London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Tuesday, Jul 22, 2025

What stops people from being kinder?

What stops people from being kinder?

The Kindness Test is the world's largest survey on what it means to be kind. It's shed light on the barriers that stop us being kind – but also that empathy truly is international.

I was out running the other day when I saw a man and a woman at the end of the street trying to lift a double mattress out of a van. They were clearly struggling. I was wearing trainers. I wasn't carrying anything. I wasn't in a rush. I could offer to help. But if I did might the woman think that I thought she couldn’t manage it because she was female? By now they had got the mattress into a back garden and were starting to heave it up an outdoor staircase. The fence was too high for them to see me, so to offer to help I'd have to go into their garden uninvited. Would I be intruding on their privacy? Might they mind?

By now it was all a bit too late and they were halfway up the stairs. I was probably overthinking it, but it seems I'm not alone in being cautious about offering to do something kind for a stranger.

Back in August 2021, we launched the Kindness Test on BBC Radio 4. It was an online questionnaire created by a team at the University of Sussex led by the psychologist Robin Banerjee. More than 60,000 people from 144 countries chose to take part, making it the world's largest psychological study on the topic of kindness. (Read more about it in BBC Future's earlier story 'What we do and don't know about kindness'.)

As well as scales measuring personality, well-being, and empathy, kindness was assessed by asking people how often they carry out a long list of kind acts. The variation in responses was large, with some people very honestly admitting that they weren't kind very often, and others showing high levels of kindness. When asked when they had last received an act of kindness, 16% of people told us they said it was within the last hour and a further 43% said it was within the last day. It was clear that whatever people's age or wherever they lived, kindness was very common.

But there are barriers which prevent us from being kinder still and we were keen to explore those in the Kindness Test. When people were asked to rank a list of possible factors which prevented them from carrying out kind acts, the most common reason respondents gave was that they feared they might be misinterpreted. This reminds me of my hesitation to offer to help carry the mattress, not because I didn't want to help, but because I was afraid it might come out the wrong way and cause offence.

Many of us are cautious about offering a helping hand to people we don't know


Sometimes well-intentioned acts of kindness can be fraught, like offering a seat on the bus to a woman who might or might not be pregnant. And sometimes we fear embarrassment or rejection.

This might explain why the most common kind act that people reported carrying out, was "helping people when they ask". Now that might sound a little grudging. How truly kind is an act if you have to be asked to do it? But to me it seems instructive that this came top. Perhaps we are nervous about offering help, but very happy to do it once we know the person welcomes our assistance.

The biggest factor associated with kindness wasn't age or income, but personality


There's another finding which might shed light on our reticence. The biggest factor associated with kindness wasn't age or income, but personality. We used a scale which measured what are known as the Big Five personality factors. Not surprisingly the kindest people scored high on "agreeableness", but they also scored high on extraversion and openness.

I wonder whether these people feel more able to offer their help, not necessarily because they want to help any more than anyone else, but that their extraversion and their openness (their fondness for new experiences) makes them less fearful of what might happen when they do.

And for those of us who hesitate to help, we can take comfort from the answers people gave when we asked them how they felt after receiving an act of kindness. The words most commonly used were "happy", "grateful", "loved", "relieved" and "pleased". Less than 1% of people said they felt embarrassed. We also found that even when you take personality into account, people who talk to strangers more often not only observe, but receive more kindness themselves.

Gillian Sandstrom from the University of Sussex, who was on the team analysing the Kindness Test, has found that our fears of talking to strangers usually don't live up to the reality and people tend to enjoy it more than they expect to.

When regions of the world were compared, the fear of misinterpretation was lower in the US than in the UK or in countries in Africa. In the US, the use of social media was more often given as a barrier to kindness.

Just over a quarter of people worried about their kindness being perceived as a weakness


Worldwide, the second-most-common reason people gave for not being kinder was a lack of time, especially in Western and Northern Europe. This seems to be less of a factor in North America or Southern Europe. It is true of course that if you want to volunteer you need to have time to spare, but plenty of the other kind acts people carry out don't take time. The most common act of kindness that people told us they had done recently was to say something kind to someone, which tends not to take too long.

Robin Banerjee from the University of Sussex, who led the Kindness Test, demonstrated that people are giving, seeing and receiving a lot of kindness everywhere in the world, but based on our admittedly English-speaking sample, there are some tentative trends too: "The data showed that this can't be reduced to a simple East versus West comparison or collectivistic versus individualistic countries. We found a much more nuanced pattern. We could have two quite industrialised, Westernised countries with different views about kindness."

Extroverts' fondess for new experiences might make them more open to helping others


Just over a quarter of people worried about their kindness being perceived as a weakness. Yet we also know from the Kindness Test that after giving an act of kindness people not only feel more connected to others and happier, but they said it helps them to feel as though they are a good person and adds meaning to their lives.

And that's just the givers. Receiving kindness makes us feel good too and is associated with higher levels of well-being. This is just the start of the analysis of the data from the Kindness Test and many more papers on the findings will be published in scientific journals. But taking all this evidence into account, perhaps we need to start trying to view kindness, not as a weakness, but as a strength.

And maybe next time I run past people manoeuvring a mattress, I'll summon up the courage to offer to help.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
×