You’re at the front of the coffee line when the idea hits: pay for the person behind you. Then your brain runs the worst-case scenarios. They’ll think it’s weird. They’ll feel obligated to pay it forward. They’ll assume you’re hitting on them. They’ll ask if you’re filming this for TikTok. So, you just pay for your drink and leave. The idea never makes it out of your head.
There’s a reason “no good deed goes unpunished” is a common refrain, right?
Psychologists have put that refrain to the test, and the punishment turns out to be mostly in our heads. Researchers have found that people who did small, kind things for others, strangers included, consistently underestimated how good those gestures made the recipients feel. Other research shows we misjudge other people’s kindness too.
We lowball our own kindness, and we lowball everyone else’s. Put those two mistakes together, and a lot of good intentions never make it past the coffee line.
Why Do We Underestimate the Impact of Kindness?
Because givers focus on the gesture, while recipients focus on the warmth behind it. In a series of experiments published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Amit Kumar of the University of Texas at Austin and Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago asked people to do something kind and predict how the recipient would feel. Then they asked the recipients.
The givers consistently underestimated it. In one version, participants in Chicago’s Maggie Daley Park gave a cup of hot chocolate to a stranger. Givers predicted a mood of 2.7 on a scale from −5 to 5, while recipients reported 3.5. The pattern held for friends and strangers.
The researchers traced the error to what each side pays attention to. Givers focus on the object itself, such as a drink or a small gift. Recipients focus on the warmth behind it, which givers consistently discount.
Does Kindness Really Spread?
Remember the worry about leaving the stranger feeling obligated to pay it forward? In another experiment, recipients did pay it forward, and generously. People who had just received a gift through a stranger’s kindness were asked to split $100 with an anonymous player. They gave away an average of $48.02, compared with $41.20 among people who had picked out a gift for themselves. The people who gave the gifts hadn’t predicted that spillover.
Kumar puts the consequence plainly: “When you’re consistently underestimating the benefits of positive social engagement, it can cause you to not be prosocial enough.”
Are People Kinder Than We Think?
Many of us assume the people around us are less kind than they are. Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre and an editor of the World Happiness Report, notes that only about 30% of Americans think a lost wallet would be returned. The reality, he says, is about 60%.
The same pattern shows up closer to home. In a survey of more than 5,000 Stanford undergraduates, students saw their peers as less empathic and caring than those peers described themselves. The students who saw their peers as more empathic reported better well-being and more friends. That matters at a time when loneliness is treated as a public health issue.
Except When It Comes to Friends
There’s a twist. With friends, the bias appears to flip. A 2026 Michigan State University study of 173 pairs of friends found that participants consistently rated their friends as more benevolent than the friends actually were. Psychologist William Chopik suggests that slightly rosy view may help friendships last.
Taken together, the research points to a lopsided outlook. We tend to see friends in a kinder light than the facts may warrant and strangers and peers in a harsher one.
How to Be Kinder in Everyday Life
The encouraging part is that the gap appears correctable. When Stanford researchers put up posters in residence halls showing students real data on how much their peers cared, students there came to see their peers as more empathic than students in comparison dorms did. In a separate test, a phone app nudged students toward small moves like complimenting a stranger or reaching out to an old friend.
You can run a version of that experiment on yourself.
Assume the gesture matters more than it feels like it will. The research says your estimate is probably low.
Send the message you’ve talked yourself out of. The recipient is likely to focus on the thought, not the wording.
Catch your own cynicism. When you assume a stranger or new colleague won’t care, remember the wallets.
At work, these habits are what quiet acts of kindness, workplace friendships, and compassionate cultures are built on. For a structured start, try a 30-day kindness challenge.
None of this requires a grand gesture. The evidence suggests the small ones are already doing more than we give them credit for.
Featured image from Silverkblackstock/Shutterstock
