Make Yourself Happy: Be Kind

Make Yourself Happy: Be Kind

One of the greatest myths about happiness, and there are many, is that happiness equates to or requires selfishness.

This couldn’t be further from the truth!

Happiness, and I mean REAL happiness, is NOT selfishness; if it’s anything it’s kindness and caring and generosity and altruism and more ….

via the Atlantic by Arthur C Brooks

Kindness and niceness, though both excellent personal qualities, are not the same thing. The former is to be good to others; the latter is about being pleasant. They don’t even have to go together. Some say, for example, that New Yorkers are kind but not nice (“Your tire is flat, you moron—hand me your jack”), in contrast to Californians, who are nice but not kind (“Looks like you’ve got a flat tire there—have a good day!”).

Despite the traits’ practical differences, social scientists generally don’t separate niceness and kindness, but lump them together as “prosocial behavior.” The category includes such actions as helping others without solicitation or reward, donating to a charity, and giving someone a compliment. Research shows that being prosocial clearly raises happiness, more so than treating yourself. The converse is true too: A recent review of the academic literature found that happier people act more prosocially. In short, for the sake of your own well-being, there are good reasons to try to be kind.

Unfortunately, we fail a lot. Usually, we behave poorly because others are not nice to us. For example, you might resolve to be better to your spouse, and start the day with the best of intentions. But at breakfast, your spouse offhandedly says something you interpret as criticism. You react unkindly, which provokes anger and starts an argument. The best way to avoid this negative cycle is to jump-start and reinforce the opposite kind of feedback loop: one in which kindness leads to happiness, and happiness to kindness.

Most of us consider ourselves to be good to others. According to one British study, 98 percent of people think of themselves as nicer than most. If this were true (and mathematically possible), we would all constantly be helping our neighbors, getting happier, and wanting to help even more. This is the principle of the prosocial feedback loop.

Unfortunately, the virtuous cycle is easily interrupted. Sometimes, it happens by accident: You get a text while shopping that your kid has failed math, then you’re impatient with the checkout clerk. But in many cases, bad actors are to blame—people who punish prosocial behavior and turn good feelings bad.

To examine this phenomenon in a laboratory setting, in the 2000s, researchers conducted “public-goods experiments” in 16 communities worldwide. These are experiments in which people have to decide whether to contribute publicly and voluntarily to a pool of investments whose gains will be distributed to the entire group regardless of original offering. Participants then react to others’ contributions with either acceptance or punitive action. The researchers found that in communities without strong norms of civic cooperation, antisocial actors punished more generous contributors.

You know instinctively who these kindness–happiness interrupters are. In a 2014 paper titled “Trolls Just Want to Have Fun,” three psychologists studied the behavior of people who enjoy posting negative and abusive material on the internet to harass and upset others. The researchers found that trolling correlated positively with malign personality traits such as psychopathy and Machiavellianism (elements of the so-called dark triad). Additional research has shown that about 7 percent of the population can be classified as dark-triad personalities—in other words, the trolls are among us…

… keep reading the full & original article HERE