Kindness is the greatest of all virtues. That is not just my
opinion - the importance of kindness has been widely acknowledged for thousands
of years. Some prefer to say that charity or love is the greatest virtue, but that
seems to me to amount to the same thing. The concept charity or love that has
particular virtue is loving-kindness.
Psychological research provides support for the view that
kindness is worth encouraging. Apart from obvious benefits to the recipients, there
is evidence that kindness also has positive spill-over effects. Research by
Simone Schnall and colleagues indicates that when people see another person
perform a good deed they are more likely to be helpful to others. Such
behaviour seems to be linked to feelings of elevation.
There is also evidence that kindness is good for those who
practice it. Research by Barbara Fredrickson, Bethany Kok et al suggests that
when people generate feelings of loving-kindness they tend to experience
improved physical health (measured by cardiac vagal tone). The research
suggests that perceptions of positive social connections with others account
for the link between positive emotions and improved physical health.
I feel slightly embarrassed to be writing about the merits
of kindness and how we should encourage greater kindness. That is partly because
I am aware of shortcomings in my own behaviour. The main reason, however, is
that the merits of kindness have been so widely acknowledged for such a long
period that it probably seems platitudinous for someone like me to be asking
people to consider how we should encourage it.
Some of my friends might think I should leave advocacy of
kindness to religious leaders such as the Dalai Lama (who is currently in
Australia preaching kindness) and focus my own efforts on promoting more
widespread understanding of the merits of free markets in enabling individuals
to promote the good of others by pursuing their own interests. I urge those
friends to read on and to further consider the relationship between kindness
and self-interest.
I think economists, among others, should be considering how
to encourage kindness because incentives to engage in beneficial economic
activities are likely to be greater in societies in which people are kinder.
That proposition is not new. It is more usually stated in terms of the importance
of trustworthiness in reducing transactions costs, including costs of contract
enforcement and protection of persons and property. It seems reasonable to
assume that kind people are generally more trustworthy than unkind people.
Are western societies becoming less kind? The answer seems
to me to depend on the time frame considered. There seems to have been a
secular trend toward greater kindness and less violence in western societies,
as Steven Pinker has argued (see an earlier post for relevant comments). Over
recent decades, however, there does seem to be increased incivility in many
aspects of life including politics and workplaces.
Incivility in politics was very obvious in Australia last
week, but I want to focus here on evidence of widespread and increasing incivility
in workplaces. In 2011, about half of the workers included in a large US and
Canadian study (by Christine Porath and Christine Pearson) claimed to have been
treated rudely at work in the past week, whereas in 1998 only a quarter made
that claim. Claims have been made that a similar epidemic of incivility is also
occurring in Australian workplaces.
I doubt whether the incidence of incivility has actually doubled.
It is possible that many people have become more sensitive to criticism of
their performance and perhaps more prone to interpret constructive criticism as
incivility.
Nevertheless, Porath and Pearson provide impressive evidence
that incivility in workplaces is not a trivial matter. Those affected claim
that it causes them to reduce their work effort. Managers spend a lot of time dealing
with the aftermath of incivility. And customers are turned away when they
witness disrespectful behaviour among employees.
Perhaps the most obvious way to reduce incivility is by
making rules that will discourage offending behaviours. I suspect, however, that
a plethora of rules is an ineffectual way to encourage kindness. The apparent
increase in incivility has occurred at a time of increased regulation to
prevent extreme acts of incivility (e.g. discrimination on grounds of race, gender,
religion, sexual orientation, disability). Workplace bullying could be expected
to thrive in environments where staff are unable to achieve expected outcomes without
breaching rules of conduct intended to prevent incivility.
Most of the recommendations made by Porath and Pearson to
reduce incivility do seem likely to encourage more kindly behaviour in
workplaces. They suggest, among other things, that leaders should look to their
own behaviour, take more account of civility in hiring staff and reward good
behaviour. Interestingly, such remedies would seem fairly obvious to any
business leaders concerned to promote the interests of shareholders. Incivility
in workplaces will presumably become less of a problem as business leaders
become more aware of its effects on the bottom line.
More generally, it seems to me that the best way to
encourage kindness is to make people more aware that kindness is good for those
who practice it.
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