Kindness

Part of a series on
Emotions
Affect Classification In animals Emotional intelligence Mood Self-regulation Interpersonal Dysregulation Valence
Emotions Acceptance Admiration Affection Amusement Anger Angst Anguish Annoyance Anticipation Anxiety Apathy Arousal Awe Belongingness Boredom Confidence Confusion Contempt Contentment Courage Curiosity Depression Desire Determination Disappointment Disgust Distrust Doubt Ecstasy Elevation Embarrassment Emotional Detachment Empathy Enthusiasm Envy Euphoria Faith Fear Frustration Gratification Gratitude Greed Grief Guilt Happiness Hatred Hope Horror Hostility Humiliation Interest Jealousy Joy Kindness Limerence Loneliness Love Lust Nostalgia Outrage Panic Passion Pity Pleasure Pride Rage Regret Rejection Relief Remorse Resentment Sadness Saudade Schadenfreude Self-pity Shame Shock Shyness Social connection Sorrow Suffering Surprise Suspicion Trust Wonder Worry
v t e

Kindness is a type of behavior marked by acts of generosity, consideration, rendering assistance, or concern for others, without expecting praise or reward in return. It is a subject of interest in philosophy, religion, and psychology.

In Book II of Rhetoric, Aristotle defines kindness as "helpfulness towards someone in need, not in return for anything, nor for the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the person helped".^[1] Friedrich Nietzsche considered kindness and love to be the "most curative herbs and agents in human intercourse".^[2] Kindness is one of the Knightly Virtues.^[3] In Meher Baba's teachings, God is synonymous with kindness: "God is so kind that it is impossible to imagine His unbounded kindness!"^[4]

In English, the word kindness dates from approximately 1300, though the word's sense evolved to its current meanings in the late 1300s.^[5]

Human mate choice studies suggest that both men and women value kindness in their prospective mates, along with intelligence, physical appearance, attractiveness, and age.^[6]

Studies at Yale University using games with babies concluded that kindness is inherent to human beings.^[7] There are similar studies about the root of empathy in infancy^[8] – with motor mirroring developing in the early months of life,^[9] and leading (optimally) to the concern shown by children for their peers in distress.^[10]: 112

Barbara Taylor and Adam Phillips stressed the element of necessary realism^[jargon] in adult kindness, as well as the way "real kindness changes people in the doing of it, often in unpredictable ways".^{[10]: 96 & 12}

Behaving kindly may improve a person's measurable well-being. Many studies have tried to test the hypothesis that doing something kind makes a person better off. A meta-analysis of 27 such studies found that the interventions studied (usually measuring short-term effects after brief acts of kindness, in WEIRD research subjects) supported the hypothesis that acting more kindly improves your well-being.^[11]

Some thinkers have suggested that kindness can be weaponized to discourage enemies:

If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread; and if he be thirsty, give him water to drink; for by doing so thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head.

— Proverbs 25:21–22

You should respond with kindness toward evil done to you, and you will destroy in an evil person that pleasure which he derives from evil.

— Leo Tolstoy^[12]

Kindness is most often taught from parents to children and is learned through observation and some direct teaching. Studies have shown that through programs and interventions kindness can be taught and encouraged during the first 20 years of life.^[13] Further studies show that kindness interventions can help improve well-being with comparable results as teaching gratitude.^[14] Similar findings have shown that organizational level teaching of kindness can improve the well-being of adults in college.^[15]

• Altruism – Principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others
• Compassion – Moved or motivated to help others
• Empathy – Capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing
• Generosity – Liberal in giving
• Good – Concept in religion, ethics, and philosophy
• Good faith – Intention to be fair, open, and honest
• Kindness Day UK
• Moral character – Steady moral qualities in people
• Moral emotions – Variety of social emotions
• Reciprocity – Repayment in kind
• Pay it forward – Expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed repaying the kindness to others
• Random act of kindness – Nonpremeditated act to cheer up another
• Random Acts of Kindness Day – A day to celebrate kindlness
• r/K selection theory – Ecological theory concerning the selection of life history traits
• The Kindness Offensive – North London group known for random acts of kindnessPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback
• World Kindness Day – International observance on 13 November

• Brownlie, Julie (2024). "How kindness took a hold: A sociology of emotions, attachment and everyday enchantment". The British Journal of Sociology.
• Keltner, Dacher; DiSalvo, David (January 2017). "Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts". Scientific American. A psychologist probes how altruism, Darwinism, and neurobiology mean that we can succeed by not being cutthroat.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kindness.

Wikiquote has quotations related to Kindness.

• The dictionary definition of kindness at Wiktionary
• A UK independent, not-for-profit organisation
• Random Acts of Kindness Foundation
• Video with quotes about Kindness, from Wikiquote