Systematic review of academic literature by the University of Oxford, commissioned by kindness.org, finds acts of kindness cause a small but significant improvement in well-being
Press Release – October 5, 2016 – NEW YORK, N.Y. and OXFORD, U.K.—Today kindness.org, a new nonprofit organization, launched its digital platform and kicked off its mission to empower and motivate users to choose kindness. The new site uniquely blends user action, technology, and funds independent, high-quality research to explore the impact of kindness and whether it can be used to solve some of society’s most pressing issues.
“Our team initially asked ourselves what would a world look like where kindness is the first thing exchanged when people meet one another across race, religion, and socioeconomic status,” said founder Jaclyn Lindsey. “Through research, continuous experimentation, and empowering people from all walks of life to voice and act on what they think kindness means, kindness.org is setting out to answer those questions and point to evidence that even the smallest acts of kindness can make a change.”
In addition to the new website, kindness.org announced the findings of its first commissioned study carried out by researchers from the University of Oxford, which evaluates existing literature on whether being kind makes you happy. Kindness.org also launched its Living Rooms concept in collaboration with Camerados, a non-profit, U.K.-based movement that aims to tackle social isolation.
Specific components of the launch include:
Digital platform: Kindness has many faces and means different things to people around the world. The idea behind kindness.org is to allow people to have a voice of what kindness means to them and take action on it through the site’s Initiatives. Once logged on to kindness.org, users can browse through the site’s kindness initiatives created by people from all over the world and choose to join one that resonates with them. Once the user carries out that act of kindness, they are encouraged to log back onto the platform to share their story and encourage others to join in. Kindness.org will launch with seven different kindness initiatives and will post new initiatives each month. Kindness.org is committed to evolving and upgrading itself to reflect what is working on its platform and in communities.
Commissioned research by the University of Oxford: With its commitment to research, kindness.org commissioned a study in which researchers identified 428 articles looking at the effects of kindness, analyzing 21 studies that met the quality threshold. The final study finds that the overall effect of kindness on happiness is small to medium. The review concludes that further research needs to determine whether acts of kindness offered to strangers result in a different level of well-being compared with kindness shown to friends and families, as this distinction is not clear in existing research. The full findings have been submitted to the journal Psychological Bulletin.
Study lead author Dr. Oliver Scott Curry, from the Institute of Cognitive & Evolutionary Anthropology from University of Oxford, said: “There has been growing interest in promoting kindness as a way of boosting happiness, well-being and mental health. It has been argued that altruism benefits the giver as well as the receiver. Our research suggests performing acts of kindness will not change your life, but might help nudge it in the right direction. Current studies are limited in what they tell us about the effects as they look at kindness in general, so basic questions about whether people are happier giving to family and friends, as opposed to strangers, remain unanswered and this area needs further research.”
Living Rooms: Kindness.org is partnering with Camerados, an organization committed to ending social isolation, to launch Living Rooms — physical locations that will offer the things we need in tough times: friendship and purpose. The absence of both can lead to and exacerbate homelessness, domestic violence, drug use and more. The first Living Room launched in May 2016 in Blackpool, U.K. Kindness.org plans to open more locations internationally, including two spaces in New York City in early 2017.
Kindness.org operates on a generous commitment from an anonymous donor to achieve its goals of raising awareness, inspiring action, and demonstrating impact.
For a copy of the research paper, “Happy to Help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor” visit here: https://osf.io/preprints/ytj5s/.
