Research has shown that a simple act of kindness directed toward another improves the functioning of the immune system and stimulates the production of serotonin in both the recipient of the kindness and the person extending the kindness. Kindness extended, received or observed beneficially impacts the physical health and feelings of everyone involved.
Altruism is innate, but it's not instinctual. Everybody's wired for it, but a switch has to be flipped.
People are not fundamentally bad. It only takes the smallest of correctives to take care of that tiny minority that wants to disrupt the community.
Positive social emotions like compassion and empathy are generally good for us, and we want to encourage them. But do we know how to most reliably raise children to care about the suffering of other people? I'm not sure we do.
Some people think that without that spark of empathy we would do nothing, but that's just flat-out wrong. You could feel compassion for somebody without the spark of empathy.
Self-improvement comes mainly from trying to help others.
Modern Darwinism makes it abundantly clear that many less ruthless traits, some not always admired by robber barons and Fuhrers - altruism, general intelligence, compassion - may be the key to survival.
The youngest children have a great capacity for empathy and altruism. There's a recent study that shows even 14-month-olds will climb across a bunch of cushions and go across a room to give you a pen if you drop one.
There's something inside of me that makes me want to help people, especially people who are having difficulty of some kind.
You can't assume that kindness is an inherited trait. It is learned behavior.
Givers get trust quicker than other people. People trust generous people.
People are nicer than economists give us credit for. The economists cannot understand why people would work long and hard to clean up a community after a hurricane. … Most economists don’t have any interest in or understanding of psychology.
The great truth that is too often forgotten is that it is in the nature of people to do good to one another.
People don't help much.
I try to persuade people to act in ways that are not only in their own interest, but in the interest of society at large.
If you feel helpless, go help someone.
The stirrings of morality emerge early in childhood. Toddlers spontaneously offer toys and help to others and try to comfort people they see in distress.
I really feel great when I help somebody.
People feel good serving others.
Along with others, I have tried to pry economists away from narrow assumptions about self interest. Behavior is driven by a much richer set of values and preferences.
We, as humans, have actually developed a sense of social responsibility. We have gone beyond our basic instincts.
Humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathic than [it's] given credit for.
Caring is a reflex. Someone slips, your arm goes out. A car is in the ditch, you join others and push... You live, you help.
Touch seems to be such an important tool for enhancing social cooperation and affiliation that we have evolved a special physical route along which those subliminal feelings of social connection travel from skin to brain.
Getting involved with the Boys and Girls Club helped keep me and my sister from getting in trouble.
