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Ever heard the phrase, “New Yorkers are kind but not nice”? It’s a common stereotype that those living in the Big Apple are rude and crass but kind. You might be thinking: well, you can’t be kind if you’re not nice.

Contrary to popular opinion, kindness is not synonymous with niceness. In fact, some say to be nice is to be superficially pleasant while to be kind is to genuinely care about the well-being of others. But how true is this claim, really? Below, we lay out the differences between niceness and kindness.

Niceness and Kindness: The Key Differences 

Are you nice or are you kind? Well, according to Cynthia Vejar, PhD, LPC, an associate professor and the director of three counseling programs at Lebanon Valley College, “Niceness [is a] kind of outer layer of engagement with the world and with people around you.” Kindness, in comparison, “is more internal [on a] deeper level.”

Molly Burrets, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California, sees the difference between niceness and kindness as something deeply tied to motivation and intention. 

“Niceness is primarily focused; it has this extrinsic emphasis on what my behavior looks like to other people on the outside and from the outside,” she says, “whereas kindness is less about what it looks like on the outside and more about the intention behind the behavior. I call it a sort of intrinsic focus as opposed to an extrinsic focus.”

Burrets also points out that just because something is kind, doesn’t mean it will inherently come across as nice. “When you end a relationship directly and clearly when you know that it’s over, that is a kindness that doesn’t look nice from the outside,” she notes.

Examples of Niceness vs. Kindness

One example of how everyday people extend kindness towards each other is an account on Threads called Tiny Kindnesses. The project is the accumulation of stories, submitted by readers, where they describe a tiny act that made their day. Sometimes, it’s people offering a gentle word or two of encouragement, other times it’s someone creating a meal delivery for a person postpartum. Occasionally, it’s just a tiny footnote on the overall goodness of humanity. 

An example of niceness, in comparison, is if someone asks if their haircut looks bad, and it does, but you still say it looks great. Whereas, if you were kind, you would say something like, “Ehh, you know it may not be the best haircut you’ve ever gotten but it’ll grow out well and you are so beautiful, you make it work!”

Effects on Mental Health and Emotional Intelligence

Did you know there’s a relationship between kindness and emotional intelligence? Yep, Burrets says that your level of emotional intelligence can make a significant difference in how you perceive and act upon niceness and kindness.

“The more emotional intelligence you have, the more likely you are to be able to discern between niceness and kindness, and the more likely you are to be able to choose kindness, even when it is the more difficult choice to make,” she notes. In other words, depending on how easy it is for you to process your emotions, regulate your feelings, and communicate, you can discern when someone is being nice versus kind. Plus, you can determine when to be kind vs. nice in appropriate situations.

Kindness, Niceness, and Their Role on Relationships

Recognizing kindness and being kind isn’t just an indicator of your EQ, either. It also plays a *huge* role in the success of your relationships. For example, Verjar says trust issues and conflict can arise in romantic relationships where one partner is met “with a lack of kindness.“

“I’ve seen situations where somebody engages with somebody who’s nice, and then the person’s not kind, and then they make assumptions about other nice people,” she explains. “They think, ‘Oh, if a person’s nice, that means they’re fake.’ And of course, that may or may not be true.”

Using “Niceness” to Manipulate

There’s also the issue of niceness being used as “symbolic violence” to control and manipulate others.

The stereotype of the angry Black woman or the bitter disabled person can be traced back to this pervasive societal idea that you must be nice to receive care and compassion. It’s important to know how niceness can be used against people across many lines including gender, Burret explains.

“People who are in positions of authority or have more power, people from dominant groups, can use niceness as a mask or a cover-up for doing things that are actually harmful to people that are in marginalized groups,“ she says. “And then when people that identify with marginalized groups respond in a not nice way, their lack of niceness is weaponized against them.”

How to Develop Kindness and Identify It in Another Person

As with many aspects of personal development, part of cultivating kindness is self-reflection and mindfulness. One way of developing mindfulness is by “thinking about your feelings and behaviors,” which will help you “build awareness and emotional intelligence to help you discern between niceness and kindness,” explains Burrets.

Similarly, being self-reflective can look like being more present and asking yourself deep open-ended questions like “What could I have done differently today?” or “How did X event make me feel?” It can also include journaling your feelings, taking a stroll in nature, or even practicing meditation. Just sitting in silence for five minutes and letting your thoughts gather is great to reflect on yourself and your feelings.

Overall, being reflective and aware of your feelings is a great step towards being mindful and considerate (AKA kind) to others. As the saying goes, “Treat others how you would want to be treated.”

Bottom Line

Niceness is often based on outward appearance to others whereas kindness comes from within. It’s an intrinsic motivator to be the type of person you want to be, regardless of how people see you. And look, being kind can be hard, especially if you care what people think of you. But sometimes the kindest thing to do isn’t to be nice, but genuine. So, extend yourself (and others!) some much needed-kindness. It beats being nice any day.

I don’t know about you but I initially found meditation incredibly difficult to understand. I have a physical disability and multiple mental health conditions, including depression and an anxiety disorder. Even my physical disability, cerebral palsy, is inherently tied to my brain. Some days, to call me a mess is an understatement, but at least my brain damage is visible on a scan. In my mid-20s through five-ish years ago—meditation as a treatment option seemed not just sensible, but inevitable. If everyone else was doing it—even on the Canadian prairies where I live—why wasn’t I?

However, when I was first asked to try mindfulness meditation, I was at a loss. What do you mean you want me to sit here, and imagine the traffic floating by, and contemplate my thoughts without getting into those imaginary cars? What if I wanted to get into one of those cars? What if they were going somewhere cool? What if the vehicle was self-driving? What if they were going to San Francisco? I’d love to go to San Francisco. Sometimes, my mind would float away to my to-do list, or my day job at the time working at an arts non-profit, or the weather, or anything but the calmness I was supposed to focus on.

I eventually did find a mindfulness practice that worked for me, yoga nidra, but that was after many months of trial and error. Here’s hoping this article can help you find a meditation practice for your mental health a little smoother and easier. 

How Meditation Can Help With Depression

The causes of depression are complicated and not fully understood, Some point to genetics, others to physiology, and factors such as stress and anxiety. Brent Nelson, MD, an interventional psychiatrist and the chief medical officer at PrairieCare, says that for him, the focus on the brain is a helpful framework to understand how meditation can help with depression.

“The brain has 100 billion neurons with 100 trillion connections, so it’s very complicated,” Nelson says. “And the cause of depression is still yet to be fully understood, but we know it’s a complex process. It’s often interleaved with other things such as anxiety or trauma, and really, for a lot of people, is a function of stress meeting, maybe, an underlying genetic predisposition.”

Nelson tells Verywell Mind that he often starts patients with mindfulness meditations.

“A lot of times we will start with mindfulness meditation because what it really can let people do is get their brain to be more connected, kind of in the moment, in the here and now, and less so in the distant past or anxiety over the future, which often can be a challenge in depression,” he adds.

Julie Potiker, a certified mindful self-compassion teacher of the UCSD’s Center for Mindfulness believes that meditation is a key reason why she was able to recover from her bouts with depression.

“It’s not at all like loosey-goosey or woo woo, or anything like that… I used to be a clinically depressed person, and I used to take antidepressants, and I had postpartum depression, so I’m really a poster child for this…Mindful self-compassion, that’s what I leaned into, and that’s why I became a teacher of it, and then that’s why I became certified in it,” she says.

How to Get Started

Potiker, who tends to focus initially on a loving-kindness meditation, says that zeroing in on self-compassion and gratitude can be especially valuable for those facing depression, in her experience. In terms of getting started, her recent advice to someone she supports—rather than building up meditation to be a big burdensome practice—was to start small. 

“I talked to her about little micro-moments, trying to do it once an hour,” Potiker explains. “Where you either look out the window or you take a walk, or you play one of your favorite songs, or something that makes your body feel good, and you enrich it and absorb it for moments, I don’t mean minutes, and you just really feel because it just folds right into gratitude.”

What Types of Meditation Work Best

A 2015 analysis looked at seven different meditation techniques and their effectiveness. Those included:

Nelson says that, when in doubt, patients should refer back to the medical professionals supporting them. He says this can include asking your care team about local resources, including regional centers tied to local universities that are studying and implementing meditation strategies for those with mental health disorders.

“It’s always going back to your treatment team, and having a multi-specialty treatment team that can really look at this particular unique individual from a few different perspectives and help give good, reliable guidance,” Nelson adds.

Tips for Meditation Success

Meditation can help mitigate depression symptoms when used in conjunction with a professional treatment plan. Here are some tips to get the most out of your practice:

• Speak to a professional: Meditation is only a smaller part of a broader care plan including medication, therapy, and lifestyle changes. Make sure you are working with an accredited and recommended practitioner.
• Focus on something you can sustain: You don’t need to have a perfect meditation practice and it may take time to find the right type of meditation that works for you.
• Make sure you’re in a safe space: If you’re triggered by the type of meditation you are doing, and if you feel unsafe, find a way to self-regulate. This might look like leaving the session, getting a drink of water, or trying an entirely different type of meditation.