The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea From expressing gratitude to surprising someone with a mug of hot chocolate on a cold day, adults tend to underestimate how positively others will respond to their random acts of kindness. I’m a behavioral scientist who teamed up with my research partner Nicholas Epley on research that showed how children and teens share this misunderstanding. We gave 101 kids who were 4-17 years old and 99 adults who were visiting.