Turns out random acts of kindness are proven mood boosters.
A study conducted at the University of Texas at Austin and University of Chicago has found that random acts of kindness have a ripple effect of positivity. To prove this, researchers provided questionnaires to both the person performing the good deed and the person receiving it to see how their mood was impacted.
Participants were instructed to do two random acts of kindness within two days, ranging from helping a friend to buying lunch for a stranger.
On a scale of -5 (most negative) to 5 (most positive), good-deed doers thought that recipients would rank at 2.32 on the happiness scale, while in reality, recipients averaged a 3.55 after experiencing the act of kindness.
In another experiment in Chicago, 84 participants gathered in a public park, where they were asked if they wanted to keep a cup of hot chocolate for themselves or give it to a stranger. All but nine of the participants chose to give it away, with the treat recipients rating their positive mood at 3.5, as opposed to the 2.7 that the doers predicted.
“Both performers and recipients were in better moods after. But it was clear that performers underestimated the value of their actions,” says researcher Amit Kumar. “People aren’t way off base. They get that being kind to people makes them feel good. What we don’t get is how good it really makes others feel.”