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Pay it forward

Pay it forward is an expression for describing the beneficiary of a good deed repaying the kindness to others rather than paying it back to the original benefactor. It is also called serial reciprocity.

This article is about the philosophy. For other uses, see Pay it forward (disambiguation).

The concept is old, but the particular phrase may have been coined by Lily Hardy Hammond in her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight.[1] Robert Heinlein's 1951 novel Between Planets helped popularize the phrase.[2]


"Pay it forward" is implemented in contract law of loans in the concept of third party beneficiaries. Specifically, the creditor offers the debtor the option of paying the debt forward by lending it to a third person instead of paying it back to the original creditor. This contract may include the provision that the debtor may repay the debt in kind, lending the same amount to a similarly disadvantaged party once they have the means, and under the same conditions. Debt and payments can be monetary or by good deeds. A related type of transaction, which starts with a gift instead of a loan, is alternative giving.

1999 novel, film and subsequent projects[edit]

In 1999, Catherine Ryan Hyde's novel Pay It Forward was published and then adapted in 2000 into a film of the same name, distributed by Warner Bros. and starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment. In Ryan Hyde's book and movie, it is described as an obligation to do three good deeds for others in response to a good deed that one receives. Such good deeds should accomplish things that the other person cannot accomplish on their own. In this way, the practice of helping one another can spread geometrically through society, at a ratio of three to one, creating a social movement with an impact of making the world a better place.


The Pay it Forward Movement and Foundation[15] was founded in the USA helping start a ripple effect of kindness acts around the world. The newly appointed president of the foundation, Charley Johnson, had an idea for encouraging kindness acts by having a Pay it Forward Bracelet[16] that could be worn as a reminder. Since then, over a million Pay it Forward bracelets have been distributed in over 100 countries sparking acts of kindness. Few bracelets remain with their original recipients, however, as they circulate in the spirit of the reciprocal or generalized altruism.


In 2007, International Pay It Forward Day[17] was founded in Australia by Blake Beattie. It has now spread to 70 countries with over 50 state and city proclamations. It is estimated that it has inspired over five million acts of kindness and has featured on 7, 9, 10, ABC, NBC, Fox 5, Fox 8 and Global News in Canada.


On April 5, 2012, WBRZ-TV, the American Broadcasting Company affiliate for the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, did a story on The Newton Project,[18] a 501(c)(3) outreach organization created to demonstrate that regardless of how big the problems of the world may seem, each person can make a difference simply by taking the time to show love, appreciation and kindness to the people around them. It is based on the classic pay-it-forward concept, but demonstrates the impact of each act on the world by tracking each wristband with a unique ID number and quantifying the lives each has touched. The Newton Project's attempt to quantify the benefits of a Pay It Forward type system can be viewed by the general public at their website.

Public health and medicine[edit]

Pay it forward has also been used in medicine and public health. In this context, a person is offered a free health service (a test or vaccine), then asked if they would like to donate money or non-monetary support to spur subsequent uptake of services.[19] Several clinical trials suggest that this approach can increase test uptake.[20][21] More research is needed to understand how this could be scaled up.[22]

Experiments and explanations[edit]

Several experiments document that individuals pay forward in the sense that they pass on a behavior that they have experienced. Individuals who are given more money are, for example, more likely to donate to a stranger.[26] Individuals who are assigned easy tasks are more like to assign someone else to an easy tasks.[27] Finally, drivers who experience that others are insisting on their right of way are more likely to insist on their right of way.[28]


Two explanations for the observed paying-it-forward have been considered. Evolutionary biologists and psychologists argue that being helped or harmed leads to an emotional reaction such as gratitude or anger, which in turn trigger the respective behavior.[29] [30] Being given an annoying task renders an individual angry and this is why she assigns an annoying task to the next person. Alternatively, individuals may learn from their experience what seems to be appropriate behavior (social learning theory). Being given an annoying task indicates to the individual that this assignment is adequate in this context. This then leads the individual to assign the annoying task to the next person.


Schnedler (2020) finds that individuals no longer pay forward if behavior cannot be directly imitated. This suggests that at least in the experiments so far paying forward is driven by social learning rather than emotions.[31]

Charity (practice)

Cool To Be Kind

Feed the Deed

Free Money Day

Gift economy

Random act of kindness

Reciprocity (social psychology)

Reciprocity (cultural anthropology)

Six degrees of separation

Social business

Social responsibility

Suspended coffee

Pay it Forward Day UK

International Pay it Forward Day

Pay It Forward Life

Pay It Forward movie