Being Kind, Doing New Things Both Linked to Happiness

Psychologists have long known there was an association between performing acts of kindness and being happy.  Although the correlation was clear, the relationship of cause and effect was less clear:  Does performing acts of kindness make you happy, or are happy people more likely to be kind?

In addition, English researchers conducting a recent study of the relationship between kindness and happiness reasoned that since doing new things also tends to make people happy, it could be the novelty of acts of kindness that matters, rather than the kindness itself.

To study the problem, Kathryn Buchanan of the University of Kent and Anat Bardi of Royal Holloway University of London designed a study in which adults between the ages of 18 and 60 were assigned to three groups.  One group was directed to perform a kind act every day, the second group was instructed to perform a new act every day, and the third group was asked to do nothing different.  The researchers studied the life satisfaction of the subjects at the beginning of the study and again after 10 days.

Subjects received daily emails reminding them of their assignment, and they recorded their kind or new behaviors on a web site each day to insure that the experiment was being carried out as planned.

Buchanan and Bardi found that the happiness of the subjects who were assigned to do something new or something kind every day had improved, but the happiness of the control group did not improve.

Both the subjects who did something new every day and those who did something kind every day had similar levels of increased happiness.  Both activities, then, can increase happiness.

The authors reported the results of the study in the May/June 2010 issue of the Journal of Social Psychology. They recommend that both happiness and novelty should be considered when planning interventions designed to increase happiness.

For individuals, the message is clear.  Do something nice for yourself by doing something new.  Do something nice for yourself by doing something nice for someone else.  Either way, you can increase your own happiness.