Ask Angela: Nice Advice

Have questions? Angela Haupt connects with experts and shares their words of wisdom.

Angela Haupt is a health and wellness editor at TIME. She talks with experts about problems readers are having, then writes articles to share what she learns. Here, she addresses a question about being nice.

When you’re a toddler, you learn that being nice means saying please and sharing. As you grow up, you learn that the world is more complex. Being nice isn’t as simple as it once was.

There are big benefits to being nice, and not just for the recipient. Emiliana Simon-Thomas is a science director at the University of California. She says people love the “warm glow” of knowing they’ve improved someone’s day. Having nice interactions “is a way to feel like you belong” in a community, she adds.

For these reasons and others, it’s important to be nice. “There’s always an opportunity to do or say something that is uplifting,” Simon-Thomas says. Here are some tips.

Show that you’re listening.

Pay attention. “We have to actually put in effort to listen,” says Amanda Cooper. She works in the department of communication at the University of Connecticut. Don’t multitask. Even if you think you can clean out your backpack while listening to a classmate talk, they might not agree.

Find something you have in common.

Look for something familiar in every person you meet. Simon-Thomas says to ask yourself “if there’s a way to think, ‘That’s something that happens for me, too,’ or ‘I can relate.’”

Share your smile, and mean it!

Smiling at someone is a “very simple, core way to be nice,” Simon-Thomas says. But it has to be genuine. Fake smiles don’t cut it.

Use people’s names.

Cooper once met an important scholar. A year later, she met him again. He said, “Hey, Amanda, how are you?” “I was so blown away that he knew my name,” she says. “When we call someone by name, we cue to them, ‘Hey, I know who you are—I see you.’”

If you have a question you’d like Angela to answer, send it to tfkeditors@time.com.