Towards Kindness

"Those who are prosocial toward the ingroup also tend to be prosocial toward the outgroup." The co-occurrence of ingroup and outgroup prosociality across 121 societies

🧵1/12 New GreeneLab paper in Nature Human Behaviour—after 5+ years! Our cooperative quiz game, Tango (letstango.org), defuses political animosity and improves democracy-related attitudes. Some key effects last 4 months doi.org/10.1038/s41562…

Does SELF-CARE really work? 1K people did a 2-week intervention Ps performed 3 🥰KINDNESS🥰 acts/week either TOWARD SELF or OTHERS 1. People LIKED self-kindness > other-kindness...BUT 2. Self-kindness had ⬆️ DEPRESSION, ANXIETY! 3. Other-kindness? ⬇️ dep, anx, + loneliness!

Major update - list of best charities 2024 We are pleased to announce that the Happier Lives Institute has named the NEPI program one of the most cost-effective charities for increasing global happiness. Check here: happierlivesinstitute.org/give-now/?utm_…

I’m thrilled to inform you that USAID officially announced our 2024 award for the NEPI intervention, “Adapting a Therapy Approach to Prevent Crime,” to the world. You can find the newsletter announcement here. content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USAID…

Great organization, in need of great managers. Few programs change lives more. See my WashPo article about their program's huge impact on crime & violence: washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

Social encouragement seems to lead to kindness because it can grow your teen's empathy and help them to internalize moral principles based on compassion. @GreaterGoodSC greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/s…

An estimated 1 in every 3 women worldwide has suffered physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner in her lifetime. Can economic interventions targeted at women help mitigate intimate partner violence? Our new #PolicyInsight looks into the data. j-p.al/pi4

Evidence from North Carolina suggests strong teacher impacts on future crime among students that are uncorrelated with test scores but tightly linked to effects on suspensions, from @evankrose, Jonathan T. Schellenberg, and Yotam Shem-Tov nber.org/papers/w30274

This week's prosocial study flashback is a 2013 study by Dr. Helen Weng with @healthyminds that showed that just 2 weeks of compassion training resulted in altruistic changes towards a victim, even when participants were not cued to generate compassion. buff.ly/3zxTN6z

Want to make people around you happy? Here are simple things that cause happiness, but that we don’t do enough as we wrongly think they will be awkward & not appreciated. 🧵 🙏🏻People appreciate gratitude MUCH more than the giver expects & it is less awkward to give than expected

Believe it not, Americans’ cooperation rate has increased over time! A meta-analysis of 511 studies (with 63,342 people) finds that cooperation is on the rise and linked to societal wealth, urbanization level, and people living alone (@PaulvanLange) psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2022-…

This week's prosocial study flashback looked at @grip_training's program for incarcerated people to stop violent behavior, cultivate mindfulness, achieve emotional intelligence, and understand victim impact; and found significant increases in trust. buff.ly/3PzN80E

Excited to share new research forthcoming at JPSP @APA_Journals and summarized in today’s @nytimes article. nytimes.com/2022/07/11/wel… @KatzPittBiz @Pitt_Business @PittTweet @Katee_Min

We're excited to sponsor research led by @kimschon into the inspiring @MindUP program dedicated to improving children's well-being, looking at the effects of a new MindUP intervention for educators compared to the existing MindUP program for students. buff.ly/2NM8rfF

This week's prosocial study flashback from 2017 studied the wonderful @RootsofEmpathy program and found significant positive changes in empathy, aggression & prosocial behavior with "an impact somewhat larger than typically observed for ... SEL programs". buff.ly/3yTYyaf

"Does intergroup contact foster solidarity with the disadvantaged? A longitudinal analysis across seven years" Open access preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf.i…

Schools are seeing a huge rise in disruptive behaviors. Unfortunately, there are grifters out there who are happy to sell behavior management programs to schools that have no evidence behind them. This @samhsagov resource describes programs PROVEN to work: store.samhsa.gov/sites/default/…

2) Overly Shallow?: Miscalibrated Expectations Create a Barrier to Deeper Conversation apa.org/pubs/journals/…

Also great links to existing research backing this up: 1) Social Interactions and Well-Being: The Surprising Power of Weak Ties journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/01…

A great essay on the value to your well-being from interacting with strangers nytimes.com/2022/06/12/opi…