by Sarah Monk | May, 2023 | kindness, Sarah Monk
A good piece of news from the 2023 World Happiness Report is that rates of kindness are increasing. This was judged by more people having helped a stranger, donated money or goods or taken part in volunteering compared to data from previous years. In this blog I take a look at the concept of kindness in Positive Psychology. I review how it is conceptualised, what the impacts and functions of it are seen to be and why it is important. Can we define kind? Although kindness is valued across cultures and religious traditions it is not that easy to define. It is considered a strength in the VIA taxonomy, part of the virtue of humanity and the term is often used interchangeably with that of altruism or prosociality. A kind act is considered to be one that has a perceived benefit for the receiver of the act usually coupled with a perceived cost for the actor. Both greater benefits and greater costs tend to mean acts are rated as “kinder”. Kindness as a trait or characteristic is seen as the tendency to frequently and reliably perform kind acts. As you can see there is a lot of potential interpretation going on in these definitions. How are costs and benefits evaluated and by whom? How can you really know the intention of the actor and does this matter? How often constitutes frequently/reliably? Does context and culture make a difference? At an individual level kindness could be considered as performing acts intended to benefit others, but we all know how our good intentions can sometimes backfire. Are these acts kind...
by Sarah Cramoysan | May, 2023 | kindness, Sarah Cramoysan
Kindness 2.0: going beyond the feel-good factor to true compassion. As an associate lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University one of my favourite parts of the job is marking one of the first assignments on the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology course. Students are instructed to choose a topic from within Positive Psychology related to Happiness and wellbeing, and then to investigate that subject by trying out one or more positive psychology interventions on themselves over the course of 5-6 weeks. In their marked assignment, they write about what they did and what they found, relating their experiences back to existing theories. It’s always fascinating to see the variety of subjects picked by different students and also heart-warming to read about their positive experiences and what they have learnt during the process. Students might choose to write gratitude diaries, try meditation, wean themselves off social media, take walks in nature – or any of a number of different activities that have been shown to increase happiness and wellbeing when consciously practised. One of the topics that regularly comes up is practising Kindness to others. Being kind to others makes us happy There is plenty of research in Positive Psychology literature about how being kind to others makes us happy. When we do something for another person, seeing or imagining their reaction can really give us a buzz, we feel good about ourselves and more connected to others, in addition to the benefit experienced by the other person. In one piece of research, participants were given a small sum of money (about £5 -£10) and told to spend it on...
by Monique Zahavi | December, 2019 | kindness, Monique Zahavi
When we think of the concept of resilience, it may be that we think of simply being tough or breezing through challenges with little acknowledgment of discomfort. Yet research has suggested that resilience is not about avoidance, but about being able to sit in our messy feelings and move through them, not through closing down, but by staying open to the full spectrum of our experiences. Miller et al.’s (2010) study looked at the concepts of vulnerability and resilience and found that rather than being separate, there were many ways in which these concepts overlap. Those who are truly resilient are able to live in harmony with life, acknowledging their human frailty and embracing it, rather than storing an ever-growing burden of sadness, disappointment and anger. Resilient individuals learn to self-protect where necessary but remain open-hearted. So how can we retain our equilibrium and strength, bounce back from difficulties yet simultaneously stay open to life and all of its gifts? Mentally tough, yet emotionally flexible If we continually respond to life as though we are under extreme threat, we will eventually reach overload point, which affects both physical and mental health. Yet being able to overcome fear and self-doubt, staying soft while building our character strengths through self-development and working to achieve goals, may protect us against depression and anxiety and build resilience. Life is a constant series of ups and downs and a degree of stress is both unavoidable yet arguably useful, as a way of equipping us with the motivation to manage life’s challenges. However, the way we respond to life can make the difference between resilience...
by Emma Willmer | December, 2019 | kindness
What is it to truly accept yourself? To accept your strengths and weaknesses, to accept your past choices and behaviours, the good things that have happened and the bad and to accept you’re not superhuman or perfect? As many other people can be, I am often hugely self-critical and am rarely satisfied with what I’m doing. My inner critic is usually on overdrive and I always need a challenge to smash, even when it’s something that is not actually very beneficial to my life. Lately, with my new found self-reflection skill learned on the MAPP course, I am slowly beginning to understand the pros and cons of living a life with a ‘everything is a challenge’ mentality. Whilst the ability to tackle challenges is sometimes a blessing in disguise, helping me through many pressure-filled periods of time it is ultimately not conducive to my happiness and life satisfaction. It is instead a symptom of a low level of self-acceptance that is now becoming obvious to me in that by taking on constant challenges I am in a cycle of constantly demonstrating my worth to myself and others. Cultivating self-acc’Wea eptance over self-improvement ‘We As I did, many people can fall into the trap of thinking they have a good level of self-acceptance when in reality what they are doing is self-improvement. There’s nothing wrong in wanting to improve oneself but living a life on beliefs such as ‘when I achieve this I will be happy’ or ‘when this happens I will be happy’ are aimed at feeling good enough in the future and are not self-acceptance. As long as...
by Steve Emery | May, 2019 | kindness
Kindness wasn’t part of my dissertation that I completed recently as part of my degree in Applied Positive Psychology. The dissertation focused on people who had divorced over the age of 50 and had rebuilt their lives through social groups. The focus was on hope, as this group of people had lost almost everything through their divorce; they had lost their life partner, their children had grown up and were no longer dependent upon them and for various reasons many of their friends had deserted them. I conducted a series of nine interviews with people who fit the criteria and it did clearly show an increase in hope. What struck me whilst conducting the interviews was how people changed when they talked about how they had helped others in the group. They seemed to feel an intense amount of pride in themselves for having helped another person. It seems that many of the people joined or started a social group to better their own life and yet within a very short space of time were more concerned with the welfare of others who had joined the group. An example of this was the lady who joined a fitness group because she felt she was a little overweight and unfit so needed a way to regain her vigour. However, after a few months her reasons for being in the group had changed. Whilst she was feeling a lot fitter and healthier her motivation for being in the group had changed completely to someone who wanted to help others achieve their goal. Book of Joy I recently bought a copy of...
by Helen Golstein | October, 2018 | kindness
Early Lessons ‘Be kind’ was one of the first messages or lessons taught to me growing up. In fact, it was and remains one of the most important values taught to me as a small child. When reflecting on my childhood, both at home and school, all around me were messages relating to the importance of being kind. I am guessing that is much the same for you. So, if you, like me became aware of how important it is to be kind to others and how being unkind to someone would cause them a lot of pain, you are also hopefully, very skilled at ways of being kind…to others. What about us? But what we often did not get told was how to be kind to ourselves or why it even matters. Without this lesson, or insight, out of our awareness there is a leaning to be self- critical and mean, without realising the impact this has on our mood and general well-being. “Remember, you have been criticising yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” Louise L Hay Why being self-critical is kindness in another way We are so often drawn to explain our behaviour through the lenses of our personal histories, which can all too often lead to a loop of more criticism and not be helpful. When we are able to understand that, because our reptilian brain is wired to pay attention to threat, coupled with the fact we probably needed that more than kindness in the cave, we are still bound to pay more attention to what...
