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Quizzes > Self-Discovery & Identity

Kindness Trivia: Test Your Compassion

Quick, free compassion quiz on everyday choices. Instant results.

Editorial: Review CompletedCreated By: Elena BondarevskaUpdated Aug 23, 2025
Difficulty: Moderate
2-5mins
Learning OutcomesCheat Sheet
Paper cut hearts and question marks on sky blue background inviting kindness quiz challenge

This kindness quiz helps you spot compassionate choices in everyday situations and see how your actions add up. For a deeper check, compare your score with the kindness test, learn about feelings with the how empathetic am i quiz, or reflect on habits with the am i selfish quiz.

What is the most accurate definition of kindness?
The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
An intense feeling of love and passion.
The act of feeling pity or sorrow for someone's misfortune.
The quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate.
Kindness is generally defined as being friendly, generous, and considerate toward others. It involves proactive helpful actions or supportive words rather than just emotional responses. Cultivating kindness can strengthen social bonds and increase personal well-being.
Which of the following is an example of a small act of kindness?
Writing a novel in a weekend.
Running a marathon.
Donating a kidney.
Letting someone cut in line at the coffee shop.
Small acts of kindness are simple, everyday gestures like allowing someone to cut in line or holding a door open. These little actions can brighten someone's day and encourage a culture of caring. Even brief interactions can build goodwill and social connection.
What is the primary meaning of empathy?
Performing selfless acts without reward.
Expressing happiness or joy publicly.
Feeling pity for someone else's misfortune.
The ability to understand and share the feelings of another person.
Empathy involves recognizing another person's emotions and vicariously experiencing them yourself. It goes beyond pity by creating a deeper, emotional connection with someone's feelings. Strong empathy can motivate supportive and compassionate actions.
Which hormone is often called the "love hormone" because of its role in social bonding?
Testosterone
Cortisol
Adrenaline
Oxytocin
Oxytocin is known for its role in childbirth, lactation, and forming social bonds, earning it the nickname "love hormone." It promotes trust, generosity, and empathy between individuals. Research also links oxytocin to stress reduction and positive social behaviors.
How can a simple smile impact someone else's mood?
It can increase positive feelings and trust in social interactions.
It leads to immediate competitive behavior.
It has no measurable effect on mood.
It causes confusion and distrust.
Smiling is universally recognized as a friendly gesture and can trigger a positive response in others. Neurologically, seeing a smile activates reward centers in the brain, fostering trust and connection. Simple social cues like smiling can start a chain of kind interactions.
What does "pay it forward" typically mean?
Doing a good deed for someone else after you have received one.
Asking for a favor in return.
Saving money to donate later.
Repaying a debt immediately.
"Pay it forward" refers to responding to a kindness by being kind to a third party rather than returning the favor to the original helper. This concept can create a ripple effect of generosity through communities. It encourages ongoing, chain-like giving.
Which of these is NOT a common benefit of practicing kindness?
Improved mood
Greater sense of purpose
Increased stress levels
Stronger social connections
Practicing kindness is associated with reduced stress, not increased stress, along with improved mood, social bonds, and a stronger sense of meaning. Acts of generosity trigger brain chemicals that promote calm and well-being. Therefore, increased stress is not a benefit of kindness.
What daily practice has been shown to help cultivate kindness and compassion?
Intense competitive training
Loving-kindness meditation
Extreme multitasking
Complete social isolation
Loving-kindness meditation specifically focuses on developing compassion and goodwill toward self and others. Studies show this practice increases positive emotions and decreases self-criticism. It's a structured way to build empathy and kindness over time.
What distinguishes empathy from sympathy?
Empathy occurs only in close relationships, sympathy is universal.
Empathy is always positive, sympathy is always negative.
Empathy involves feeling with someone, while sympathy is feeling for them.
Empathy means offering advice, sympathy means giving gifts.
Empathy means sharing or understanding another's emotional state, whereas sympathy involves caring from a distance and feeling sorry for someone. Empathy can foster deeper connection by aligning emotions. Sympathy does not necessarily lead to action, while empathy often motivates helping behavior.
Which practice is specifically designed to enhance compassion according to research?
Loving-kindness meditation
Intermittent fasting
Solitary confinement
High-intensity interval training
Loving-kindness meditation (also called metta) focuses on sending goodwill and warm wishes to oneself and others. Scientific studies link it to increased compassion, positive affect, and social connectedness. This practice systematically trains the mind toward kindness.
What is compassion fatigue?
Temporary joy from kind actions.
Emotional exhaustion from extended caregiving and empathy.
A medical condition requiring surgery.
A burst of energy after helping someone.
Compassion fatigue refers to the emotional and physical exhaustion caregivers can experience after prolonged exposure to others' suffering. It can reduce the ability to empathize or feel compassion over time. Recognizing and managing it is important in helping professions.
The bystander effect suggests people are less likely to help when they are:
In physical pain themselves.
Alone in a room.
In a large group of witnesses.
Familiar with the victim.
The bystander effect shows that individuals are less likely to intervene in an emergency when others are present, as responsibility becomes diffused. Studies by Darley and Latané demonstrate decreased likelihood of helping as group size increases. Awareness of this effect can encourage proactive assistance.
Mirror neurons in the brain are thought to contribute to:
Understanding others' actions and emotions.
Long-term memory storage only.
Digestive processes.
Visual acuity improvement.
Mirror neurons fire both when an individual performs an action and when they observe someone else performing the same action. This neural mechanism is believed to underlie empathy and social understanding. It helps us intuitively grasp others' experiences.
What term describes selfless concern for the well-being of others?
Bias
Altruism
Apathy
Ambition
Altruism refers to actions taken to benefit others at a personal cost, motivated by selfless concern rather than self-interest. Research in psychology and evolutionary biology examines how and why altruism emerges. It is central to many theories of moral behavior.
Which factor can BLOCK someone from acting kindly even if they feel empathy?
Complete indifference to situations.
Always moral certainty.
High cognitive load, strong emotions, or prejudice (all of the above).
Only physical barriers.
Even when people empathize, factors like mental distractions, overwhelming emotions, or biases can prevent them from helping. Cognitive load reduces available resources for prosocial actions. Recognizing these barriers can aid in fostering consistent kindness.
According to kin selection theory, altruistic behaviors are most likely directed toward:
Close genetic relatives
Strangers in another city
Famous public figures
Non-living objects
Kin selection theory posits that individuals are evolutionarily inclined to help those who share their genes, increasing the likelihood of gene propagation. Acts of altruism toward relatives can improve inclusive fitness. This principle has been observed across many species.
Which brain region is most commonly linked with experiencing compassion and empathy?
Occipital lobe
Anterior insula
Cerebellum
Medulla oblongata
Neuroimaging studies frequently show activation in the anterior insula when individuals feel empathy and compassion. This region integrates emotional and bodily states, contributing to affective awareness. It plays a key role in social understanding.
Compassion training has been shown to increase activity in which neural system?
Visual processing pathways
Brain's reward circuitry
Spinal reflex arcs
Primary auditory cortex
Research indicates that compassion meditation enhances activation in reward-related regions, such as the ventral striatum. Increased engagement of these areas reinforces prosocial motivation and positive feelings toward helping. This neural change underpins lasting behavioral benefits.
What is the main objective of secular mindfulness-based compassion programs?
Enhancing emotional regulation and prosocial behavior.
Increasing physical endurance.
Accelerating language acquisition.
Boosting competitive drive.
Secular mindfulness-based compassion programs teach individuals to observe thoughts and feelings nonjudgmentally and to cultivate kindness toward self and others. Improved emotional regulation and increased altruism are key goals. These programs have documented psychological benefits.
In Buddhist psychology, how many "Immeasurables" are practices associated with compassion and goodwill?
Two
Five
Three
Four
Buddhism teaches four Immeasurables - loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity - as boundless qualities to cultivate. Each supports a balanced, caring mindset toward self and others. These are central to many compassionate practices.
How does compassionate love differ from romantic love?
It relies on physical intimacy.
It requires mutual financial dependency.
It extends to people regardless of personal relationship or attraction.
It only exists between family members.
Compassionate love focuses on caring, concern, and support without the requirement of romantic or sexual attraction. It can be directed toward friends, community members, or even strangers. Its hallmark is selfless concern for another's well-being.
Which research method is most commonly used to study the neural basis of compassion?
Skin conductance response
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
Traditional paper surveys
Electrocardiogram (ECG)
Functional MRI is widely used to observe brain activity patterns associated with compassion and empathy tasks. It provides spatially precise insights into regions engaged during prosocial emotions. Many seminal studies in compassion neuroscience rely on fMRI data.
Which molecule, in addition to oxytocin, has been implicated in promoting prosocial behavior?
Vasopressin
Insulin
Glucagon
Ghrelin
Vasopressin, a neuropeptide similar to oxytocin, has been linked to social behaviors including bonding and trust. Research shows it can influence group cohesion and pair bonding in mammals. Its role in human prosociality is an active area of study.
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Study Outcomes

  1. Assess Your Empathy Level -

    Use the kindness quiz to gauge your compassion by answering thought-provoking questions about kindness and see where you stand.

  2. Identify Examples of Generosity -

    Recall real-life acts of kindness and famous benevolent deeds through targeted questions on kindness to deepen your understanding.

  3. Analyze Compassion Scenarios -

    Evaluate different social situations and determine the motivations behind each act of kindness in this acts of kindness quiz.

  4. Apply Daily Kindness Practices -

    Discover simple, actionable strategies to spread joy and empathy in everyday life based on insights from the kindness quiz.

  5. Reflect on Personal Growth -

    Consider your own behaviors and attitudes, and pinpoint opportunities to cultivate a more compassionate mindset moving forward.

Cheat Sheet

  1. Defining Compassion vs. Empathy -

    Review the APA's distinction between compassion and empathy to answer questions about kindness accurately: compassion includes a desire to help whereas empathy focuses on feeling another's experience. Use the CARE mnemonic - Connect, Acknowledge, Respond, Empathize - to differentiate concepts during a kindness quiz.

  2. Neuroscience of Kindness -

    Harvard Health Publishing highlights that acts of kindness boost oxytocin and reduce cortisol, fostering well-being; understanding this helps you score high on a kindness quiz. Remember the simple formula "C+O→W" (Compassion + Oxytocin leads to increased Well-being) when facing questions on kindness in tests.

  3. Bystander Intervention Model -

    Based on Latané & Darley's five-step model - Notice, Interpret, Assume responsibility, Know how to help, Implement help - this framework appears in many acts of kindness quiz scenarios. Mentally walk through each step when previewing questions about kindness to determine the most likely helping response.

  4. Measuring Altruism in Surveys -

    The Compassionate Love Scale (Boston College) and similar self-report tools inform many kindness quiz questions; they assess frequency, intention, and emotional response to benevolent acts. Familiarize yourself with sample items - like "I feel compelled to assist strangers" - to navigate related questions on kindness confidently.

  5. Everyday Kindness Mnemonic -

    Use the GIVE mnemonic - Greet, Include, Volunteer, Encourage - to recall simple yet powerful gestures during acts of kindness quiz questions. This practical tool, supported by University of Oxford research on prosocial behavior, ensures you can offer real-world examples under pressure.

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