On World Kindness Day (Wednesday 13th November), the Sussex Centre for Research of Kindness (ROK) ran an event to raise awareness around the impact kindness can have on happiness, wellbeing and belonging for both the receiver and the giver. To celebrate, we - undergraduate placement students working for the ROK - organised two activities - Kindness Bingo and daily questions asked on our Instagram (@researchonkindness).

Kindness Bingo

The idea of a Kindness Bingo came from our fellow placement students from last year - Freya Smith and Ray Teso Buitrago - but we altered it slightly to mirror a study done by Cotney & Banerjee (2019), where participants defined kindness as acts of emotional and practical support, inclusiveness, generosity and positive sociality among other things. Our bingo card encouraged participants to engage in activities that fell under each of these categories (e.g., smiling at a stranger, making a list of things you're grateful for). We then set up a gazebo at Library Square at the beginning of the week, and handed out bingo cards to  staff and students. We asked people to complete as many of the kind actions listed on the bingo card that they could, and cross off the squares that corresponded to the actions they completed. At the end of the week, they returned to Library Square to redeem their bingo card. While spreading kindness in our community is a reward in itself, we also provided tangible rewards for those who participated: sweets, a handwritten card with a kind message, and banana bread!

Instagram Posts

Similarly, we also posted daily questions on our Instagram that were inspired by Cotney & Banerjee's (2019) study. We encouraged participants to reflect over kind acts they had either received or performed throughout the past week. Examples of such questions included, "What small actions help you feel included by others?" and "What's a recent positive interaction you've had this week?" (Click on the links and scroll through the images to see some participant responses.) Participants mentioned feeling better after receiving support during tough periods or checking in with their loved ones; even a small "thank you" gesture or inviting someone new to socials can make a person's entire week! Reading their responses reminded us that even small, everyday acts of kindness can have a powerful impact.

Our experiences

This was definitely a tough week. The weather was not on our side with cold winds and gloomy skies trying to interfere with our event throughout the week, with the worst day being Tuesday, where Arctic winds nearly blew us away. Being out in the cold for 2 hours every day certainly wasn’t something that we expected from our placement. But hey ho, cold times make warm memories and we certainly have made a few friends and memories during the week.

When the cold weather meant few human visitors to our gazebo, as everyone was rushing to get inside, we instead welcomed the kindness seagull, who became our mascot for the week, and the kindness bumblebee. Both were revered guests that became famous among our participants. 

Everything changed on Wednesday however, as the day was looking bright and so were the smiles on passerby. We had a lot of heartwarming interactions that day, with people who took genuine interest in our Kindness Bingo, and sometimes just wanted to chat.

Friday was our most successful day, where we saw lots of happy faces and returning participants. The sight and smell of freshly baked banana bread might have had something to do with that, along with a bright sunny day. We saw a lot of genuine reactions and big smiles while giving out banana bread and our kindness cards (see the samples below). The most memorable parts were a person who was brought to tears by the message they received, and another person telling us about their works for charities.

We hope that our event has planted the seeds of kindness in people’s minds and perhaps even warmed up their hearts during these cold autumn days. Out of everyone we think that this event had the biggest impact on us, and opened our eyes to how warm and open hearted people are, and that kindness is in fact, all around us.