Credit: www.cbc.ca |
Children who make an effort to perform acts of kindness are
happier and experience greater acceptance from their peers, suggests new
research from the University of British Columbia and the University
of California, Riverside.
Kimberly Schonert-Reichl, a professor in UBC’s Faculty of
Education, and co-author Kristin Layous, of the University
of California, Riverside,
say that increasing peer acceptance is key to preventing bullying.
In the study, researchers examined how to boost happiness in
students aged 9 to 11 years. Four hundred students from Vancouver elementary schools were asked to
report on their happiness and to identify which of their classmates they would
like to work with on school activities. Half of the students were asked by
their teachers to perform acts of kindness – like sharing their lunch or giving
their mom a hug when she felt stressed – and half were asked to keep track of
pleasant places they visited – like the playground or a grandparent’s house.
After four weeks, the students again reported on their
happiness and identified classmates they would like to work with. While both
groups said they were happier, kids that had performed acts of kindness
selected higher numbers of classmates to work with on school activities.
“We show that kindness has some real benefits for the
personal happiness of children but also for the classroom community,” says
Schonert-Reichl, also a researcher with the Human Early Learning Partnership at
UBC.
According to Schonert-Reichl, bullying tends to increase in
Grades 4 and 5. By simply asking students to think about how they can act
kindly to those around them, “teachers can create a sense of connectedness in
the classroom and reduce the likelihood of bullying.”
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The above story is reprinted from the December 26, 2012 news release by University of British Columbia.
The research has been published in PLoS ONE, a peer-reviewed, open-access online resource reporting scientific studies from all disciplines:
Kristin
Layous, S. Katherine Nelson, Eva Oberle, Kimberly A. Schonert-Reichl, Sonja
Lyubomirsky. Kindness Counts: Prompting Prosocial Behavior in
Preadolescents Boosts Peer Acceptance and Well-Being. PLoS ONE,
2012; 7 (12):
Click
HERE to read the full paper.
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