Compassion Journal

"The highest realms of thought are impossible to reach without an understanding of compassion." -Socrates
  • About
  • Compassion Journal Articles
    • Compassion in Action
    • Books
    • Science
    • Personal Stories
    • Business
    • History
    • Film
  • Masthead
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / Archives for Science

Brain’s Response to the Good News of Others

October 15, 2015 By Journal of Neuroscience, University College London

The way our brain responds to others’ good fortune is linked to how empathetic people report themselves to be, according to new UCL-led research.

The study, published today in the Journal of Neuroscienceand funded by the Medical Research Council, shows that a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) seems particularly attuned to other people’s good news, but how it responds varies substantially depending on our levels of empathy.

For people who rated themselves as highly empathetic, the ACC responded only when another person had good news coming, but for people who gave themselves lower empathy scores, the ACC also responded when bad news was predicted for themselves.

This new insight could prove important in understanding the role of the ACC in disorders of social behaviour and empathy, including psychopathy and autism. Further studies could focus on how the brain responds to our own success compared to others’ in people with these disorders.

Researchers scanned the brains of 30 male volunteers aged 19-32 using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they saw symbols that predicted how likely either they or another person was to win money.

Participants also completed a questionnaire that assessed their empathy level in the week before they had the scan.

“We looked at how this brain response varied in people with different levels of empathy. We wanted to see whether the brains of people who have high levels of empathy are particularly responsive to other people’s good fortune” said lead author Patricia Lockwood, UCL Psychology & Language Sciences.

The study found that the ACC region of the brain activated in all the volunteers when someone else was very likely to win money. However, there were substantial differences in how ‘specialised’ this ACC response was, which were linked to how empathetic participants said they were.

Participants whose ACC activation was the most specialised for other people showed an ACC response only when the other person was very likely to win money. These volunteers had rated themselves as high in empathy.

However, participants whose ACC activation was less specialised for other people also showed an ACC response when they themselves were very unlikely to win money. These participants had given themselves much lower empathy scores.

“We were excited to find that differences in how empathetic people were changed how ‘specialised’ the ACC was when responding to other people’s rewards,” said Professor Essi Viding, the senior author of the study.

“Future research is needed to determine whether this degree of specialization also relates to other traits besides empathy, such as how competitive people are.”

Further research is also needed to examine how real life social interactions can be influenced by how specialised this area of the brain is, and whether these results can help to explain why some people only feel happy for others’ success when they feel successful themselves.

This article first appeared in http://medicalxpress.com/. 

 

Filed Under: Science

Are We Born Vengeful?

September 15, 2015 By Jenn Knudsen

What comes more naturally: To punish a thief—or to help her victim?

That’s the question tackled in a first-of-its-kind study published in the journal Current Biology. “Until recently,” the researchers write, “little attention has been paid to how punishment and a sense of justice develop in children.”

To find the answer, the researchers created experiments for children ages three to five that are similar to those previously tested on our evolutionary cousins, chimpanzees.

With their cohort of 137 children, the authors placed a single child and two puppets at a table, and put into motion scenarios that mimicked some societally recognized wrongs, such as theft and unfair treatment.

For example, a child seated at a table with two puppets would witness goods being taken away by one puppet from the other, or by a puppet from the child himself.

Dr. Keith Jensen is one of the study’s authors and a lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester. In an email, he points out that one of the study’s key outcomes is that many preschoolers in the former scenario showed outright concern for the victim who was thieved. The children tried to restore the filched object to the upset puppet rather than punish the thief-puppet.

Why would a child—here acting as an “observer” or “bystander”—bother to intervene and help the puppet-victim?

“There are famous examples where, even as adults, we don’t,” Jensen says. “What is particularly reassuring is that children do respond strongly to the needs of others.”

In similar studies with chimpanzees, the bystander watches passively as an injustice occurs, not acting to help the victim. Or, as a matter of copycat behavior, the chimp takes the desired object herself, believing it’s OK to do so.

By contrast, Jensen notes that human children in most cultures learn at a very young age that stealing is bad.

Many in the study became very aware that taking away from someone an important item like food or a toy is bad, as it causes anguish. To remedy the other’s woe, the children would restore the object to the wronged puppet or instead cache it in his “cave.”

“It seems the concern for the distressed puppet was just so strong, the children felt the need to do something,” Jensen reports.

And this tendency should be nurtured, he says. “[W]e could build on the natural inclination of young children to help others and their sensitivity to distress.”

Practically speaking, on a playground, for instance, where a modicum of the world’s rough-and-tumble nature often transpires, “The parent or teacher could ask the observing child (say, of a pushing incident) to help them help the victim and focus more on the good they can do,” Jensen explains.

Should an injustice never be punished? The researchers agree that when consequences are warranted, they should be put in place. But they argue that punishment should take a back seat to shoring up innate kindness.

“[T]his has important implications for the evolution of cooperation,” says Jensen. His co-authors are Drs. Katrin Riedl, Michael Tomasello, and Josep Call, all from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, Germany.

Jensens concludes: “The natural justice of younger kids is what we should nurture first.”

This article first appeared in http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/. 

Filed Under: Science

Compassion is Guaranteed to Make You More Attractive

August 15, 2015 By Hendrie Weisinger

Flash back to ancient times, as two young cave dwellers return home from a hunt to report separately to their mates, “I didn’t do well. I caught nothing. Everyone else got something.” The cavewoman who stroked her partner’s face soothingly and said, “Don’t worry, you will be the best tomorrow. I know you will. I believe you will,” both supported him and strengthened their bond. The cavewoman who retorted, “You caught nothing?! How could you catch nothing?!” did the opposite.

Eons later, when these couples’ descendants attended a conference in Las Vegas, which do you think had a better time?

We all want to be attractive to our mate; we all want our mate to desire us. And while a look in the mirror might lead you to think you’re a beauty, if you’re an unsupportive husband or wife, you’re more likely a beast.

Being supportive to your partner when she or he is feeling down or has experienced a setback rebuilds their confidence, and it is confidence, and the positive feelings it breeds, that fuels their belief that they can rebound and be more successful tomorrow. This is one of the evolutionary functions of support: It helps people recover from adversity and increases their chances to survive. Being a supportive mate makes you moreattractive because, over time, a supportive partner is perceived as a confidence builder.

We all want to feel confident, so it is only natural that we would be attracted to people whobuild our confidence. “I couldn’t have done it without my spouse,” is an homage to the supportive partner. Being supportive to a partner makes you desirable; he or she wants to be with you because your support provides them with positive energy. And there is overwhelming contemporary research indicating that marital discord is often rooted in a lack of support.

How do you express support to your partner (or, for that matter, to your child, assistant, staff, or team)? One way is to be encouraging by making direct statements that you believe in their ability to be successful in their endeavors. Be a positive thinker for them, especially when they have setbacks—because your support helps them make a comeback.

When your partner experiences success, express pride; too many people feel threatened by a partner’s accomplishments. And when he or she comes to you with a problem or shares a troublesome situation from work or with a friend, demonstrate support by simply listening in a non-evaluative manner. Help him or her clarify and validate feelings, and help them problem solve—if asked. Too many of us respond too quickly with “solutions” or with blame for the individual for creating the plight, or are simply dismissive—“It’s not a big deal. Forget about it.”

 

The article first appeared in https://www.psychologytoday.com.

Filed Under: Opinion, Science

Innate Compassion and Restorative Justice

July 15, 2015 By Mary Papenfuss

Toddlers are compassionate. Young children apparently have an innate sense of justice, and they’re more interested in setting things right than in punishing wrongdoers, researchers have discovered.

Children 3 and 5 years old who watched different scenarios involving puppets, toys and cookies quickly determined whether or not a “master puppet” was being mean and who was the rightful owner of certain toys or cookies, according to a new study at the University of Manchester in England. And they were much more concerned with restorative justice than with retributive justice. They tended to restore order by returning an item to its owner rather than doling out punishment to thieves or cheaters, said researchers.

The three-year-old children in particular “didn’t seem to want to punish; they wanted to help as much as they could,” a co-author tells Live Science. “If the only thing they could do was punish the thief, they would just cry.”

The study demonstrated that children tend to pay most attention to “what happened to the victim, and they want to make sure they are OK in the end,” said Katherine McAuliffe, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at Yale University.

The Manchester researchers concluded that children “from a very young age, have some sense of justice, in the sense that they’ll treat others as they expect themselves to be treated,” said study co-author Keith Jensen. Children in the study were just as concerned about puppets losing a toy as they were about themselves.

Youngsters also seem to be strongly motivated by empathy and the distress of others, rather than a normative sense of right and wrong, such as the notion that “stealing is always wrong,” Jensen said.

Other research has shown that babies as young as eight months old can identify, and seek to punish, wrongdoers. Babies will snatch treats away from nasty puppets they had seen previously yelling at another puppet, according to a 2011 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The new research suggests toddlers have an innate aptitude for both justice and empathy.

 

This article first appeared in http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/.

Filed Under: Science

Training Compassion

June 1, 2015 By John Hoffmire

Compassion, often reckoned to be the “highest personal virtue,” is held to embody the very essence of humanity. It is widely attributed to play a fundamental role in pro-social behavior, cooperation and human morality. But there is compelling evidence that the “compassionate instinct” to care and cooperate is not the sole preserve of humans. Across species — from elaborate elephant funeral rituals to kindness of dolphins in rescuing swimmers from sharks and guiding stranded whales back to sea — compassion is vividly manifested in a range of settings. As Darwin surmised long ago — sympathy is our strongest instinct.

A revealing experiment by Elizabeth Dunn, published in Science, showed that participants who had spent money on others felt significantly happier than those who had spent the money on themselves. Brain imaging studies reveal that compassion activates the “pleasure centers” of the brain associated with reward. Steve Cole has found that social connection strengthens our immune system as the genes impacted by social connection are the same ones responsible for immune function. We are designed to care and to connect. By helping others we help ourselves, improving our health and even our longevity. “Survival of the kindest” is more apt for the collective flourishing of our species than “survival of the fittest.”

And yet, in innumerable contexts, self-serving interests can override compassion as we are overwhelmed by the stresses, pressures and experiences of everyday life. Loneliness, isolation and depression can, in part, be explained by a decline in social connectedness — 25 percent of Americans say that they have no one in whom to confide. The consequent stress exacts significant costs. There is a 46 percent increase in health care costs associated with workplace stress. By one estimate, stress in the workplace costs corporations approximately $7,500 per employee per year.

However, the good news is that although compassion is a naturally evolved and adaptive trait, it can be deepened by training and elicited quite rapidly. Developments in neuroscience have shown that the brain is plastic and malleable, offering the promise of change, growth and understanding. Interventions such as the Stanford Compassion Cultivation Training Program, a completely secular synthesis of Eastern contemplative practices and Western psychology, can help change how we respond to adversity. The training emphasizes compassion, both to oneself and others, and thereby activates perspective and resilience indispensable to effective decision-making and moral sensibilities.

Research by Northeastern University professor David DeSteno suggests that a sense of connection with others is more likely to make us compassionate.

Compassion training extends beyond merely invoking empathy and concern for others but seeks to infuse the strength to be present with suffering, the courage to take compassionate action, and the flexibility to prevent compassion fatigue. These qualities, in turn, support a broad array of goals such as improving personal and professional relationships and making a positive difference in the world.

Compassion is not limited to the personal level of our individual relationships but can also permeate the interaction of societies and cultures with one another. In substantive ways, the vicious cycles of poverty, ecological catastrophe and wars also arise from the lack of compassion. Of course compassion, on its own, will not totally overcome all that afflicts people, individually and collectively. However, it will certainly dictate the fate of our world in significant ways. As social psychologist and sociologist Rob Willer says, “Given how much is to be gained through generosity, social scientists increasingly wonder less why people are ever generous and more why they are ever selfish.”

 

John Hoffmire is director of the Impact Bond Fund at Saïd Business School at Oxford University and directs the Center on Business and Poverty at the Wisconsin School of Business at UW-Madison. He runs Progress Through Business, a nonprofit group promoting economic development. Pankaj Upadhyay, Hoffmire’s colleague at Progress Through Business, did the research for this article.
This article was originally published at national.deseretnews.com.

Filed Under: Health, Opinion, Science

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • Next Page »

Archives

  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • April 2014
  • December 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2012
  • Getting Care
  • Research
  • Education & Training
  • Community
  • About Us