Is everyone at least trying to be good?

Maybe. Or at least a few people are actively trying to be bad. However, most of us do things that might be bad without really knowing it. 

We might hurt others through our actions, knowingly or not, or cause harm in other ways.

On the flip side, we may do things that are really good without knowing it either!

Unless we know what goodness is and actively strive for it, we may end up being all over the place and doing things without really thinking about them.

That’s where psychology becomes useful. 

Psychologists aren’t out there telling us exactly what goodness is. Instead, they study what we think goodness means – collectively. 

They get a picture of what people think is good and then tease that apart to find ways of measuring the different components that makeup goodness. And that’s what they can tell us.

So, here are seven essential qualities of a genuinely good person, according to psychology. If you want to actually be good, these are the goals you can strive for.

1) They’re grateful.

Across cultures, it’s important for people to express gratitude appropriately.

If you receive a present, someone helps you out, or the world simply aligns in your favor, most people see gratitude as an appropriate response.

According to one psychological study, “gratitude, as an emotion, can be understood as a subjective felt sense of wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for benefits received.”

It’s also something that we humans like to see in other people when we describe them as good. 

Some people are more inclined to feel gratitude than others and have more gratitude as a personality trait. When they receive gifts or assistance, they’ll feel more gratitude, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they express it effectively.

Learning to do this can help people understand your internal state of gratitude better and view you as a good person.

So, when someone smiles and says how thankful they are, they’re able to show others that they care and appreciate what they’ve done. That’s a big part of being a good person!

2) They’re considerate.

Another factor that most people would agree is an essential quality of a good person is being considerate of others.

What does this mean exactly?

According to one study, “People value those who act with others in mind even as they pursue their own goals.” Another definition of being considerate is showing careful thought to avoid inconveniencing or hurting others.

In this study, researchers looked at the way kids learn to be considerate. They found that by the age of six, kids already valued this trait.

Researchers gave kids a choice of snacks and wanted to see whether or not they’d choose their snack in such a way that there was a choice left for another child. If the kids had the option and knew there was another child choosing after them, most of them did.

This showed that even very young children know that considering other people’s feelings and benefits is a good thing to do. 

While we don’t always see adults making these kinds of choices, we still know that being considerate is an important part of the wonderful thing we call goodness.

3) They’re empathetic.

If we didn’t understand each other’s emotions or relate to them in any way, human civilization would be completely different, if it even existed at all.

Empathy is the ability to relate to and understand our own emotions and those of others. It has been called a “building block of social behavior and interpersonal competence” and has a tremendously important place in society.

Other researchers have stated that “empathy plays a critical interpersonal and societal role, enabling sharing of experiences, needs, and desires between individuals and providing an emotional bridge that promotes pro-social behavior.”

It seems to be something hardwired into (most of) our brains and helps us to relate to one another and show our care and compassion. This is seen as one of the biggest parts of the thing we call goodness.

In contrast, people who have limited or no empathy struggle to understand others and relate to them. They can be very emotionally disconnected and may hurt people because they don’t understand or care how their words and actions can affect others.

Without this important ingredient of goodness, we’d definitely struggle to cooperate and likely wouldn’t have developed very far as a species.

4) They’re trusting and trustworthy.

Being trustworthy and trusting are two very different characteristics, though they could be related. 

People who are trusting are able to put their fears and suspicions aside easily. They allow themselves to believe in the truth of what others say and do. 

We humans actually make evaluations of who to trust all the time, and according to studies, we do this extremely quickly. It might just take us a few milliseconds to decide whether to trust someone or not. 

That doesn’t mean we always get it right, though, by any means.

However, people who are more open and agreeable generally trust others more, and we tend to think this is a good thing.

It’s also important to be trustworthy yourself, obviously.

If you’re seen as a liar, a cheat, or simply someone who’s unreliable and often goes back on their word, you won’t be perceived as a good person. So, living up to your commitments and being honest are definitely seen as essential ingredients in goodness pie!

5) They’re benevolent.

The word “bene” comes from Latin and means good, well, or rightly, so it should be no surprise that benevolence is something we generally see as part of goodness.

But what does this word mean?

Benevolence is essentially being well-meaning. It’s shown in care for other’s welfare and happiness.

While evil might be defined as doing intentional or persistent harm to others, goodness can mean “bringing about great benefit to individuals or whole groups.”

To do that, you have to be benevolent and have positive results for others as an important goal in all of your actions. 

This could, then, be considered the opposite of selfishness.

And not only is benevolence a positive social behavior, but it also seems to be good for you.

Researchers have found a correlation between benevolence and lower levels of both stress and depression. This means that caring for the well-being of others not only makes you considered a good person; it’s also great for your mental health.

6) They’re full of courage.

Imagine you’re on the subway late at night, and an aggressive man starts to very loudly and obviously pick on a woman riding alone.  He’s throwing racial and sexist insults at her and is obviously frightening and disturbing her.

Despite this, no one does anything to help.

Now imagine one or more riders standing up and intervening, defending the woman and making the man back down. How would you feel about those people?

If you see them as heroic, you’re not alone. 

Despite the potential risks to their own welfare, these people stood up to help a person in need. This takes courage, which we can define as persistence in the face of negativity or the endurance of suffering to attain a goal.

This is a big part of what we call heroism, a specific kind of goodness that’s admired the world over. Just look at the legends and lore of cultures past and present! The earliest stories are as full of heroes as our modern movies are.

Psychological research has also found that, like benevolence, courage is good for you.

It seems that people who are more courageous experience less stress when working in high-risk jobs like firefighters and police.

So, not only does courage help you to be seen as a good person, but it also protects you from negative effects that the more-timid among us are affected by.  

7) They stick to their morals.

Morals are the distinctions each of us has between good and bad behavior or what is right and wrong.

Each of us has our own morality that’s based on cultural norms but also customized to our individual beliefs. However, psychologists believe that each of us also has a moral identity that defines us.

Imagine that you believe it’s wrong to hit others. That’s your moral belief.

But how well your behavior sticks to that belief reflects your moral identity. If you never hit others, you may identify as a highly moral person. If you do hit people frequently, even though you believe it’s wrong, you will likely see yourself as an immoral person.

Where’s goodness in this equation?

Essentially, sticking to your morality is seen as good, even if others don’t necessarily agree with your moral beliefs.

Final words

These seven essential qualities of a genuinely good person, according to psychology, are like essential ingredients.

Without any one of them, goodness just won’t taste the same. So, if you’re trying to be a good person, you’ll want to add a little bit of everything to make it just right.