Back in 2000 Kevin Spacey starred in a movie called Pay It Forward. The idea is to pass along to others the good deeds done for you..sort of like doing the “wave” with kindness. Does life imitate art or vice versa?  Seems kindness can spread rapidly and it only takes a few benevolent people doing a good deeds for others to influence dozens more, say researchers. 

David James/2000 Warner Bros. & Bel Air Pictures, LLC/Newsmakers
David James/2000 Warner Bros. & Bel Air Pictures, LLC/Newsmakers
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Scientists at the University of California at San Diego, and Harvard Medical School set up a public goods game in which volunteers had the opportunity to cooperate with others and people who received money were more likely to donate cash to other players of future games. The acts of kindness triggered a domino effect in which one person's charity spread to three others and then to nine and so on and so on.

Results in the "Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences" journal, also found that the spirit of generosity continues on in the volunteers who experienced it. "You don't go back to being your 'old selfish self,'" says study coauthor James Fowler, an associate professor in the political science department at UC-San Diego. "Though the multiplier in the real world may be higher or lower than what we've found in the lab, it's very exciting to learn that kindness spreads to people I don't know or have never met. “

So Paying it Forward really does work…good to know…pass the popcorn!

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