Acts of Kindness

In The How of Happiness, Lyubomirsky treats kindness as a happiness activity for the giver, not only a virtue that serves the receiver. Her studies asked people to carry out a set number of kind acts each week. Those who packed them into a single day reported a clearer rise in wellbeing than those who spread them thin, probably because one small act scattered among ordinary days goes unnoticed, while a day of several stands out. A later study added variety: people who kept changing what they did stayed better off than those who repeated the same acts until they became chores. The book gives several reasons it works. Being kind changes how we see ourselves, as someone able to help; it makes us more aware of our own good fortune; and it invites gratitude, liking and help in return, so it feeds the relationships that matter most to wellbeing. Jonathan Haidt makes the same relational point in The Happiness Hypothesis, where much of what makes people happy lies in the ties between them. Kindness that is forced, or that exhausts the giver, does not help in the same way; the act has to be chosen.