Kindness as self-defence – the power of ‘non-complementary behaviour’

People instinctively reciprocate anger with anger and kindness with kindness, but what happens when someone breaks this ‘complementary behaviour’ chain? Using the story of a home robbery that was disarmed by an offer of wine as a starting point, this cleverly conceived video investigates the surprising power of non-complementary behaviour to diffuse small-scale conflicts and even completely restructure societies. The audio in this video is excerpted from a full-length episode of NPR’s Invisibilia podcast.