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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

#131

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

momokoko wrote: post #78
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?

> Is it possible you just have trouble expressing yourself outwardly?

Well, there's always passive-aggressive insults. That's considered a low-risk approach.

Looks like we've pretty much exhausted this thread. I'll just exit, stage left.

Happy Holidays!

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#132

Post by bumby »

go13 wrote: post #91
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…

journalists that received their degree in social science and other similar fields probably never heard of causation/correlation principle and with no principle like this in their mind they can passionately promote whatever social justice agenda they have. (and im not against helping others or being kind. Im against nonsense in social columns on mainstream media like bbc)

Social sciences do seem to have a reasonable background in statistics and experiment design based on those I’ve known. What makes you conclude they wouldn’t know the causation/correlation principle?

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#133

Post by WitCanStain »

momokoko wrote: post #130
dukeyukey wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think morlockabove meant that thanks to the size of the US, the density of different cultures in many orders of magnitude higher in Europe than the US. Th cultural difference between Texans, Washingtonians and a New Hampshireite is minuscule compared to France and Germany, let alone France and somewhere like Estonia.

I believe it misses the fact that there are very different cultures within Washington or Texas. For example, Austin is very different from Houston and even north Houston is very different from south Houston. Eastern Washington is completely different culturally than western Washington(Seattle etc). No where else in the world has the massive amount of diversity that the US does at the scale of the US. It’s not even cl…

That seems incredibly unlikely. So unlikely that I'm going to say it's not true. There are certainly cultural differences across the US but you'll have a very hard time convincing people that these differences are greater than those that exist between Finland and Italy, say. Or between Cameroon and Kenya.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#134

Post by nhumrich »

tyu2 wrote: post #18
tomlue wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, “There is research suggesting that people who are in better health are more likely to volunteer, but because scientists are very well aware of that, in our studies we statistically control for that,” says Sara Konrath

How on earth can they control for that in short term studies? Is it even possible to get any statistical significance on that? Smells like bullshit, there is no way there is causation on health from volunteering. Think about it, if you are volunteering you are likely to not just have good health, but afford good health care, have plenty of free time for various activities, less stress in life, enjoy and seek social a…

The same wat you control for anything. You assign a group to do a specific thing. If a certain group performs better, its due to the task not preconditions, because the tasks were assigned, not observed and the selection process is random.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#135

Post by claudeganon »

gumby wrote: post #127
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 have lived in NY, and my partner was born and grew up in NY, and I find New Yorkers pretty friendly, especially when compared to other cities around the world I've lived in (all of which have had their share of friendly folk). I think you have to be friendly to live cheek by jowl with so many. However New Yorkers are brisk. The tech industry has definitely become more aggressive over the last 20 years. I credit it…

My experience in New York and Los Angeles is that the natives are perfectly pleasant, so long as you’re aware of the local mores.

The worst people are the people who move to cities and try and fit in by adopting some caricature of these customs, which is often accompanied by engaging in hideous games of one-upsmanship with their fellow new arrivals.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#136

Post by thewarrior »

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…

You’re one among the many quiet heroes of the world. Having friends like this makes life worth living.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#137

Post by whatshisface »

closeparen wrote: post #85
warent wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Encountering people who live on that level can be a trip. I went to lunch with some classmates after lecture. I had been fixated on the content. But the salient facts to one of my classmates were instead: who had spoken, with how much confidence, how often, for how long, how the professor seemed to feel about it. It was eye opening. There was this whole other dimension to the room, which I could barely see, but to he…

The funny thing is focusing on that will severely hamper your ability to perform in the actual conversation. Outside of gauging the reaction of the specific person you're talking to, if you want to score highly on the "talked for a long time with high confidence and everybody enjoyed it" axis you need to keep your eye on the ball so to speak.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#138

Post by Tarsul »

bluetomcat wrote: post #89
awillen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a European, I have had numerous work relationships and occasional acquaintances with Americans from California, Arizona, Idaho and NY. Yes, everyone has a different personality and the region matters, but compared to my own Eastern European culture, the difference in mood, confidence and talkativity is rather consistent. Maybe my sample of American people is not completely representative, but these are just my obs…

also, if you converse in English the Americans have it easier to talk which enhances this phenomenon.

Re: Being kind to others is good for your health

#139

Post by Scapeghost »

Only if the people you are kind to appreciate that.

I grew up in a third world dog-eat-dog culture where kindness is generally equated with naivete and everyone has to keep their guard up against each other.

I'm still struggling with ping-ponging between being taken advantage of or being too mean. I don't know where to draw the line and with whom.

In the last couple months alone I've been played for a fool by a few people who, to put it simply, weren't deserving of kindness. It certainly has not been good for my health, mental or physical, and it's going to leave me too cold and cynical for someone who could actually use some kindness, until I being to feel bad about that and open myself up to being exploited and so the cycle repeats.

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