Nicholas Epley, a behavioural scientist, and I conducted a series of studies and concluded that kind acts as simple as buying a cup of coffee for someone can promote a person’s happiness. Everyday life affords many opportunities for such actions, yet people do not always catch them. 【小题1】

We firstly studied acts of kindness done for familiar people such as friends, classmates or family. 【小题2】 For instance, in one experiment, people wrote notes to friends and family “just because”. In another, they gave cupcakes away to workmates. Across these experiments, we asked both the person performing a kind act and the one receiving it to fill out questionnaires (问卷).

Across our studies, several strong patterns appeared. For one, both performers and receivers of the acts of kindness were in more positive moods than normal after these kind acts. 【小题3】 The receivers felt significantly better than the kind actors expected. The receivers also reliably rated these acts as “bigger” than the people performing them did.

【小题4】In one experiment, participants at an ice-skating rink (溜冰场) in a public park gave away hot chocolate to people they didn’t know on a cold winter day. Again, the experience was more positive than the performers expected for the receivers. Although the people giving out the hot chocolate saw the act as relatively small, it really mattered to the receivers.

These findings suggest that what might seem small when we are deciding whether or not to do something nice for someone else could matter a great deal to the person we do it for. These warm acts can improve our own emotional health and brighten the day of another person. 【小题5】