It’s good to do good and receive good: The impact of a ‘pay it forward’ style kindness intervention on giver and receiver well-being

Pressman, Sarah D.; Kraft, Tara; Cross, Marie P.

doi:10.1080/17439760.2014.965269

Cited by 78 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Although much of the research on kindness has focused on assessing the effects of being kind on participants’ well-being (e.g., Curry et al, 2018; Kerr, O’Donovan, & Pepping, 2014; Layous, Nelson, Oberle, Schonert-Reichl, & Lyubomirsky, 2012; Mongrain, Barnes, Barnhart, & Zalan, 2018; Otake, Shimai, Tanaka-Matsumi, Otsui, & Fredrickson, 2006; Pressman, Kraft, & Cross, 2015), there is emerging research exploring how, when asked to be kind, participants enact kindness. What follows next is an overview of research that has explored how children and adolescents demonstrate kindness.…”

Section: Kindness Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kinder Than We Might Think: How Adolescents Are Kind

Binfet

2019

Canadian Journal of School Psychology

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Educators and parents alike have high expectations that adolescents behave prosocially and, within the context of schools, this is evident in curriculum grounded in social and emotional learning and in kindness-themed school-wide initiatives. Despite this emphasis on kindness, relatively little is empirically known about how adolescents enact kindness. To understand just how adolescents demonstrate kindness, a study of 191 ninth graders was conducted in which students were asked to plan and complete five kind acts. In addition to planning and doing acts of kindness, participants were asked to rate their face-to-face and online kindness, report the number of kind acts they completed, identify the recipients of their acts, and assess the quality of their kind acts. At post-test, participants’ self-ratings of both face-to-face and online kindness were significantly higher than their pre-test ratings. Only one third of participants completed all of their kind acts, most participants chose familiar others as the recipients of their kindness, and the bulk of participants rated their acts of kindness as medium quality on a low–medium–high scale. The kind acts done by participants reflected the themes of helping with chores, being respectful, complimenting/encouraging others, and giving objects or money. Implications for educators and parents are discussed.

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Section: Kindness Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Kinder Than We Might Think: How Adolescents Are Kind

Binfet

2019

Canadian Journal of School Psychology

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“…45 Both receiving and expressing gratitude has been found to improve well-being. 46 Thus, when compliments are analysed systematically and used to close the feedback loop between staff and patients (eg, CEOs passing on gratitude), they can strengthen the community of practice leading to 'proactive relationships'. 18 Although healthcare organisations could make better use of written compliments, we caution local managers and regulators against using them to monitor performance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying and encouraging high-quality healthcare: an analysis of the content and aims of patient letters of compliment

Gillespie

Reader

2020

BMJ Qual Saf

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BackgroundAlthough healthcare institutions receive many unsolicited compliment letters, these are not systematically conceptualised or analysed. We conceptualise compliment letters as simultaneously identifying and encouraging high-quality healthcare. We sought to identify the practices being complimented and the aims of writing these letters, and we test whether the aims vary when addressing front-line staff compared with senior management.MethodsA national sample of 1267 compliment letters was obtained from 54 English hospitals. Manual classification examined the practices reported as praiseworthy, the aims being pursued and who the letter was addressed to.ResultsThe practices being complimented were in the relationship (77% of letters), clinical (50%) and management (30%) domains. Across these domains, 39% of compliments focused on voluntary non-routine extra-role behaviours (eg, extra-emotional support, staying late to run an extra test). The aims of expressing gratitude were to acknowledge (80%), reward (44%) and promote (59%) the desired behaviour. Front-line staff tended to receive compliments acknowledging behaviour, while senior management received compliments asking them to reward individual staff and promoting the importance of relationship behaviours.ConclusionsCompliment letters reveal that patients value extra-role behaviour in clinical, management and especially relationship domains. However, compliment letters do more than merely identify desirable healthcare practices. By acknowledging, rewarding and promoting these practices, compliment letters can potentially contribute to healthcare services through promoting desirable behaviours and giving staff social recognition.

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“…Researchers have documented support for not only the contagion of kindness, such as the pay-it-forward effect, but also for specific kindness interventions. For example, a study of children aged 9-11 years who performed three acts of kindness per week for 4 weeks showed improved well-being and significant increases in popularity (Layous, Nelson, Oberle, Schonert-Reichl, & Lyubomirsky, 2012); another study found that students who offered random kind acts for 1.5 hr experienced many benefits, including enhanced positive emotions and fewer negative emotions (Pressman, Kraft, & Cross, 2015). A third study examined the character strength of kindness and the Big 5 personality trait of agreeableness in the context of a "helping" situation and found that only kindness predicted helping behavior (Lefevor & Fowers, 2016).…”

Section: A Journey Toward Kindnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Positive Psychology of Zombies

Niemiec¹

2017

PsycCRITIQUES

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Ryan M. Niemiec "I don't like zombie films. I can't stand to watch horror films. I want nothing to do with the topic of zombies." These are common sentiments expressed by me and a wide range of people I've spoken with. .. and then came The Walking Dead, the most popular TV series on cable. Now in its seventh season, this series features its antiheroes in a postapocalyptic nightmare in which other survivors and the sects they've created are more dangerous than the slow-moving but ferocious zombies. The Walking Dead offers a profound commentary on the topics of death, dying, meaning, existence, resilience, teamwork, and leadership. It offers substance, artistry, and complex characters, along with gore and suspense. Viewers can use a positive psychology lens and learn from the characters what bad and good leadership look like, how to collaborate or sabotage a team, how to be virtuous and strength based, and how to be resilient when there is absolutely no other choice. Consistent with Priester (2005), who observed there is great value in adopting a metaphorical lens when viewing zombie productions, viewers can understand that a deeper examination of these productions almost always contains a commentary on mindfulness and mindlessness. The one-dimensional behavior of zombies is a prototype of what social psychologist/philosopher Erich Fromm (1955) called the automaton, a condition in which human beings are trapped in automatic routine. Modern mindfulness researchers and practitioners refer to this as operating on autopilot, giving little or no attention to one's driving, eating, listening, working, or breathing (Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Niemiec, 2014; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2013). Mindful attention is purposeful and involved; scientifically speaking, it refers to self-control of our attention and an attitude of curiosity, openness, and acceptance (Bishop et al., 2004). Humans experience a pervasive vulnerability to returning to a zombie-like mode, often unaware they are in that mode, wandering and meandering aimlessly, not unlike zombies on the big screen.

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It’s good to do good and receive good: The impact of a ‘pay it forward’ style kindness intervention on giver and receiver well-being

Cited by 78 publications

References 47 publications

Kinder Than We Might Think: How Adolescents Are Kind

Kinder Than We Might Think: How Adolescents Are Kind

Identifying and encouraging high-quality healthcare: an analysis of the content and aims of patient letters of compliment

The Positive Psychology of Zombies

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