Showing children altruistic videos leads to kindness contagion, researchers say

Source: UCLA

Researchers from UCLA have created a playlist in conjunction with Youtube Kids, designed to encourage the spread of altruistic behaviour among children.

It follows research by UCLA’s Bedari Kindness Institute that showed people often feel motivated to help others after watching a video of someone else behaving altruistically.

Scholars from the Center for Scholars & Storytellers, the Bedari Kindness Institute and the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television joined forces with Youtube Kids to create a series of videos that promote ‘kind, caring behavior in everyday situations’.

In one of the videos, an altruistic individual is eventually rewarded with kindness by two children who watched as she selflessly helped others.

Daniel Fessler, director of the Bedari Kindness Institute, said: ‘In my lab, we’ve worked on contagious kindness and have found that when adults witness someone engaging in prosocial behavior, many of them are inspired to be prosocial themselves. We think this applies to children, too.’