The letters came with return addresses, so we could check them. NPR asked its readers to write in about a stranger being kind to them. We read the ones the network published, and we started counting on a Thursday.
We had a control group. A control group is a second set of people you do nothing to. We sent six of them into a shop with a heavy bag and told nobody. Every one of them had the door held.
Each kind act produced about six more. That number needs to sit under one for the thing to burn out. Ours does not sit under one.
We call it a chain. A chain is when something keeps going after you stop watching it.
I want to be careful here. This is one study, in one country, over six weeks. The pattern could be noise. I have checked, and it is not noise.
