Proverbs 11:17 · Subject · Kindness
Kindness and the Body
Thirteen studies published from 2003 to 2020 measured what kind acts, giving and volunteering do for the well-being, the health and the death rate of the people who do them.
Two trials of generosity took a blood sample or a blood pressure reading from the people they studied.
A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man brings trouble on himself.
- Book
- Proverbs
Summary
The research on kindness asks whether the gain Proverbs 11:17 names for the kind man can be measured. Studies of the people who help, give and volunteer agree with the proverb on a small scale. Scripture commands kindness because God is kind to the ungrateful and wicked, and the studies stand beside that command as corroboration.
- A meta-analysis of 27 studies with 4,045 people (Curry and colleagues, 2018) found that doing acts of kindness raises the doer's well-being by an effect its authors call small to medium.
- Across 198,213 people, Hui and colleagues (2020) found a modest link between helping others and well-being, and a weaker one with physical health.
- Of 159 adults, those assigned to kind acts toward others for four weeks showed lower expression of a set of genes in the blood. Of 73 older adults with high blood pressure, those assigned to spend money on others for three weeks had lower blood pressure than those who spent on themselves.
- The studies that tie giving and volunteering to a lower death rate are observational, so they show an association and leave the cause open.
Proverbs 11:17 and the Ground of Kindness
A saying of Proverbs and a saying of Jesus set the gain of the giver beside the character of God.
Kindness, the value Scripture asks of God's people after the pattern of God's own kindness, is commanded for the good of others, and Proverbs 11:17 names a gain for the kind man himself. Psychologists and public health researchers have tested claims of that kind.
The question this subject answers is what the studies found and how much weight their findings bear beside the text. The answer rests on peer-reviewed studies of the giver, each read for what it measured and where its finding stops.
The Hebrew of the proverb's first line calls the kind man ish chesed, a man of chesed, the chief Hebrew word for kindness. It says that he deals well with his own nephesh, his soul or self. The second line says that the cruel man troubles his she'er, a noun the lexicon defines as flesh and whose renderings include body. The Berean text gives both lines as himself, so the proverb sets the gain of the kind man's self beside the trouble of the cruel man's own body.
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.Jesus uses chrestos, kind, of the Father Himself, so the command to do good to enemies rests on what God is like.
Whoever oppresses the poor taunts their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors Him.Proverbs sets the honour of God beside the good of the poor, so a kind act in this book looks to God before it looks to any gain for the giver.
Thirteen Studies of the Giver
Six of the studies measured happiness or flourishing, and five measured death rates or health over years.
The experiments and the long studies answer different questions, the first what a kind act does for the one who does it and the second who among givers lives longer.
| Study | Who was studied | What was found | Its limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Curry, Rowland, Van Lissa, Zlotowitz, McAlaney and Whitehouse, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2018 | A meta-analysis of 27 studies from 24 articles, with 4,045 people in all | An overall effect of δ = 0.28 on the well-being of the one who acts, which the authors class as small to medium, with "no indication of publication bias" | Well-being as the people reported it, in experiments lasting days or weeks |
| Rowland and Curry, Journal of Social Psychology, 2019 | 683 people who did kind acts for seven days | Happiness rose over the week, with "a positive correlation between the number of kind acts and increases in happiness" | One week of kind acts |
| Nelson, Layous, Cole and Lyubomirsky, Emotion, 2016 | 473 people assigned for six weeks to acts of kindness, to acts for themselves or to neutral acts | Acts of kindness for others or for the world raised psychological flourishing more than self-focused or neutral acts | Flourishing as the people reported it, in one sample |
| Dunn, Aknin and Norton, Science, 2008 | People assigned at random to spend money on others or on themselves | Those who spent on others reported greater happiness than those who spent on themselves | A single paper, tested again in 2020 by its own authors in a registered replication |
| Aknin, Dunn, Proulx, Lok and Norton, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2020 | Three experiments: 712 students, 1,950 adults recalling a purchase, and 5,199 people | Spending on others raised momentary happiness in the first experiment, did not raise happiness in the second, and made small differences in the third | The authors write that "the magnitude of the effect depends on several methodological features" |
| Hui, Ng, Berzaghi, Cunningham-Amos and Kogan, Psychological Bulletin, 2020 | A meta-analysis over 198,213 people (K = 201 in the authors' count) | Prosocial behaviour and well-being correlated at r = .13, which the authors call modest, more strongly for eudaimonic than for hedonic well-being | Correlations across studies, with a still smaller link to physical health and to psychological malfunctioning |
| Nelson-Coffey, Fritz, Lyubomirsky and Cole, Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2017 | 159 adults assigned at random for four weeks to one of four conditions | Kindness toward specific others lowered the expression of what the authors call CTRA indicator genes in leukocytes, the white cells of the blood, and the other three conditions showed no significant change | A small sample and a marker in the blood, with no measure of illness or death |
| Whillans, Dunn, Sandstrom, Dickerson and Madden, Health Psychology, 2016 | 73 older adults with high blood pressure, in the paper's second study | Those assigned to spend money on others for three weeks had lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure afterward than those who spent on themselves | 73 people over three weeks |
| Brown, Nesse, Vinokur and Smith, Psychological Science, 2003 | Older married adults followed for five years | Those who reported giving practical help to friends, relatives and neighbours had a significantly lower death rate | Observational, with the giving as the people reported it |
| Poulin, Brown, Dillard and Smith, American Journal of Public Health, 2013 | 846 adults of the Detroit area followed for five years | Helping others predicted lower mortality by buffering the association between stress and death | Observational |
| Okun, Yeung and Brown, Psychology and Aging, 2013 | A meta-analysis of studies of volunteers aged 55 and over | Volunteers had a 47 percent lower risk of death before adjustment and a 24 percent lower risk after it | Pooled observational studies |
| Konrath, Fuhrel-Forbis, Lou and Brown, Health Psychology, 2012 | Older adults of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study | Volunteers whose reasons centred on others had a lower risk of death even after adjustment, and those whose reasons centred on themselves had a risk like that of non-volunteers | Observational |
| Jenkinson and colleagues, BMC Public Health, 2013 | A systematic review of forty papers | In cohort studies volunteering went with less depression and more life satisfaction and well-being, with no effect on physical health, and volunteers had a lower risk of death in five cohorts (risk ratio 0.78) | The authors write that the causal mechanisms "remain unclear" |
Nelson-Coffey, Fritz, Lyubomirsky and Cole, Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2017, Whillans, Dunn, Sandstrom, Dickerson and Madden, Health Psychology, 2016, Brown, Nesse, Vinokur and Smith, Psychological Science, 2003, Poulin, Brown, Dillard and Smith, American Journal of Public Health, 2013, Okun, Yeung and Brown, Psychology and Aging, 2013, Konrath, Fuhrel-Forbis, Lou and Brown, Health Psychology, 2012, Jenkinson and colleagues, BMC Public Health, 2013
Giving and Receiving
One study of older married adults measured the help people gave and the help they received, and a saying of Jesus ranks the two.
Brown and colleagues measured both sides of support among their participants, the help each person gave and the help each person received. They report that "Receiving support had no effect on mortality once giving support was taken into consideration."
In everything, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus Himself: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”In his words to the elders of the church at Ephesus, Paul quotes a saying of the Lord Jesus that ranks giving above receiving, the two sides Brown and colleagues measured.
The likeness between that finding and Acts 20:35 is an inference, and it holds only on a small scale. That study counted deaths, and the saying in Acts speaks of a blessing that no death rate can measure.
What the Research Does Not Show
Each study measured a mood, a marker in the blood, a blood pressure or a death rate, and its finding reaches only as far as its measure.
The research does not show that kindness heals disease or lengthens life by itself. Every finding on death rates in the table comes from studies that watched people over time without assigning anyone to give. None of them can tell whether giving protects health or healthy people give more.
The systematic review of volunteering by Jenkinson and colleagues adds that its cohort findings on depression, life satisfaction and well-being were "not confirmed by experimental studies".
The experiments that assigned people to kind acts measured gains in well-being that are modest at their largest, so the claim that kindness makes a person happy outruns them. They also show that spending money on others does not raise happiness every time it is tested, since the replication of 2020 failed to find the effect in one of its experiments.
The two studies of the body measured a gene marker and a blood pressure in small groups over a few weeks. Nelson-Coffey and colleagues claim only that their findings "might potentially help explain" the health advantages of social ties.
None of the thirteen studies reports a measure of oxytocin or of a so-called helper's high, so neither claim rests on this evidence.
The Motive Question
One cohort sorted volunteers by their reasons, and Jesus asks for kindness that expects nothing back.
Konrath and colleagues are the only authors among the thirteen studies who sorted volunteers by their reasons for giving, and their result turns on the reason.
But when you host a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, and you will be blessed. Since they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”Jesus tells His host to invite those who cannot repay and places the repayment at the resurrection of the righteous, so the reward of kindness lies in God's hands and God's time.
In Luke 6:35 Jesus asks His disciples to lend "expecting nothing in return", and the cohort's finding sits beside that teaching. This agreement rests on one observational cohort, so it illustrates the command and adds nothing to its ground.
A nineteenth-century preacher chose the islanders of Malta, who received Paul's shipwrecked company, as his example of kindness done without an eye to its return.
“As much as lies in us, we should seek to do good unto all men, and we can never know to whom we may be rendering service. These people of Malta never dreamed that they were entertaining an Apostle and it never entered into their heads that their simple act of hospitality would be recorded in the Sacred Scriptures—and that millions of eyes would read of—and millions of minds would think upon this kind act of theirs on behalf of this shipwrecked company!”
Charles Spurgeon · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3136: “Lessons From the Malta Fire” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) · on Acts 28:2
Kindness to Others or Kindness to Oneself
Two experiments disagree on whether kindness to oneself does as much good as kindness to others.
The question bears on Luke 6:35, where the kindness Jesus commands is directed toward others, even toward enemies.
Kindness to others raises flourishing more than kindness to oneselfNelson, Layous, Cole and Lyubomirsky (2016)
In the six-week experiment of Nelson and colleagues, the people assigned to treat themselves did not report improved psychological flourishing compared with the controls.
The objection is that a larger experiment of one week reached the opposite result on kindness to the self.
The one who receives the kindness makes no differenceRowland and Curry (2019)
Rowland and Curry found no difference in the rise of happiness whether the kind acts went to strong ties, to weak ties or to the self, or whether people only observed kindness.
The objection is that their experiment lasted one week and measured happiness, while the experiment of Nelson and colleagues ran six weeks and measured flourishing.
Kindness Rests on God's Kindness
Proverbs 11:17 finds modest support in this research. Scripture grounds the command in the kindness God has already shown, and no later finding can add to that ground or take it away.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.Jesus makes the Father's mercy the measure of His people's mercy, the same ground on which the command of the verse before it stands.
Be kind and tenderhearted to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you.Paul makes God's forgiveness in Christ the pattern of the kindness believers show one another, so the command looks back to what God has done.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The Hebrew words of Proverbs 11:17 and the Greek words of Luke 6:35, STEP Bible tagged text (CC BY 4.0), with Strong's numbers H1580, H5315, H376, H2617, H5916, H7607, H394 and G5543.
- The Strong's lexicon entries for H2617, H5315 and H7607, with the STEP Bible TBESH glosses (Tyndale House, CC BY 4.0)
- Curry, Rowland, Van Lissa, Zlotowitz, McAlaney and Whitehouse, Happy to help? A systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of performing acts of kindness on the well-being of the actor, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 76 (2018): 320 to 329.
- Rowland and Curry, A range of kindness activities boost happiness, Journal of Social Psychology 159, no. 3 (2019): 340 to 343.
- Nelson, Layous, Cole and Lyubomirsky, Do unto others or treat yourself? The effects of prosocial and self-focused behavior on psychological flourishing, Emotion 16, no. 6 (2016): 850 to 861.
- Dunn, Aknin and Norton, Spending money on others promotes happiness, Science 319, no. 5870 (2008): 1687 to 1688.
- Aknin, Dunn, Proulx, Lok and Norton, Does spending money on others promote happiness?: A registered replication report, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 119, no. 2 (2020): e15 to e26.
- Hui, Ng, Berzaghi, Cunningham-Amos and Kogan, Rewards of kindness? A meta-analysis of the link between prosociality and well-being, Psychological Bulletin 146, no. 12 (2020): 1084 to 1116.
- Nelson-Coffey, Fritz, Lyubomirsky and Cole, Kindness in the blood: A randomized controlled trial of the gene regulatory impact of prosocial behavior, Psychoneuroendocrinology 81 (2017): 8 to 13.
- Whillans, Dunn, Sandstrom, Dickerson and Madden, Is spending money on others good for your heart?, Health Psychology 35, no. 6 (2016): 574 to 583.
- Brown, Nesse, Vinokur and Smith, Providing social support may be more beneficial than receiving it: results from a prospective study of mortality, Psychological Science 14, no. 4 (2003): 320 to 327.
- Poulin, Brown, Dillard and Smith, Giving to others and the association between stress and mortality, American Journal of Public Health 103, no. 9 (2013): 1649 to 1655.
- Okun, Yeung and Brown, Volunteering by older adults and risk of mortality: a meta-analysis, Psychology and Aging 28, no. 2 (2013): 564 to 577.
- Konrath, Fuhrel-Forbis, Lou and Brown, Motives for volunteering are associated with mortality risk in older adults, Health Psychology 31, no. 1 (2012): 87 to 96.
- Jenkinson and colleagues, Is volunteering a public health intervention?, BMC Public Health 13 (2013): 773.
- Charles H. Spurgeon, Lessons From the Malta Fire, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3136, published 1909, CCEL text.
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