The Happy Pod: What makes people instinctively kind?
Global News Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 8.2K Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We meet a woman whose near death experience as a teenager inspired her to study why some people are willing to risk their lives for others. Dr Abigail Marsh was rescued by a stranger after a car accident and wanted to understand what drove him to help her. She says altruists, those who instinctively help without expecting anything in return, are more sensitive to the needs of other people -- but we can all learn to be kinder.
Also: we hear from a man whose willingness to help others led him to donate a kidney. It went to a woman he'd become friends with after he supported her through a personal tragedy.
We find out about an Australian scheme to help dads and their kids be healthier, which also showed the benefits of rough and tumble play. And it's inspired a project at a prison in Scotland that aims to make dads better role models by playing with their kids. It's hoped that helping them become better parents will make them less likely to reoffend.
Plus, why a crying horse soft toy has been a surprise hit with young workers in China, and what its like to be a patient helping to develop new medical treatments by volunteering for a clinical trial.
Our weekly collection of inspiring, uplifting and happy news from around the world.
(Presenter: Jannat Jalil. Music composed by Iona Hampson)
(Photo: Dr Abigail Marsh. Credit Georgetown University)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the happy part from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:13.2 | I'm Janet Joliel and in this edition, lessons in kindness from a woman inspired by trying to understand why a stranger risked his life to save hers. |
| 0:24.3 | I do kind of think I know what he would say because it is so consistent in everybody that I've |
| 0:28.9 | ever talked to, which is it just seemed like the obvious thing to do. |
| 0:32.5 | I felt like I had the ability to help them, and so I did. |
| 0:37.3 | It's a message echoed by a man who donated a kidney |
| 0:40.3 | to help someone he'd first met in tragic circumstances. Given the gift of life, for me, it's just a |
| 0:46.9 | human thing to do. You know, people have said, I'm the hero. I don't see it that way. I just see |
| 0:50.9 | that anyone with a heart would give something to keep someone else alive. |
| 0:56.1 | Also, when you think about treatment in all sorts of things now, it's because of trials. |
| 1:01.4 | It's innovation and everything else. There was no question. |
| 1:05.0 | We hear what it's like to be a patient involved in testing new medical treatments. |
| 1:10.8 | The extra benefits of a scheme designed to improve the health of fathers and their children. |
| 1:16.4 | Not only is it fun, but those children who are exposed to quality rough and tumble play |
| 1:21.1 | have better emotional regulation, better social skills, because it actually develops |
| 1:26.1 | the part of their brain. |
| 1:28.0 | Plus, the soft toy that's been a surprise hit with young workers in China. |
| 1:34.7 | We will keep selling it because this crying horse really suits the reality of modern working people. |
| 1:46.4 | We start with the woman who's become an expert on what makes some people especially kind |
| 1:51.5 | and willing to help others and what we can learn from them after she was saved by a |
| 1:56.0 | complete stranger when she was just a teenager. |
| 1:59.0 | We've often covered inspiring stories of individuals who risked their |
... |
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