Is Kindess Contagoius?
In a really interesting but slightly confusing study, scientists showed that kindness is contagious — even if it doesn’t make sense.
Political scientist James Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and medical sociologist Nicholas Christakis of Harvard University published their study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Basically, the study followed a giving game that gave each player a set number of credits to spend as they choose. What they found at the end of the blind test was that those who gave prompted others to give as well.
The best payoff would come if everyone gave all their money — but without knowing what others were doing, it always made sense to keep one’s money and skim from the generosity of others.
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And when one person gave, others in their group tended to be generous during the next two rounds of play. Recipients of their largess became more generous in turn, and so on down the chain. When a punishment round was added — players could spend their own money to reduce the rewards of selfish players — generosity lasted even longer.
Very interesting stuff, but ultimately researchers said it boiled down to a playground mentality of monkey see, monkey do. When people see someone else doing good, they are more apt to do it themselves.
The researchers also put a round in where people could spend their money to penalize selfish people; which made the selfish few give just like their kindhearted peers. They did warn, however, that being selfish was equally contagious.
[Via Wired]
