Kindness [generosity, nurturance, care, compassion, altruistic love, “niceness”]: Doing favors and good deeds for others; helping them; taking care of them. Personified for example by Cicely Saunders  (Source: VIA Institute on Character)

The Noel Strengths Academy defines it this way:

• Intentional in doing favors and good deeds for others
• Likes being helpful
• Appreciates being able to offer tangible care
• Generous
• Acts of compassion for those in need
• A pleasure to be around
• Nurturing

Yes, strengths can be overused…or underused

• Underuse: Indifference
• Overuse: Intrusiveness

Key Research:

• Rank order of Kindness in populations from:
  • US : 3;
  • European:  4
  • Asia: 5
  • Latin America: 5
  • Sub-Saharan Africa: 2
  • Middle east: 3
• In a study of character strengths and adolescent peer relationships, the strengths deemed most desirable/important in a friend were honesty, humor, kindness, and fairness, and those most connected with higher peer acceptance were perspective, love, kindness, social intelligence, teamwork, leadership, and humor (Wagner, 2018).
• Among high school students, other-oriented strengths (e.g., kindness, teamwork) predicted fewer depression symptoms while transcendence strengths (e.g., spirituality) predicted greater life satisfaction (Gillham et al., 2011).
• The most prevalent character strengths in very young children are love, kindness, creativity, curiosity, and humor (Park & Peterson, 2006a).
• In a study of character strengths and adolescent peer relationships, the strengths deemed most desirable/important in a friend were honesty, humor, kindness, and fairness, and those most connected with higher peer acceptance were perspective, love, kindness, social intelligence, teamwork, leadership, and humor (Wagner, 2018).

Tayyab Rashid and Afroze Anjum offer 340 Ways to Use VIA Character Strengths including these four for Kindness:

1. Do three random acts of kindness per week for those whom you know. Consider doing small favors for friends and neighbors, calling sick or sad friends, getting groceries for a friend busy in exams, cooking a meal for an elderly relative, or baby-sitting.
2. Do one random act of kindness weekly for someone you don’t know. Consider letting someone ahead of you in line, putting money in a meter than has run out, or letting another customer take the last item on a shelf.
3. Say kinder and softer words to people when interacting through email, writing letters, talking on phone. Be aware that communication over distance requires different types of gentleness than face-to-face communication.
4. Donate your time to others through helpful actions.Find a local volunteer organization, start a project of your own, or simply find time to do random acts of kindness for others.

Quotations on Kindness