Manchester is a city of do-gooders, with a third of Mancunians doing a good deed once or twice a month.
From handing in lost mobile phones to letting someone jump the queue, Manchester residents perform at least one good deed a fortnight, said the research.
High profile charity stunts like last year’s Ice Bucket Challenge help make people in Manchester realise that if feels good to do something nice for someone else, it added.
But it is not just about doing something that can be shared on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or YouTube said the study by finance firm glo.
It found almost one in four (24 per cent) do good deeds without telling anyone about it, from giving someone a paid-for car park ticket with time left, to covering for a late workmate.
The Ice Bucket Challenge saw millions, including celebrities, have buckets of freezing water over themselves in recorded clips, to raise money for a number of charities. Such actions only inspire people to do more, it seems, and for reasons beyond simply being seen to do good, said the survey of 2,000 adults by glo.
It found six in ten (62 per cent) of Manchester’s residents feel they have made a positive difference by doing a good deed and 41 per cent enjoy the feeling of personal satisfaction from it.
Up to a third of Manchester folk reckon they perform random acts of kindness around twice a month on average, with more than one in 10 helping others out at least once a week.
Often it is just be a little thing that makes a difference to another person, such as sending an uplifting text or email to someone in trouble or suffering a loss.
While the traditional acts of kindness paint images of helping old ladies across the road or standing up on the bus to give a seat to a stranger, modern life throws up new versions.
Among the ten 21st century good deeds done by people across the UK, top is returning a lost mobile phone to its owner, followed by others including letting someone in a hurry jump a queue.
On social media, many consider it an act of altruism to retweet someone else’s message on Twitter or just smile at a stranger, said the survey by glo. Other good deeds include getting a friend out of a bad date to covering for a colleague who is either late or absent from their desk, it added.
Julia Dallimore at glo.co.uk said: “Modern life can be very impersonal – we communicate by email, we sit looking at our phones, we don’t speak to our neighbours as much.
“But random acts of kindness help us to connect to others and the personal gratification we feel, far outweighs any other psychological high.”
