State of Kindness: A Mixed-Methods Reasoned Action Approach to Understanding Prosocial Communication in a Substance Use Recovery Center for Women

When she first introduced the State of Kindness project, Dr. Jeannette Maré at the University of Arizona asked a simple question: What does kindness look like in a women’s recovery community—and how can it help people heal?

This question became the foundation of a collaboration between the Science of Kindness Community Collective and The Haven, a Tucson-based substance use recovery center for women. Led by Dr. Maré and supported by the Mental Research Institute, the project used behavioral science to illuminate something profoundly human: how prosocial communication—acts of kindness, inclusion, and support—shapes the path of recovery.

Through focus groups with 54 participants—residents, staff, and board members—The Haven community explored the many ways kindness shows up in daily life. Participants described moments that made them feel seen and valued: a staff member’s smile, a friend’s listening ear, a space that felt calm and welcoming.

These experiences were then analyzed using a mixed-methods framework grounded in the Reasoned Action Approach and Social Ecological Models. The process surfaced seven “kinds of kindness,” ranging from friendly gestures and inclusive behaviors to acts of emotional support and the role of physical spaces in communicating care.

Community members rated how important and how present these behaviors were in their environment. The results revealed both strengths—like fairness and friendliness—and opportunities for growth, particularly in communication effort, emotional support, and attention to the recovery environment itself.

The data told a story, but so did the people.

In the language of behavioral science, kindness is a prosocial act—a behavior that benefits others. But in the language of lived experience, it is something more elemental. For the women of The Haven, kindness is a condition for recovery: it builds trust, signals safety, and restores belonging after trauma and disconnection.

This insight reframes kindness not as “extra,” but as essential—a protective health behavior that undergirds emotional and social healing. It reminds us that change in recovery doesn’t happen in isolation; it happens in relationships, in community, and in culture.

The final product of this collaboration is the Kindness Implementation and Evaluation Guide—a practical, community-built roadmap for embedding kindness into The Haven’s everyday practices and organizational systems.

The guide offers:

  • A shared framework for understanding seven kinds of kindness;

  • Behavioral strategies rooted in science but shaped by the community’s voice;

  • Skill-building activities on emotion awareness, listening, and person-centered support;

  • Reflection and feedback tools, including a Kind Climate Survey and storytelling prompts.

The guide is more than a deliverable—it is a mirror. It reflects back the wisdom of the community and the possibility of institutionalizing compassion in concrete, measurable ways.

  • With the guide in hand, The Haven is taking deliberate steps to nurture a culture of kindness:

  • Hosting kickoff sessions to share findings and celebrate community strengths;

  • Offering trainings that deepen empathy, listening, and responsiveness;

  • Creating visible “Kind Walls” and story-sharing rituals to normalize kind behaviors;

  • Improving physical spaces to communicate warmth and care;

  • Gathering ongoing feedback to measure and sustain progress.

Each of these steps moves the organization toward what the research—and the women themselves—affirmed: kindness is recovery in action.

For MRI, the State of Kindness project embodies our mission to bridge scientific understanding and human experience. It illustrates how behavioral research can become lived practice, and how communities can co-create the conditions that support healing.

Dr. Maré’s work and The Haven’s engagement show that when people define kindness together, they create not only a framework for behavior—but a fabric of connection that strengthens recovery itself.

Sophie Suberville