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Being kind to others is good for your health

bbc.com

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Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#71

Post by taurath »

warent wrote: post #63
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #49

The only issue that I have, is that so many people (in my industry/nation/orbit) mistake kindness for weakness. I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness." It isn't "rudeness," as so many people like to think of New Yorkers. They can be aggressively kind and generous. They are just aggressive. I'm also in the tech industry, which seems to have a very aggressive and competitive culture. It…

Kindness takes courage. There seem to be a lot of people who live at a level of abstraction where they perceive every interaction as being about dominance and submission. In my humble opinion it is a very limited mindset. I consider myself to be generous person, and also slow to anger. As a result, there are people who think they hit the jackpot and found a submissive pushover who is like a flimsy tree that will bend…

I think a lot of discussion here is conflating kindness with vulnerability. Kindness can sometimes mean vulnerability, but saying “no” is not inherently unkind. Kindness is also not necessarily self-sacrificing. You can have firm boundaries but be incredibly kind. Working out the differences to me has opened up a new level of relationships.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#72

Post by GreenWatermelon »

yulker wrote: post #29
dukeofdoom wrote: post #26

I was doing all these things this week, and had a realization that the older I get more and more rely on me. I don't know how it got to be that way. But it was probably doing one kind thing followed by another. And now I'm getting all kinds of help requests. Just in the last week, I helped my cousin move (ridiculous amount of stuff), donated to my other cousins gofund me for his restaurant and stayed up 3 hours talki…

Completing this many quests will definitely cause you to level up.

Unironically that's what I told my self when I was helping around people: "it's just like RPG quests!"

The line between helping others and full on people pleasing is too blurry, and unfortunately I fell into the second camp.

People pleasing is a BAD, BAD thing.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#73

Post by wizzwizz4 »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #69
marta_morena_9 wrote: post #66

These studies are always funny. So what this is trying to tell us is: Volunteering boosts your health, while the data only provides us with "volunteers are generally in better health". Now this study "tried" to adjust to that by some filtering, but this is still a pretty big leap. Essentially what they would need to do is this: Have one group of people who "actively" is kind to people, i.e. they actually act on their…

I started counting the number of qualifying words, even in the linked studies, and then just gave up. Is human behavior truly so opaque that experiments cannot be designed that conclusively determine specific causation?

Designing the experiments is easy. Designing experiments anyone would want to participate in is tricky… and then you get volunteer selection effects.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#74

Post by awillen »

bluetomcat wrote: post #58
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #49

The only issue that I have, is that so many people (in my industry/nation/orbit) mistake kindness for weakness. I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness." It isn't "rudeness," as so many people like to think of New Yorkers. They can be aggressively kind and generous. They are just aggressive. I'm also in the tech industry, which seems to have a very aggressive and competitive culture. It…

> I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness" A defining trait of American culture is hyperactivity. Commenting on trivial stuff, moving around restlessly while holding a drink, despise for idle time. The "kindness" thing is a form of hyper-expressivity which is rarely seen in calm cultures.

This is one of those generalizations that just doesn't work for a country with hundreds of millions of people. You think those in the South and Midwest are hyperactive? Hardly. Those in sleepy beach towns? Nah.

If you think that there are defining traits of that many people in a country that varies so greatly in terms of geography, lifestyle, religion and culture, then you just don't know what you're talking about.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#75

Post by danenania »

bumby wrote: post #64
danenania wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been studied in game theory terms. The best strategy seems to be to give people the benefit of the doubt initially, being kind and altruistic without reservation. But as soon as they don’t respond in kind, you update your strategy immediately and stop extending any generosity beyond baseline courtesy. The ball is in their court now. If they switch from selfishness to altruism, then you can match them. Otherw…

If you’re applying game theory here, I’m curious what the objective function would be? (What are you trying to maximize/minimize?) I think a potential flaw is assuming people are static beings. Consider if you passed me shortly after my dog died...I may not be in a mental state to even notice you said anything. If we passed weeks or months later I could be in a completely different state but we’re still not connectin…

The goal is to maximize how much of your social time and energy is spent on mutually rewarding interactions and relationships relative to one-sided or exploitative interactions and relationships.

A constraint is wanting to remain open to potentially rewarding new relationships (so not simply closing yourself off to people who aren't already in your circle).

Another constraint is remaining flexible for when people update their behavior (in either direction). Which I think answers your objection? If you were in a bad state because your dog died, that's completely understandable. But now it's up to you to salvage the dynamic, not me, as I already went out on a limb once. If you do that, then the first encounter would be water under the bridge and I wouldn't hold it against you.

Giving compassion is wonderful, but life is a lot better when you reserve most of it for people who will respond with compassion in kind, rather than milking it for their own benefit and giving nothing in return. Sticking up for yourself doesn't mean being transactional--it just means that you extend compassion to yourself as well as to others.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#77

Post by greatwhitenorth »

danenania wrote: post #47
atum47 wrote: post #10

in theory this looks good. reality is a bit different. I constantly have problems with my left and right neighbor (middle of pandemic and this a hole is doing a barbecue with loud music since yesterday) about their lack of consideration (this in my parents house, where I am right now). In my apartment is no different... loud music, stumping on the floor... that kind of problem you have on a building. my father have a…

This has been studied in game theory terms. The best strategy seems to be to give people the benefit of the doubt initially, being kind and altruistic without reservation. But as soon as they don’t respond in kind, you update your strategy immediately and stop extending any generosity beyond baseline courtesy. The ball is in their court now. If they switch from selfishness to altruism, then you can match them. Otherw…

I can't thank you enough for how much this helps me. I've become very guarded when it comes to strangers. You lay out a good strategy on how to deal with people. This would help one get acquaintances, friends, and weed out the bad ones.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#78

Post by momokoko »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #49

The only issue that I have, is that so many people (in my industry/nation/orbit) mistake kindness for weakness. I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness." It isn't "rudeness," as so many people like to think of New Yorkers. They can be aggressively kind and generous. They are just aggressive. I'm also in the tech industry, which seems to have a very aggressive and competitive culture. It…

> when someone mistakes courtesy for weakness

Can you give a concrete example you specifically encountered? I lived in New York for half of my adult life before moving west. I can’t remember ever having to be too worried about that. Is it possible you just have trouble expressing yourself outwardly?

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#79

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #69
marta_morena_9 wrote: post #66

These studies are always funny. So what this is trying to tell us is: Volunteering boosts your health, while the data only provides us with "volunteers are generally in better health". Now this study "tried" to adjust to that by some filtering, but this is still a pretty big leap. Essentially what they would need to do is this: Have one group of people who "actively" is kind to people, i.e. they actually act on their…

I started counting the number of qualifying words, even in the linked studies, and then just gave up. Is human behavior truly so opaque that experiments cannot be designed that conclusively determine specific causation?

When faced with a choice between:

- causality is less widely applicable than we like to think

- our behavior is more complex than we like to think

I'm more inclined to doubt causality. Not that it's not a useful framework in general, but that is less useful when applied by humans to humans regarding human constructs like kindness.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#80

Post by Blikkentrekker »

11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #69
marta_morena_9 wrote: post #66

These studies are always funny. So what this is trying to tell us is: Volunteering boosts your health, while the data only provides us with "volunteers are generally in better health". Now this study "tried" to adjust to that by some filtering, but this is still a pretty big leap. Essentially what they would need to do is this: Have one group of people who "actively" is kind to people, i.e. they actually act on their…

I started counting the number of qualifying words, even in the linked studies, and then just gave up. Is human behavior truly so opaque that experiments cannot be designed that conclusively determine specific causation?

One cannot possibly design proper controls with human behavior.

Even in pharmaceutics, confounding variables are already common place that led to a considerable replication crisis, with human behavior it would be even more impossible to control for every variable, and measure only what one wants to measure.

A very simple problem with such a design which would perhaps indicate that human beings that are not allowed to be kind would be less happy is simply that human beings become unhappy when they are told what to do, not necessarily anything related to kindness; it's certainly not implausible.

And the fundamental problem remains that a man cannot be compelled to participate in any study, and that alone is a selection bias that cannot be overcome — studies thus select upon the kind of person who have the time and willingness to participate in them.

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