On kindness 🥰

Who knew humans could be so nice!

Being unwell has gotten me feeling somewhat sentimental.

Uncovering the why behind.. kindness?

Friday evening — I climbed into bed feeling very ambitious and optimistic. The week had been going well — maybe even better than planned. I’d been looking forward to this big long weekend of adventures and also lounging around. On Friday morning though, I received a text inviting me to get vaccinated and boy was I ready. Like everybody else I can’t wait to start traveling again and this would definitely get me one step closer to that.

The good news is that I got vaccinated and it was so efficient — I was probably only there for like 15 minutes tops. The less good news is that I’m definitely feeling the side effects. No adventures today — more like sleeping in and battling the sore arm and the slight feverish feeling. It’s nothing a paracetamol can’t handle — but I’m definitely feeling a little bit sorry for myself.

Having said all that, the experience of getting vaccinated itself was a really positive one. The interaction I had with the staff there was a reflection of all the great things and sacrifice the healthcare workers are doing. It was also a reminder that generally, people are nice.

In Economics, we learn that humans are self-interested beings. This suggests that we’ll do whatever it takes to gain more, and to maximize our self-interest, even at the expense of others.

But studies show otherwise. With the help of the Dictator Game, we now know that humans don’t in fact, just act out of their own self-interest — we can even be nice!

What is the Dictator Game?

This game consists of two players. One of them, or the ‘dictator’, is given a sum of money, and the other one is given nothing. The dictator is told that they have to offer some amount of that money with the second player, even if that amount is zero. The second player has no say in this — whatever amount they’re offered, they have to accept it and they can’t punish the first player. According to standard economic theory, we’d expect the dictator to offer nothing and keep 100% of the money, because that way they would maximize their gain. Is this what happens?

People do share!

The result of the Dictator Game is significantly different from what standard economic theory would predict. Under the ‘standard’ condition, the dictators actually share their money about 60% of the time, and the average amount given is about 20%. Interestingly, though results do suggest that we are not as selfish as homo economicus, the level of familiarity with the other player (I’m trying to avoid the term social distance — which is what they use, because it has a very specific meaning right now!) does affect the results. This means that the more familiar they are with the other player, the more likely it is that they give more of their share to the other player. The less familiar they are, the more likely it is that they keep more to themselves.

What does this mean, and why?

It seems that, unlike what standard economic theory tells us, we are actually not as selfish as we may seem 🤷🏻‍♀️ It could mean that our utility isn’t just measured by money function, but that it could also include things like other people’s happiness, or benefits received by others. It could also suggest that we care about what other people think, because this affects our reputation. We’re social beings that live in social networks — we depend on other people, which is why it’s important that we maintain a good reputation. But most importantly, it’s also been shown that humans actually care about fairness. I find this to be a very comforting thought: knowing that we care about others.

Realistically and practically speaking, we see examples of this in brands and businesses. Businesses that do a great job at showing reciprocity and how they care about their customers, or the environment, tend to be the ones that perform better than those who don’t pay as much attention to the importance of reciprocity and building a good reputation.

Over the past year though, we’ve all experienced a much more heartfelt example of this. The kindness of our healthcare heroes have really demonstrated what it means to be selfless ❤️

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