It appears all those bumper stickers were on to something! From the folks at Greater Good (the official blog of the Greater Good Science Center based at UC Berkeley, a place we'd love to visit!), there's some solid science behind the idea that performing an act of kindness can increase happiness.
A study completed in Great Britain last year put a group of people to a 10-day experiment; 1/3 were asked to do something kind each day, 1/3 to do something new, and the remaining made no change in behavior. The first two groups stated that they became significantly happier!
These results propose that a "positive feedback loop" can be created between kindness and happiness; kindness can make you happy, and that happiness can lead to more kindness, and so on and so on.
Have you ever been the performer or recipient of a "random act of kindness?" How did it make you feel?
