National Just Because Day, Friday, August 27, 2027, celebrates doing nice things for no reason, and research says those gestures matter more than people expect. Senders keep underestimating them.
No Reason Needed, August 27
Every August 27. Where the day came from is undocumented.
What Researchers Learned About “Just Because”
No founder’s story survives, but the idea behind the day has been tested. Research teams from Texas to Pennsylvania have studied small, unprompted kindness.
Hot chocolate in a Chicago park
Amit Kumar of UT Austin worked with Chicago behavioral scientist Nicholas Epley on a series of surprise-kindness experiments. One of their tests took place at Maggie Daley Park in Chicago. Of 84 people offered the chance, 75 gave a cup of hot chocolate to a stranger.
Kumar later described the setting in Scientific American: the park’s ice-skating rink on a cold winter day.
On a scale running from -5 to 5, givers predicted their recipients would feel about 2.7. The recipients’ own average was 3.5.
Cupcakes at Maggie Daley Park told a similar story. A cupcake given as a surprise kindness made people happier than one handed out by researchers.
“The fact that you’re being nice to others adds a lot of value beyond whatever the thing is,” Kumar said.
Kindness also spread. In a lab game, people who had just received a kind gift gave away $48.02 of $100 on average, more than those who hadn’t.
Across the experiments, about 1,000 participants performed acts of kindness. Some wrote notes to friends and family “just because.”
Notes and catch-up messages
A 2022 study led by Peggy Liu of the University of Pittsburgh tested reaching out “just because” or “just to catch up.” More than 5,900 people took part.
In Liu’s experiments, some participants sent a short note, or a note with a small gift, to someone they hadn’t talked to in a while.
Liu’s senders consistently underestimated how much their message would be appreciated. The gap grew when the contact was more surprising or the relationship had faded.
Gratitude letters show the same blind spot. In a 2018 Kumar and Epley study, writers overestimated how awkward recipients would feel and underestimated how happy they’d be.
Writers also underestimated how surprised recipients would be to learn why they were thanked. Kumar suspected that worry over finding the right words may hold people back.
Why Surprise Matters
All three lines of research point the same way. Givers focus on the object, while receivers focus on the warmth behind it, Kumar and Epley found.
Surprise is a big part of that. In Liu’s work, recipients paid more attention to the unexpected nature of a message than senders did.
That gap has a cost. Kumar and Epley warn that low expectations can stop people from helping, sharing or giving at all.
Their effect held for strangers as well as friends, classmates and family. “It turns out generosity can actually be contagious,” Kumar said.
Just Because Ideas for August 27
- Text a friend you haven’t heard from in months, the kind of contact Liu found most underrated.
- Buy a stranger a hot drink, a nod to the Maggie Daley Park experiment.
- Bring cupcakes to work with no occasion attached.
- Write a short thank-you letter to someone who shaped your life, as Kumar and Epley’s participants did.
- Mail a note with a small gift to an old acquaintance.
- Don’t fuss over the wording, since letter recipients cared most about warmth.
- Pass along any kindness you receive, because the lab game showed it spreads.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did the other players give away?
An average of $41.20.
What was the reaching-out paper called?
“The Surprise of Reaching Out: Appreciated More than We Think,” in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Who else worked on that research?
SoYon Rim, Lauren Min and Kate Min joined Liu as co-authors.
Sources
- University of Texas at Austin – Random Acts of Kindness Make a Bigger Splash Than Expected (2022)
- Scientific American – Kindness Can Have Unexpectedly Positive Consequences
- American Psychological Association – Friends enjoy being reached out to more than we think (2022)
- University of Chicago News – People underestimate value of sending letters of appreciation (2018)