by Venkatesh Gomatam
‘Doing Good’ – a one-time thing?
Is doing good a one time or infrequently done act whose benefits last a long time? Dr. Waguih William IsHak, a professor of psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai reflects on this -“Biochemically, you can’t live on the 3-to-4-minute oxytocin boost that comes from a single act.” The trick you need to know: Acts of kindness have to be repeated.”
On a daily basis, the opportunities to doing good, practicing kindness or any other prosocial behaviors are plenty – everything from holding the door for somebody, sharing, helping a neighbor to more engaged volunteer efforts. With introspection and discipline, this can become a regular practice.
As this quote from Dalai Lama puts it – “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
Why Authenticity Matters in ‘Doing Good’?
How is doing a kind act perceived? Are all prosocial actions altruistic?
- Stanford Social Neuroscience Laboratory and Dr. Jamil Zaki have done interesting research in the areas of altruism. This particular study detailed below focuses on how laypeople (or observers here) perceive those who are engaging in altruistic acts (do-gooders or agents). It identifies four buckets for people engaging in altruistic acts based on their motives and benefit they are seen to accrue –
- Material benefit (as an example people giving to charity to get a tax break)
- Social benefit (such as praise)
- Emotional benefit (to feel good)
- No benefits (without expectation in their altruism)
It is not hard to see everyday examples of ‘altruism with a benefit’ and place them in one of these buckets for yourself. Here are some scenarios for you to ponder about -Politician volunteering once at soup kitchen, Volunteering at your employer supported civic activity, volunteering at your children’s school, donating blood, making an anonymous donation for a cause.
- While this Stanford study is more nuanced and detailed, on the areas on motives and benefits, the results are very clear. As the findings state –
- Do-gooders’ motives makes a big difference in how they are perceived by laypeople. “When actors benefit from good deeds, observers view them as less altruistic; when actors perform good deeds in order to accrue material or social benefits, observers view them as “counter-altruistic,” more selfish even than people who engage in non-prosocial behavior.
- On the other hand, for agents in the emotional benefits bucket, observers’ respond that “feeling good after acting prosocially is consistent with true altruism, but helping others as a means for building positive emotion is viewed less nobly”.
- In a slightly connected inference from a study from the University of Hong Kong – a meta-analysis of 201 independent studies, comprising 198,213 total participants – found that “random acts of kindness, such as helping an older neighbor carry grocery, were more strongly associated with overall well-being than formal prosocial behavior, such as scheduled volunteering for a charity”.
Conclusion
Writing an article around this subject of Doing Good and its impact is an exercise in swimming in a vast ocean of data and research while running into buoys of our intuitive self. Intuitive, because by and large, humans tend to do good in context. It is part of our historical cultural norms and our DNA. So, we believe and act based on an understanding of what this means. Nevertheless, data and research findings help identify a lot of nuances and nuggets of understanding.
For me, the biggest learnings are around how deeply connected the mind-body experiences are, the infectious and inspirational offshoots of positive practices and why authenticity is key for an agent of altruism.