How to be a better person: the unexpected driver of kindness

I'm Dr. Orion Teraband, and this is Psych Hacks, Better Living Through Psychology. And the topic of today's short talk is how to be a better person. So this is something that many people would like to be able to do. As usual, my advice today will be rather counterintuitive. But if you give me a few minutes of your time, I hope to be able to convince you. Don't worry, you can spare it. To begin with, I'd like to tell you about one of my favorite studies on altruistic kindness. I'll put the link in the description below. Like all good psych studies, it used deception. And this time, the ones being deceived were seminary students at Princeton University. These were young people who were studying to be priests. And after completing a number of self-report surveys, always such a trove of insightful and reliable information, these students were asked to prepare a short sermon on the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan was an irreligious person in a Bible story who stopped to help someone in need after a bunch of righteous folks passed him by. So far, so good. The real point of the study was to observe what happened next. In order to give the sermon, the students were instructed to walk to a nearby building through a narrow passageway. And in this passageway, the participants would encounter a sick man groaning on the floor, who was really a confederate of the study. The passageway was so narrow that the students couldn't really avoid him. In fact, they kind of had to step over him in order to get to where they were going. And the researchers wanted to see how many of the students would stop to help him out. The catch was that the students were randomly assigned to one of three time constraints. A third of the participants were told that they were early and had plenty of time before their sermon. A third were told they were right on schedule. And the final third were told that they were already running late. What do you think the researchers discovered? Well, first of all, they found that all that self-report survey data predicted **** all. Like, whether the students declared that they were intrinsically motivated to help others had nothing to do with whether they actually did so in the real experiment. This is why we take what people say, especially about themselves, with a huge grain of salt, and why we always defer to what people actually do in order to form our conclusions. As you may have guessed, the time constraint condition was the single greatest predictor of whether the participants stopped to help the sick confederate. 63% of those with time on their hands chose to help the person in distress, while only 10% of those who were running late did the same. That's an enormous difference. It's over six times as many. And it speaks to the influence of extrinsic factors on our behavior. Like, it kind of makes sense that those who are running late wouldn't stop to help. They might think, it's technically not my responsibility to help this person, but it is my responsibility to get to my appointment on time. What's more, there might be someone else who could help this guy, whereas I'm the only person who can help me not be late, etc., etc. Do you understand? The ones who stopped to help were not necessarily kinder than those who didn't, at least not in their own minds. They were the ones with time on their hands. On some level, they had nothing better to do than to lend a helping hand. The unsatisfying conclusion here is that the kind people, like in terms of their trait personality, didn't always stop. And the ones who stopped were not necessarily the kindest ones. And lest we get too judgmental here, we need to remember that honoring one's commitment and showing up on time and discharging one's responsibility is also a form of kindness. It's just not as visible and stereotyped as helping out a sick stranger. If you're interested in taking your understanding to the next level, I would encourage you to check out the Captain's Quarters, my members-only self-improvement community. Your monthly membership will get you access to a cadre of like-minded, supportive individuals, bi-monthly group consultation sessions hosted by yours truly, and exclusive content that you won't find anywhere else. Click the link in the description for more information. Hope to see you aboard. It's important to consider that a lot of the kindness that people perform in their everyday lives is the unrecognized kindness of those who don't stop. This is because so many people are really just trying to keep their heads above water. They are so wrapped up in the busyness of their lives. They are so taxed with respect to their time and their money and their attention that frankly, the only kindness they're capable of doing, which is not necessarily a small thing, is discharging their own responsibilities. Just like the study revealed, it's generally those who have enough time or enough money or enough emotional bandwidth who are in a position to lend a hand. Of course, there are people who have tons of time and money and do jack shit, so that's true too. But what I've discovered is that it's so much easier to help other people when you have arrived at a place of abundance, a surplus of time, attention, emotional bandwidth, and very often, money. Because let's be real, you can't pay the bills with thoughts and prayers, man. Very few actual problems are solved with a kind word. Money can often do a lot more good than emotional support can. Now, I'm not saying you should go around just handing out cash, but you should know that a check would make for a much happier Christmas for a lot of people than some caroling. You know what I'm saying? My point is that one way to become a better person is to become more prosperous. This is not something I've heard anyone else talk about, the connection between abundance and altruistic behavior. That is, it's very likely the case that you will be able to help others more if you can orchestrate your life so that you have more spare time and some discretionary income, and most importantly, some peace of mind. This is true for everyone, but it's especially true for anyone who wants to join a helping profession. You can't really help anyone else as long as your head is full of your own problems. You need to sort through your own emotional baggage first. The reason why most people are bad friends or partners is not because they're evil, but because they are still so preoccupied with their own bullshit that they literally do not have space for anyone else's problems in their life. They'll likely become irritable and push back on anyone who comes to them for help in a maladaptive attempt to protect what little bandwidth they still have left. Like, they might not even be able to hear you if the voices in their own head are too loud. And in my experience, the voices get louder the more your life isn't working. In a lot of cases, those voices are an attempt at problem solving, and they tend to get louder as the problems get more numerous or severe. This means that one of the best things that you can do for other people is to solve your own ******* problems. When you do that, you might just have enough bandwidth to actually see another person, to listen to them non-reactively and non-judgmentally, and potentially to be of service to them. As the study revealed, people generally can't be of service to others when doing so would simultaneously mean failing in one of their own duties or obligations. Either decision involves some degree of loss. In my opinion, the best way to mitigate that loss is to cultivate enough abundance with respect to your material and psychological resources that you're no longer forced to functionally choose. Like, it's hard to be patient when you're late, right? You're already late. You don't have time to be patient. So from a practical standpoint, how can you expect people to be patient if they don't have an abundance of time? And the fact of the matter is that we can all have an abundance of time. As Seneca wrote, life is long if you know how to use it. People think that life is short or that they don't have enough time because their lives are so cluttered with bullshit and busyness that decades pass them by without them realizing it. Restructuring your life so that you can once again experience this abundance of time is no small thing. It can take a while to accomplish, but doing so might actually give you the opportunity to pursue certain higher pursuits, including being of service to others. What do you think? Does this fit with your own experience? Let me know in the comments below. And please send this episode to someone who you think might benefit from its message, as it's word of mouth referrals like this that really help to make the channel grow. And anyone looking to join my free weekly newsletter or book a paid consultation can do so on my website. There's also my book, The Value of Others, and my member community, The Captain's Quarters. The links to everything are in the description below. Check them out. As always, I appreciate your support, and thank you for listening.