Kinder Than We Might Think: How Adolescents Are Kind

Abstract

Educators and parents alike have high expectations that adolescents behave prosocially and, within the context of schools, this is evident in curriculum grounded in social and emotional learning and in kindness-themed school-wide initiatives. Despite this emphasis on kindness, relatively little is empirically known about how adolescents enact kindness. To understand just how adolescents demonstrate kindness, a study of 191 ninth graders was conducted in which students were asked to plan and complete five kind acts. In addition to planning and doing acts of kindness, participants were asked to rate their face-to-face and online kindness, report the number of kind acts they completed, identify the recipients of their acts, and assess the quality of their kind acts. At post-test, participants’ self-ratings of both face-to-face and online kindness were significantly higher than their pre-test ratings. Only one third of participants completed all of their kind acts, most participants chose familiar others as the recipients of their kindness, and the bulk of participants rated their acts of kindness as medium quality on a low–medium–high scale. The kind acts done by participants reflected the themes of helping with chores, being respectful, complimenting/encouraging others, and giving objects or money. Implications for educators and parents are discussed.