You are walking down the street, and someone is approaching you.  You have a few options.  First you could bury your head into your chest and keep walking.  Next you could get your phone out and pretend you are getting some monumentally important text of some kind or another, or you could smile, make I contact, and say “Good morning, afternoon, evening, or good day”.

Now watch what happens.  This part is out of your control.  What you have done is create the potential for positive feedback.  Now it becomes a “loop”, if it continues with the next person.  That individual that you offered a “Good morning, afternoon, evening, or good day”, will more often than not continue this behavior.  It may be on the street, in the office, grocery store, church, park…, you get the picture. 

Simple acts of kindness create positive feedback loops.  We know that basic garden variety politeness aka, please and thank-you used to be the norm.  Not so anymore.  Impatience has gone to a level that is harming our society.  I would go as far as to say that it is negatively affecting our social cohesion.  Our ability to just get along.

In a study by Adam M. Grant and Francesca Gino from the University of Pennsylvania and North Carolina-Chapel Hill respectively, these Professors proved the Positive Feedback Loop I mentioned earlier.  Read their Book A Little Thanks Goes a Long Way: Explaining Why Gratitude Expressions Motivate Prosocial Behavior if you want a deep dive.  Here is the study in brief. The Professors set up two groups of students asking for help with a fictitious cover letter for a job application.  The first group of students asked a set group for help.  A couple of lines in the email and a due date. The second group asked a different group of students for help, however this time they expressed their gratitude for the assistance.

Here is where the magic happens.  The group that was asked to assist with the cover letter and received the expression of gratitude responded positively twice as often as the group that did not receive any acknowledgement or thanks.  The Professors took it further.  They had the students that received the assistance respond to the individuals that assisted, again one set of responses with a gratitude condition, and one without.  They had the students ask for assistance on a second cover letter.  Do you know what happened?  Ding, Ding, Ding.  You got it! The second request that had a gratitude condition was responded to twice as favorably.   

All of the above points to only one possible understanding.  If I treat someone with kindness, respect, and patience, I will receive kindness, respect, and patience.  But it goes further, and here is where the “loop” comes in.  If I treat you with kindness, respect, and patience, then they will treat the next person they see with the same kindness, respect, and patience

In this way positivity, or prosocial behavior as our professors communicate can dominate our culture.  So, you see smiling, being kind, offering a positive greeting may be more important than any of us thought. 

Here is your challenge.  Do just one kind thing a day that offers an act of kindness to another person.  It could be in your family, friends, an acquaintance, or a stranger.  It doesn’t matter who receives your kindness, just that it happens.  Who knows, we could start a revolution.