Being Kind in a Complex World

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1:04You're nightly rebellion against predictable radio and podcasts. The last show with David Cooper. We like to think society runs on loss money, maybe a little bit of fear. But researchers say it's actually running on something much smaller. Tiny acts of kindness, awkward small tuck. Strangers behaving slightly better to you than you'd expect. I'm here with James Cohn, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville to discuss all of this, the kindness of strangers and how important it is. Jim, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me on. So is kindness a purely moral act? Or is it perhaps a practical act that we do? We basically like cooperation machines. That's a good way to put it. We're basically cooperation machines. We can't help ourselves as young as early toddlerhood.

2:05We spot what other people want to do. We don't care why they want to do it and we get busy helping them do it. And that sort of carries on throughout our adulthood. Now, the weak ties we have with all the people we interact with in our lives, the strangers, the acquaintances, the baristas, our neighbors. Why do these matter so much? These kind of ties and the way we act towards these people? Yeah. Well, your brain is constantly asking a question because of the way that we evolved. And that question is, am I alone or do I have resources that can help me if I need help? We're an intensely social species. So being isolated involuntarily, I should know. Sometimes being alone when you don't have to be is like sublime. But when you have to be alone, that's like death. That was a death sentence as we were evolving as a species. And so it's really important for our brain to get feedback from our environment that we

3:11are embedded in a social fabric and network. And it doesn't have to be, you know, people running up to us and grabbing our hands and gazing into our eyes lovingly and saying, I love you and value you and we'll protect you no matter what. We don't need that. And we're not going to get it even if we did, okay? That's too much to ask. So what we have is kind of a tiered system. We have one or two very, very, very close intimate friends or partners, sort of concentric rings of closeness, sort of going out from that. And then this broad, very important base of embeddedness in a community, which is like a culture, just like the people you see every day. It's like, I don't know if you ever saw Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. It's like, you know, the policemen or the mailman or whatever it is.

4:12The barista now, we would, we might say. So when we know those individuals, even if we don't know them by name, when we see them every day, we say, hi, how's it going? What's the story, you know, love this weather, I can't believe it. You know, I could do it with you right now. Two days ago, it was 90 degrees in Charlottesville yesterday, it snowed. Wow, instant, complete, fascinating topic to talk about. We have so much in common, the weather. Yeah. Small talk though, people say it's shallow, people say they hate it. Do we misunderstand small talk? A small talk actually very important. Like when I ask you how you are and I'm not looking for the real answer, like I don't want you to tell me that your wife just left you or whatever, is that still an important interaction? Well, here's what we know according to the research, people who claim to hate small talk are actually worse at deep talk. They're worse at all kinds of talk. They don't, they're not inclined to have a passionate conversation about, you know, social, you know, current events or, you know, their, their deepest feelings and longings.

5:17This is a stereotype that often people who claim to dislike small talk will perpetuate themselves. People who are better at small talk are better at all kinds of talk. They're better at engaging you at any level. Small talk is actually part of the fabric of our weak ties. You use this term weak ties. Your listeners might not know that that's actually a technical term in the social sciences. Weak ties are people that you don't necessarily confess your sins to, but you do chat about the weird snowy weather with, and maybe with some regularity, maybe two or three times a week. Maybe you don't even know they're naming, but you chitchat, you know, one of the grocery stores, I, this is, I'm just going to miss you. One of the grocery stores I love to go to is not because of the groceries, because the, the, the people in them are, are, are, are trying to make small talk. It's trader jokes. I love it. Yeah. They, they are very friendly. They're, I go to the coffee shop by my old apartment, even though it's about a 50 minute

6:18walk, because they occasionally give me a free coffee, but that's not why I go. It's not the money. They're friendly to me. You know, they got a photo of my cat on the wall. And when I go, I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm a part of something and I sometimes feel embarrassed. I'm like, I'm only going there because they act like they like me, you know, in this week, tie, outer ring, I know these people aren't my friends. But they are. They are. And here's what, here's what you'll find out. If you're in that coffee shop, when the catastrophe happens down the road and the bomb explodes, they're going to leap to your aid if you need it. Yeah. Before a complete strength, because they're not complete strangers. And I do live in downtown New York where that has happened. It could, it's happened. So every, every once in a while, you say they give you a free, a free coffee, right? And you're like, well, that's not why I go there and they have two comments for that. One is that has absolutely why you go there. The other, the other thing is, that is not something to, to, to sneeze at or devalue.

7:19We can think about that free coffee, literally and abstractly, metaphorically. The, the, the free coffee is regard for you as a person, right? And, and, and you feeling even for an instant, like you're seen and known. And that's like pouring a little bit of health into the top of your head. And from my end, I tip them the price of a full coffee. So they just get extra money. I end up paying the same amount of cash. But it's that, it's that regard on both ends. It's like, okay, you guys are getting a huge tip and it's not going to cost me any extra money. I'm getting my free coffee. Everyone feels like they were treated well, but there's like no difference in the actual interaction. Well, I suppose the employer is getting the owner of the coffee shop loses. Maybe the owner is caching in. No, the owner gets nothing because they get the big tip. Well, the owner gets nothing. Yeah, I guess right. Yeah. So, but, but, you know, this, this kind of thing is exactly how your daily life works all the time.

8:19And it even works sometimes with strangers. Just say a really fascinating story, very, very quickly study. You can watch people walking through doors, right? This is a fascinating story. You just observe people walking through doors. And what you see is, every once in a while, someone who's a little bit ahead of someone else opens the door and holds it open. Okay. We've all done that. We've all seen that, right? But what we haven't maybe noticed, because we don't record these things consciously very often, is what very commonly happens when someone holds the door open for someone. Someone else. Do you want to take a guess? A quick thank you. A smile. Not the person behind speeds up. Ah. It's like me tipping extra and the, the breeze giving me a free coffee. It's this moment of kindness where both parties step up. But check this out. If you look at the time it takes to get those two individuals through the door, it's greater than the time it takes to get the two of them through the door when they do this little dance. When one holds the door open, the other one speeds up.

9:20So they both get through the door more rapidly than they, than the time it would take for each one of them separately to get through the doors. I wish we had more time. We don't have a lot, but I want to get one more question. And what happens when these acts of kindness go away? When these small habits disappear in society, does the glue that's holding it all together disappear and society falls apart? Absolutely. We become prone to anxiety and depression. We become prone to irrational beliefs and misinformation. We become suspicious of people who are not like us, but also our own neighbors and maybe even our own family members. We start to hollow out because what we're doing, it's sort of like, it's sort of like operating a car that inefficiently, you're burning through too much fuel. Well, James Cohen is a psychology professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville gym. Like the simple solution to all of our problems, kindness and I appreciate you coming on the show and talking about it.

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