Research Shows the World is Kinder Than We Think
New Findings Challenge Our Assumptions About Trust and Kindness
May 23, 2025
Many people today feel pessimistic about life and the world around them, largely because the news tends to focus on conflict, crisis and division. But a new research suggests this gloomy outlook may be misleading. The world appears to be far kinder—and more interconnected—than we often assume. Generosity, empathy and trust are widespread across societies, including in India.
At the core of the World Happiness Report 2025 is the idea that benevolence—acts of giving, helping, trusting and connecting—is both more common and more potent than people generally assume.
Using global data from Gallup and the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, researchers found that people dramatically misjudge the kindness of others. For instance, in real-life wallet-return experiments, strangers returned lost wallets at rates about twice as high as expected. That simple act—returning something that isn’t yours—is statistically linked with higher levels of national happiness. In short: the kinder we think others are, the happier we are ourselves.
But the report doesn’t stop at perception. It also shows that actual acts of caring—such as volunteering, donating and helping strangers—remain elevated globally, even after the COVID-19 pandemic surge. While these “benevolence bumps” have dipped slightly since their 2020 peak, they are still 10% higher than pre-pandemic levels. Helping strangers, in particular, remains significantly more common than in 2017–2019, across all global regions.
The benefits of these behaviours are twofold. First, there is strong evidence that performing kind acts improves wellbeing—so long as the motivation is genuine, the action voluntary and the impact tangible. Second, the people who benefit most from a benevolent society are often those who are least happy. That’s a remarkable finding: kindness doesn’t just uplift the average; it narrows the happiness gap. Countries with high perceived kindness show less inequality in wellbeing, making them more stable and resilient societies.
India’s Standing
The report includes a detailed section comparing countries based on six measures of benevolence—three that capture actual behaviour and three that reflect public expectations of others’ honesty. These indicators are donating to charity, volunteering, helping a stranger and beliefs about whether a lost wallet would be returned by a neighbour, a stranger, or a police officer. Together, they give a rounded picture of how kindness and trust operate in different societies, not only through what people do, but also through what they believe others would do in everyday situations.
India ranks quite high when it comes to volunteering, placed 10th out of 147 countries, which suggests that many Indians are willing to offer their time to help others. However, the country stands at 57th in donating to charity and 74th in helping strangers, indicating moderate levels of these behaviours.
When it comes to trust—measured by expectations about whether a lost wallet would be returned—the rankings are significantly lower. India ranks 115th for neighbour wallet return, 86th for stranger wallet return and 93rd for police wallet return.
The figures show that while there is a strong culture of volunteering, people in India generally have low expectations that others would act honestly if given the chance.
Further, India ranks 118th out of 147 countries in the “Cantril Ladder” measure, which reflects how people rate their own lives on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means the worst possible life and 10 means the best. The average score for India is 4.389, which suggests that many people feel their lives are closer to the lower end of that scale. It is based on how people themselves view their circumstances, making it a personal and subjective snapshot of wellbeing.
Source of Wellbeing
There’s another quietly revolutionary idea in the report: that our greatest sources of wellbeing are not abstract national statistics like GDP, but daily human interactions—like sharing meals. Chapter after chapter shows how being together, in small ordinary ways, enriches our lives. People who frequently share meals with others report markedly higher life satisfaction. Notably, the rise in solitary eating—especially in the United States—correlates with declining wellbeing. Sharing food is not just cultural; it’s psychological infrastructure.
Living arrangements, too, tell a powerful story. Happiness rises in households of up to four people, according to data from Europe and Mexico. Latin American societies, with their stronger family bonds and intergenerational living, consistently report higher life satisfaction—despite having lower average incomes than many Western nations.
Meanwhile, loneliness is on the rise, especially among young adults.
In 2023, nearly one in five reported having no one they could count on. But again, perception can be more powerful than reality. In one study, students who learned how empathic their peers were experienced an increase in happiness and were more likely to reach out and form connections.
One of the most sobering yet hopeful sections of the report explores the link between social support and “deaths of despair”—suicide, drug overdoses and alcohol-related deaths. These tragedies are less frequent in societies where more people engage in prosocial behaviour. Statistical analysis shows that even small increases in volunteering and helping others can reduce deaths from suicide and substance abuse.
Satisfaction in Life and Its Impact on Political Ideology
The report suggests that emotional and social factors—like how satisfied people are with their lives and how much they trust others—play a bigger role in shaping political behaviour than traditional left–right ideologies. When people are unhappy and feel they can't trust those around them, they're more likely to support parties or leaders who reject the existing political system—this is what’s meant by populism.
Interestingly, the direction of this support depends on whether people still have some trust in others: those who do may turn to left-wing populist movements, while those who don’t tend to support right-wing ones. The key point is that rebuilding trust within communities might reduce the appeal of extreme political views, making societies more stable.
Even when it comes to donating money, the report offers something useful—and refreshingly blunt. Not all charities are equally effective at increasing happiness. Some generate far more “wellbeing per dollar” than others. In low-income countries, interventions like mental health support are among the most cost-effective ways to improve lives. The advice is clear: if you want your money to do the most good, look beyond glossy brand names and ask what brings the greatest happiness to others.
Perhaps the strongest takeaway is that we’ve been telling ourselves the wrong story. The world isn’t devoid of kindness—it’s saturated with it. We just fail to see it. We expect the worst from others, and that misperception harms our collective wellbeing. The findings suggest we’d all be better off if we believed—just a little more—in each other.
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