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By Melissa Fleur Afshar
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Does a good deed matter less if the giver enjoys it, gains recognition from it or gets something in return? Some people may have thought so, but new research suggests that those concerns are misplaced, with participants generally valuing acts of kindness regardless of whether they are entirely selfless.
The study, led by Ohio State University and published in the International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, examined how people distinguish between acts they consider “kind,” “nice” and “caring.”
“The findings let us off the hook,” Alexia Holovatyk, a licensed clinical psychologist with more than 12 years of experience in relationship dynamics, told Newsweek. “Many people hold back from doing something kind because they worry it isn’t ‘pure’ enough, maybe they’ll feel good doing it, or it’ll look good, but this study suggests the people on the receiving end don’t care about that.”
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The study found that “kind” and “nice” are largely interchangeable to most, while “caring” carries a higher threshold and greater meaning. Still, across all three descriptions, actions were viewed most favorably when they were warm, planned and not already expected of the person performing them.
When Kindness Becomes Caring
Jennifer Cheavens, the professor of clinical psychology who led the research, began thinking about the issue after discussions with students in her positive psychology seminar. She often uses a 1998 episode of Friends in which Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) attempts to prove Joey (Matt LeBlanc) wrong after he argues there are no truly selfless good deeds because doing good also makes the giver feel good.
Her students took the discussion further, suggesting that motivation could determine whether something should be considered “nice” or “kind.”
She took the ethical dilemma to Laura Wagner, a developmental psychology professor and linguist who directs the university's Language Sciences Research Lab.
For what the researchers describe as the largest study of its kind to date, they then created 14 short vignettes covering seven elements of prosocial behavior: anonymity, benefit, cost, expectation, planning, warmth and the relationship between giver and recipient.
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Each participant had to read seven scenarios and imagine receiving gestures such as having someone hold a door open or pay for their food in line. They then rated how kind, nice and caring each action appeared. The final set included 736 participants, ranging in age from 18 to 77.
The participants rated actions similarly for kindness and niceness across six of the seven dimensions, with cost being the exception. Both high- and low-cost actions were considered equally kind by participants, but higher-cost gestures were rated as nicer.
“Caring” also produced a clearer distinction for the surveyed set. Acts between people who knew one another were considered more caring than identical acts involving strangers, while higher-cost actions were rated both nicer and more caring, though not kinder.
Cheavens and Wagner suggested in a statement that this may be because "caring" is more closely tied to emotion, companionship and connection.
Holovatyk, who was not involved in the study, said the distinction matters particularly in close relationships.
“Caring isn’t about the size of the gesture,” she said. “It’s about feeling seen by someone who knows you.”
For chronic people-pleasers, she added, the finding offers another lesson: “My takeaway: you don’t need to be perfectly selfless. You need to be present.”
Why Feeling Good Does Not Cancel Out Kindness
Dr. Bonnie King, a licensed counselor-supervisor with a Ph.D. in counselor education, told Newsweek that people sometimes hesitate to help because they fear appearing self-serving, or discount their own generosity because it makes them feel good.
“But these findings suggest that other people don't judge good deeds that way,” she said. “Feeling good after helping someone, or being thanked for it, doesn't cancel out the kindness in other people's eyes.”
King pointed to everyday examples such as checking in on a friend after a difficult week or bringing dinner to a neighbor returning home from hospital as the kinds of warm, planned acts the study found were rated more positively.
She cautioned, however, that the research measured how people perceive and label good deeds, rather than why people perform them or what psychological effects helping has on the giver.
For Wagner, feeling good after helping may itself not be such a bad thing and even encourage prosocial behavior. She pointed to ideas in cognitive science suggesting humans may be predisposed to derive satisfaction from helping because that motivates cooperation and propels us to continue offering kind acts to each other.
The researchers said the findings could help schools, clinicians and communities promote prosocial behavior by avoiding mismatches between terms such as kindness and caring and the expectations people attach to them.
Newsweek has reached out to Cheavens and Wagner for more information via email.
Reference
Cheavens, J. S., Wagner, L. et al. (2026). Kind, Nice, and Caring, Oh My! Investigating Differences in How Individuals Interpret Prosocial Language. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41042-026-00334-5.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Kara Dolman and Anthony Murray.
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