0:00

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

0:05

Early one morning in March 1964, a

0:09

woman named Kitty Genovese was on

0:11

her way home from the bar where she worked.

0:14

She parked her car and was walking

0:16

toward her apartment building when

0:18

a man attacked and killed her.

0:23

Over the years, Kitty Genovese's

0:25

murder has been the focus of countless books,

0:28

movies, and psychology research papers.

0:30

It drew

0:32

attention not only because it was a grisly crime,

0:35

but because it supposedly explained a

0:37

deep flaw in human nature.

0:41

The New York Times published an article that

0:43

said dozens of people saw the murder or

0:46

heard Kitty Genovese screaming for help, but

0:49

no one intervened. When someone

0:51

did call the police, it was too

0:53

late.

1:01

In the decades that followed, the case

1:04

came to symbolize a psychological phenomenon

1:06

known as the bystander effect. When

1:09

lots of people see something is wrong, the theory

1:11

goes, each person wrongly

1:13

assumes someone else will

1:16

step up to help.

1:18

The net effect is that as the number

1:20

of potential helpers increases, the

1:22

number of people who actually help decreases.

1:28

In recent years, psychologists

1:30

and journalists have re-examined the facts

1:32

of the Kitty Genovese story and walked

1:35

back some of the claims. The Times

1:37

has said that its initial reporting was flawed

1:40

and exaggerated.

1:43

I think the power of the Kitty Genovese story

1:46

lies in the fact that in everyday life,

1:48

we all notice that we are not as helpful

1:51

and brave as we would like to be. We

1:54

look away from people who are suffering.

1:56

We cross the street to avoid

1:59

an altercation.

2:00

Even when the stakes are low for personal

2:02

safety, we don't extend a hand to

2:05

others who need help.

2:10

This week on Hidden Brain, the curious

2:12

psychology behind a phenomenon that is

2:14

all around us, and how understanding

2:17

a quirk inside our minds can

2:19

help us become the kind of people we

2:22

admire.

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and check it out for yourself at discover.com

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slash match. My

3:48

name is Gary Knight. I'm the CEO

3:50

of the Sevem Foundation, which is a media

3:53

nonprofit. I'm also

3:55

a very keen amateur cyclist.

3:59

in 2009 at a journalism

4:02

fellowship program. A big man

4:04

with a gregarious personality, he filled

4:06

every room he entered.

4:10

Gary

4:10

was a photographer and had covered

4:12

conflicts around the world including

4:14

in the Balkans, the Arab world and

4:16

Southeast Asia. He was a member

4:18

of the iconic photo agency

4:20

called SEVEN. I hadn't

4:23

been in touch with Gary for some years but

4:25

recently met up with him. He seemed to

4:27

be moving his shoulder gingerly and I

4:29

asked him what happened. The

4:32

story he told me made me think about some

4:34

surprising research into the nature of kindness.

4:37

We'll get to that in a moment.

4:39

Gary told me that each year he plans

4:42

a biking adventure with friends. The

4:45

thing that we're looking for the most are

4:47

really steep climbs, incredible

4:50

views and sort of mythological

4:52

rides. On

4:54

his most recent trip before our meeting, Gary

4:57

and his friends decided to go biking in

4:59

the west of Scotland. We got

5:01

up very early, drove for an hour to

5:03

this climb called Black Nabar which

5:06

is an old cattle road that goes over

5:08

a mountain. It's one of the steepest roads in the

5:10

British Isles, reaches about 20% on a bike

5:13

and it's a single track road so

5:16

that means that there's really only room for one

5:19

car and a bicycle or

5:21

perhaps a motorcycle. My

5:23

friends usually climb on their bikes

5:26

a lot faster than I do because I'm a lot heavier

5:28

than they are but I descend

5:30

much faster because I'm a lot heavier

5:33

than they are and I have a lot of confidence

5:35

on the bike. So after

5:38

this tortuous climb which I think

5:40

took about an hour and a half, we

5:43

descended down into this little

5:46

town where we had a coffee and

5:48

something to eat and

5:50

I remember passing this sort of group of motorcyclists

5:53

on the way down this road. They

5:55

waved at us, we waved at them, they

5:58

were pretty much doing the same.

5:59

trip we were except on bikes.

6:02

Soon, it was time for the next section.

6:04

We set off again, up a

6:07

gentle climb and then another really steep

6:09

descent.

6:10

And I was quite far ahead

6:13

of my friends. I remember I was

6:15

doing 55 kilometers an hour, which I think

6:17

is about 32, 34 miles per hour

6:19

going down this road. And

6:22

I could see quite far ahead, there was a bend

6:24

in the road and a bridge on

6:27

the bend. And there were two

6:29

Volkswagen camper vans

6:32

coming quite fast in the opposite

6:34

direction.

6:36

And as we got closer to each other,

6:38

I lost sight of the white camper van.

6:41

It was so close to the black one. But when

6:43

I came around this corner, it

6:45

appeared and it was on my side of the road.

6:48

And traveling at that speed, I had

6:50

nowhere to go. There was no room on the road. I had to come

6:52

off the road.

6:53

I

6:54

went over a concrete ledge and

6:57

then went airborne and

6:59

hit a huge lump of granite

7:02

with my shoulder and my head. And I saw it coming

7:04

towards me and it was inevitable what was going to happen.

7:07

I had the

7:09

impact and it was incredibly painful.

7:12

And the bike sort of skidded off ahead of me and

7:14

I came to a real halt. But

7:17

the van, both vans drove

7:19

off up the mountain. But

7:22

I have no doubt that both drivers would have seen

7:24

me. It's impossible unless they were on their phones

7:26

that they wouldn't.

7:30

Gary landed at the bottom of a ditch.

7:32

He didn't black out,

7:34

but he felt fuzzy headed.

7:36

The one thing he was grateful for

7:38

was that his friends were coming down the mountain behind

7:40

him.

7:41

They would come to the same bend and

7:43

stop to help.

7:44

But my friends who were riding behind me, who'd

7:46

lost sight of me, rode

7:49

straight by. I could hear them riding by.

7:53

I was quite distraught. I called out, I think, to

7:55

them a little bit but feebly and they'd gone

7:57

and they left. And so I picked up my phone

7:59

to...

7:59

to call them, to ask them to come back,

8:02

but I had no reception, so I

8:04

couldn't reach them.

8:07

Gary knew he was in trouble. He

8:09

guessed his friends would eventually figure out he was

8:11

not in front of

8:12

them and turn back. But

8:14

how long would that be? 20 minutes?

8:17

An hour? And once they turned back,

8:20

how would they know to come to this particular spot?

8:24

I was in really the middle of nowhere. I

8:27

lifted up my bike, tried to get back on the

8:29

bike, but realized I couldn't move

8:31

my shoulder.

8:34

Slowly, painfully, Gary

8:37

pulled himself and his bike back to

8:39

the edge of the road. At

8:41

that point, I was standing on the side of

8:43

the road, you know, with a ripped

8:45

shirt and clearly not

8:47

quite right. And a number

8:50

of vehicles passed me and

8:52

nobody stopped. People looked, but

8:54

nobody, nobody stopped.

8:59

Would you have stopped? You're driving

9:01

on a remote mountain road in the west of Scotland

9:04

and you see a man with a ripped shirt by

9:07

the side of the road.

9:10

But after some time, someone

9:13

did stop.

9:14

Three motorcycles came down

9:17

the road and these were the motorcyclists that I passed

9:19

earlier in the day and we'd been waving

9:21

to each other. The first

9:24

two sort of looked at me and

9:26

went by and started to slow down. And the third

9:28

one put his thumb up

9:31

and down at me as if, and he was asking

9:33

me the question, are you okay?

9:35

Gary indicated he needed help.

9:37

And so he stopped his motorbike

9:40

and he asked me what had happened and

9:43

then said, look, you know, sit down and we're

9:46

going to, you know, check you out. And

9:49

he explains his name's Martin. He

9:51

explained that he and his friends, Max

9:53

and Anita, were

9:56

all Poles. They're Polish. They lived

9:58

and worked in the United

9:59

Kingdom and they were all trained

10:02

paramedics and they just the week

10:04

before finished all

10:06

of their training. And

10:09

so they checked me out, checked my head,

10:12

did all the tests to see if I had concussion. They

10:15

then took out bandages, strapped me up,

10:18

immobilized my arm. I mean,

10:20

I couldn't have

10:21

wished for more.

10:23

One of them went and found Gary's friends while

10:26

another called emergency services. All

10:29

three waited with him for almost an hour until

10:31

the medics arrived.

10:33

They were so incredibly generous. They

10:35

spent a lot of time with me whilst

10:37

they were on vacation. And

10:41

the only people who stopped for me in Scotland weren't

10:43

people from Britain, my own people.

10:45

They were in fact foreigners, which

10:48

is sort of ironic at a time of Brexit when

10:50

Britain is rejecting the idea

10:52

of allowing foreigners in so

10:55

easily.

10:56

I'm hugely, hugely grateful for

10:58

them. And just

11:01

talking about it makes me very emotional.

11:06

Sorry.

11:08

It's ironic because I've

11:11

had a very dramatic

11:15

and

11:17

violent career. You

11:21

know, I photographed wars for 20 years

11:28

and the closest I ever came

11:32

to dying was on my bike. And,

11:36

you know, I felt

11:38

very alone when

11:40

I came off the bike and

11:43

having three strangers,

11:45

you

11:47

know, stuff at the side of the road

11:49

and take care of me.

11:51

It was a remarkable, it seemed,

11:56

an incredible act of kindness. I

12:00

hope I have the opportunity to do the same

12:03

thing, but somebody else one day. I

12:17

feel so grateful that those three Polish paramedics

12:20

stopped to help my friend.

12:22

But there is another way to look at this.

12:24

Sure, it's no fun to take an hour out

12:26

of your vacation to help a stranger.

12:29

But really, it's just an hour. And

12:31

surely, knowing you helped another person

12:33

in desperate need has to make you feel

12:36

great about yourself.

12:40

So why are stories of good Samaritans so

12:42

rare? In daily life,

12:44

why don't we extend help to others more often?

12:47

Are people just selfish? Actually,

12:51

new psychological research reveals a

12:53

quirk in our mental makeup that

12:55

may be to blame. You're

12:58

listening to Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar

13:00

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14:02

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

14:04

When psychologist Amit Kumar was

14:06

in graduate school, he became close

14:09

friends with another student. We're

14:11

going to call her Jen.

14:12

We used to spend a lot of time together

14:15

and, you know, those late night conversations,

14:18

sometimes they're about work, sometimes they're about life. When you're

14:20

a social psychologist, those

14:23

conversations kind of blend together.

14:25

I also knew her

14:28

partner quite well. You know, the graduate

14:30

school was at Cornell in Ithaca, New York,

14:32

which is a pretty small college

14:35

town. And so you end up running into

14:37

the same people when you go to restaurants

14:39

there, you see

14:41

each other a lot.

14:42

And so at this

14:45

stage in our lives, we were

14:47

quite close indeed. At

14:50

the end of grad school, Jen and her partner

14:52

got married. It was a small wedding,

14:55

just close friends and family. I

14:57

mean, I think the thing that's amazing about weddings

15:00

in particular is that you have all of these people

15:02

from these different parts of your life come

15:04

together. And it's just so nice to see how

15:07

much everybody cares for each other

15:09

and how happy they are that these two

15:11

people found each other and

15:14

decided to try to make this

15:17

work. And so it is a

15:19

thrilling experience, I think, to be a part

15:21

of those festivities.

15:25

Amit finished his dissertation.

15:27

Grad school ended. The long late

15:29

night conversations between friends turned

15:31

into busy careers and family demands.

15:34

Amit began working as a professor in Texas.

15:37

Over time,

15:39

he and Jen lost touch. On

15:42

and off, Amit would hear news about his friend

15:45

for mutual acquaintances and via social

15:47

media.

15:48

The new see hard

15:50

was not happy.

15:51

I had learned that

15:54

she had recently gotten separated from

15:56

her partner. She was about to go through divorce.

15:58

They. They had actually recently

16:01

had a child as well, so I

16:03

didn't know that they were having any trouble

16:05

with their relationship. I

16:07

learned this through a mutual friend, and

16:09

so it was one of those situations where I kind

16:12

of was a third party that

16:14

knew what was going on in her life, but

16:16

hadn't heard it from her myself.

16:19

Hmm, and I guess at this point, you're someone

16:21

who, this is a friend you were close to in

16:23

grad school. You obviously went to the wedding. You

16:26

felt happy to be there. You felt happy for the couple.

16:29

You heard about this unfortunate news about the

16:31

relationship not working out, but

16:33

you've also sort of fallen out of touch. I'm imagining

16:35

it must have been difficult to pick up the phone at that point

16:38

and just call her, right? Because it's not

16:40

like you were friends anymore.

16:42

Well, when I found out was actually

16:45

particularly interesting, I think. This

16:47

was actually during a period of the pandemic.

16:50

Maybe other people have experienced this. I felt that it had

16:53

been a little too long since I had seen my

16:55

family. I wasn't yet comfortable

16:57

getting on an airplane though, and so I cautiously

16:59

kind of decided that it would be worth

17:01

it to drive from where I live

17:04

in Austin, Texas, to where I grew up, where my parents

17:06

are in New Jersey in order to see them. But

17:09

this travel did have me passing through

17:12

several cities that I might not otherwise visit.

17:15

And in fact, I was aware of the fact

17:17

that this old friend of mine from

17:19

grad school, Jen, happened

17:22

to be living in one such city that was near

17:25

the route that I was on.

17:27

A myth can say that's stopping to pay Jen a visit,

17:29

but then he asked himself what he would say.

17:32

I hadn't talked to her myself in years.

17:35

She didn't know that I would be driving through. I didn't give her

17:37

advance notice. I thought maybe that's

17:40

not very courteous to just show up and tell

17:42

someone you're around. I also

17:44

thought about, of course, she

17:46

might wonder how I knew what was going on

17:48

in her life, even though we hadn't been

17:51

in touch with each other. And so maybe she'd

17:53

wonder

17:54

how I even knew about her relationship

17:57

troubles. How uncomfortable might that be?

18:02

Amith did what many of us might do in such

18:04

a situation. He drove through

18:06

Jern's town and didn't reach out. As

18:09

a psychologist, the incident got him thinking.

18:12

Someone who didn't know him well might have concluded

18:14

he was callous in not reaching out to

18:17

a friend going through tough times. But

18:20

Amith didn't feel callous. He

18:22

wanted to reach out to Jern, but didn't

18:24

know how she would react. Amith

18:26

didn't lack for kindness.

18:29

He lacked for confidence. How

18:33

often, he asked himself, now wearing his psychologist

18:35

hat, does this happen in everyday life,

18:38

where people fail to extend help not

18:41

because they are unable or unwilling

18:43

to help, but because they feel

18:45

they might not be able to do the right thing?

18:48

In time, the question bloomed into

18:51

a full-blown research project. Amith

18:53

quickly came by lots of examples of other people

18:56

who found themselves in similar situations.

18:59

The author, George Saunders, describes

19:01

an incident that took place when he was in the seventh

19:03

grade. A new kid had

19:05

just arrived at a school. Ellen

19:08

was small, shy. She

19:10

wore these blue cat's-eye glasses

19:12

that, at the time, only old ladies

19:14

wore. When nervous, which

19:16

was pretty much always, she had

19:18

a habit of taking a strand of hair into her

19:21

mouth and chewing on it, which didn't

19:23

help her popularity at all.

19:25

At a commencement address at Syracuse University,

19:28

George Saunders described how most

19:30

kids ignored Ellen. When

19:32

they did pay attention to her, it

19:34

was often to mock her.

19:36

Your hair tastes good, that sort

19:38

of thing. I could see this hurt

19:40

her. I still remember the way

19:42

she'd look after such an insult. Eyes

19:45

cast down, a little gut kicked, as

19:47

if, having just been reminded of

19:49

her place in things, she was trying

19:52

as much as possible to disappear.

19:59

stop the bullies. And then

20:02

they moved. One day she was there,

20:05

next day she wasn't. End of story.

20:09

Now why do I regret that?

20:12

Why, 42 years later, am I still

20:14

thinking about her? Relative

20:16

to most of the kids, I was actually pretty nice

20:18

to her. I never said an unkind word

20:21

to her. In fact, I sometimes even

20:23

mildly defended her. But

20:25

still, it bothers me. So

20:28

here's something I know to be true, although it's a little corny

20:31

and I don't quite know what to do with it. What

20:34

I regret most in my life are

20:36

failures of kindness.

20:42

Failures of kindness.

20:44

We often think that people who fail to act kindly

20:47

are unkind people.

20:49

But the more Amit studied the phenomenon,

20:52

the more he saw, the truth was

20:54

much sadder than that.

20:55

There is, in fact, a plentiful supply

20:58

of kindness in the world. And there is

21:00

lots of demand for that kindness.

21:02

But there is a quirk in our minds that

21:04

keeps us from closing the loop

21:06

and actually showing kindness when it's needed.

21:09

I think the language that economists

21:11

use can actually be somewhat helpful here,

21:14

even though we're talking about these everyday

21:16

interactions where one could be kind to

21:19

another person. And

21:22

economists talk about things like expected utility,

21:25

that they'll tell you that wise decisions

21:27

are guided by an accurate assessment of

21:29

the expected value of a given action.

21:32

And so what we're often thinking

21:34

about is our expectations.

21:37

And we've got expectations of both

21:39

costs and benefits.

21:42

There's potential costs that come with any

21:44

interaction. It could be awkward. It could be uncomfortable.

21:47

It could seem weird. You could

21:49

be rejected. That's a risk of any

21:51

potential interaction with another person. But of

21:54

course, there's potential benefits to

21:56

interacting with other people as well in terms

21:58

of the support that you're proposing.

21:59

providing, and in terms of both how you

22:02

and they feel. Think

22:04

about the thoughts that went through Amit's head as

22:07

he drove through the town of his old friend.

22:09

He worried that reaching out unexpectedly

22:12

might seem rude.

22:14

He worried that he wouldn't know exactly

22:16

what to say.

22:17

He worried that she would ask him

22:20

how he had found out she was going through a divorce,

22:22

and he wouldn't know how to respond.

22:25

It's that none of these motivators

22:27

involve Amit not wanting to help

22:29

his friend.

22:31

One way that psychologists will sometimes talk

22:33

about these costs is sort of an inordinate concern

22:35

with how competent

22:38

we seem. Are we doing just the right

22:40

thing at just the right time? If

22:43

it seems like we're not, then

22:45

we might not act in

22:47

the direction of kindness, as George

22:49

Saunders put it, these other oriented

22:52

interactions.

22:53

In a series of experiments, Amit

22:55

has shown that givers and recipients

22:57

of kindness use completely different

23:00

lenses to evaluate a kind deed.

23:02

Givers worry a lot about

23:04

whether they are being competent. Recipients

23:07

care much more about something else.

23:10

In one experiment, Amit and

23:12

his colleagues approached strangers at a skating

23:14

rink and asked them to give away hot cocoa

23:17

to someone nearby.

23:18

We essentially had participants perform

23:21

a random act of kindness for

23:23

just a stranger who happened to be nearby.

23:27

We had these participants at a skating rink

23:30

in a public park at Chicago. They were giving away

23:32

hot chocolate on a cold winter's

23:34

day to someone else in the area.

23:37

You're giving to another person this

23:39

delicious hot chocolate you're expecting, nothing

23:41

in return. After

23:44

performing this act, we had these

23:47

participants report their

23:49

own feelings and predict

23:51

their recipients' experience. We

23:55

then got ratings. We asked the recipients

23:57

of this act of kindness to tell us how they were able

23:59

to do that. they actually felt. And

24:02

when we followed up with these recipients, what became

24:05

clear is that

24:05

performers tend to underestimate

24:08

the value of their kindness. So

24:11

as it turns out, both performers and recipients

24:14

were in significantly

24:16

better moods than the normal after this

24:18

exchange, after giving a hot chocolate to a

24:20

stranger. And in fact, recipients

24:22

of that act of kindness felt

24:25

significantly better than performers of that

24:27

act anticipated.

24:31

The people who gave away the hot chocolate obviously

24:34

expected that recipients would appreciate

24:36

the beverage. But they underestimated

24:39

just how much recipients would appreciate

24:41

it.

24:42

Givers focused mostly on

24:44

the worth of a hot chocolate on a

24:46

cold winter's day. Recipients

24:49

loved not only the hot chocolate, but the

24:51

idea that a stranger had suddenly

24:54

done something nice for them.

24:56

Of course, in this initial experiment, it

24:59

was hard to disentangle people's enjoyment

25:01

of the hot chocolate from their appreciation

25:04

of an act of kindness. So

25:06

Amit ran a follow-up study.

25:09

We returned to the

25:12

same public park. Contrary

25:14

to popular belief, it eventually gets warm

25:18

in Chicago. So

25:21

the skating rink had melted because

25:24

the seasons had changed. So

25:26

we had participants giving cupcakes

25:28

away to a stranger. But we

25:30

had these cupcakes given

25:33

to participants in our study in a

25:35

couple of different ways. So

25:37

in one case, participants,

25:40

again, gave a cupcake away to somebody

25:42

else as an act of kindness.

25:44

But in another case, we had what you might

25:48

think of as a control condition in which no

25:50

act of kindness was performed, but

25:52

people still received a cupcake. So in this other

25:55

case, recipients are simply getting a cupcake

25:58

for participating in the experiment. rather

26:00

than from another person as a random

26:03

act of kindness. So one of these

26:06

cases includes the warmth

26:08

associated with a kind

26:10

exchange. The other also

26:12

has somebody receiving a cupcake but without

26:15

getting it from somebody else. And

26:17

so what we do again, is we compare expected

26:20

versus actual experiences

26:22

in these two cases. And

26:25

what we found was that people again

26:28

underestimated how positive recipients

26:30

would feel after this act of

26:32

kindness, when they had given

26:34

the cupcake

26:35

to somebody else. Givers

26:39

tend to focus on the specific

26:41

help they are giving, whether that's a phone

26:43

call to someone in need

26:45

or a cupcake to a stranger in a park.

26:48

They evaluate the success of their acts of

26:50

kindness using a lens of competence.

26:53

This is why they ask themselves, am

26:55

I doing the right thing? Am I saying

26:57

the right thing?

27:00

Recipients focus less on

27:03

whether the gift is perfect. They

27:05

care more about the warmth that

27:07

comes with an act of kindness.

27:09

Think about what Gary Knight said about

27:12

the three Polish travelers who stopped

27:14

to help him.

27:15

Yes, he was grateful they had some

27:17

medical expertise, but in

27:19

a

27:19

moment when he felt all alone, the

27:21

fact other human beings had stopped to help

27:24

him meant the world to him.

27:27

What we're kind of missing out on

27:29

is this

27:30

understanding of

27:33

the additional warmth that comes

27:36

from being on the receiving end

27:38

of one of these acts. We get that people

27:41

like cupcakes, but it turns

27:43

out that getting a cupcake as a result

27:45

of an act of kindness can be surprisingly

27:48

good.

27:49

It turns out that we make

27:52

something of the same error when it comes to people

27:54

in our own lives, not just to strangers. There

27:57

was a study led by Zeta Oravax

27:59

and Chiang Mai.

27:59

Chelsea Muth at Penn State some years ago that

28:02

asked people what made them feel most

28:05

loved. What did they find, Amit?

28:08

Yeah, what they found was that these

28:11

sort of daily acts of kindness,

28:14

these expressions of appreciation,

28:17

even simple compliments, those are the

28:19

types of things that people say make them feel

28:21

most loved by those that

28:23

are closest to them in their lives. I think what's interesting

28:26

about that research though is that it focuses

28:28

on the recipient's perspective. So if

28:30

you're asking people about what really

28:33

matters to them, what makes them feel

28:36

positive in these ways, they'll

28:38

tell you that it's these expressions

28:41

of warmth that happen on a day-to-day

28:43

basis and the types of interactions we could

28:46

have all the time. And yet,

28:48

I think if you were to ask the people that

28:52

love those participants, the potential

28:56

compliment givers or gratitude

28:58

expressors or performers

29:00

of acts of kindness, they might think that

29:02

they're doing something relatively inconsequential

29:06

as opposed to one of the most important

29:08

things that they could do for another person.

29:15

Amit says the different lenses employed

29:17

by gift givers and gift recipients

29:20

to evaluate the value of an act of kindness

29:23

leads to what he calls the pro-sociality

29:26

paradox.

29:27

I think the paradox is really that these

29:30

are actions that tend to feel

29:32

good for both the

29:34

people doing them and the people on the receiving

29:36

end. And yet, even though it feels

29:39

good, it's seen as good, it's perceived

29:41

to be good, we are reluctant

29:45

to behave in these ways that in

29:47

everyday life will leave us feeling happier.

29:52

The pro-sociality paradox doesn't just lead kind people

29:54

to withhold that kindness. It

29:56

also keeps people from asking for help.

29:59

for kindness.

30:01

In a study by Nick Epley and Shu-Ann

30:03

Zhao, visitors at a botanical

30:06

garden were encouraged to ask others

30:08

to take a photo of them. The visitors

30:10

were then asked to guess whether the strangers

30:13

being asked to take the photos would feel

30:15

happy or inconvenienced by

30:17

the request.

30:19

So there's a beautiful scene in

30:21

this in this conservatory essentially

30:23

with these lush plants,

30:25

this lush foliage around. And

30:28

so when you ask people how inconvenienced

30:31

would somebody feel if you asked them to take

30:33

a picture for you, how positive would they feel

30:35

as a result of offering this help for

30:37

you? They think that people are going to feel more

30:40

inconvenienced than they actually feel. And

30:42

in fact, they don't realize how positive

30:44

the other person will feel as a result of sort

30:47

of helping you out. People are generally,

30:50

they tend to be delighted to offer

30:52

a helping hand. It doesn't take very much effort.

30:55

It's an easy opportunity to do something

30:57

nice for somebody else. And

30:59

people are happy to do this, but we don't always

31:02

recognize that.

31:05

And in some ways, isn't this partly

31:07

connected to the idea that we

31:09

find it really difficult to put ourselves in other people's

31:12

shoes? So we're seeing the world so

31:14

often through our own perspective that

31:16

we fail to see that somebody else could see it quite

31:18

differently.

31:20

Yeah, it's we have these egocentric

31:22

biases, this is sort of the scientific term

31:24

for these perspective based asymmetries

31:27

where we're thinking about things from our perspective.

31:29

But in these contexts, these are interpersonal

31:32

exchanges, they involve other people.

31:34

And so it really matters what's going on

31:36

in the minds of the mind of another

31:38

person, what their perspective

31:41

is, I'm not the first person to suggest

31:43

that being kind to other people improves

31:45

well being. And yet we have tons

31:48

of opportunities to be kind to other

31:50

people that we don't take advantage

31:52

of. And I think it's interesting to

31:54

think about why we don't act

31:57

in ways that are likely to make us feel

31:59

better. One of the

32:01

explanations for why

32:03

we sometimes choose not to do

32:05

those things that are going to make both us and

32:08

someone else feel better is that we

32:10

don't fully understand the magnitude of

32:13

the impact that we're having on another

32:15

person. Recipients feel they

32:17

say things like a little good goes a long

32:19

way. What we find in our research

32:22

is that it actually goes even further

32:24

than people expect that it will.

32:26

We underestimate how much value

32:29

these acts will have on the people that we're

32:31

kind to.

32:33

There is one last dimension to the pro-sociality

32:35

paradox.

32:36

It's not only the case that we underestimate

32:38

how much people will appreciate our acts of kindness.

32:42

It's not only that we underestimate how willing

32:44

others are to help us. We fail

32:46

to foresee the downstream effects

32:49

of being

32:49

kind. Let's see today in the Table Bay Times both report a woman

32:52

at the drive-thru paid for her coffee

32:54

at the Starbucks on Tyrone Boulevard around 7

32:56

a.m. yesterday. She also paid

32:58

for the driver behind her who in turn paid for

33:00

the next customer and so on and

33:02

so on. In all 378 people decided

33:05

to pay it forward. Employees

33:09

say the 379th person who broke the chain was

33:11

confused about how it all worked.

33:15

Amit and his team have run experiments to

33:17

test if kindness is really contagious.

33:20

They've brought people into a lab and

33:22

given them a small gift like a chocolate

33:24

bar or a box of gourmet tea.

33:27

We had recipients of that act of kindness

33:29

kind of play. One

33:31

of these economic games that are used

33:34

to explore what are sometimes

33:36

called pay it forward effects. Participants

33:39

are assigned the role. They're told that they're sort

33:41

of the decider. They're asked to allocate some

33:44

money between themselves and another person.

33:46

This is someone that they'd never meet. And

33:49

so everybody that received an item in

33:51

this case again it was either from the experimenter

33:54

for their participation or as a result of their

33:56

act of kindness. They're assigned to be this

33:58

decider. There's real money on the board. the line, these

34:00

are consequential choices. And

34:03

what we found was that those who

34:05

had just been on the receiving end of an act of

34:07

kindness gave

34:10

substantially more to sort of

34:12

this anonymous person in this subsequent

34:14

game. So this other person

34:17

was now being kind to someone else

34:20

basically because someone had been

34:22

kind to them for someone else. The

34:25

downstream effects in some ways of being

34:27

kind.

34:28

Yeah, you can

34:29

think of this as a potential virtuous

34:31

cycle of sort of giving

34:34

to other people, but we don't always

34:36

realize that we have the capacity to

34:38

create cycles like that.

34:42

Our actions can have surprising ripple effects

34:44

on the world. But first, we

34:46

have to work up the courage to overcome

34:49

our own feelings of awkwardness.

34:52

For his part, Amit eventually

34:54

did reach out to Jen, his grad school friend.

34:57

It was a lot less awkward than he had

34:59

feared.

35:00

I wish the story was I reflected on

35:03

how I had behaved and I changed my behavior

35:06

right away and called her up on the phone. But

35:08

we ended up there was some

35:11

shared memory, essentially, that that

35:13

led to us having a little bit of a text exchange.

35:16

We ended up talking to each other as

35:18

a result of that. And from that conversation,

35:21

I knew that it would have been great

35:23

if we had talked to each other. When

35:25

you're close to someone, those feelings

35:28

of closeness come back pretty quickly

35:30

in

35:30

reality. But sometimes it's hard

35:33

to realize that when

35:35

you're thinking about sort of the prospect

35:37

of reconnecting with somebody else. We

35:44

all have moments in our lives when we see an opportunity

35:47

to step in, but don't.

35:50

Maybe an elderly stranger needs some help

35:52

at the grocery store or a friend

35:54

in trouble could benefit from a phone call. Rather

35:57

than doing something, even if it's small.

35:59

Many of us hold back. We

36:02

worry we will be awkward or that our

36:04

kindness will be misconstrued. Yet,

36:08

when we are on the receiving end of small kindnesses,

36:11

we are often moved to tears. This

36:14

paradox plays out every day, robbing

36:16

us of opportunities to offer kindness

36:19

and opportunities to receive it.

36:23

When we come back, how to fight the

36:25

pro-sociality paradox? You

36:27

are listening to Hidden Brain.

36:29

I'm Shankar Vedantam.

36:49

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

36:51

Like many people, psychologist

36:54

Amit Kumar had trepidations about

36:56

returning to the office after spending months

36:58

away during the COVID pandemic.

37:01

I think all of us that have

37:03

had this experience can remember how strange

37:05

it is to go back to a place

37:07

when you haven't been there in many months. And

37:10

so there was already some anxiety

37:12

around going back to the office.

37:15

I was nervous about doing that. I

37:17

basically didn't go to the office at all for many

37:20

months during the height of the pandemic. And

37:22

when I eventually did come back to campus,

37:24

I was expecting to kind of find a half-eaten

37:27

sandwich from a past life and a bunch of

37:29

dead plants in my office.

37:32

Much to my surprise, though, the plants in my

37:34

office were not only alive, they

37:36

were miraculously thriving

37:39

to the point of looking way healthier

37:41

than they looked when I was coming in regularly

37:43

and trying to tend to them. And

37:46

it turned out, so there's a person

37:48

on our administrative staff here who

37:51

does all sorts of seemingly small things

37:53

that kind of really loom large,

37:55

I think, in the minds of those that are

37:57

receiving her help. And

38:00

of course it turned out that it was her who had kind

38:02

of made this miracle happen. She

38:04

had been coming into the office at

38:07

least with a little bit of frequency. And

38:10

this was again something she didn't have to do. Nobody

38:12

asked her to do this. In fact, when I talked

38:15

to her about this is another kind of real

38:17

life experience of what we're measuring

38:19

in these experiments. Because when I talked to her about

38:21

it, she basically framed it as

38:24

this super concrete, simple

38:27

act. You know, it's just pouring water

38:29

out of a container every once in a while

38:31

is kind of how she described what she was

38:33

doing. But to me, when you're already

38:36

anxious about returning to the office, you think

38:38

that your plants have died. This

38:40

was somebody that was thinking about

38:42

me, somebody that cared about me, somebody that

38:45

was doing something nice

38:47

for me. And so

38:49

all of those positive feelings, I think, really

38:52

came to mind in that instance, even though she,

38:54

of course, thought of it as some small

38:56

thing that she was doing to kind of pass the time.

39:00

It's those different lenses again. Amit

39:03

focused on the warmth of the act of

39:05

kindness. His colleague focused

39:07

on how much effort it took her to water the

39:09

plants.

39:11

So this goes back to sort of this asymmetry

39:14

in terms of what are people focusing

39:16

on? What are people paying attention to in

39:19

these interactions? So when we're a

39:21

potential performer

39:22

of an act of kindness, our perspective

39:25

just tends to focus less

39:27

on warmth than targets do when we're considering

39:30

our own behavior. It seems

39:32

like a plant watering a plant to a

39:34

performer, but it's actually somebody

39:36

doing something nice for

39:38

me when you're a recipient.

39:44

In recent years, Amit and his colleagues

39:46

have started to ask how they can help people

39:49

overcome the pro-sociality paradox.

39:52

One experiment conducted with Nick Epley at the

39:54

University of Chicago points in

39:56

a useful direction.

39:58

pretty

40:00

easy. They don't necessarily involve

40:02

lots of effort. They're the types of things that you can

40:05

do in just a matter of minutes. Folks

40:08

have been making the case for about

40:10

two decades now that expressing gratitude

40:12

improves well-being. And yet again,

40:15

we don't necessarily walk around

40:17

in our daily lives giving thanks

40:19

to people all that often. And that

40:22

makes a scientist curious as to, well,

40:24

why don't we? And so one

40:26

of the ways that we investigated this was by

40:29

having participants sort of write a gratitude

40:31

letter to somebody else who had impacted

40:33

them in some way. And we, again,

40:36

had those participants make predictions about

40:39

how their recipient would feel as a result

40:41

of their letter. And what we found

40:43

when recipients told us how they really felt, and

40:46

we kind of compare those responses to

40:48

expectations, was that

40:51

senders significantly underestimated

40:53

how

40:54

surprised recipients would be about

40:56

why they were grateful. They overestimated

40:59

how awkward or uncomfortable recipients

41:02

would feel. And they didn't realize just

41:05

how positive it would feel to be on

41:07

the receiving end of one of these letters.

41:10

I understand that you use

41:12

a similar exercise when you teach.

41:14

What do you ask your students to do?

41:17

Yeah, so it's essentially participating

41:21

in this experiment. So they write a letter to

41:23

somebody else. They make a prediction about

41:25

how that person will feel. We contact

41:28

their recipients. We find out how they really feel.

41:31

And I kind of show the data to the

41:33

students in my class. I think what's powerful

41:36

for the students is that they learn that they

41:38

exhibit the same effects that have been found

41:41

in published research. So we've replicated

41:43

these results kind of time and time again. I suspect

41:45

that it's useful or this research might

41:47

be more meaningful. It might potentially have a bigger impact

41:51

on one's own life if you kind of participate

41:54

directly, if you experience it yourself,

41:56

rather than just kind of hearing about the results

41:58

from experiments. he didn't participate

42:01

in.

42:02

Professors at other universities have adopted

42:04

Ahmed's letter-writing exercise. He

42:07

sometimes hears stories about how it's impacted

42:09

students. One story stands

42:11

out to him.

42:12

An international student studying at

42:14

a Canadian university

42:15

decided to write a letter to

42:17

his mother.

42:19

Thanked her for everything that she had

42:21

done for him. And at the end of

42:23

his letter, he wrote the words, I

42:25

love you, and he realized that he had never

42:28

said that to his mom before. And

42:30

his mother's response started with four

42:33

words back, I love you too. Imagine

42:38

sort of hearing that from your mom after

42:40

the first time that you told her that. That's

42:42

a particularly powerful example,

42:44

of course, but it's actually not an unusual

42:47

reaction. So we've done this with,

42:50

you know, lots and lots of participants at this point. And

42:52

I've had participants in our studies and

42:54

in my class kind of write to me, telling

42:57

me that they were ecstatic, that they were bubbling

42:59

over with joy after receiving

43:01

a letter of appreciation. That's not

43:03

the usual type of comment that

43:06

a researcher

43:07

gets in the open-ended feedback when

43:09

they're asking someone to complete

43:11

a questionnaire.

43:18

So after studying this phenomenon for many years, Ahmed,

43:21

I understand that there are things that you have done in your

43:23

own life to make it easier

43:26

and more automatic for you to

43:28

reach out a helping hand. Tell me about

43:31

those things. What do you do?

43:32

I'd say that I probably have started expressing

43:34

gratitude more often in my day-to-day

43:36

life as a result of sort of conducting

43:39

this research. So, you know,

43:41

all of this work is just an attempt to get a better understanding

43:44

of our everyday lives

43:46

and how they might be improved. And

43:48

so what makes us more likely to

43:50

express gratitude? Well, we know that people

43:52

are more likely to do something if it's

43:54

kind of top of mind, if we can think about

43:57

a clear way to get it done. And so one

43:59

thing that I do is I just... have cards on hand.

44:02

It's an easy reminder to me, more

44:04

than the stationery itself. It's just,

44:06

oh, yeah, I could express gratitude to somebody else.

44:09

Why not go ahead and do it? The

44:11

research, of course, suggests that people

44:13

are more impacted by these expressions

44:15

than we expect.

44:21

Some time ago, Ahmed found himself at

44:23

an airport with an opportunity

44:25

to practice the ideas that he

44:27

preaches.

44:28

So I was waiting at the gate. I happened

44:30

to be sitting next

44:32

to a woman who was clearly getting frustrated

44:35

with something on her phone. She

44:38

tried asking a couple of folks nearby for help

44:41

in Spanish without much luck. And

44:43

so in doing so, I kind of learned that she didn't really

44:45

speak English. I

44:48

guess an aside, mind you, the last time I took

44:50

a Spanish class was in eleventh

44:53

grade. So I'm probably

44:56

always, you know, listeners can't see

44:58

gray in my beard on a podcast, but that

45:00

was a while ago. So, you

45:04

know, I'm probably always speaking in the present

45:06

tense, not

45:09

not really communicating effectively. And so this

45:11

is a case where I think concerns about competence

45:13

really loomed large here. I have very

45:16

little confidence in my ability to effectively

45:19

communicate in Spanish. But nevertheless,

45:21

and sort of knowing my own research, I

45:24

thought I'd just try to help her as best

45:26

I could. And so in my in

45:29

my broken Spanish, I kind of pieced together

45:31

that she was traveling to the U.S. for

45:33

the first time she was trying to get in touch with

45:35

her brother to

45:38

pick her up when she landed. And

45:40

she needed to connect to the Wi-Fi in order to sort

45:42

of talk to him on WhatsApp. She had an international

45:44

phone connecting to the free airport

45:47

Wi-Fi required kind of filling out one of

45:49

those those standard forms with like your email

45:51

address and your zip code, things

45:54

that some people are very accustomed to doing, but others

45:57

might not be. I guess

45:59

I'll mention that I have. no clue how to say

46:01

zip code in any other language

46:04

besides English. And

46:06

so after a few failed attempts

46:09

at explaining sort of what she needed to do,

46:11

she just kind of handed me her phone. I ended

46:13

up filling out the form with my own

46:16

sort of personal contact information to get her

46:18

connected. And you know,

46:20

it was a kind of broken conversation,

46:22

but I pieced together. She was kind of telling me

46:24

how nervous she was traveling.

46:26

She made it clear how appreciative she was of my

46:29

help, kind of allowing her to interact with her brother.

46:31

I don't know if I would

46:33

have done that if I wasn't studying topics

46:35

like these in my research. It's kind of easy

46:38

to stay reserved. Maybe someone else

46:41

will help. I don't want to get involved. Those

46:43

are the thoughts that sometimes enter

46:45

our minds, but this is something that obviously

46:48

left her feeling positive and it

46:50

actually made me feel really good too. And those

46:53

I think are exactly the kinds of actions

46:55

that perhaps all of us should

46:58

be engaging in a bit more often.

47:08

Amit Kumar works at the University of Texas

47:10

at Austin. Amit, thank you for joining

47:13

me today on Hidden Brain. Thanks so much

47:15

for having me.

47:22

Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain

47:24

Media.

47:25

Our audio production team includes Bridget

47:27

McCarthy, Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristin

47:30

Wong, Laura Quirell, Ryan

47:32

Katz, Autumn Barnes and Andrew

47:34

Chadwick. Tara Boyle is our

47:36

executive producer.

47:37

I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor.

47:43

For today's Unsung Hero, we turn the

47:45

mic over to you, our listeners. It's

47:47

a story from our show, My Unsung

47:49

Hero. Today's story comes

47:51

from Julie Cadwalader-Stau. In 2003,

47:56

Julie's husband Warren died of cancer

47:59

at just 49. Not long

48:01

after, she decided to go visit a friend

48:04

in Boston.

48:05

I'd driven to Boston many times

48:07

for my husband's chemo treatment at Dana-Farber,

48:09

so I had plenty of false confidence

48:12

about being able to make the trip. Mind

48:16

you, this was in the days before GPS

48:18

and cell phones were ubiquitous, and

48:21

I had neither. Also,

48:24

keep in mind, which I did not, that

48:28

my husband had always been with me

48:30

on these previous trips, and unlike

48:33

me, had an impeccable sense of

48:35

direction. But needless to

48:37

say, he was not with me on this trip.

48:40

I arrived there fine. My friend had

48:42

given me good directions, and I

48:45

figured I would just do the reverse in

48:47

order to get back home.

48:48

After her ceremony, I walked

48:51

back to my car and found

48:53

that the parking lot exited onto

48:56

a one-way street. No

48:59

problem, I thought. I'll just take

49:02

this road and then take the first

49:04

left and then another left, and

49:06

I'll be heading back out of the city.

49:09

So I did that, and it took

49:11

me deeper into Boston.

49:15

No problem, I thought. I'll stop and ask

49:17

directions. I did. I

49:20

followed those directions. I became

49:23

seriously lost. I had absolutely

49:26

no idea where I was.

49:28

By now, I was fighting panic.

49:32

I finally found a neighborhood gas station.

49:34

I was in a rundown part of Boston,

49:38

but I pulled in.

49:40

By this time, my hands were shaking,

49:42

and I was just plain scared. I

49:45

pulled up to the pump and asked

49:47

the attendant, yes, there

49:49

were attendants, how

49:52

do I get back onto 93

49:54

or the Everett Parkway or anything

49:56

that would head me back north to

49:59

Vermont?

50:00

He looked at me blankly, shook

50:03

his head kindly, and

50:05

said just a few words in Spanish that

50:07

meant I don't speak English. I

50:11

was stuck. No map,

50:13

no idea which way to go. I

50:16

was panicking. I couldn't think straight.

50:19

I couldn't even think at all.

50:22

Then the unsung hero was

50:25

the woman at the next pump. She

50:28

turned to me and said, listen, it's

50:30

way too complicated. Just

50:33

follow me and

50:34

I'll take you there. And

50:36

I followed her and she

50:39

did. And the last

50:41

thing I saw was her hand out

50:43

the car window waving to

50:45

me and pointing to the highway

50:48

sign.

50:49

I was waving to, thanking

50:51

her with every ounce of my being

50:54

as I zipped off onto the

50:56

highway and heading towards

50:59

home.

51:01

So to my unsung hero,

51:04

I have not forgotten your kindness

51:06

over all these years and

51:09

I'm so happy to send this out

51:11

to you. I hope that

51:13

you get to hear it.

51:19

Julie Cadwalador Staub of Burlington,

51:21

Vermont. If you would like to

51:23

help us build more stories like this, please

51:26

act now. Visit support.hiddenbrain.org

51:30

and join the hundreds of other Hidden Brain listeners

51:33

who have signed up to help. Again,

51:36

that's support.hiddenbrain.org.

51:38

I'm Shankar Vedantum.

51:42

See you soon.