{"id":3363,"date":"2025-03-23T14:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-03-23T19:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/?p=3363"},"modified":"2025-03-23T06:02:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-23T11:02:16","slug":"kindness-will-make-you-happier-than-a-higher-salary-report-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/?p=3363","title":{"rendered":"Kindness Will Make You Happier than a Higher Salary, Report Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Kindness Will Make You Happier than a Higher Salary, Report Shows<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tThe world may feel cold, scary and cruel, but if you are open to seeing it, there is a lot of kindness, according to a new report.<\/b><\/i>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tThe World Happiness Report, released each year on the International Day of Happiness, is a global analysis on happiness and well-being in partnership with Gallup, the University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

\n\nThis year\u2019s report paid special attention to acts of benevolence and people\u2019s expectations of their communities.

\n\nWhat are acts of benevolence? The report divided them into three categories: donating money, volunteering and doing a nice thing for a stranger.

\nBased on the data, 70% of the world\u2019s population did at least one kind thing in the last month, the report found.

\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s a really, really high number,\u201d said Dr. Felix Cheung, the report\u2019s coauthor and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and Canada Research Chair in Population Well-Being. \u201cWe should just look at that number and feel really good. Seven in 10 people around us have done something nice \u2026 in the past month.\u201d

\n\nThis trend of doing kind things is down from a spike during the Covid-19 pandemic, but it is still an improvement from pre-lockdown numbers, according to the report.

\n\n\u201cEven though the world feels like it\u2019s a pretty difficult place right now, it is nice to know that people are engaging in kind and generous acts,\u201d said Dr. Lara Aknin, professor of social psychology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and an editor of the World Happiness Report.

\n\nThere is evidence that doing nice things helps both the recipient and the doer feel happier, and benevolence may be a key step to improving your own happiness and the overall happiness in the United States, which continues to drop on the list of happiest countries, said Ilana Ron-Levey, a managing director of the public sector at Gallup. (The US ranked No. 24 on this year\u2019s list of the happiest countries.)

\nDoing good feels good<\/b>

\n\nMaking a donation, doing an hour of volunteer work or engaging in some other small act of kindness may seem insignificant in the list of big things that make a happy life, but the data says otherwise, according to Ron-Levey.

\n\n\u201cActs of generosity predict happiness even more than earning a higher salary,\u201d she said.

\n\nAknin has studied the impact of benevolence and found that it\u2019s significant.

\n\nOne experiment recruited a sample of participants on university campuses to report their baseline happiness. Researchers then gave them a small amount of money \u2013\u2013 about $2 to $5 \u2013\u2013 and told them to spend it on themselves or someone else, she said.

\n\n\u201cThen we measure people\u2019s immediate emotional reactions,\u201d Aknin said. \u201cBy and large, we find in almost all of our studies that people randomly assigned to spend generously report feeling higher levels of happiness than people who spend on themselves.\u201d

\n\nThe pattern was similar in other countries such as South Africa, Uganda and India.

\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re a super social species,\u201d Aknin said, \u201cand we argue that acts of generosity help build and sustain those connections.\u201d

\nThe \u2018empathy gap\u2019<\/b>

\n\nGiven the number of people who do kind things, expectations of benevolence are generally low, Aknin said.

\n\n\u201cLong story short is that people are overly pessimistic,\u201d she said.

\n\nTo understand how people perceive the levels of kindness around them, researchers for the survey asked if people expected a lost wallet to be returned to them, Cheung said. The researchers broke the survey down by seeing if people expected a neighbor, the police or a stranger would return the wallet.

\n\n\u201cThe US ranks 17th in the world in believing a neighbor would return a lost wallet, 25th in the world in believing the same of police, but ranks only 52nd in believing that a stranger would return a wallet, which really suggests some fraying of social cohesion,\u201d Ron-Levey said.

\n\nPeople were more likely to believe that a neighbor or police officer would return a lost wallet if found, but belief in a stranger is a barometer of trust, Aknin said.

\n\n\u201cThe stranger returning a lost wallet is really, really important in terms of that trust in your society,\u201d she said.

\n\nAnd researchers have been able to compare the expectations with reality.

\nIn previous studies, researchers have gone to different cities around the globe, dropped wallets and analyzed the rates of the wallets being returned against what the people in that city reported they believed would happen, Aknin said.

\n\nAlmost every place drastically underestimated the likelihood of the wallet being returned by a stranger, she said. The disparity is called an \u201cempathy gap,\u201d Aknin added.\n\nFor example, about one-third of people expected a lost wallet to be returned in the US, whereas two-thirds of such wallets actually were, Cheung said.

\n\nIt makes sense that a bigger empathy gap would have a negative impact on happiness, Aknin added.

\n\n\u201cIf we assume the worst of others, it shapes how we interact with the world,\u201d Aknin said. \u201cIf we expect the worst of others, we walk around the world fearful, and that matters for our own well-being.\u201d

\nWhy build community<\/b>

\n\nThe good news is that the empathy gap can be closed, Aknin said.

\n\n\u201cWe\u2019re not asking people to have unreasonably optimistic (expectations),\u201d Cheung said. But if you can \u201cdevelop that trust and you can expect that level of kindness, you will be a lot happier.\u201d

\n\nThe report shows that people\u2019s perceptions of the kindness of others has improved when they take social risks, Aknin said.

\n\n\u201cWhen they do, they realize that most of these risks are met with kindness and positivity,\u201d she said.

\n\nAknin\u2019s research has also showed the best ways to perform benevolent acts to get the boost of happiness. She calls it the three C\u2019s.\n\nIn your kind acts, you should connect with others, Aknin said. For example, you are more likely to get a bigger boost taking someone out for coffee rather than sending a person $5 to get coffee on their own, she said.

\n\n\u201cSocial time is pretty critical, or that face-to-face connection can go a long way,\u201d Aknin added.

\n\nThe second C is for choice, meaning it feels better when you act in a kind or generous way because you want to, not because you feel obligated to do so, she said.

\n\nThe last is for a clear sense of positive impact. Doing something you can see the impact of or donating to a cause that you can see the benefit of is likely to give you the most fulfillment, Aknin said.

\n\nOne other metric that may tell part of the story regarding the connection between kindness and happiness is the rate of people eating alone, Ron-Levey said.

\n\n\u201cEven when accounting for household size, eating alone is linked to lower lifestyle satisfaction,\u201d she said.

\n\nAnd meal sharing has been going down: One in 4 Americans reported eating all their meals alone the previous day \u2013\u2013 which is a 53% increase since 2003, Ron-Levey said.

\n\n\u201cThese things are all connected,\u201d she added. \u201cIf you\u2019re eating by yourself most of the time, if you don\u2019t have someone that you can rely on in a time of need, if you\u2019re losing trust in institutions and your community, it\u2019s going to lead most likely to fewer benevolent acts, which, in turn, affects your happiness.\u201d

\n\nThose factors add up to isolation and lack of social connections, which can affect your happiness, Ron-Levey said.\n\nBut that lack of community isn\u2019t true everywhere. A sense of community and social connection is \u201cone of the most important explanations of why Finland and the Nordic countries remain at the top of the happiness rankings year over year,\u201d she added.


\nContributor: Madeline Holcombe, CNN Health<\/i>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kindness Will Make You Happier than a Higher Salary, Report Shows The world may feel cold, scary and cruel, but if you are open to seeing it, there is a lot of kindness, according to a new report. The World Happiness Report, released each year on the International Day of Happiness, is a global analysis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3363"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3367,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3363\/revisions\/3367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/claremontcoloniccenter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}