De Waal has studied how capuchin monkeys react to inequality by pairing them and having them both perform the same task – giving the researcher a stone. In return for the stone, the first monkey receives a piece of cucumber, is happy with that and so will go on handing the researcher stones in exchange for it – until the moment when it sees the second monkey get a grape, which monkeys prefer over cucumber, in exchange for the stone.
The first monkey tries again, tests the rock this time by hitting it against the wall, hands it to the researcher and in return is again handed a piece of cucumber. Then the tantrum sets in. The monkey rattles the cage, pounds the floor and throws the cucumber back at the researcher.
I once mentioned to my brother that we could test De Waal’s findings by giving my youngest nephew two chocolate biscuits, then giving his older brother one. Since then, for some reason, I have not been asked to babysit.
The point of all this is that while we can improve trust levels in the short term by training our empathy muscles and teaching our kids to cooperate rather than compete, there is something we need to address in the long term to improve trust and happiness. And this is the understanding that my happiness also depends not only on how my family are but also on how my neighbours’ children fare. It is honouring the noble principle that I am the keeper of my brothers and sisters – and they are mine. And it is judging our societies not by the success of those who finish first but how we lift back up those who fall.
HAPPINESS TIP:
TRAIN YOUR EMPATHY MUSCLE
Read literary fiction and move beyond your normal social circles to get a better understanding of other people’s behaviour.
Put yourself in the shoes of others and pick up some literary fiction. Go for books like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald or The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Find social blenders that allow you to move beyond your normal social circles. Visit places that voted in the opposite end of the political spectrum from you. If you listen to people’s stories, you may find that you might have made some of the same choices if you had lived their life rather than yours. We are not so very different; we just had different starting points. And while it is easy to stop listening and dismiss people we disagree with as ignorant, as evil and as the enemy, that will only lead us to misery. But perhaps if we listen we might learn that it is inequality, unfairness and injustice that are the enemy and that empathy, trust and cooperation are the way forward.
Credit 39
TRUST
The ‘lost wallet’ experiment
Helsinki, Finland: Researchers ‘dropped’ wallets in different cities. Each wallet contained a name, a mobile phone number, a family photo, coupons, business cards and the equivalent of $50. In Helsinki, 92 per cent of the wallets were returned with the money still inside them. Read more on this page.
Parallel Narrative Experience
Israel and Palestine: The Parents’ Circle Families Forum is a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Israeli families who have lost immediate family members in the conflict. A process called the Parallel Narrative Experience aims to help each side of the conflict understand the personal and national narratives of the other. The members meet with one another on a regular basis in order to forge mutual understanding and respect between the communities.
Cooperation and empathy through Live Action Roleplaying
?sterskov, Denmark: ?sterskov efterskole use Live Action Roleplaying to teach the kids; perhaps pupils spend a week in ancient Rome or on Wall Street. The teachers find that, for instance, children with Asperger’s learn social skills and how to handle social situations by playing different characters in the games.
From custodians of prisoners to captains of life
Singapore: The Singapore Prison Service has changed its prisons into schools for life by focusing on cooperation and rehabilitation. Prison officers have been assigned to manage all matters relating to the inmates in a particular housing unit, and they take on the role of mentor and counsellor. The inmates are given the power to make decisions, as long as these serve to help them make a change for the better. By any measure, the results have been impressive, ranging from improved staff morale and safety, better social connections between prisons and the rest of society and a drop in recidivism from 44 to 27 per cent over a ten-year period.
Favela Painting Foundation
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: In the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, artists have created a small, but significant, revolution. And their main weapons are a brush and some colourful paint. In an open, collaborative and inclusive process, they paint the favela houses in the colours of the rainbow – and a lot of local young people help with the project, making it theirs. They choose the colours together, paint together and play together. Today, it is a new world that greets the locals and the tourists. It is bright, colourful and proud. These are not just houses, these are homes. And the people who live here are now proud to call it their home, and they are proud to show that they have more to offer the world than the world might have expected.
KINDNESS
One of the most inspiring people I have met on my journeys is a man I’m going to call Clark. That is not his real name (his identity is a secret) and he is the closest thing to a superhero you can get.
Clark has sat next to Tim on planes purely to help him get over his fear of flying. He has helped Anthony raise awareness of the lack of disabled access in the London Underground. He has reunited a lost memory card with its owner and tried to do the same to a son and his long-lost father. All were complete strangers.
His superpower: kindness. Clark is otherwise known as the Free Help Guy.
Credit 40
‘When we are growing up, I think we all dream of changing the world, but in my late twenties I found myself going to work every day, commuting to Oxford Circus station, together with thousands of other people. It was a good job, but I wasn’t changing the world.
‘I just got to this point where I was doing things that didn’t seem to have any kind of meaning. Commuting, working and struggling with it. Just feeling a bit lost. I imagined myself five years down the line, doing the same thing, and had that feeling that somehow it didn’t feel right. So I quit.’
Clark made a promise to himself to spend six months not working. He still wanted to earn, but he wanted to earn a value that was measured in things other than notes and coins.
He spent the first week watching Breaking Bad. But then he decided to post a note on the internet. ‘If you need help, I’ll help. For free. (Especially if your needs are fun, different and morally deserved.) TheFreeHelpGuy.’
He had a reply within the day.
‘I decided I wanted to help people. But I wanted to be hands on, I wanted it to be personal, and I wanted to have a bit of freedom with it as well.’
The first reply was from Jill and Richard, a couple living on the south coast in England, in Plymouth. The year before, they had given their spare room to a homeless man, ‘He’s now got a job and has rented his own place,’ they wrote. ‘Can you help find us someone else to help?’
Later came Vince, an IT manager who wanted to be a stage hypnotist and needed a guinea pig; and Sophie, who asked for help in naming her baby. Clark suggested Zeus. The parents went in a different direction.
Then came Jill from America, who asked for help to reunite her husband, Ian, with his long-lost father, Frank, who lived in the UK. It turned out Frank had died, and Clark had to phone to tell Ian, someone he had never met, that his father was no longer alive. Not the happy ending we had all hoped for, but at least now Ian knew.