What if the secret to greater happiness, better health, and stronger relationships isn’t what you do for yourself—but what you do for others? In this episode, leading empathy researcher Dr. Sara Konrath shares the surprising science behind generosity, revealing how small acts of kindness can reduce stress, deepen connection, and even help us live longer.
What if the path to a happier, healthier life starts with a simple act of kindness? In this episode of Frontiers in Health and Happiness, social psychologist Dr. Sara Konrath—one of the world’s leading researchers on empathy and generosity—explores the surprising science behind giving. Drawing on decades of research and insights from the 2025 World Happiness Report, she explains how generosity can boost mental well-being, strengthen relationships, reduce stress, and even contribute to longer life. She also shares why many people underestimate the benefits of giving, and why helping others often brings more lasting happiness than spending money on ourselves.
Dr. Konrath answers questions such as: What’s the difference between healthy and unhealthy empathy? Are there economic benefits to kindness? Do younger and older people benefit from generosity in different ways? And how can we give sustainably without sacrificing our own well-being? Along the way, she offers practical strategies for cultivating empathy in everyday life, introduces the “three Cs” of sustainable giving, and shares the personal experiences that inspired her life’s work. Whether you're looking to deepen your relationships, improve your well-being, or make a greater difference in the lives of others, this conversation offers powerful, evidence-based insights into the transformative impact of empathy and generosity.
Ayla Fudala: Hello and welcome to Frontiers in Health and Happiness, the official podcast of the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. My name is Ayla Fudala, Senior Communications Coordinator, and I'll be asking experts how to live a healthy, happy life.
This is the second episode of our Virtues for Well-being series. In this series, we're shining a spotlight on leading experts who are uncovering how virtues shape our health and happiness. Today's guest is Dr. Sara Konrath, a social psychologist and director of the Interdisciplinary Program on Empathy and Altruism Research at Indiana University's Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, as well as the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. Dr. Konrath’s groundbreaking work explores how empathy, generosity, and social connection develop and the profound impact they can have on our lives. In this conversation, she'll draw from the latest research, including insights from the 2025 World Happiness Report, which she served as a co-author on, to reveal practical, evidence-based strategies for cultivating empathy and generosity in ways that are not just effective, but also healthy and sustainable. Now let's hear from Dr. Sara Konrath.
Your research shows a link between empathy, generosity, and personal well-being. What does the science say about how giving can impact our mental and physical health?
Dr. Sara Konrath: It's pretty good news. This can range anywhere from happiness, like just that feeling of joy to more purpose in life, or deeper meaning, less depressive symptoms. So it kind of really goes deep. And the psychological well-being also lasts for a longer time than our typical type of happiness, which can be fleeting. So it's kind of a long-lasting way to build up not only someone else's happiness by being kind to them, but also your own. And then that spills into sort of even deeper physiological outcomes.
So, for example, I've done some research showing that people who are more empathetic when they're doing something a little stressful, they have sort of a physiological protective system, a buffer. Normally our stress hormones would really increase anytime we're going through a stressful event. But people who have high empathy have a smaller increase in stress hormone. So it's protective. And there's also research showing that even if you just in the moment change your mindset and think about how you can help others when you're in a stressful situation that has immediate effects on your stress hormones. So if you think about that in the long term, if you are giving to others and you're happier and your stress is being more regulated, that's going to have long term implications for health.
And I've also tracked older adults to see what happens if they give, or what happens if they see themselves as kind and generous. And what we find is both giving time and seeing oneself as a giving person are associated with a lower risk of mortality several years later. So there's this really sort of short term and also long term implication when people are generous.
But the research shows that most people don't know. Like when you ask them, like, what's going to make you happier? Like spending money on yourself or giving it away? Like the most common answer is, well, of course I'll feel good if I treat myself right. That's what we think. I think we're in a society that promotes that. But the reality is when you actually measure it and look at what's actually making people happy in the moment, they're feeling better from giving to others.
Ayla Fudala: I imagine empathy and generosity play an important role in social connections. What are the social benefits of giving and how can it shape your relationships?
Dr. Sara Konrath: Any kind of relationship, it has an impact. It could be somebody you're just chatting with, like, you know, at the store or something, and you're going to make that person feel good and you're going to feel that connection and it's going to you're going to feel good there, too. But in longer term relationships, having empathy helps you. People call it like the glue of social relationships because it helps you to just bond with other people, feel closer.
And in romantic relationships, it predicts positive outcomes like more satisfaction. The funny thing about this, the romantic aspect is like when you look cross-culturally and you ask men and women like, what's the number one thing you're looking for in a partner? It's like the one thing that men and women agree on. It's which is kindness. They want a partner who's kind, and it makes sense because it's good for relationships.
We also see in research that when you have a group of people who want to volunteer and you give half of them the opportunity to go ahead, older adults, and then you track them over time, you see changes in both the quantity and the quality of the relationships. So for example, six months later, you will see that the people who volunteered have more friends now, whereas the people who didn't have a chance to volunteer in that six months, even though they wanted to, they have less friends and they also talk about having higher quality friendships.
So specifically, they think that other people are going to be there for them, so they have a higher sense of what we call perceived support. So the belief that not just do you have a huge amount of friends and you're just going to go party, but you actually are there for each other.
So it really is good for relationships in young people. It's not just in older people. Like there's a study in young people that shows this is a preteens. And the researchers asked half of preteens to do three kind acts over a week, compared to go to three new places. And when they track them over time, they found that their peers around them rated them as more popular, more likeable after they had been the recipients of their kindness for a few weeks.
So there's a number of benefits. Socially, I think most kind people are not sitting there calculating, what can I get out of this? And you can tell, I think when you're interacting with somebody, whether they actually are genuine, and we just want to be around people who are nice.
Ayla Fudala: Are there economic benefits of being kind? Speaking of being calculating in your giving.
Dr. Sara Konrath: There are some. I've done some of this research, but one of my favorite studies is actually this study that started with five-year-olds, okay, kindergarten students. And they were from a lower economic background, neighborhood. And this just shows you like how powerful these effects are, because they buffer kids from a lot of risk factors. So these researchers talk to the teachers of these kids and ask the teachers, how kind is this kid? How nice is this kid? Does this kid think about other people's feelings? To what extent does this kid do that?
So they have a bunch of information on these kindergarten kids, and then they track them for the next 13 to 19 years, and they're all starting kind of around the same place, right in the same classroom, same schools. And they find that the kids who at age five, were showing kindness and empathy toward others are the ones that ended up more likely to graduate high school and doing better financially. So despite their early difficult circumstances, they ended up doing better. So to me, that's cool. And again, I don't think it's about like, ooh, if I'm good, I'm going to get something back. Those kids weren't thinking that. They were just thinking about their little friends in kindergarten and had to share what they had with them.
I've done some work, kind of similar to that where we look at teenagers. It's using national samples. So it's not just a few classrooms, but it's now national samples in the US. And the surveys we use ask questions about whether they volunteer or whether they donate money? And it's not much money. It's something like, you know, at least $25. So just are you doing anything? And when we track them over time, we find that when they're young adults, they are more likely to go to college and they have higher financial well-being if they have volunteered or donated.
And yes, we know that people with privilege are probably more likely to do that, right? Like, you know, if they have more social resources or financial resources to begin with, they'll hear about volunteering opportunities or they'll think about donating to charity. But in our research, we control for where they started. But we also look at the groups separately. And we want to see is there a bigger or smaller effect or no difference depending on where they started. And we find that volunteering and giving is just as good for kids from the higher income, beginning when they're teens, as also those from the lower income beginnings. So it's good for any kids. And it's really to me that's encouraging to say that these small acts that people do can actually have these longer-term benefits.
Ayla Fudala: So being generous and empathetic is good for your mental, physical, social, and economic health.
Dr. Sara Konrath: It has these good outcomes. And a lot of these studies are following people over time. So these are pretty high-quality studies. And I think it's exciting to see that these benefits exist because these are really small things. Like even if we don't have enough money to give, we can certainly do something nice for someone else, a small kind act.
Ayla Fudala: Are there any specific groups that benefit the most from generosity? You mentioned young people, preteens.
Dr. Sara Konrath: Well, the research has been done and researchers have found people from as young as toddlers show signs of joy, of giving all the way up to older adults, where you, of course, see some of those health benefits. But when you when you really look at it in meta analyses, which are studies that just put all the studies they can find together in one, what they find is that the younger people are having kind of more of the psychological benefits, and it might be because they're still figuring out who they are, and they're getting this positive feedback when they're giving to others, and it's helping them see themselves as a generous person. So it's kind of this positive feedback loop for younger people.
And so older people are still benefiting and still feeling good, but it's just a little bit bigger for younger people. And then the opposite is true for older people. There are benefiting more in their physical health. And to me that makes sense because they're maybe facing health challenges. They're facing role changes in life where maybe they're not going out as much because they're not going to work every day and things like that when they retire. So the benefits are bigger for people who, for example, are retired. They have better health benefits. And the older they are, they we see the better health benefits as well.
Ayla Fudala: There are different forms of giving-- emotional, practical, financial. Is there one type that is more beneficial or do they have different types of beneficial impacts on people?
Dr. Sara Konrath: I think that's a really good question. And I think we don't have enough yet. Like we haven't had somebody systematically really look at all the different kinds and figure out what's the one that's really having the impact. But I've done some work where I've tried to compare in the same population of older adults to see what type of giving was associated with lower risk of dying a few years later and giving time of any kind. It could have been to a non-profit, or just like to your friend or whoever those people benefited from, from giving. They had a lower risk of dying a few years later. And then the sense of seeing yourself, that sort of identity as a generous person makes an impact as well. In this study, when older adults gave money, there was no relationship like with mortality risk later. Still, they are happier, they still feel good, which is still great.
I'm happy to see that you can change your empathy. You can grow. That's something that we can all grow on, and you can decide to share your time with others and do nice things for them. And so these are things that we can all decide to do and benefit from. And it's not dependent about how much we make or where we stand on some status hierarchy.
Ayla Fudala: What are the limitations on giving, and can being too empathetic cause burnout?
Dr. Sara Konrath: That's a great question too. We have a new meta-analysis where we compiled as many studies as we can find on empathy and burnout to look at this question; because a lot of people believe that we should be careful empathizing, because if we empathize, it's going to overwhelm us.
So I guess it really depends on how you define empathy, right? Because if we think of empathy, some people, a lot of people think of empathy as like, you know, I'm an empath. I feel whatever you feel, right? And that's actually not the healthiest way to be empathetic. Because imagine if you're a doctor, right? And you're around patients every single day and your patients are going through health problems and so they're not feeling good. And then every day you're feeling what they're feeling like, what's that? What's going to happen?
Ayla Fudala: That doesn't sound good.
Dr. Sara Konrath: Now you're going to feel burnout, right. That's intense. That's really hard for people. I mean, you can feel empathic joy. So if you're around happy and joyful people, soak it up. It can be contagious and you can enjoy that. But we have to learn how to regulate our empathy.
And there are forms of empathy that are associated with lower burnout. So one of them is feeling compassion. So in that example, a doctor sitting with somebody who's very ill, you can sit there with that person and be like, I actually feel for you. I want what's best for you, and I'm here for you. And that is not draining. That actually can be energizing and can be protective from burnout and a different kind of empathy, a cognitive form. Perspective taking is one example, learning about the definitions of empathy and in the moment, just noticing where you're at and being able to switch. It takes a little bit of practice and regulation, but I really think we should we should learn how to do this well. If we care about caring, then we can care well.
Ayla Fudala: So there's a healthy way to empathize with people, and an unhealthy way.
Dr. Sara Konrath: I think so, yeah. I would say that there are healthier ways that are more regulated and calmer for yourself so that you can continue to be with that person who's in need.
Ayla Fudala: How would you switch? How would you change the type of empathizing you're doing?
Dr. Sara Konrath: I think there's many different ways to do that. I think with practice people can do it pretty quickly, but if you're new to it, I would say working on your self-compassion, trying to understand who you are and what you need as a person and what makes you feel good and calm, and giving yourself permission to be taken care of.
A lot of times we feel one of the things we do when we empathize is we think we have to do it, almost like at the expense of our own well-being. And it's worth questioning ourselves about why we think that. And so just starting with if you want to be a caring person, count yourself as somebody who deserves care from yourself and from others, and then give care and doing things that help you calm down.
For me, I mean, there's many different things. I try to calm myself down and keep myself in a good place. And one of the things is truly just like hugging, hugging, snuggling my cat. I have a very affectionate cat. He likes to hug me, put his arms around my neck and hug me. And I just notice how I really can regulate myself and feel good no matter what's happening, even if I'm stressed out or whatever. It feels really good, and you can give empathy and kindness a lot more effectively if you are in that place where you're calm.
So everyone knows what their thing is that can do that to them. But we often don't prioritize that in our lives.
Ayla Fudala: So in order to be caring and empathetic towards others, we need to make sure that we're feeling calm first.
Dr. Sara Konrath: It helps. Yeah. Empathy is one of those things it's good to let go of the judgment because it's not something we're trying to be perfect at. The whole purpose of empathy is to just be there with somebody else so that they feel cared for. And so we're not going to get it right every time. And we have to give ourselves the space to realize that maybe we didn't get it right, but to show the person we care anyway and we want to correct.
So it's really about this back and forth. It's always relational. It always takes two. And we need it too. And so that's a part of what we think about when we think about the effects of giving on givers. We're focused so much on the giver that sometimes we forget that we're all givers and receivers in our relationships with people.
Ayla Fudala: How can we give sustainably to make sure that it benefits both us and the other person?
Dr. Sara Konrath: After reviewing hundreds of studies, me and my colleagues who co-authored the World Happiness Report in 2025 have come up with three keys to remember: the three Cs.
The first C is being in caring communities. So that means many things. One of the things is that practice of being a recipient and a giver together, being willing to receive and finding trusted others who you want to receive from and that you want to give to, and prioritizing that in your life.
But also the reasons we give really matter. So when we give because it's important to loved ones, for example, volunteering, like I volunteer somewhere at an animal shelter because it's important to one of my loved ones, and I think I would do it on my own because I like it, but because it's important to them, then I want to do it too. And so I do it with them. And it feels really good to make that part of our relationship. Also volunteering or giving in any way, because you just really care. You're not going to get anything back from it, but you just want to do it because you care.
So that's part of being in a caring community is thinking of the people around you, what they need. And it might be people you know, but it also might be strangers in your community. Like maybe it's people who are who are nonprofit in your community service or animals or whoever. Right. But just thinking about sort of how you're embedded and part of this, and that's a really important C, and that's why we put it first.
Another one is choice. I think nobody enjoys being forced to do things. Giving is voluntary, should be voluntary. So thinking through who you are, what you actually enjoy doing and choosing how you want to. I think about giving as a constellation. So what is in your constellation of giving, I think is part of that. And there's some mandatory high school programs for volunteering that I think probably are good for our society. But even within those allowing people, teens to pick something that really is meaningful to them. So that's choice.
That's the second C, and the third C is to do things that have a concrete positive impact on others. So what that means is, I think a lot of us say we want to make a difference. We want to make the world a better place. But that's really hard to actually do and to see the outcomes for. But what about doing something small for somebody today, something where we can actually see the effect of what we did right away, like, you know, instead of trying to make another person happy, can you do something that makes them smile? Right. That's way more concrete. That's easier. Or an example from a study is your $10 could give a child a malaria net or a mosquito net that's going to protect them from malaria, versus your $10 will help a lot of children in the world. One of those feels better and more satisfying. So thinking about those three Cs can help you be sustainable in the way that you give.
Ayla Fudala: So what inspired you to dedicate so much of your time to the study of empathy and generosity?
Dr. Sara Konrath: I think there's a lot of experiences I've had in my life where I've been lucky to be the recipient of people's generosity. Early experiences in my life, because I came from a single parent family. My mom has eight kids, so there were a lot of us and she really struggled. It was really hard for her and we struggled too. And so we were the recipient of a lot of people's generosity.
You know, organizations that we worked with would have volunteers. And through these types of experiences, we met this one woman named Ruth, who made a huge difference in our lives. She became kind of like a grandmother to us and kind of like a surrogate mom for my mom, because my mother's family was far away. So Ruth was just like part of our lives. She would give my mom a lot of relief, like she would take a few of us, sometimes for the weekend too. She lived in a farm nearby, and she would just let us run wild. And she took good care of us. We felt really good and safe with her. She was involved in our lives for most of our childhoods. She passed away a few years ago. I was so happy that I had a chance to thank her. You know, just to really say you made such a huge difference in our lives and how much we appreciate you.
And I also had a kind of another type of mother figure in my life, too. It was my best friend's mom, Lisa, who's kind of like a mom to me, who also just let me hang out there a lot and took a care of me emotionally. And we're still close. She's an amazing person, and that's just two examples.
But I can name so many people. All these people saw that that I was from a family that was facing challenges. We all know people like that in our lives who we can see that they're going through stuff, and these people just decided to get involved. You know, they weren't getting any money from it. They were just helping out. They just saw what was going on and they helped out and we needed help. And I'm super grateful that people do that, that strangers will become part of your life and then they turn into family. And they gave in such genuine ways. They never made us feel like we're below them or we're charity cases or anything. Nobody likes that feeling.
As I got older and I was deciding to study psychology, it made me start wondering, what makes people do that? Because it's pretty rare that people will get involved at that level. Like a lot of people will volunteer or do their kind of good deeds for the day, but these are people who dedicated their lives to getting involved with others. They embodied compassion and love. And so it made me very curious to understand what makes people do that, and how do we grow that in all of us in various ways?
Like, I think the standard for them is so high. So even sometimes I think about myself, I'm like, okay, well, I'm not them, right? I have to think about who I am to and how I can give. But it's good to have like role models too, and to see what people can do and what a difference they make. And so I definitely wouldn't be who I am today and wouldn't have come as far as I've come in my life without Ruth and Lisa and many other people. So I try my best now to be a kind mentor to my students and to be that person in my community. But I think that there are a lot of Lisas and Ruths out there, and we can be them in our own little way, too.
Ayla Fudala: Wow. That's so inspiring.
Dr. Sara Konrath: Yeah. They're amazing. And Ruth would be-- I think both of them actually would be embarrassed to get praise for this, you know. So I'm usually thoughtful and careful about talking about them. They wouldn't be against it. But they're not the people who are looking for attention or praise. They're just really lovely people.
Ayla Fudala: That's incredible that you have such important and kind role models in your life, and that they really shaped your research.
Dr. Sara Konrath: Yeah, they did, and it took me a while to understand. It was as I reflected and as I kept being sort of, I'd say obsessed. Like, this hasn't gotten old. I've been studying this for years now, and I'm still into it. I'm still like, oh, what else? And I want to know more. And so I'm like, there's something going on, obviously that would make me want to do this. And I really do think it's like seeing it done well.
And it can go really wrong. People can give in ways that don't feel good to the recipient. You know, there's a lot of people who are well-meaning but don't understand what it feels like to be a receiver.
So if you imagine for a second that I had a magic wand and I could double your income. How much more happy do you think you'd be?
Ayla Fudala: That would be really cool. I would love that. Please do.
Dr. Sara Konrath: I wish I could. I don't have that kind of power. But I think a lot of us, like, go, oh, my God, that would make me so happy. Right. That's what we think. And when you look at a global scale, there's only a tiny little effect, a little blip of the potential doubling of income. But when you see people, their generous acts-- so things like they’re giving money or volunteering their time or just helping strangers-- that has four times the effect on life evaluation globally.
And remember how we talked about caring communities, right? Like being in this mutual kind of positive environment, pro-social communities. Well, there's this thing called the wallet drop test, which is if you dropped a wallet, say, outside this building, do you believe that somebody would return it to you? Let's assume your ID's in there and they can find you. Does someone return to you? You don't have to answer. Because what I'm going to say next, which is that believing that someone that other people around you are trustworthy, so believing they return your wallet, has over seven times effect bigger than doubling your income.
Ayla Fudala: It depends if my wallet has cash in it.
Dr. Sara Konrath: Let's say it has cash because in these wallet drop experiments, they have cash in them.
Ayla Fudala: Really? How much cash?
Dr. Sara Konrath: Let's say it's 40 bucks.
Ayla Fudala: I think people would return my wallet.
Dr. Sara Konrath: Probably depends on the context. But it's also there's something about that trusting view of the world. Right? So that not only are you a generous person who's giving, but you trust. You feel like you're in a trusted environment. And those two things work really well together for well-being. And they're more powerful than, you know, doubling your income, which is more than that 40 bucks in your wallet, hopefully for most people. So it's funny how human happiness works, right? Because I think we don't always have a handle on what makes us actually happy.
Ayla Fudala: So making a lot of money doesn't make you happy, but trusting that the community around you will take care of you and support you does.
Dr. Sara Konrath: Yes. And also being part of that care and support for others does. So it's kind of the social aspects seem to make a significantly bigger difference than money.
Now it doesn't mean money has no effect. We need to eat. We need a place to sleep. We need some basic things in life. We need to feel secure and have our needs met. But our social needs and our needs for connection and community are just as important and maybe more important, at least for happiness.
But I'm talking about, like, relationship insurance. There's all kinds of unpredictable uncertainties in our life, right, in everybody's lives. And we think, oh, if we just had more money, like we could solve that problem, we're going to be okay. Like, if we get sick, we'll be able to pay for it. If we if our car breaks down, we'll be able to pay for it. And I think what we don't think is like, well, if our friend's car breaks down, we're going to help them out. Like, maybe we'll let them borrow it for a few days and maybe we'll ride share, or we'll take transit so they can borrow it or whatever, you know, we'll help them. And that also, if your car breaks down, your friend is going to do the same thing for you. Right. If you have healthy relationships around you.
So it's like this social insurance, like we are each other's insurance and we can take care of each other. And that ends up happening at a broader scale in our communities. It's not just one on one relationships. There's a lot of things that happen where we are each other's security and insurance. But I don't think we think that way. I think we're really like, oh no, we really need a bigger bank account. I think all of us are susceptible to it. We all worry about it, but we can just realize, that's not going to feed into our happiness the same way as just being there for people and knowing that they're there for us.
Ayla Fudala: You were one of the authors of the 2025 World Happiness Report. Were there any findings regarding generosity at a global scale that stood out to you?
Dr. Sara Konrath: One thing that surprised me was, you know, during the pandemic, I think you might guess, like, well, everyone's really stressed out. So people are going to just put their heads down and try to deal, and they're not going to be giving. But we actually saw a blip globally. People started giving more during the pandemic, which to me was super exciting, and it kind of stayed high since then.
Ayla Fudala: In the past, you've partnered with educators, physicians, fundraisers, dating apps, zoos, and museums to evaluate empathy-based interventions. What interventions were the most successful and why?
Dr. Sara Konrath: Amongst those various groups, there's different ways to try to build connection, genuine connection and empathy. And I wouldn't say there's one specific way to do it with everybody. So I think it's getting to know what the needs are and what you're actually trying to do.
For example, with zoos, what we're trying to do is increase empathy for animals and for wildlife in general. And so I was working with children. I was doing that work during the pandemic. So it was doing virtual education programs with students who might have been in their home and with all the challenges, all other kids in their home are on different zoom calls and so on. And we're giving them a live animal experience through a zoo.
So building empathy in that context looks really different, but a lot of it has to do with just some basic building blocks of empathy. One is deep listening, and deep listening isn't just about words, so it's about observation. So really paying attention to everything that's going on in body language, tone of voice, the context that person might be experiencing, and also the words. And I think giving people attention is a really important thing. And then using imagination to fill in gaps, because you can only learn so much from your deep attention. And so thinking from their perspective, not from yours, but from theirs. What might be going on here?
The thing about perspective-taking, though, which is a very powerful empathy building tool, is that sometimes we're wrong. And researchers call that perspective-mistaking. So we have to have humility that even with all the tools we have of deep observation and our imagination to see how people might be feeling, we can always just check in and say, am I getting this right? I'm sort of feeling like this might be what's going on. Do I understand you? Well, can you help me understand you?
So there's different tools, but those I think the most powerful are perspective taking and just deep attention. And you can apply them in different contexts depending on who you're working with. Like E.R., physicians are going to face a lot of challenges, right? And they're going to have to really figure out how to regulate and not take on the other person's emotions, because it's going to be really hard for them if they're just feeling people suffering and pain all day long, every single day for 12 hour shifts. So it's going to look different than, say, how do you make a child connect with this like cute little lizard.
Ayla Fudala: Just out of curiosity, what was the dating app intervention?
Dr. Sara Konrath: I work as a scientific consultant for Tinder.
Ayla Fudala: What? Oh my gosh.
Dr. Sara Konrath: I work with them because I care about connection. And I think about the loneliness epidemic, which is real. A lot of people are struggling. And I think of various institutions and tools that we have to become more connected in the world. So I love working with them. We do various things. I can't talk about some of the things I do with them, but I can say that the reason they want they wanted to work with me in the beginning is because, I was surprised. I was like, you know, I'm an empathy researcher, right? And they're like, this is exactly why we want to work with you, because we know that that's something we need, right? We need to have kind interactions on these apps, and we need good relationships that come from them. So I love working with them.
I think that right now, like in the US, the number one way couples meet each other is dating apps. And that's the majority of couples right now. According to Stanford research, the latest data. So, you know, if this is working, I mean, we hear a lot of bad things, but if it's working, how can we make it even better? How can we make it more positive, and figure out how to overcome the challenge of how you meet a person on a screen? That's not naturally easy for people, right? Because we need eye contact. So what can we do to make that a little bit better?
Ayla Fudala: I'd love to hear more of the behind the scenes, but I suppose there's probably an NDA involved.
Dr. Sara Konrath: We definitely have to be careful about what I say, but there's some work that I've done with them that's in the public that makes me really happy. For example, they did a study on the green flag. So instead of focusing on red flags, what are the things like? What are the good things we're looking for in partners? And I loved working with them on that because that to me is exactly how to find a good partner, which is to put out good energy.
Ayla Fudala: Wow. That's amazing.
You've developed digital tools to help increase empathy. Can you tell me about those tools? And are they accessible to the public?
Dr. Sara Konrath: Yeah, there's two tools I've made officially, but I've also been studying social media and VR and sort of any kind of digital intervention. I'm very curious about AI, and there's some complexities that are coming up already related to empathy.
But one of the tools we made was called Text to Connect. And it's just a series of empathy-building text messages that young people received multiple times a day to remind them to think about others. And in the middle of their daily interactions, they'd get a text that would say, when you're talking to this person, make sure you smile and make them feel good. Right. Or like, think about what they're going through right now and just be there for them.
And so we had some really funny feedback from that. And this one that I remember was a 17 year old boy who said that he really loved getting the text messages, and one time he was having an actual conflict with somebody, and he got the message right then, and that it helped him work out the conflict, like live. And I thought that was really a neat result.
The messages are available online. Anyone can use them. It's not like an app or anything. This was developed way back in the day before there were a lot of apps. I got the idea from public health researchers because public health researchers are, in my view, are always cutting edge about how do you actually deal with difficult problems in the real world now. And so I was friends with public health researchers, Emily Falk was one of them. And they were doing these cool interventions, right, and telling me about these things. And I was like, oh, we could do this for, you know, empathy, right? Help people feel connected and kind of have the skills.
And then the second app is called Random App of Kindness. And we had young people name that for us. So I think it's super cute. I think there's nine little games and we tracked the teens over time. I think it was six months. And we found that you practice this and you play a game where you learn these basic skills for empathy, then yeah, you will become better at it.
We don't have additional funding to be able to keep up to date with all the upgrades that it requires. I wish we did have a way to redo it or maintain it over time, but I think it was also done just to demonstrate. A common thing we hear is “phones are making young people lose their empathy,” right? Like they're making them so disconnected. And the reality is, well, most of us use our phones most of the time to connect with others. And imagine where we like not to be able to do that during a pandemic, right? So it was more of a case in point of like, can we use these? These are tools. We can use them for good or bad. What can we do as a public health kind of intervention, to use these in positive ways so that people can not only be more pro-social, but experience the joy of giving.
Ayla Fudala: Do you have any final words of advice for people in our audience who want to deepen their own empathy and generosity? For instance, if I today want to become a more empathetic and generous person, how should I start? What should I do?
Dr. Sara Konrath: That's a good question. There's so many different pathways. I think you need to know who you are. First of all, start with being generous for yourself and giving yourself the space to grow and learn and not be perfect ever on this because it's going to involve other people. It's always going to be back and forth. And then really just doing things that are natural for you, because I think that's going to come across when you're talking to other people. So if you're a shy person, you're probably not going to be out there chatting it up at the bus stop with a stranger. That's not going to be your gift, right? Maybe. Maybe it is. But to find what your gifts are and what actually, genuinely is something you love to do. Maybe you're a knitter, you know and like you. Just like you can practice your generosity by knitting cute little baby hats, you know, for people in your life or people in NICU hospitals. So, like, there's many different ways to practice generosity.
And the way that you practice it is going to look different than me. And it looks different than the way Ruth and Lisa practiced. So I think just that self-acceptance and willingness to just be the person you are and give the way you really want to. It will make a difference for people when you just actually tune in and think about them.
Ayla Fudala: Can I ask how you like to practice it in your life?
Dr. Sara Konrath: I like to bake, so it's like healthy baking though, so not everybody loves it. But some people do like it. And I really try to I think about I always think about just people who are around me naturally. So students are a really big part of my life as a professor, and I try to really stop and think from their perspective, what's going on? How can I be generous and flexible and curious and really just involved genuinely with my students? I try to do it as a parent as well, and I think that's like on the ground that is like, you know, 24/7. So that's where I say, like that idea of, be generous with yourself too, and don't expect perfection, because I think no one can be perfect all the time. What we can do is care enough to try, to make mistakes, and to want to continue.
Ayla Fudala: Thank you so much to Dr. Sara Konrath for joining us today and sharing her insights into the powerful roles, generosity and empathy play in our everyday lives. To access free empathy building resources, visit her website at ipearlab.org.
This has been another episode of Frontiers in Health and Happiness, the official podcast of the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. To learn about upcoming events, visit our website, sign up for our mailing list, and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, BlueSky, Facebook, and YouTube.
Be sure to tune in for our third episode featuring Richard Weissbourd, director of the Making Caring Common Project and senior lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Mr. Weissbourd will discuss tools and techniques for raising caring, moral, and thriving children, even in difficult times.
New episodes in our Virtues for Well-being series will air every two weeks. Episodes can be found on the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness website and YouTube channel, as well as on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever else podcasts are found. Thank you for listening.