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1-131 - Kindness Goes to School! Understanding and Promoting Kindness and Well-being in Children and Adolescents

Thu, April 6, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Austin Convention Center, Meeting Room 18A

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

In the face of global adversities that threaten communities, there is growing interest in kindness as a route to improving social relationships and well-being. Schools represent a key context for understanding and fostering kindness in children and adolescents, yet research in this area is still at an early stage. In this symposium, researchers from Canada, the UK, and the US come together to present and discuss new insights into kindness at school.

Children are exhorted by parents and teachers to ‘be kind’, yet we know surprisingly little about their own representations of kindness. The first paper elucidates common themes, as well as gender- and age-related patterns, in conceptualisations of kindness across three studies with children from kindergarten through 8th grade. The second paper presents experimental evidence of how a kindness-based reflective writing task can lead to improvements in adolescent well-being. Feelings of empathy and pride are found to serve as key psychological mediators of these impacts. The final paper reports on a major trial of a kindness-based social and emotional learning program, the ‘Random Acts of Kindness’ curriculum. Multi-informant data from 30 classrooms reveal impacts on prosocial motivation, behaviour, and peer relations, alongside broader improvements in relational climate.

The discussant will address key themes in this work, drawing upon over three decades of experience with research on children's socio-emotional competence. The chair will then facilitate an interactive discussion with the audience that will set an agenda for future research and educational policy in this burgeoning area of developmental science.

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