The Science of Kindness: teacher key

Kindness, grade 12 edition, written for 12th grade and up. What researchers have learned about kindness: when it starts in babies, what animals do, how the brain and body respond, what it does for the giver, and what remains unclear.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

1. What do researchers say the 2006 toddler study shows?
   • Toddlers never help
   • Even infants without much socialization are willing and able to help spontaneously (answer)
   • Only older children help
2. What did studies at Yale conclude using games with babies?
   • That babies cannot see
   • That games are unfair
   • That kindness is inherent to human beings (answer)
3. What kind of studies provide most of the evidence that regular volunteering helps health?
   • Observational studies (answer)
   • Brain scans
   • Trap doors
4. What is unknown about mirror neurons in macaques?
   • Their location
   • Their function (answer)
   • Their number
5. What did a commentator say reciprocity rests on for vampire bats?
   • A cold calculation
   • Luck
   • Trust built up over time (answer)
6. What did Christakis compare a social network to?
   • A matching grant (answer)
   • A bank
   • A road

Words

• altruism: selfless concern
• reciprocity: giving back
• inherent: built in
• observational: watching-based
• oxytocin: a hormone