The title sounds a bit soft, but there are many valuable findings in this article for educators, e.g.,
“As for college-goers, UC Berkeley psychologist Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton has found that cross-racial and cross-ethnic friendships can improve the social and academic experience on campuses. In one set of findings, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, he found that the cortisol levels of both white and Latino students dropped as they got to know each over a series of one-on-one get-togethers. Cortisol is a hormone triggered by stress and anxiety.”
Social scientists build case for ‘survival of the kindest’
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There’s a good argument to be made that cooperation has survival value in the evolutionary sense. Cooperative behavior (what we’d call kindness) is fairly common in mammals. Check out “The Age of Empathy” (Harmony Books).
The review in Scientific American say “…primatologist Frans de Wall draws on numerous examples from our fellow fauna…to make his case that humans are hard-wired to be humane.”