Motivation and emotion/Book/2022/Kindness motivation

Kindness and Gratitude
What impact does kindness and gratitude have on an individual and what are the benefits?

Multimedia presentation (3 min)

Overview

Figure 1. A kindness is everything sign.

The following book chapter will discuss kindness and gratitude and how these two factors can impact/benefit individuals. Firstly, the chapter will start with the definitions of kindness and gratitude. Then the current research that has been conducted and the findings. Lastly, it will mention how individuals can benefit from having kindness and gratitude and their positive psychological effects.

Focus questions: What is the first focus question? What is the second focus question? What is the third focus question?

Suggestions for this section: What is the problem? Why is it important? How can specific motivation and/or emotion theories and research help? Provide an example or case study. Conclude with Focus questions to guide the chapter.

Definitions

What is kindness?

The definition of kindness can be interpreted as showing kindness by being understanding towards other individuals who are suffering instead of being critical or indifferent towards others (Cheng et al, 2022). Another suggests that kindness is a combination of emotional, behavioural, and motivational components and consisting of behaviour that benefit other individuals or to make others’ happy (Cheng et al, 2022). Kindness can also be associated as the “selfless acts performed by a person wishing to either help or positively affect the emotional state (mood) of another person” (Cheng et al, 2022). The following definitions describe that kindness is an action that is intended for others’ benefits. For instances Cotney and Banerjee (2017) defined kindness that is driven by compassion or concern that is expressed by doing favours, good deeds, or caregiving. A voluntary act that benefits others but is not motivated by external rewards or punishments instances (Cotney & Banerjee, 2017).

What is gratitude?

There are a few different ways gratitude can be defined for example, gratitude can be defined as both a positive affect from the perception of receiving a benefit from another person and the ability to appreciate the simple things in life and expressing gratitude towards others (Bohlmeijer et al, 2020). Shiraki and Igarashi (2018) define gratitude as a “positive emotional reaction to the receipt of a benefit that is perceived to have resulted from the good intentions of another”. Another suggests that gratitude can be described as results when an individual receive kindness from another individual, which entails enacting kind behaviours towards other individuals, which promotes feelings of gratitude and impacts a trigger of kind actions influencing reciprocity and behavioural contagion (Otake et al, 2006; Cotney & Banerjee 2017).

How you are going to structure the chapter?

Aim for three to six main headings between the Overview and Conclusion.

Suggestions for this section: For the topic development, provide at least 3 bullet-points about key content per section. Include key citations. For the book chapter, expand the bullet points into paragraphs. If a section has a lot of content, arrange it into two to five sub-headings such as in the interactive learning features section. Avoid having sections with only one sub-heading.

• Gratitude is defined as “a positive emotional reaction to the receipt of a benefit that is perceived to have resulted from the good intentions of another”  (Shiraki and Igarashi, 2018).
• Gratitude has qualities of evolutional adaptation for maintaining continuous reciprocal relation- ships between benefactors and beneficiaries.

What brings an online book chapter to life are its interactive learning features. Case studies, feature boxes, figures, links, tables, and quiz questions can be used throughout the chapter.

Boxes

Boxes can be used to highlight content, but don't overuse them. There are many different ways of creating boxes (e.g., see Pretty boxes). Possible uses include:

• Focus questions
• Case studies or examples
• Quiz questions
• Take-home messages

Current research and findings

Kindness and gratitude have sparked the interest of psychologists and researchers, although there has not been much research conducted in the area of adolescents. Previous studies have documented the importance of kindness and gratitude for overall well-being (Cotney & Banerjee, 2017). Cotney and Banerjee (2017) conducted a study with 11-15-year-old adolescents to explore representations of kindness in four main categories: the behavioural forms of kindness, the antecedents of kindness, outcomes of kindness, and social and psychological factors that influence these processes. The adolescents were split into two groups and asked to write down words they could use to describe kindness and themes of kind acts and examples. The findings showed that kindness is defined as a prosocial act driven by placing someone else's needs before one's own.

Furthermore, kindness is preceded by an underlying motivation or psychological goal; the giver receives beneficial outcomes and positive effects on well-being. Although researchers found relationships with an adverse history, feelings of kindness and gratitude will be in short supply and create a barrier for future kindness (Cotney & Banerjee, 2017). The importance of the link and interplay of motivation and behaviour cannot be severed because kindness is kindness because of the interplay between the act and the goal that drives it. It is possible to act kindly but not be kind, which is ultimately the rejection of prosocial acts and is only driven by self-interest (Cotney & Banerjee, 2017).

Similarly, Froiland (2018) conducted a study in a university to examine the effects of a semester-long positive psychology course on 26 students' gratitude towards studying and whether the students improved. The course included positive psychology aspects of gratitude, kindness, mindfulness, and intrinsic life and learning goals. The interventions included gratitude journals, letters, acts of kindness, and intrinsic life and learning goals. It is discussed that each of these interventions has promoted positive emotions towards learning and well-being and that gratitude is the key because it provides a powerful pathway towards happiness (Froiland, 2018). The findings concluded that providing students with a positive psychology course can promote students to feel significantly more gratitude, positive emotions towards studying and intrinsic motivations significantly improved, which is essential for students to dedicate long hours to studying. Whereas without interventions for positive psychology, students experience declines in phycological well-being towards the end of the semester. Students who attended class regularly encouraged their intrinsic motivations to attend and gain a greater sense of positive psychological well-being (Froiland, 2018).

Another study by Bohlmeijer et al. (2020) designed 6-week gratitude and self-kindness intervention for people with low to moderate well-being and moderate symptoms of depression and anxiety and a 6-month follow-up. Mental health has been declining in many individuals and impacting peoples' psychological well-being. However, gratitude and kindness interventions can result in a positive outcome for struggling individuals (Kerr et al., 2015; Bohlmeijer et al., 2020). The interventions consisted of 6-week gratitude exercises such as diary keeping, and the participants in the control condition group were asked to perform five self-kindness activities one day per week. The findings concluded that gratitude and kindness interventions were most effective for improving well-being; symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression were diminished. Interestingly the findings of the effects of the appreciation of simple pleasures were sustained at the 6-month follow-up; the effects of practising gratitude and kindness had a sustainable impact on mental well-being.

The psychological effects and benefits of kindness and gratitude

There is a profound positive and beneficial psychological effect of kindness and gratitude on individuals. Cotney and Banerjee (2017) identified numerous benefits to well-being from having kindness. For example, the giver participants reported they had improved self-confidence, sense of competence, improved relationships and happiness from showing others kindness. Another benefit has suggested that the giver's life experience is considered an essential factor as the giver is better able to show empathy and be more motivated to help because they have experienced similar needs of the recipient (Cotney & Banerjee, 2017). In addition, positive life experiences can motivate one to pay it forward, passing on kindness to others. Froiland (2018) discussed the benefits of having students undertake positive psychology classes to enhance their kindness, well-being, gratitude, etc. The students that attended the sessions experienced more substantial growth in gratitude and positive emotions towards studying, which improved their well-being and their mental state of studying.

Bohlmeijer et al. (2020) mention that we often forget to be kind to ourselves as individuals. Individuals should allow for treats and to be grateful; promoting self-kindness to ourselves and being grateful has shown promising effects of reducing anxiety, depression and stress on our mental health and improving our relationships with others. Therefore because individuals have the basic, fundamental human need for relatedness to others, individuals who receive kindness tend to feel gratitude, act prosocial toward another person, and pay kindness to the individual. This benefits individuals psychologically, promotes connection to others and promotes forgiveness and happiness (Shiraki & Igarashi, 2018; Cotney & Banerjee, 2017).

An important finding by Otake et al. (2006) discussed that kind people experience more happiness and have happier memories. Furthermore, counting acts of kindness has shown that individuals become happier and more grateful. This stresses the importance of kindness and how gratitude is a human strength that influences subjective well-being, social networking, optimism, sense of identity and goal orientation (Otake et al., 2006). Lastly, being kind reduces avoidance goals from socially anxious individuals. It is said that engaging in acts of kindness effectively reduces social anxiety (Trew & Alden, 2015). Kindness improves an individual's psychological well-being and encourages individuals with social anxiety to have relationships with others and overcome social avoidance, which will help lead a more satisfying and engaging life (Trew & Alden, 2015).

Case study

Case study: Causton & MacLeod (2020). A teacher named Kate from a university decided to create the "21 days of Kindness Challenge" with her freshman seminar class. Students were to document their acts to create a kinder culture and more inclusive campus. The students created the campaign through social media (Instagram, Facebook and Twitter). For 21 days, students recorded and documented themselves completing kind acts and sharing their kind acts on social media to encourage more students across the campus to participate. The results were astonishing; students were leaving notes for strangers, professors and friends in various places, such as cars, dorm doors and office doors. Students hung inspiring quotes in the hallways, gave flowers to other individuals walking past, cooked dinner for friends and families, purchased coffee for students studying in the library and shovelled snow for their neighbours. The results were impressive; Kate's students found out that not only did they feel better about themselves after being kind and spreading kindness and gratitude, the students felt more successful. Kate's students also saw a significant effect they had on other students and the faculty, who began implementing their acts of kindness to others.

Future research

Future research would benefit from more extensive studies involving a range of adolescents from different youth groups and backgrounds to allow researchers to see whether conceptions of kindness can differ across age groups (Cotney & Banerjee, 2017). In addition, future research should consider that further qualitative investigation should look into specific kindnesses that young adolescents engage with because understanding does not reflect the capacity to act (Cotney & Banerjee, 2017). Another suggestion for future research is to examine the long-term effects of positive psychology courses on students as they continue through their education and transition into the workforce Froiland (2018). Finally, future studies should examine how gratitude expands social networks in an ideal ecological situation (Shiraki & Igarashi, 2018).

Links

Where key words are first used, make them into interwiki links such as Wikipedia links to articles about famous people (e.g., Sigmund Freud and key concepts (e.g., dreams) and links to book chapters about related topics (e.g., would you like to learn about how to overcome writer's block?).

Tables

Tables can be an effective way to organise and summarise information. Tables should be captioned (using APA style) to explain their relevance to the text. Plus each table should be referred to at least once in the main text (e.g., see Table 1 and Table 2).

Here are some example 3 x 3 tables which could be adapted.

Quizzes

Quizzes are a direct way to engage readers. But don't make quizzes too hard or long. It is better to have one or two review questions per major section than a long quiz at the end. Try to quiz conceptual understanding, rather than trivia.

Here are some simple quiz questions which could be adapted. Choose the correct answers and click "Submit":

1 Quizzes are an interactive learning feature:

	True
	False

2 Long quizzes are a good idea:

	True
	False

To learn about different types of quiz questions, see Quiz.

Conclusion

The Conclusion is arguably the most important section. It should be possible for someone to read the Overview and the Conclusion and still get a good idea of the topic.

Suggestions for this section: What is the answer to the question in the sub-title (based on psychological theory and research)? What are the answers to the focus questions? What are the practical, take-home messages?

See also

Provide up to half-a-dozen internal (wiki) links to relevant Wikiversity pages (esp. related motivation and emotion book chapters) and Wikipedia articles. For example:

• Kindness (Wikipedia)

Suggestions for this section: Present in alphabetical order. Include the source in parentheses.

References

Bohlmeijer, E.T., Kraiss, J.T., Watkins, P. (2020). Promoting Gratitude as a Resource for Sustainable Mental Health: Results of a 3-Armed Randomized Controlled Trial up to 6 Months Follow-up. J Happiness Stud 22(3), 1011–1032. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00261-5

Cheng, Ming & Adekola, Olalekan. (2022). Promoting acts of kindness on campus: Views of Chinese international students in the UK. Intercultural Communication Education, 5(1), 17-32. https://doi.org/10.29140/ice.v5n1.495

Cotney, L, J., & Banerjee, R. (2017). Adolescents’ Conceptualizations of Kindness and its Links with Well-being: A Focus Group Study. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(2), 599–617. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407517738584

Datu, D, A, J., Buenconsejo, U, J., Valdez, M, P, J., & Tang, L, R. (2021). Gratitude and kindness at work as predictors of employees’ mental health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychology, Health & Medicine, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2022.2079690

Froiland, M, J. (2018). Promoting gratitude and positive feelings about learning among young adults. Journal of Adult Development, 25(1), 251–258. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-018-9294-0

Kerr, S. L., O'Donovan, A., & Pepping, C. A. (2015). Can gratitude and kindness interventions enhance well-being in a clinical sample? Journal of Happiness Studies: An Interdisciplinary Forum on Subjective Well-Being, 16(1), 17–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-013-9492-1

Otake, K., Shimai, S., Tanaka-Matsumi, J. (2006). Happy People Become Happier through Kindness: A Counting Kindnesses Intervention. J Happiness Stud 7(3), 361–375. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-005-3650-z

Ouweneel, E., Pascale, M, L., & Schaufeli, W, B. (2013). On being grateful and kind: results of two randomized controlled trials on study-related emotions and academic engagement. The Journal of Psychology, 148(1), 37–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.2012.742854

Shiraki, Y., & Igarashi, T. (2018). “Paying it forward” via satisfying a basic human need: The need for relatedness satisfaction mediates gratitude and prosocial behavior. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 21(1-2), 107–113. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12211

Suggestions for this section: Important aspects for APA style include: Wrap the set of references in the hanging indent template. Using "Edit source": {{Hanging indent|1= the full list of references}} Author surname, followed by a comma, then author initials separated by full stops and spaces Year of publication in parentheses Title of work in lower case except first letter and proper names, ending in a full-stop. Journal title in italics, volume number in italics, issue number in parentheses, first and last page numbers separated by an en-dash(–), followed by a full-stop. Provide the full doi as a URL and working hyperlink Common mistakes include: incorrect capitalisation incorrect italicisation providing a "retrieved from" date (not part of APA 7th ed. style). citing sources that weren't actually read or consulted

External links

Provide up to half-a-dozen external links to relevant resources such as presentations, news articles, and professional sites. For example:

• How one act of kindness can change your life. (Youtube)
• Gratitude Sticks: Why Small Acts of Kindness Matter | Kaitlin Garrity | TEDxBuffalo (Youtube)
• The Science of Gratitude (Youtube)
• The Science of Kindness (Youtube)
• Kiss your brain: The science of gratitude (Youtube)
• The Gratitude Experiment (Youtube)
• An Experiment in Gratitude | The Science of Happiness (Youtube)
• Want to be happy? Be grateful | David Steindl-Rast (Youtube)

Suggestions for this section: Only select links to major external resources about the topic Present in alphabetical order Include the source in parentheses after the link