Instant Genius - Kindness, with Claudia Hammond

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

Today, the world can feel like a bit of an unkind place. But according to Claudia Hammond, a psychologist and BBC Radio 4 presenter, that isn’t necessarily the case. There are easy ways to introduce more kindness into your life, which could even make you happier and healthier. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. Hello and welcome to Instant Genius, a bite-sized masterclass in podcast form. I'm Alice Lipscomb Southwell, the managing editor at BBC Science Focus magazine. Today, perhaps more than ever, the world can feel like a bit of an unkind place. But that isn't necessarily the case. Claudia Hammond, the visiting professor of the public understanding of psychology at the University of Sussex, has written a new book called The Keys to Kindness,

which takes us on an eye-opening tour of kindness, including ways to look for it and how to be more kind. In this episode, she reveals how we can all be a little kinder to ourselves and others. So my name is Claudia Hammond. I'm the author of The Keys to Kindness. I'm the presenter of All in the Mind on Radio 4 and lots of other programs. I'm a visiting professor of the public understanding of psychology at the University of Sussex. I got the idea for writing about kindness during the pandemic during the first lockdown.

because I did genuinely just notice how much people were being kind to each other and how many nice acts of kindness were going on to try to get through this difficult time. And I'm sure, like many streets, mine was not alone in a WhatsApp group soon sprouting up and people help each other in all sorts of ways that still goes on to this day. And I just thought this is a really interesting subject to look at more deeply and to try to see, well, what research has been done about this? What's the best psychological research that's been done about kindness and how we can have more of it?

because in a way, if you look at all the problems around the world, it's clear that we need cooperation more than ever, and that means kindness to each other, because kindness builds connections, builds relationships, and that's how you sort problems out. And so that's what made me want to look into this further to see, well, how can we have more of this lovely thing? So can you actually qualify what kindness is? Can it be measured? Well, it's really interesting because there's all sorts of debates within academia about what's the difference between kindness and compassion and empathy. And of course, they all overlap to an extent.

I would define kindness, as do many others, as doing something with the intention of benefiting someone else, which could be a straightforward helping them, you know, changing their tire, giving them something. But it could also be things like forgiving them something that they've done or listening really properly and intently while they're talking or noticing that someone's left out and including them or sharing something. So in a way, it's everything from making cups of tea to life-saving acts of heroism. I would count all of those as kindness.

And there are lots of different measures around. There's lots of standardized measures that have been used a lot in research. And many of those get people to say how often they do various types of kind things. What are the kinds of different kinds acts that they do do? And from that, you can get a score from people of how kind they are. Now obviously this relies on people being honest about it. But what's really interesting is if you look at the answers people give, people are very honest about the things that they never do.

Some people may be, people are kind of different ways. So some people may give to charity but never, I don't know, help someone in the street or don't really like giving people presents or whatever. You know, people will vary in different ways. And people are actually really honest about the things they don't do. So I think because of that, we should assume they're probably honest about the things. things they do do. Or you can do experiments to see how kindly people react in different situations. You know, will they help? As a classic, which all psychology students end up trying at some

point or other, I certainly do as a psychology student, the old drop the pencils on the floor and see who picks them up in what sort of situations, who helps you and who doesn't. So you can do experiments where people do practical things as well as pen and paper type exercises. And what I did find quite interesting in the book is how early kindness develops. I think toddlers have got this reputation as being these horrible little brats, but then some of the experiments you talked about, they are actually shown to be able to be kind, even when they're only like a year or too old. Yeah, and that is surprising in a way, because we know that little toddlers don't have what's called theory of mind. They can't work out what other people are thinking until

they're older, often until they're really, till they're about seven, can they really work that out, seven, eight. But there are lovely experiments with toddlers. I really like these. They're some of my my favorites. They're somewhere they get people to, they get mothers to feign an injury. So they pretend they'd bang their knee or hurt their head. And 49% of two-year-olds will comfort them in some way. They might hug them or pat them or kiss them or say something,

which is quite sweet. You know, that is nearly half of them. And I'm interested that there's a comparative psychologist who's done really interesting work called Michael Tomicello. And he calls toddlers indiscriminate. altruists. So they are, they're kind to anyone in a way. And he's, he's done things like gets an adult who's got a pile of books they're carrying and they're trying to open a cupboard door and they can't open it. And lots of, even from 18 months old, lots of toddlers will open

the door for the adult. And then he tries it again, but gives them something really fun to play with that they really like. And they will often drop their game and go and help the adult. Or he then has them playing a fun game and they've got to climb over obstacles. in order to help the adults, and often they still will do it. And they will help other toddlers as well. So it's not just because they want something back. So it's not just about reciprocity and thinking, oh, well, if I help the adult, they'll be nice to me and they might give me something good.

They will help other toddlers too. It's almost just like they want to help. And they actually become more discriminating in who they help as they get a bit older and start to learn to be slightly more wary of strangers and so on, then they start to be more choosy about who they help. But toddlers are kinder than we think. even though, you know, everyone will have experienced the situations where they are, you know, having a tantrum in the supermarket and don't care what's going on and will not stop, however awkward that is.

So they won't be kind to necessarily in that situation. But if they get an opportunity to help, they sort of love helping, really, which is sweet. And you said there that they'll get more discriminating about who they help and their kindness as they get older. As we age, do we get kind or do we get less kind then? So teenagers are also surprisingly kind. which is nice as well. And so there's been some interesting studies done in Canada where they give teenagers the task of thinking of, say, five nice things to plan.

He does it with eight-year-olds, nine-year-olds as well, and gives them the task of planning these kind acts to do over the next week to people. And again, the majority will succeed in completing all of the acts that they decide to. And so it's not true. And I think it's half when people say, oh, teenagers only care about themselves. they're just selfish. We know for a start from all the research now that their brains are still developing and that they need at that time to concentrate on themselves a bit more. But they will be very, very kind to their friends. You know, parents may think they, you know, take things out on

them, but they will show enormous kindness. And then as people get older, there is some evidence that the older people are slightly kinder than younger adults, if you sort of mean, and that people gradually get kinder as they get older. And then again, it's a little bit. And then again, depends how you measure it. So if you're looking at donations to charity, say, then on average, older people donate more to charities likely than younger people do. That could be because by then, if they're lucky, they may be and have more cash that they can give away. There may be more of a position to give stuff away or just more certain than where they are in life. And so less, you know, less vulnerable and less needing to, you know, watch out for what they're doing. So

older people are slightly kinder, but only slightly. And can being more kind be good for your health and happiness, and on the same side, I suppose, if you're less kind, is that bad for your health? Yeah, I mean, a good question about the bad for your health as well. So yes, it does seem that there are advantages to being kinder for our health and certainly for our well-being. So there's various experiments. There's one I like that they did in a Coca-Cola company in Madrid.

and each week for four weeks, people had to choose a day and plan five kind acts for a list of any of 10 colleagues. And the 10 colleagues didn't know what was happening. They didn't know this was going on. But a month later, their job satisfaction and their life satisfaction have gone up of the givers and for the receivers as well, who received all these lovely kind acts at work. But a month on after that, the effects had worn off for the receivers, but they still stayed for the givers. So there's lots of other studies showing that being kind to people makes people feel good. If you stop people in the street and you give them in this experiment, you know, $5 or $20, this was in the States,

to spend either on themselves or other people, you tell them which it is. And then you meet up with them again at the end of the day. If people have been told to spend it on other people, their levels of well-being were higher at the end of the day than if they'd spent it on themselves. So we actually feel better about doing something for someone else, even than getting a prize ourselves. And what I like is that even recalling a past act can work. So just remembering something kind you did can give you a boost to your well-being. In one study, it even helps people lift weights more successfully. You know, they're even stronger after that, which does seem extraordinary.

And when it comes to health, there is some evidence that maybe volunteers, helps people to live longer. And so there have been lots of different studies looking at this. And now, of course, say if someone's older and they're unwell, then they're probably less able to volunteer. And maybe they can't volunteer. And then so maybe it's not surprising that they don't live as long because they were already ill.

But even in some of the studies where they've controlled for people's health and people's age and then kept the study going for a long time and looked to see how many people died within that time. they found that the number of people who died was still cut by a quarter in those who volunteered, that there does seem to be something about volunteering in older age that might protect people and help them to live longer, which may be something, it may not be because it's kind itself, it may be because they are socialising and seeing other people. There could be other things to do with it.

But if you can get these side benefits, then in a way, why not? And how can we be more kind? We can do volunteering. is there anything else that we can do? I think there's all sorts of things. I mean, I suggest that one is to look out for opportunities to be kind and to not be embarrassed about being kind. In the kindness test, which was a huge study that colleagues of mine and I developed

at the University of Sussex, we launched that on BBC Radio 4 on the programs I present, and 60,000 people took part and they chose to take part. So they are choosing to take part. and we have to bear that in mind. But one of the things that we found in there was we asked people, what stopped them being kinder? What were the obstacles, if you like? And the highest one was a fear of being misinterpreted.

So I think often we are just embarrassed to offer help, thinking it might not be wanted or that we might have misunderstood a situation. So I think one big thing that I've tried really hard to do is to not be embarrassed and to sort of think, well, I am going to offer to help here. And if I've read the situation or wrong, then I don't know these people. I'm never going to see them again. There's going to be a moment of embarrassment where I say, oh, I'm sorry, I've got completely confused here.

I'm sorry and go away. And actually, is that the end of the world? Or can I cope with that? So I have tried really hard to try to do that and to not be embarrassed. So I think it's people, it's not that people don't want to be kinder. It's that they sometimes fear embarrassment and don't quite know how. how to do it. And I've done that, you know, lots of times myself. The other things I think people can do to be kinder are to look out for acts of kindness going on around them, because we know that

if people see more acts of kindness, then they become kind of themselves. And there's this kind of contagion. So if you receive acts of kindness, you also kind yourself. So I suggest that you become a kind of kindness twitcher. You look around. And I've done this. I kept a diary while I was writing the book, but even now, I can't help myself but look for acts of kindness. I do it all the time now. And I do see it all the time. You know, yesterday I saw somebody, they dropped their tickets and somebody else at the station was picking up and handing them back their ticket.

And if you look out for it, you see it all the time. And you see people just smiling at strangers or saying hello to them or having a little chat with them in the shop. All of those things are acts of kindness. And I think people sometimes think it's got to be big that you've got to do something enormous. You know, you've got to, you know, I don't know, climb Mount Kilimanjaro. and be sponsored in order to be kind.

Now, that's great. I don't want to stop anyone doing that. Do do that. But you don't have to. They can be really small things. And in the kindness test, the things people said they were doing were really small things, you know, making cups of tea for people,

saying hello to somebody, smiling, just noticing when somebody looks a bit sad. So I think you can do all of those things. And another way of being kind is to try to see things from other people's perspectives. And reading novels, we know there's really novels. we know there's really good evidence that reading novels is a really good way of improving your levels of empathy because there is no way better of getting inside someone else is hacked

than to read what they think in a novel if you like. So you say you can see kindness all around you when you're just going about your daily business, but one place in certainly the modern world that feels quite unkind is social media. So what is it about social media that just makes it feel like quite a nasty and unkind place? Is it just because of the facelessness there, the anonymity people have got? Yeah, I mean, there certainly is, you know, there certainly are so many horrors on social media, as we all know, and, you know, people, trolling people who've been through terrible experiences and all sorts of things like that. And I think, yeah, the anonymity, I think has a big thing to do with it because I think people wouldn't say the same things that they would. And I was talking to somebody quite well known the other day who was saying that they get, you know, people will say horrible things to them on Twitter or ever, but they've only ever had one horrible email, which is kind of extraordinary in a way. And that the moment people are identified, even though they may be identified a bit on social media, there is just something about it that seems to give people permission to just say what's in their head,

rather than almost as if you're just commentating on the world, and just as you might sort of shout at the TV, that you shout at on social media instead. But what I do notice is there is also lots of kindness there too. There are plenty of horrors and have they have awful consequences. But there is plenty of kindness there as well. And there are people just, you know, people who are creating means just to entertain other people with. And spending ages, clearly spending ages making these things and people posting pictures just because they think other people will like them and that they'll make other people's days a bit better. Or there are lots of people who are getting massive support from people in the same situation as them.

They may be, I don't know, you know, bereaved or ill or experiencing something in particular or having a mental health difficulty. and they're getting all sorts of support from people online. And so I think it's definitely not all bad, and we have to remember that there are some good bits there. But I think, again, there are things we can do to be kinder online. You know, the algorithms reward engagement and shares and likes. So you can decide to like the reasonable comments rather than just sort of think, well, that's fine, but, you know, not that exciting.

What if you deliberately liked all the comments where somebody's being very reasonable, and nuanced about a situation? And what if you shared those and engaged with those and ignored all the people who are being horrible? Because if the people are ignored, then they can't get, you know, they can't get to the top of people's feeds, etc. And sort of sticking with social media, one thing I found very interesting that you talked about in the book is the sort of narcissistic kindness, where people will do these kind acts if they think people are watching or if they think they're going to get clicks or likes. And you particularly talked about the ice bucket challenge where some people would do it and then they might not even then donate to charity.

They just wanted everyone to look at them and see how great they were. Yeah, this was a study done by Sarah Conrath in the States and it's really clever. So she just, she looked at the ice bucket challenge from a few years ago and looked to see whether people did the ice bucket challenge and donated to charity, whether they just donated a charity instead or whether they just did the ice bucket challenge. Now, it's slightly complicated by the fact that there were different rules. the challenge in different places and different ways. So sometimes you chose whether to pour the bucket of ice water over your head or donate to charity.

And sometimes people did both. And the rules were different requirements. But she did find that there was a kind of narcissism amongst some people who they just wanted, basically, to do the thing and show the video of themselves. But many gave as well. And, of course, many gave and didn't do any of it, didn't show videos themselves. they just gave and the charity, which was a charity for ALS, had, you know, did, it was hugely successful in terms of that. So it was a very clever way of fundraising because it did tap into

people's, some of the desires that there might be to show off a bit, but it did raise all the money for the charity. And so I think that, I think it's interesting that sometimes there's this thing that's tainted altruism, but people will sometimes say, oh, our celebrities only giving to charity or appearing at charity events in order to try to look good themselves. And yes, they might be a bit, but I think it doesn't matter that much if they're still doing the kind thing. You know, they can get publicity for charities that the rest of us cannot get. And so if they do look good doing something by, at least they are doing it. And it still gets the money for the people who are going to benefit from having that money.

And so I think it's okay to be kind because there's something in it. for you. As long as it's authentic, the kindness. It's okay to be kind because it's also good for your reputation or because it makes you feel good and you get that warm glow of feeling good, as long as it is still a kind thing that you're actually doing because what we want is more kindness in the world. I suppose maybe it's just me, but I find it quite easy to be kind to other people, but quite hard to be kind to myself sometimes. Is this something that's quite broadly recognized? Yeah, it's very common. It's very common. And self-compassion is really important, what is interesting is that we all say, many of us, say to ourselves things we would never dream of saying to a friend.

So when we've made a mistake and really mucked something up at work, if a friend told us that story, we wouldn't then say, well, you're an absolute idiot. And frankly, you always were and you probably always will be. We would never dream of saying that. We would say, oh, it's always, but you were tired. It'll be all right, and everyone will understand that it's going to be okay, and we all make mistakes. But we don't say that to ourselves. And there are really important consequences of this. You can measure people's levels of self-compassion.

And studies have shown that people with really low levels of self-compassion who are highly self-critical are at greater risk of things like depression, say. So it really does matter to try to be kind to yourself as well. And I think it is worth always saying to yourself when you've got those sort of thoughts going on in your own head that are criticising you. What would I say the same to a friend? And that doesn't mean just let yourself off everything and be as bad as you like. But it does mean, you know, if you have made a mistake, then you know, try and learn from it so that you don't do it again, try and work out what went wrong.

But don't beat yourself up about it too much because it is damaging in the end to do that. So why is it, though, that we tend to remember unkind acts more than kind acts? Yeah, there's such a good question. I mean, negative things are always salient. So negative emotions are more salient as well. So we need to notice, for example, if you look at pictures of a crowd, people can pick out the one frightened face or the one angry face much, much faster than pick out the one happy face. So the negative needs to be salient because that's what saves us. You know, we need to spot the bear rather than the wedding cake because the bear might chase us and kill us and the wedding cake won't.

So the negative things are always salient. And so we notice, of course, the negative things on the news, and it can feel as if bad things are happening all the time. And partly, of course, news is bad news in a way. And every so often people will try to suggest, we should have news bulletins where it's just happy stories. But it isn't a story that, I don't know, nobody in Lincoln murdered anybody last night.

But if somebody murdered 20 people in Lincoln last night, then that really is very important and something that needs to be known about in order for people to ask why and what went on and to try to prevent that happening again. And so the news is always going to be negative. And I think that rather than sort of suggest it shouldn't be, what you can do is try not to doomscrow. And I think lots of us found ourselves doing that, particularly during the pandemic.

There was lots of evidence that people were doom scrolling. So they're just endlessly looking up COVID figures and seeing, you know, has it gone up, has it gone down, what's happened today? and doing that several times a day. And I think particularly if something bad is going on, if there's difficult times, which there seem to be a lot these days, then it's good to work out where are you going to get your news

and to do it in a reliable source, obviously, and maybe you do it once a day or twice a day. You don't need to keep doing it all day and you don't need to necessarily have news alerts coming up all the time. Unless you're working in something where you've got to do that for some reason, then it can wait so that it doesn't keep. So you don't keep seeing, instances of unkindness. And what you can do, there have been some experiments done where they get

people to deliberately kindness scroll instead. So there are loads of feeds on, you know, Twitter and Instagram and all sorts of things where you can just see, you know, just hashtags about kind acts, where you can see all sorts of kind, heartwarming things going on. And so instead of looking for some more depressing news, maybe have a look at that and to think, oh yeah, here's some more, here's some more kindness that's going on because the unkindness is always going to stand out because that's the dangerous bit. You touched on it just then and also at the beginning of the podcast about how during the pandemic it certainly felt like there was more kindness being experienced. Now that was obviously the very recent history, but throughout time, are we getting kinder and

kinder or were we kinder in the past perhaps? No, it's a really interesting question and there've been lots of books written about this recently by, you know, Stephen Pinker and Rooker Bregman. And there does seem to be good evidence in a way that there's progress that we are getting kinder. And you may think, oh, but look at the news and the terrible things happening. But if you think about it these days, you know, we don't go and watch a hanging for fun. We don't go and in most places don't go and watch some violence, very serious violence for fun. So in most places these days, we don't go and, you know, watch a hanging for fun or watch somebody, you know, be tortured.

And people did use to do things like that. And on average, you know, people are, say, kind of take being kind to animals much more seriously now. And so I think, and there is evidence that the violence has decreased. Every so often, obviously, there's a war and then violence, you know, you may have two steps forward and one step back. But on the whole, violence has gone down and people live less violent, like they are less likely to experience. violence in most situations than they used to be. And so I think gradually humans have become kinder. But I think that's partly because they've had the opportunity to be able to do that

and to live safely as societies have changed. But that I think there was always a, I think we have an instinct for kindness. We have evolved to cooperate and human success is about cooperation and about relationships. And basically that means kindness, really. because then you're able to trust people and you can cooperate with people. And now we cooperate with people and trust people all over the world. You know, you might send off for something that's going to come from abroad or people will buy goods from abroad and they assume those goods are going to come.

We go to the cinema and we assume that we pay for our ticket and hand over that money or pay electronically that everyone involved with that film is going to get paid. Through us going, there's this massive cooperation that's gone on. All of those people are going to get their bit of money for what it was that they did and the work they put into it for us to then have it as our entertainment. And so our brains reward us for being kind. I think it's no accident that we feel good when we're kind to someone and you can see evidence of this warm glow of kindness we experience because it helps us to thrive and it helps us to survive. Thank you for listening to this episode of

Instant Genius. That was psychologist Claudia Hammond. Her new book, The Keys to Kindness, is out on the 10th of November. The latest issue of BBC Science Focus magazine is out now. Pick up a copy and store or visit ScienceFocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name audio believes you can have digital precision with analogue warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist Focal, name creates high-end audio systems combining innovation with craftsmen. So you can listen to music, just as the artist intended. Discover more at name audio.com.

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