Political chasmswars, oppression… it’s easy to feel hopeless and helpless while watching these dark forces manifest. Could any of us really make a meaningful difference in the face of so much devastation?

Given the scale of the world’s problems, you might feel like the small acts of human connection and solidarity over which you have control are like putting band-aids on gunshot wounds. It may seem naive to imagine that small acts could make a difference on a global scale.

As a psychologist, human connection researcher and audience member, I was inspired to hear a musician Hozier offering a counterpoint during a performance this year. “The small acts of love and solidarity we offer each other can have a powerful impact…” he told the crowd. “I believe that the core of people as a whole is good – I truly believe that. I will die on this hill.

I’m happy to report that science agrees with him.

Research shows that individual acts of kindness and connection can have a real impact on global change when these acts are collective. This is true on several levels: between individuals, between people and institutions, and between cultures.

This relational micro-activism is a powerful force for change – and serves as an antidote to despair because unlike problems on a global scale, these small acts are within the control of individuals.

The abstract becomes real through relationships

Theoretically, the idea that small interpersonal acts have a large-scale impact is explained by what psychologists call cognitive dissonance: the discomfort you feel when your actions and beliefs don’t match.

For example, imagine two people who like each other. One believes that the fight against climate change is crucial, and the other believes that climate change is a political ruse. Cognitive dissonance occurs: they love each other, but they disagree. People want cognitive balanceso the more these two like each other, the more motivated they will be to listen to each other.

According to this model, the more you strengthen your relationships through acts of connection, the more likely you will empathize with these other individual perspectives. When these efforts are collective, they can increase understanding, compassion, and community in society as a whole. Issues like war and oppression can seem overwhelming and abstract, but the abstract becomes real when you connect with someone you care about.

So, is this theory valid when dealing with real-world data?

Small acts of connection change attitudes

Many studies support the power of individual acts of connection to generate change on a larger scale.

For example, researchers studying the political divide in the United States found that participants identifying as Democrats or Republicans “disliked” people from the other group, largely because of negative assumptions about the other person’s morality. People also said they valued moral values ​​such as fairness, respect, loyalty, and the desire to prevent harm to others.

I’m intentionally forgetting which political group preferred which traits – they all seem to be positive attributes, right? Although participants believed they disliked each other for political reasons, they also valued all traits that benefit relationships.

One interpretation of these findings is that the more people demonstrate, act by act, that they are loyal friends and community members who want to avoid harming others, the more they might mitigate large-scale social and political disagreements. .

Even more convincingly, another study found that Hungarian and Romanian students – people from ethnic groups with a history of social tension – who reported having strong friendships with each other reported improved attitudes toward the other group. Having a difficult friendship with someone from the other group actually damaged attitudes toward the other ethnic group as a whole. Again, feed the quality of relationshipseven on an objectively small scale, has had powerful implications for reducing tensions on a large scale.

In another study, researchers examined bias toward what psychologists call an out-group: a group you don’t belong to, whether because of your ethnicity, political affiliation, or simply preference. for dogs rather than cats.

They asked participants to think about the positive qualities of a person they knew or their own positive characteristics. When participants wrote about the positive qualities of someone else rather than themselves, they later reported lower levels of prejudice toward an out-group – even if the person they wrote about had no connection to that outgroup. Here, moving towards appreciation of others, rather than moving away from prejudices, was an effective way of transforming preconceived beliefs.

So small acts of connection can change personal attitudes. But can they really affect societies?

From the individual to the whole of society

Each human being is embedded in their own network with the people and world around them, what psychologists call their social ecology. Compassionate change at every level The impact of a person’s social ecology – internally, interpersonally, or structurally – can affect all other levels, in a sort of positive feedback loop, or upward spiral.

For example, both system-level anti-discrimination programs in schools and interpersonal support among students interact to shape school environments for students from historically marginalized groups. Once again, individual actions play a key role in these positive effects. domino effects.

Even as a human relations scholar, I have been surprised to see how far I and others have progressed toward mutual understanding simply by caring about each other. But what, after all, are small acts of connection if not acts of relationship building, that strengthen communities, that influence societies?

In much of my clinical work I use a model called social practice – or “intentional community building” – as a form of therapy for people recovering from serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. And if intentional community development can remedy some of the most debilitating states of the human psyche, I believe it follows that, in a broader sense, it could also help remedy the most debilitating states of societies human.

Simply put, science supports the idea that getting closer to each other can be transformational. I will die on this hill too.

Liza M. Hincheypostdoctoral researcher in psychology, Wayne State University

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