An illustrative anecdote

Several years ago, 1 was driving on a toll road in Norfolk, VA, en route to the Fort Eustis Army Base, where a transportation safety conference was being held. Of my students, three were with me. Each was scheduled to give a 15-minute talk at the conference. This was to be their first professional presentation and they appeared quite distressed. Each was paging frantically through his or her notes making last-minute adjustments. 

At the next toll booth, the driver of the vehicle behind us was not buckled up, but that did not stop me. I gave the attendant an extra quarter and said, This is for the vehicle behind us please ask the driver to buckle up. Again, we slowed down to watch and, to our delight, the driver buckled up on the spot. When the vehicle passed us, the driver gave us a smile and a thumbs up sign. 

I kept doing this at every tollbooth until exiting the highway, by which time my students had almost forgotten about their papers. They seemed relaxed and at ease when entering the conference room and each gave an excellent presentation. Later, we discussed how the toll booth intervention actively took their minds off their papers and their anxiety. 

Brown (1991) recommended that his son occasionally pay the toll for the vehicle behind him. This is redistribution of resources. It is also actively caring with an environment focus. By adding a safety-belt message, I was able to accomplish more than the random act of kindness suggested by Brown (1991) and the editors of Conari Press (1993). 

I was able to support and to reward those who were already buckled up and to influence some drivers to buckle up. In other words, realizing the special value of behavior-based actively caring enabled me to get more benefit from an environment-focused strategy with very little extra effort. This behavior-based effort was particularly convenient and effortless because it was indirect. You can see how the system for categorizing actively caring behavior allows us to compare real and potential acts of kindness and then to consider ways to increase their impact. 

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