And what they found is that actually that kind that level of kindness excludes other people. You're walking past other chances to be kind to other people who need acts of kindness because you're so focused on this person. So that guilty sense that can bring you to acts of kindness can very easily become overraw and overblown, and nobody.
Wins, right. And they've also found that ignoring like that could cause you to ignore did you already say that ignore other people?
Pretty much? Yeah, you're you're you're you're not paying attention to other people's needs and just focusing on the person who's mattitude because you feel guilty.
The gratitude piece I don't fully understand in this context, because they have found in experiment it's a gratitude does seem to encourage generosity when even when it costs you something.
Yeah, normally, like people are in a good mood, or if you're in a good mood, you will probably do like acts of kindness. Holding a door for somebody doesn't cost you a thing, it's an act of kindness. People consider that a kind gesture. But if you feel gratitude because somebody else did something nicier, or you're just happy to be alive, you feel that sense of gratitude, you're actually more likely to give somebody your only cupcake like something.
That's okay, all right, yeah, that makes sense, okay.
And then the other thing about it, though, is that it doesn't even have to be gratitude toward the person who gave you that cupcake, or you don't have to do something back to them. You can actually take that gratitude and give it to a third party, which is
pretty cool, like that whole pay it forward thing. But what another study found, I think back in two thousand and six, they found that that third that paying it forward thing is unconscious and that when they needed it out, hey, you did a really nice thing for this other person, the third party, because the first party did something nice to you the second party, if that makes sense in a super legal jargon way right, And when they told them that, that sense of gratitude just kind of vanished,
like when it became conscious, it went away, but unconsciously, they were more prone to help other people commit acts of kindness for other people because they were feeling gratitude that somebody else did something nice for them.
Have you ever seen we talked a little bit about I think you should leave the Sketch Show from Tim Robinson. Did you ever watch any of it?
Yeah? Yeah, I've watched it all.
Oh okay, it always makes me think the pay it forward thing. Maybe I don't know. They're all great, but one of his best, my favorite sketches ever of his is the drive through when of buying paying for someone's drive through behind you and then he speeds around and then you know, fifty nine burgers, fifield milkshakes, one hundred pe fifty coffees. Yeah so funny. Yeah, yeah, oh boy, I love that guy. What else, Chuck, Well, we can wrap it up with a little bit on compassion fatigue.
Doing kindnesses is great, but they have found that if you are someone who works in an industry where you have to have a lot of compassion, if you're a hospice nurse, if you are a single parent and you have a child with high needs, if you work at a shelter for unhoused people and you're just constantly having to give of yourself every day that you know, you can exhaust yourself of that, and it can be very difficult to work those hours of being nothing but empathetic
all day long and doing kindnesses all day long. And that's compassion fatigue. You can have mood swings, you can be irritable, you can be anxious and depressed, and like, bad things can happen. So that's like why you need to take care of yourself, Like self care is so important when you have a situation like that.
Yeah, you can also lose your general like basic drive for compassion. Like you could start being like I don't care about any of these people that I'm treating in the er anymore.
Yeah, so burned out. That's tough stuff.
Yes, Fortunately that's pretty limited to certain occupations or situations like people taking care of a loved one at home twenty four to seven basically. And yeah, there's a lot of resources. If you are thinking that you might have compassion fatigue, you should just start reading about it on the web and there's a lot of really good solutions to that that can help.
Yeah, take it easy on yourself because it's painful to admit sometimes that stuff is very hard and that you feel resentment and like it's human like let yourself up. Sure. Nice, Nice, that's what I say.
And there's one last thing about kindness that I thought was really great, Like it can be hard to be mindful, it can be hard to cultivate attitude. Like those aren't just things that just snap into into mind like when you want them to write. The great thing about kindness is it's an action. So you can just do it, like you don't have to Like, it's not something you have to cultivate or work on or a mindset you have to be in.
Yeah, you can just do it.
And again, as we've shown as study after study after study after study has shown it's beneficial to you and the receiver and it keeps society going, so said Darwin, So do it.
Yeah, do a little experiment if you if you find you're having a very blue period, try holding open that door, do a kindness or two and see what that does for you. And just just chart it and see what happens.
Very nice. Well, since Chuck said chart it, everybody, that means it's time for a listener mail.
Uh, I'm gonna call this sportsy. I thought this was interesting. Okay, this was in regards to our bad business moves, bad business decisions. Sure, and this was a good one. And as an NBA fan, I can't believe I didn't know this. And you're an NBA fan too, Yes, you'll appreciate this. Hey, guys, was late to the show, discovered you during the pandemic, and was happy to have your voices in my ears through those long days on the worst ish business deals.
I thought i'd share one of my favorites. When the ABA merged with the NBA back in the seventies, some teams became NBA franchises, like the Nets and Indiana and San Antonio and Denver, the Nuggets. The rest were bought out by the NBA. Like you know, hey, I'm sorry, Kentucky Colonels will give you three million dollars to stop being an ABA team.
You know you're bad if somebody pays you three million dollars to stop playing.
The owners of the Saint Louis, well, they just had to make them go way, you know. The owners of the Saint Louis Spirit, the Silna Brothers, negotiated a smaller deal two point two million, which included a share of television rights in Perpo two oh up through twenty thirteen. This earned the silma's about three hundred million dollars for
not operating an NBA team from the seventies. In twenty fourteen, the NBA finally bought themselves out of that clause by an agreement of a lump sum five hundred million dollar payment. What so, the silma's total pocket was eight hundred million dollars from the NBA. To not have an NBA team may not be the worst business deal of all time, may have been the worst in pro sports worst I guess for the NBA. Sure, that's amazing. I'd never heard that.
So that is from Steve Sonon in Seattle. Sorry about the super Sonics Washington.
Thanks Steve. That was a great That was a great one. I had not heard anything about that, and.
It's kind of crazy to hear some It's amazing.
Some people in Kentucky making eight hundred million dollars. Northern Kentucky probably too. Yeah, if you want to get in touch with this, like Steve did, you can send us an email. Send it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
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