importance of compassion essay

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The impact of helping others – a deep dive into the benefits of providing support to those in need.

Compassion is a virtue that ignites the flames of kindness and empathy in our hearts. It is an innate human quality that has the power to bring light into the lives of those in need. When we extend a helping hand to others, we not only uplift their spirits but also nourish our own souls. The act of kindness and compassion resonates in the depths of our being, reminding us of the interconnectedness and shared humanity we all possess.

In a world that can sometimes be filled with hardships and struggles, the power of compassion shines like a beacon of hope. It is through offering a listening ear, a comforting embrace, or a simple gesture of kindness that we can make a profound impact on someone else’s life. The ripple effect of compassion is endless, as the seeds of love and understanding we sow in others’ hearts continue to grow and flourish, spreading positivity and light wherever they go.

The Significance of Compassionate Acts

Compassionate acts have a profound impact on both the giver and the receiver. When we extend a helping hand to others in need, we not only alleviate their suffering but also experience a sense of fulfillment and purpose. Compassion fosters a sense of connection and empathy, strengthening our bonds with others and creating a more caring and supportive community.

Moreover, compassionate acts have a ripple effect, inspiring others to pay it forward and perpetuate kindness. One small act of compassion can set off a chain reaction of positive deeds, influencing the world in ways we may never fully realize. By showing compassion to others, we contribute to a more compassionate and understanding society, one that values empathy and kindness above all else.

Understanding the Impact

Helping others can have a profound impact not only on those receiving assistance but also on the individuals providing help. When we lend a hand to someone in need, we are not just offering material support; we are also showing compassion and empathy . This act of kindness can strengthen bonds between individuals and foster a sense of community .

Furthermore, helping others can boost our own well-being . Studies have shown that acts of kindness and generosity can reduce stress , improve mood , and enhance overall happiness . By giving back , we not only make a positive impact on the lives of others but also nourish our own souls .

Benefits of Helping Others

There are numerous benefits to helping others, both for the recipient and for the giver. Here are some of the key advantages:

• Increased feelings of happiness and fulfilment
• Improved mental health and well-being
• Building stronger connections and relationships with others
• Reduced stress levels and improved self-esteem
• Promoting a sense of purpose and meaning in life
• Contributing to a more compassionate and caring society

By helping others, we not only make a positive impact on the world around us but also experience personal growth and benefits that can enhance our overall happiness and well-being.

Empathy and Connection

Empathy plays a crucial role in our ability to connect with others and understand their experiences. When we practice empathy, we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes and try to see the world from their perspective. This act of compassion allows us to build a connection based on understanding and mutual respect.

By cultivating empathy, we can bridge the gap between different individuals and communities, fostering a sense of unity and solidarity. Empathy helps us recognize the humanity in others, regardless of their background or circumstances, and promotes a culture of kindness and inclusivity.

Through empathy, we not only show compassion towards those in need but also create a supportive environment where everyone feels valued and understood. It is through empathy that we can truly make a difference in the lives of others and build a more compassionate society.

Spreading Positivity Through Kindness

One of the most powerful ways to help others is by spreading positivity through acts of kindness. Kindness has the remarkable ability to brighten someone’s day, lift their spirits, and create a ripple effect of happiness in the world.

Simple gestures like giving a compliment, lending a helping hand, or sharing a smile can make a significant impact on someone’s life. These acts of kindness not only benefit the recipient but also bring a sense of fulfillment and joy to the giver.

When we choose to spread positivity through kindness, we contribute to building a more compassionate and caring society. By showing empathy and understanding towards others, we create a supportive environment where people feel valued and respected.

Kindness is contagious and has the power to inspire others to pay it forward, creating a chain reaction of goodwill and compassion. By incorporating acts of kindness into our daily lives, we can make a positive difference and help create a better world for all.

Creating a Ripple Effect

When we extend a helping hand to others, we set off a chain reaction that can have a profound impact on the world around us. Just like a stone thrown into a calm pond creates ripples that spread outward, our acts of compassion can touch the lives of many, inspiring them to do the same.

By showing kindness and empathy, we not only make a difference in the lives of those we help but also create a ripple effect that can lead to positive change in our communities and beyond. A small gesture of kindness can ignite a spark of hope in someone’s heart, motivating them to pay it forward and spread compassion to others.

Each act of generosity and care has the power to create a ripple effect that can ripple outwards, reaching far beyond our immediate circles. As more and more people join in this chain of kindness, the impact multiplies, creating a wave of positivity that can transform the world one small act of kindness at a time.

Building a Stronger Community

One of the key benefits of helping others is the positive impact it can have on building a stronger community. When individuals come together to support one another, whether it’s through acts of kindness, volunteering, or simply being there for someone in need, it fosters a sense of unity and connection. This sense of community helps to create a supportive and caring environment where people feel valued and respected.

By helping others, we also set an example for those around us, inspiring others to also lend a hand and contribute to the well-being of the community. This ripple effect can lead to a chain reaction of kindness and generosity that can ultimately make the community a better place for everyone.

Furthermore, when people feel supported and cared for by their community, they are more likely to be happier and healthier, both mentally and physically. This sense of belonging and connection can help to reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness, and can improve overall well-being.

In conclusion, building a stronger community through helping others is essential for creating a more positive and caring society. By coming together and supporting one another, we can create a community that is resilient, compassionate, and unified.

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20 Reasons Why Compassion Is So Important in Psychology

Imagine a world without Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., St. Francis of Assisi, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, and so many others.

Imagine a world without the countless individuals who risked their own lives to save others during wartime (i.e., the thousands of Holocaust martyrs listed as the Righteous Among Nations). Imagine a world without those who’ve run into burning buildings or executed other heroic feats of rescue during times of trauma. It’s unthinkable.

And what about the concept of compassion in modern everyday life? After all, if this quality has the power to inspire courageous deeds, it must also encourage all sorts of positive behaviors that have both individual and societal benefits.

This article will address these ideas by looking closely at the concept of compassion; such as its meaning, value, psychological and other benefits, and relationship to qualities that promote coping (i.e., resilience).

Empirical research examining the impact and correlates of compassion will also be included. If compassion may be perceived as a requisite for a meaningful existence and civilized society, it is indeed a concept worthy of continued discovery. So, let’s begin our inquiry into this precious quality that is compassion.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Self-Compassion Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you increase the compassion and kindness you show yourself and will also give you the tools to help your clients, students, or employees show more compassion to themselves.

This Article Contains

The concept of compassion in psychology, compassion and positive psychology, research and studies, why is compassion important and necessary, the value and power of compassion, 20 proven benefits of compassion, is compassion linked to resilience, does compassion help to deal with stress, why is compassion important in society, other common questions, 12 psychology journals on compassion, a take-home message.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

The Dalai Lama’s words are instructive because they refer to the emotional benefits of compassion to both the giver and recipient. In other words, the rewards of practicing compassion work both ways.

But what exactly is meant by ‘compassion?’ Various definitions of compassion have been proposed by researchers and philosophers. For example, in his detailed review, Cassell (2009) reported the following three requirements for compassion:

1) “That the troubles that evoke our feelings are serious;”

2) “that the sufferers’ troubles not be self-inflicted— that they be the result of an unjust fate;” and

3) “we must be able to picture ourselves in the same predicament” (p. 3).

As such, compassion is not an automatic response to another’s plight; it is a response that occurs only when the situation is perceived as serious, unjust and relatable. It requires a certain level of awareness, concern and empathy.

Consistent with the above definition, seeing a homeless man on the sidewalk will register differently depending upon how this situation is uniquely perceived by passersby. The amount of compassion elicited by others will be dependent upon how serious his situation is deemed, as well as the perceived degree of fault attributed to him for his predicament.

This example is pertinent to a quote that is prevalent in studies of compassion: “ Make no judgments where you have no compassion ” (Anne McCaffrey, goodreads.com). Judging a person’s predicament in the absence of compassion amounts to little more than judgment. Compassion can be painful to feel because it requires empathy for others, but it is also necessary because it evokes positive action.

A Look at Self-Compassion

Psychologists are also interested in the role of compassion towards oneself. When individuals view their own behaviors and shortcomings without compassion, they may ruminate about their faults and inadequacies in such a way that erodes self-esteem and happiness.

Because of the importance of self-kindness and -forgiveness to mental health, the concept of ‘ self-compassion ’ is occurring more often in the psychological literature.

Self-compassion has been defined as involving “self-kindness versus self-judgment; a sense of common humanity versus isolation, and mindfulness versus overidentification” (Neff, 2003, p. 212). It is a way of recognizing one’s inability to be perfect and to see oneself from a comforting rather than critical perspective (Neff, 2003).

Self-compassion is gaining popularity in psychology because of its reported relationships with reduced feelings of anxiety, depression, and rumination (Neff, Kirkpatrick, & Rude, 2007), as well as increased psychological wellbeing and connections with others (Neff et al., 2007; Zessin, Dickhäuser, & Garbade, 2015).

As research emerges suggesting that self-compassion represents an important protective mechanism, increased numbers of psychological interventions are including self-compassion as a key treatment component.

The field of positive psychology “ is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play ” (International Positive Psychology Association in Donaldson, Dollwet, & Rao, 2014, p. 2).

It is a field that encompasses an array of positive experiences such as contentment, optimism, and happiness which cover past, present and future timepoints; as well as individual (i.e., forgiveness) and group (i.e., civility) level traits (Kashdan, & Ciarrochi, 2013).

Considering positive psychology’s focus on the promotion of positive emotions, traits, and behaviors that ultimately foster positive wellbeing (Donaldson et al., 2014); the study of compassion fits in well with the interests of positive psychologists. The role of compassion in positive psychology is being increasingly supported by science.

In their comprehensive review of empirical studies within the positive psychology field between 1999 and 2013, Donaldson and colleagues (2014) identified 771 articles across 46 countries addressing the aims of positive psychology.

Wellbeing was the most prevalent topic studied. The researchers reported a number of studies indicating that compassion and gratitude were predictors of increased wellbeing (Donaldson et al., 2014).

Additionally, mindfulness was the most frequently researched intervention, and intensive mindfulness training was related to increases in several positive outcomes, including self-compassion. There is little doubt that compassion will continue to maintain its place in positive psychology as a quality meriting continued attention and research.

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There are a growing number of research studies examining the benefits and correlates of compassion.

The following table provides a list of 14 examples:

Increased compassion is related to increased happiness and decreased depressionShapira & Mongrain, 2010

Since Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) originally set the groundwork for the positive psychology movement 15 years ago, many exciting research studies have emerged within the field. Included within this research is the aim of increasing the understanding of important predictors of prosocial outcomes, such as compassion.

But why compassion? Seppala, Rossomando and James (2013) describe social connection as an underlying drive of human behavior, even at the physiological level. As we are a highly social species, fostering meaningful relationships is an essential aspect of healthy human adjustment.

Establishing such connections requires the ability to express care and concern for other people, as well as to identify with them. This latter concept has been termed ‘perspective taking’ (Kashdan, & Ciarrochi, 2013) and is an area of importance in relationship-building because being able to identify with another person’s feelings is strongly related to empathy.

Compassion and empathy are fundamental aspects of quality relationships as they enable kind and loving behavior. Compassionate behavior such as volunteer work also has been associated with positive outcomes such as increased academic aspirations and self-esteem among adolescents (Kirkpatrick, Johnson, & Beebe, et al., 1998), as well as improved mortality rates among older volunteers (Yum & Lightfoot, 2005).

Not only does showing compassion for others make us feel better about ourselves, but self-compassion also serves an important function for wellbeing. Unfortunately, people often disparage themselves over mistakes for which they would readily forgive others. Yet, when we look beyond our flaws and treat ourselves with forgiveness and understanding, we increase our psychological health and wellbeing.

In fact, self-compassion has been reported as more beneficial than self-esteem because it strongly enhances emotional resilience without also fostering some of the negative correlates that have been associated with self-esteem (i.e., ego-defensiveness; Neff, 2011).

The reported relationships between both compassion and self-compassion with various positive outcomes represent exciting findings for both researchers and psychologists alike.

According to the Dalai Lama:

Each of us in our own way can try to spread compassion into people’s hearts. Western civilizations these days place great importance on filling the human ‘brain’ with knowledge, but no one seems to care about filling the human ‘heart’ with compassion. This is what the real role of religion is.

(Quotegarden.com).

This quote is pertinent to the field of medicine, wherein medical school training places a strong emphasis on the attainment of knowledge— with minimal attention given to the teaching of compassion.

This lack of attention to compassion in the medical field has been reported by patients, with one survey indicating that only 53% of hospitalized patients reported experiencing compassionate care (Lown, Rosen, & Marttila, 2011).

However, for those experiencing serious or traumatic healthcare issues, bedside manner makes a huge difference in terms of the patient’s emotional and physical health. Moreover, it only takes one uncaring medical professional to discourage future trips to the doctor.

Clearly, the value and power of compassion are essential within the medical field. As patients face their pain, anxiety and fear; nurturing of the soul takes on a vital role in both healing and coping.

For example, in a 17-year longitudinal study of HIV patients, researchers found that greater giving of compassionate love and compassionate love towards oneself were predictive of longer survival (Ironson, Kremer, & Lucette, 2018). This finding is a true testament to the power of compassion.

While the value of compassion in healthcare has gained increased attention among researchers, especially in the field of nursing— it remains a neglected focus of training.

In a poignant story recently posted on Facebook (Treasureside.com), the value of compassion in the nursing field is beautifully articulated. This article chronicles a woman who lost her baby during delivery; it’s a raw and gut-wrenching description of her experience. Despite her despair, the mother used social media to convey her experience as a way of honoring the compassion of nurses.

In her ‘thank you’ letter, she expressed her gratitude to her nurses by noting the many loving and compassionate acts they displayed during her trauma. Here are a few of her expressions of appreciation toward the nurses:

• “ Thank you for being my advocate when I couldn’t speak up because I was too busy fighting for my life. ”
• “ Thank you for holding me as I wept at the burden [breast milk] I could not release. Your embrace did nothing to lighten the heaviness in my breasts, but you brought a glimmer of light into my very dark world. ”
• “ Thank you to the nurse in the ICU who came in to clean me up after my daughter died. Thank you for taking the time to help me wash my face and brush my hair. ”
• “ Thank you to the nurse who dressed my baby and took her picture. Thank you for making sure her hat didn’t cover her eyes and that her hands were positioned gracefully. ” (Treasureside.com).

This beautiful letter says everything about the necessity and power of compassion among nurses, who – especially in situations such as this one— often represent the healthcare professionals who nurture patients through their worst nightmares.

The article portrays, not just one or two compassionate nurses; but a full team of caring individuals who seemed to work together in fully embracing a devastated family’s emotional, psychological, and physical needs. These skills go well beyond medical training; they reflect a depth of understanding and sensitivity that is the epitome of kindness, generosity, and love.

Compassion has been described as the “essence of nursing” (Chambers & Ryder 2009), as it requires the ability to perceive the patient’s experience while promoting healing and alleviating suffering. Training healthcare workers in compassion becomes complex because everyone expresses and receives compassion differently.

In their qualitative study of hospital patients in the United Kingdom, Bramley and Matiti (2014) explored patients’ experiences of compassion during their nursing care.

Patients defined nursing compassion in the following ways:

1) Compassion was reported as strongly connected to care, involving encouragement, plenty of time dedicated to patients, and individualized, personal care;

2) Empathy was also considered important and included the desire for nurses to understand how the lack of compassion might feel to a patient; and

3) While the value of compassion did not waver among patients, they disagreed about whether it represents a teachable quality versus an innate trait.

The authors suggest that clinical practice emphasize the importance of nursing compassion by using compassionate care activities (i.e., hearing patient stories, role-playing compassionate behavior, etc.; Bramley and Matiti, 2014). Therapeutic materials based on Mutzel’s therapeutic relationship model have also been designed to teach student nurses how to be more compassionate and empathetic toward patients (Richardson, Percy, & Hughes, 2015).

Of course, there is no reason for compassion within healthcare to be a requirement only for nurses; doctors also have a responsibility to respond to patients in a way that reduces anxiety and promotes wellness and coping— especially for patients dealing with serious illness.

One study found that physicians significantly reduced anxiety among cancer patients by simply providing a 40-second compassion video to patients (Fogarty, Curbow, & Wingard, et al., 1999). Moreover, among patients who viewed this short video, doctors were rated as higher in caring, compassion, and warmth.

If 40-seconds of compassion can make a meaningful difference in reducing patient anxiety, why not ensure that it is consistently applied during patient-doctor conversations?

We are all familiar with the flight video instructing parents to provide oxygen for themselves before their children. This is because we can only help others if we take care of ourselves first; otherwise we have nothing to offer.

Along these lines, the notion of self-compassion is gaining increased attention in healthcare research. Doctors, nurses and other medical professionals may work long hours doing highly stressful work. Self-compassion is an important way for such healthcare professionals to practice self-care and -kindness in order to prevent burnout.

Compassion fatigue (to be subsequently described) and burnout are significant nursing stressors (Neville & Cole, 2013), with research reporting moderate to high levels of burnout among 82% of ER nurses (Hooper, Craig, Janvrin, Wetsel, & Reimels, 2010).

Visualize, for example, a nurse or physician who works a 12-hour shift in a busy emergency room. There are times when he/she may be exhausted with little time to eat; all the while experiencing the stress and sense of personal responsibility that comes with life or death situations.

By emotionally restructuring cognitions in a way that is consistent with self-compassion (i.e., by understanding that some events are beyond one’s control), the medical professional will be better able to cope with highly stressful situations.

Despite the logical justification for increased self-compassion among healthcare workers (including benefits to patients), there isn’t a great deal of research or medical training emphasis on self-compassion.

Consequently, physicians tend to instead value personal qualities such as perfectionism (Mills & Chapman, 2016), which is an important omission. After all, self-compassion predicts reduced anxiety and increased psychological wellbeing (Neff et al., 2007)— qualities that will only serve to enhance the ability of medical personnel to perform quality work.

Read more about compassion training here .

Even though self-compassion and compassion toward others are still burgeoning areas of research, many proven benefits have already been identified.

Here are 20:

• Compassion promotes social connection among adults and children. Social connection is important to adaptive human functioning, as it is related to increased self-esteem, empathy, wellbeing; and higher interpersonal orientation (Seppala et al., 2013).
• Compassion is related to increased happiness (Shapira & Mongrain, 2010).
• Compassion is related to higher levels of wellbeing (Zessin et al., 2015).
• Compassionate love is associated with higher patient survival rates, even after adjusting for social support and substance use effects (Ironson et al., 2017).
• Patient-reported clinician empathy and compassion is related to increased patient satisfaction and lower distress (Lelorain, Brédart, Dolbeault, & Sultan, 2012).
• Brief expressions of compassion expressed by doctors are related to decreased patient anxiety (Fogarty, et al., 1999).
• Compassion has a mediating effect on the link between religion and aggression among adolescents. Stated another way, a relationship between religion and aggression was diminished among youths rated higher in compassion and self-control (Shepperd, Miller, Tucker, & Smith, 2015).
• Compassion-focused therapy is reported as a promising therapeutic approach for individuals with affective disorders characterized by high self-criticism (Leaviss & Uttley, 2012).
• Compassion promotes positive parenting by improving parent-child relationships (i.e., more affection and less negative affect; Duncan, Coatsworth, & Greenberg, 2009). Consequently, there are various mindfulness-based parent training approaches and parenting books with a specific focus on compassionate parenting  (i.e., Parenting From Your Heart: Sharing the Gifts of Compassion, Connection, and Choice , Kashtan, 2004; and Raising Children Compassionately: Parenting the Nonviolent Communication Way , Rosenberg, 2004).
• Compassion within classrooms is related to increased cooperation and better learning (Hart & Kindle Hodson, 2004).
• Compassion for teachers as expressed by colleagues is linked to increased teacher job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and sense of emotional vigor (Eldor & Shoshani, 2016).
• Compassion expressed as a function of service work is related to improved health and wellbeing among volunteers (Black & Living, 2004; Yum & Lightfoot, 2005).
• Self-compassion has a number of proven psychological benefits, such as reduced PTSD symptom severity (Thompson & Waltz, 2008), and lower levels of psychopathology in general (MacBeth & Gumley, 2012).
• Self-compassion is linked to more positive aging (Phillips & Ferguson, 2013).
• The combination of self-compassion and optimism is beneficial for depression-vulnerable people (Shapira & Mongrain, 2010).
• Self-compassion during smoking cessation training is associated with reduced smoking among participants with low readiness to change, high self-criticism, and vivid imagery during the treatment program (Kelly, Zuroff, Foa, & Gilbert, 2010).
• Low habitual self-compassion and high self-criticism are related to a higher risk of depression (Ehret, Joorman, & Berking, 2014).
• Self-compassion can be linked to various aspects of general wellbeing, such as happiness, optimism, positive affect, wisdom, personal initiative, curiosity and exploration (Neff et al., 2007).
• Self-compassion reduces burnout and fosters important adaptive qualities among medical professionals (Mills & Chapman, 2016).
• Self-compassion buffers the negative impact of stress (Allen & Leary, 2010).

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Resilience is defined as “the process of, capacity for, or outcome of successful adaptation despite challenging or threatening circumstances” (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990). It is a type of mental armor that protects individuals from the impact of adversity. Along with promoting wellbeing and social connectedness, there is reason to believe that compassion also fosters resilience.

In their review article, Peters and Calvo (2014) describe compassion as the act of being sensitive to the suffering of others. The authors further note that compassion represents a form of affiliation that motivates us to help those in need. It is in this way that “ compassion triggers positive affect in the face of suffering and therefore contributes to resilience and wellbeing ” (Peters and Calvo, 2014, p. 48).

Resilience has also been proposed as important for reducing the likelihood of ‘compassion fatigue’ – which occurs among workers who deal with high trauma patients (i.e., social workers, hospice nurses, oncologists, rape victim counselors, etc.).

Compassion fatigue has also been referred to as secondary stress that occurs when compassion decreases over time for individuals in roles demanding a high level of compassion. As compassion fatigue is a precursor to burnout, it essential to take steps toward avoiding it.

Interestingly, Mother Theresa was proactive when it came to compassion fatigue, as she required her nuns to restore themselves emotionally by taking leave for a full year every 4-5 years.

Others have suggested that occupational resilience that inhibits compassion fatigue is supported by a work environment with sufficient support for self-care, self-protection, professional development, safety measures, personal experiences, and education (Kapoulitsas & Corcoran, 2014).

These findings suggest that, while compassion plays a role in promoting resilience; there is a line at which a constant need for high levels of compassion can produce burnout. Fortunately, supervisors of those with high stress helping occupations have begun to take some necessary steps toward promoting emotional health and resilience among these invaluable workers.

Several research studies have suggested that there are stress-buffering benefits of compassion. For example, one study by Pace, Tenzin Negi and Adame (2009) investigated the impact of compassion meditation— which consists of meditation that goes beyond soothing the mind by also adding a compassion-enhancement component.

More specifically, following a Tibetan Buddhist mind-training approach, the goal of compassion meditation is to challenge unexamined cognitions toward others in order to promote altruistic feelings (Pace et al., 2009).

Study participants attended twice-weekly 50-minute compassion meditation sessions for a total of six weeks, as well as additional sessions that were completed at home. The researchers found that compassion meditation participation was associated with innate immune responses to psychosocial stress (Pace et al., 2009).

A similar study examined mindfulness-based stress reduction training that consisted of sensory awareness exercises, yoga, loving-kindness meditation; as well as education regarding stress symptoms and consequences (Birnie, Speca, & Carlson, 2010). Research findings indicated that self-compassion was related to reduced stress symptoms (Birnie et al., 2010).

Laboratory studies also have reported stress-related benefits of compassion. For example, in an ego-threat experiment, self-compassion was found to protect participants from anxiety (Neff et al., 2007).

And finally, compassion was assessed among participants who completed a high-stress task. Those who were higher in compassion reported a greater degree of liking for supportive evaluators.

Compassion also interacted with social support such that those participants who were higher in compassion and received social support as part of the experiment showed less physiological stress reactivity as measured by blood pressure, HF-HRV, and cortisol reactivity (Cosley, McCoy, Saslow, & Epel, 2010).

The above studies support the notion that individuals who are high in self-compassion or compassion for others respond to stress in a healthier way than those who are lower in such constructs.

With respect to self-compassion, psychologists argue that self-compassionate individuals buffer themselves from stress by using self-kindness and positive cognitive restructuring as a way of coping with stressful situations (Allen, & Leary, 2010). More research is needed examining the link between compassion and stress, but evidence thus far provides promising support for the stress inoculating power of compassion.

The 14th Dalai Lama, known as Gyalwa Rinpoche, once said,

“ We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves .”

The inner peace this quote illustrates regards the concept of self-compassion. Self-compassion consists of three distinct constructs (Hollis-Walker & Colosimo, 2011):

• showing ourselves warmth and kindness, rather than harsh self-criticism or judgment;
• accepting that imperfection, failure, and suffering are an unavoidable part of the human condition;
• mindfully paying attention to one’s suffering in the present moment with clarity and balance.

Self-compassionate behavior has been linked to increased optimism, emotional intelligence, coping, and several physical health benefits (Neff, 2003). The 12 self-compassion techniques can be implemented to start or develop your journey to self-compassion.

In his classic song “Imagine,” John Lennon envisioned a world in which people lived peacefully without greed or hunger. He was singing about his dream for a compassionate world.

Philosophers have also shared many thoughts on compassion, such as Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), who believed that “ Compassion is the basis of all morality ” (thinkexist.com). In a compassion-based society, historical atrocities such as genocide, war, and acts of terrorism would not have happened.

Fortunately, as history is a window to the future, we can learn a great deal from it. History needs to be considered with a compassionate mindset, which includes an understanding of ongoing historical trauma. And with the hypervigilance to notice and act upon current wrongdoings such that they do not escalate, and negative historical events are not repeated.

More poignantly stated in Deuteronomy 4:9, “ Only guard yourself and guard your soul carefully, lest you forget the things your eyes saw, and lest these things depart your heart all the days of your life. And you shall make them known to your children and to your children’s children ” (Deuteronomy 4:9). This is living with compassion both for the past and the present.

Compassion is suggested as an integral component of evolution by serving to protect vulnerable offspring, promote cooperative behavior between non-family members, and encourage adaptive mate selection (Goetz, Keltner, & Simon-Thomas, 2010). Stated another way, compassion has served to enhance the survival of the human species.

Being moved by the suffering of another has always been necessary for the betterment of society and there is a multitude of modern examples where an ounce of compassion makes a world of difference. Unfortunately, research indicates modern society is showing an alarming decline in social connectedness (Seppala et al., 2013), which is a likely byproduct of the reliance on technology versus face-to-face contact.

Another area in society where increased compassion is sorely needed is driving. Road rage represents a worldwide epidemic that is responsible for millions of injuries per year (James, 2000). If compassionate driving was societally reinforced, as well as a key priority of driving schools, drivers would be less likely to berate other drivers.

Rather, they would be more inclined to understand that drivers are simply human beings who make mistakes. After all, a person who is driving too slowly or fails to signal might simply be having a really bad day. Lives would be saved, injuries avoided, and anger both expressed and modeled for children would be reduced if people would practice compassion behind the wheel.

There are numerous other areas where the suffering of others is too often viewed with an eye of judgment, rather than compassion. For example, homelessness and drug use have reached epidemic proportions in some cities, leaving politicians and citizens at a loss for what to do. There are, however, compassionate approaches that DO work.

In Seattle, WA, the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) project took a novel approach toward chronic drug-users who habitually cycle through the criminal justice system.

The LEAD philosophy is based on research indicating that continued prosecution and jail time for drug addicts fail to deter recidivism. And most importantly, the revolving door in and out of jail leaves individuals dealing with a large sequelae of serious risk factors and problems (i.e., child and/or domestic abuse, poverty, homelessness, mental illness, lack of family support, racial and cultural disparities, medical problems, lack of educational opportunities, etc.) worse off than before.

By taking both a compassionate and research-based approach, the LEAD program offered repeat offending drug users (the majority of whom were also chronically homeless) the opportunity to avoid arrest and jail time by enrolling in a cooperative effort between Seattle police officers and case managers assigned to participants.

Participants received compassion, rather than judgment; as well as the dignity to make their own treatment-related choices. The program was highly individualized and comprehensive, with each participant receiving extensive case management and supportive services specific to their own needs, and for as long as necessary.

Relative to controls, LEAD participants experienced 60% lower odds of arrest and felony charges (Collins, Lonczak, & Clifasefi, 2017), as well as a significantly greater likelihood of obtaining housing, employment and legitimate income at follow-up (Clifasefi, Lonczak, & Collins, 2016). The LEAD program— which has since been replicated in other states and countries, represents a community of compassion that works.

One of the beautiful aspects of the LEAD program is that the police offers became compassionate adversaries for many individuals who had experienced law enforcement in a very different way for much of their lives.

In their essay on “ Mindfulness, Compassion, and the Police in America ,” DeValve and Adkinson (2008) provide an argument for a new paradigm of organizational mindfulness among police.

The authors propose that police officers “ deepen their practices sufficiently to exude compassion” and institute problem-orienting policing as a way to address “economic inequality, mental illness, individual suffering, and substandard education… [while moving away from] their traditional order-maintenance worldview, and re-empower themselves to act in different (e.g., policy) spheres as well as in areas of public safety ” (DeValve & Adkinson, 2008, pgs. 100 & 102).

In line with the notion of community justice, it is proposed that Buddhist philosophy is an instructive model for law enforcement by applying mindful action toward the reduction of suffering. Not only would a compassionate-based way of policing reduce racial tensions between police and the community, but it also would “ predicate a relationship of trust, a reservoir of goodwill, to help salve the wounds of the community ” (DeValve & Adkinson, 2008, pgs. 103).

Compassion clearly holds an invaluable place in many aspects of society, such as among police officers, medical professionals, teachers, and social workers. Role models of compassion among those in power (i.e., politicians), have the capacity to dampen motivation toward hateful acts; while instead bolstering kindness, love, and understanding. Moreover, by recognizing human fallibility while considering the suffering of others with an eye toward compassion, individuals can make a difference in creating a more peaceful society.

Here is a list of frequently asked questions and answers about compassion.

1. Can compassion be learned?

Absolutely. While some of us behave more consistently compassionate than others due to upbringing and various other factors, interventions promoting compassion indicate that compassion is teachable. Moreover, such interventions have found increases in various positive factors such as social connection.

Naturally, teaching compassion should begin with young children in order to foster a trajectory toward empathy, compassion, and kindness at a time when personalities and beliefs are still developing.

2. Do other animal species have compassion?

Yes, compassion is evident among other animal species, such as monkeys, whales, elephants, and so many more. And of course, dogs and cats have been known to show endless amounts of unconditional love and compassion for humans.

3. What can I do to be more compassionate?

• Be altruistic . We can be more compassionate by moving beyond our comfort zones and helping individuals or engaging in service work as a way of helping people, animals, and our communities. Altruistic behaviors also improve the self-esteem and wellbeing of those who offer them.
• Avoid judgment. It is impossible to know the factors that have led a person toward their current predicament; nor how we would fare in the same situation. Considering our own similarities to others in need will help to promote empathy and compassion.
• Practice gratitude . Reflecting on the things in your life that you appreciate will foster a sense of compassion for those less fortunate.
• Consider Buddhism. The objective of Buddhism is to enhance one’s own wisdom, kindness and compassion; and ultimately to achieve unconditional happiness and enlightenment.
• Be kind to yourself. Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. Remember that all human beings are flawed and will make mistakes; ongoing rumination and self-loathing serves no benefit to you or anyone around you. Instead, practice self-forgiveness and coping tools that will help you to move forward in a more positive way.

4. How can I be a more compassionate parent?

Compassionate parenting is an essential component of positive parenting. Positive parents show compassion by:

• Avoiding labeling children (i.e., “the smart one,” “the athlete,” “the naughty one,” etc.), as doing so is hurtful and promotes both sibling rivalry and self-fulfilling prophecies.
• Be sensitive to your child’s developmental stage.
• Practice regular, open communication.
• Provide affection and emotional warmth.
• Empathize with your child’s feelings.
• Empower autonomy in order to support creativity, empowerment, and self-determination.
• Teach respect for other living creatures by teaching him/her how to care for and show kindness to animals.
• Practice positive discipline, which is warm and democratic, and never violent.
• Guide and teach your child by role modeling kind and compassionate behavior.
• Show optimism and help your child to believe in him/herself and the future.
• Provide unconditional love.

17 Exercises To Foster Self-Acceptance and Compassion

Help your clients develop a kinder, more accepting relationship with themselves using these 17 Self-Compassion Exercises [PDF] that promote self-care and self-compassion.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

Readers interested in finding academic articles focused on compassion might check-out the following psychological journals:

• Current Directions in Psychological Science
• Human Architecture : Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge
• Human Development
• International Journal of Human Caring
• Cognition and Emotion
• Journal of Happiness Studies
• Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
• The Journal of Positive Psychology
• Journal of Research in Personality
• Journal of Traumatic Stress
• Mindfulness
• Motivation and Emotion

Along with psychology journals, medical (especially nursing) and social work journals are also excellent resources for learning about compassion.

Here are 10 examples:

• Ethics and Social Welfare
• The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine
• Journal of Clinical Nursing
• Journal of Emergency Nursing
• Nursing Inquiry
• Palliative Medicine
• Qualitative Social Work
• Self and Identity
• Social Work
• Stress and Health

The biggest take-home message of this article is that compassion matters. There are numerous proven benefits of both self-compassion and compassion toward others, such as increased happiness, improved medical outcomes, reduced stress, reduced psychopathology, and increased social connectedness.

Compassion plays a vital role in the medical field, as well as those where workers consistently aid the suffering. Among patients, compassion has the power to increase coping and healing; and self-compassion is highly beneficial to healthcare workers. In high compassion-demanding occupations, it is essential that workers be supported such that the likelihood of compassion fatigue (e.g., burn-out) is reduced.

While some people are more compassionate than others, it is a quality that can be learned as evidenced by research interventions that have shown significant increases in compassion and related qualities.

Compassion is an essential element in society and is vital to the survival of the human race. Individuals and groups with power (i.e., police, policymakers, politicians, etc.) have an opportunity to contribute to more healthy, peaceful communities by practicing and promoting compassion. Serious societal problems (i.e., homelessness and recidivism) have been significantly reduced following compassionate, research-based interventions.

There are many ways in which individuals can practice compassion such as by being altruistic, avoiding judgment, being grateful, and by applying positive parenting techniques.

By remembering history— including where compassion was both lacking and in abundance— human beings will be more empowered to make compassionate and meaningful life choices. This is the first step toward creating the loving and peaceful society imagined by so many of us.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Self Compassion Exercises for free .

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What our readers think.

You know articles like this are a dime a dozen and always state the obvious and can actually work with relatively normal people. Compassion can be a good thing and everyone knows it. But sometimes compassion is not a good thing and can even make things worse. For example, one may give a gift out of compassion to someone may misread the intent. And, sometimes when you show compassion by helping someone, and not especially expecting a thank you, it can hurt if the help goes unrecognized. If it happens once its not too bad and you can get over it. But, if the situation continues to happen, it can make you not want to share anymore with some people.

Steve, these are great challenging reflections. Such articles can feel trite, but it’s when we really sit and examine compassion in our inner life and in our relationships, and how it works, that they become meaningful. Your described situations in which compassion leads to ‘bad’ outcomes maybe are situations where people’s expectations are unrealistic that they know best what will be helpful to others or that they are able to control others’ response. Compassion is not the problem in these situations. The trouble is a lack of discernment about what will actually be of help to the other person. Truthfully, we can never know for sure how to help, but it doesn’t mean that compassion is any less valuable as a motivation. In fact, the not knowing may make compassion all the more important. If compassion is strong, we are more likely to keep trying to figure out how to be of help, even when we fail or have our efforts ignored. Maybe we even see that we have helped, and that feels good even though our efforts are ignored by others. That we we are rewarded intrinsically, even if no one notices from the outside. Maybe we realize that the part of us that wants to be thanked is actually self-centered, so we really were not acting entirely out of compassion after all? The intrinsic desire to help is what compassion is referring to, and it need not be impacted by whether or not we are acknowledged for helping or whether we are able to help. The desire is there, and it can be cultivated and sustained, and it can be extended to be more inclusive. over time. This great article explains why this is beneficial to ourselves, not just others! To learn more about compassion experientially, perhaps see The Compassion Shift at Emory University, a training program to make sense of these things on a practical, on-the-ground level.

An exceptionally good article addressing the most urgent need of society today. Compassion to others and self will enable practitioners (anyone including parents) to view their roles and life in a balance way. Compassion to others and self are equally important for the ministers of religions and their team/associates. I personally found this article very useful because I am a parent and I work with people who have autism and severe learning disabilities.

compassion is a valuable human quality for all ( most of all those in the helping professions) As an executive coach and church counselor I am often perplexed as to the dividing line between identifying with the client and /or keeping a professional distance; such that the client has the ownership of the issue and YOU the coach/counselor is the objective observer or solution provider.

Thank you so much for your article on compassion, highlighting it’s importance in today’s COVID-19 context and how sick the world would be without compassionate people around. It is due to lack of compassion that so much of stigma is created around COVID 19. Very true. Compassion promotes personal as well as Society’s well being. Thank you again.

Hi Sr. Mary, Thank you for your kind words. Indeed, the world would do well if we all worked hard to show one another that little bit more compassion in the wake of this crisis. I hope you are keeping safe and well. – Nicole | Community Manager

Your writing on compassion is spot on. Thank you for doing this article. I am sharing it with Compassionate Pomona and Compassionate California so that others can benefit from your research. You are right that what the world needs now is compassion in action everywhere.

Hi Diana, Couldn’t agree more. We’re glad to hear that this post resonated with you, and thank you for sharing it. – Nicole | Community Manager

Is this peer reviwed journal

Its informative article thanks.

Thanks, Heather, for this great overview. Some people fear that self-compassion leads to being too lazy. While being hard on oneself is certainly no good recipe for well-being, it has worked for many to be successful. Or so it seems. Do you know of any scientific research shedding light on this issue?

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What Is Compassion?

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Signs of Compassion

Types of compassion, how to practice compassion, impact of compassion, how to be more compassionate, potential pitfalls of compassion.

Compassion involves feeling another person's pain and wanting to take steps to help relieve their suffering. The word compassion itself derives from Latin and means "to suffer together."

It is related to other emotions such as sympathy, empathy , and altruism , although the concepts have some key differences. Empathy refers more to the general ability to take another person's perspective and feel the emotions of others. Compassion, on the other hand, is what happens when those feelings of empathy are accompanied by the desire to help.

This article discusses the definition of compassion and how to recognize this emotion. It also covers some of the benefits of compassion and what you can do to become a more compassionate person.

Some signs that you have compassion for others include:

• Feeling like you have a great deal in common with other people, even if you are very different in many ways.
• Being able to understand what other people are going through and feeling their pain.
• Being mindful of other people's emotions, thoughts, and experiences.
• Taking action when you see that someone else is suffering.
• Having a high level of emotional intelligence so that you are able to understand, manage, and act on your own emotions as well as the emotions of others.
• Feeling gratitude when other people express compassion for your own hardships.

Compassion often comes in one of two forms, which vary depending on where these feelings are directed. Your experience of compassion may be either directed toward other people, or it may be directed inwardly toward yourself:

• Compassion for others : When you experience compassion for other people, you feel their pain and want to find a way to relieve their suffering. These feelings compel you to take action to do what you can to make the situation better.
• Self-compassion : This involves treating yourself with the same compassion and kindness that you would show to others. Rather than beating yourself up over mistakes you may have made in the past, you feel understanding, mindful, and accepting of yourself and your imperfections.

There are a number of different steps you can take to show compassion to others. 

• Speak with kindness
• Apologize when you've made a mistake
• Listen carefully and without judgment
• Encourage other people
• Offer to help someone with a task
• Be happy for someone else's success
• Accept people for who they are
• Forgive people for making mistakes
• Show respect
• Express gratitude and appreciation

When you practice compassion, you start by empathizing with another person's situation. You look at what they are going through without judgment and imagine how you might feel in their situation.

Compassion and empathy share common elements, but compassion goes a step beyond. Rather than just imagining yourself in their shoes, compassion drives you to take action to help that person. Because you are able to feel those emotions so keenly—almost as if it is happening to you—there is a strong motivation to find a way to change the situation or ease the other person's pain.

Compassion can have a positive impact on your life, ranging from improving your relationships to boosting your overall happiness. Some of the positive effects of compassion:

• Giving feels good : One of the reasons why compassion can be so effective is that both giving and receiving can improve your psychological well-being. Being the recipient of compassion can help you get the support you need to carry you through a difficult time. But giving compassion to others can be just as rewarding. For example, researchers have found that giving money to others who need it actually produces greater happiness rewards than spending it on ourselves.
• Compassionate people live longer : Engaging in activities such as volunteering to help those you feel compassion for can improve your longevity. One study found that people who volunteer out of concern for others tend to live longer than people who do not volunteer.
• Compassion contributes to a life of purpose : One study found that the happiness that comes from living a life of purpose and meaning—one that is fueled by kindness and compassion—can play a role in better health. In the study, participants who experience what is known as eudaimonic happiness—or the kind of happiness that comes from living a meaningful life that involves helping others—experienced lower levels of depression, stronger immunity, and less inflammation.
• Compassion improves relationships : Compassion can also help you build the social support and connections that are important for mental well-being. It can also protect your interpersonal relationships . Research suggests that compassion is a key predictor of the success and satisfaction of relationships.

According to one study published in the journal Emotion , compassion is the single most important predictor of a happy relationship. Interestingly, the study found that while people tend to gain the greatest benefits when their partner notices their acts of kindness, they actually experience benefits whether their partner notices or not. These findings suggest that compassion itself can be its own reward.

Compassion is good for both your physical and mental health. Not only that, it feels good to help others and can contribute to a greater sense of purpose and meaning in your life.

While some people tend to be more compassionate by nature, experts also suggest that there are steps you can take to cultivate a greater sense of compassion for both yourself and others:

• Bring your attention to the situation : The first component of compassion is to become more aware of what other people are experiencing. Imagine yourself in their shoes. Being able to see things from another person’s perspective can help you gain a sense of compassion for their situation. Practice putting yourself in someone else’s place and imagine how you might feel. Focus on feeling how they might be feeling.
• Let go of judgment : Accepting people as they are and avoiding judgment is important. Focus on accepting people for who they are without criticizing or blaming the victim .
• Practice mindfulness : Mindfulness is a practice of focusing on the present, becoming more aware of your own thoughts, and observing these thoughts without judging them. Research suggests that mindfulness-based interventions can be effective for improving self-compassion.
• Try loving-kindness meditation : This form of meditation, also known as compassion meditation, involves meditating while directing kind, compassionate thoughts toward yourself or others. Research suggests that this form of meditation can help people improve their connection to others and boost well-being.

One potential pitfall of compassion is that constant exposure to the distress of others may contribute to what is known as compassion fatigue.

What Is Compassion Fatigue?

Compassion fatigue involves feelings of physical and emotional exhaustion as well as a mental withdrawal from traumatized individuals. It can reduce feelings of empathy and compassion for people who are in need of help.

People who work in helping or caregiving roles (such as nurses, doctors, or emergency care workers) often experience an extreme state of tension as well as a preoccupation with those they are helping. Because of this, helpers can experience symptoms of trauma themselves, and this can potentially dampen their feelings of compassion.

Finding ways to combat compassion fatigue is particularly important in healthcare and other helping professions. Research suggests that interventions that involve mindfulness meditation can help people in these roles experience greater compassion for others, improve positive feelings, and reduce distress.

While it's good to have compassion for others, it's also crucial that you take the time you need for self-care.

A Word From Verywell

Compassion allows you to feel what others are feeling and motivates prosocial behaviors that can improve the well-being of others as well as improve your own physical and mental wellness. While some people experience compassion more often by nature, there are things that you can do to help improve your own ability to feel compassion for others.

Learning this ability takes some time and practice, but it's worth it to keep working on flexing your compassion skills. Being open to feeling what others are feeling can help you create deeper, more meaningful connections. Acting on these feelings of compassion can benefit others, but as the research suggests, sometimes compassion is its own reward.

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Sinclair S, Beamer K, Hack TF, et al. Sympathy, empathy, and compassion: A grounded theory study of palliative care patients' understandings, experiences, and preferences .  Palliat Med . 2017;31(5):437-447. doi:10.1177/0269216316663499

Dunn EW, Aknin LB, Norton MI. Prosocial spending and happiness: using money to benefit others pays off . Curr Dir Psychol Sci . 2014;23(1):41-47. doi:10.1177/0963721413512503)

Konrath S, Fuhrel-Forbis A, Lou A, Brown S. Motives for volunteering are associated with mortality risk in older adults . Health Psychology . 2012;31(1):87-96. doi:10.1037/a0025226

Fredrickson BL, Grewen KM, Coffey KA, et al. A functional genomic perspective on human well-being . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 2013;110(33):13684-13689. doi:10.1073/pnas.1305419110

Reis HT, Maniaci MR, Rogge RD. Compassionate acts and everyday emotional well-being among newlyweds . Emotion . 2017 Jun;17(4):751-763. doi:10.1037/emo0000281

Conversano C, Ciacchini R, Orrù G, Di Giuseppe M, Gemignani A, Poli A. Mindfulness, compassion, and self-compassion among health care professionals: what’s new? A systematic review . Front Psychol. 2020;11:1683. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01683

Zeng X, Chiu CP, Wang R, Oei TP, Leung FY. The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review . Front Psychol . 2015;6:1693. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01693

Cetrano G, Tedeschi F, Rabbi L, et al. How are compassion fatigue, burnout, and compassion satisfaction affected by quality of working life? Findings from a survey of mental health staff in Italy .  BMC Health Serv Res . 2017;17(1):755. doi:10.1186/s12913-017-2726-x

Cocker F, Joss N. Compassion fatigue among healthcare, emergency and community service workers: a systematic review .  Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2016;13(6):618. Published 2016 Jun 22. doi:10.3390/ijerph13060618

Klimecki OM, Leiberg S, Lamm C, Singer T. Functional neural plasticity and associated changes in positive affect after compassion training . Cereb Cortex . 2013 Jul;23(7):1552-61. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhs142

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

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• Compassion gives you purpose, is contagious, and is good for mental and physical health.

To survive and thrive as humans, we need to show up with compassion for ourselves and each other.

• We have a natural capacity to feel and care for others' pain, and when we receive care from another, it regulates our distress.

Compassion is like water. It can flow over hard rocks and into tight places and softens them over time. And just as water can create the Grand Canyon, compassion over time can lead to powerful changes inside ourselves and in our relationships. Dr. Paul Gilbert describes the Three Flows of Compassion:

• Giving compassion: Offering support and care to another person or group who is suffering
• Receiving compassion: Taking in care and help when you are struggling
• Inner compassion: Giving compassion to yourself when you are in pain

When you consider these three flows of compassion, which come more easily to you? Which are more challenging?

Why Is Compassion Important?

We were born to connect. We have a natural capacity to feel and care for others' pain, and when we receive care from another, it regulates our distress ( Jinpa 2015 ). We have a fundamental human need to join with others and a fundamental need to care for ourselves. It is through this flow of compassion that we can find purpose and meet life’s stressors with strength. There are thousands of studies on compassion, and, together, these studies show hands down that compassion is one of the most powerful agents for health and well-being (Neff 2021; Ferrari et al. 2019; Kirby, Tellegen, and Steindl 2017).

• Compassion gives you purpose: There’s nothing better than feeling useful. With compassion, you step out of self-focus and find a greater sense of meaning that extends beyond just you. Having a sense of purpose helps you live longer and supports a greater quality of life (Alimujiang et al. 2019). Having compassion for yourself also motivates you to change unhealthy behaviors and step out of environments and relationships that are harmful to you. Instead of trying to strong-arm yourself to change with self-criticism, with self-compassion, you make changes because you inherently care for your own well-being.
• Compassion is good for mental health: When we realize that we aren’t carrying our pain alone, we feel our burdens lift a little. Research into compassion shows that it is related to greater happiness and lower depression ( Shapira and Mongrain 2010 ), promotes social connection (Seppala, Rossomando, and Doty 2013), and bolsters stable feelings of self-worth (Neff and Vonk 2009). When we offer kindness for ourselves and forgiveness for our mistakes, we can step out of anxiety , rumination, and shame . For example, something as simple as writing a compassionate letter to ourselves has been found to help us better deal with distressful life events (Leary et al. 2007).
• Compassion is good for physical health: Compassion helps us feel more connected and less stressed and may protect against the health consequences of loneliness (Jinpa 2015). A study of more than 2,000 people out of the University of Chicago found that extreme loneliness was twice as likely to cause death as obesity or high blood pressure ( Cappiopo 2015 ). With compassion, you feel part of something bigger, and you feel supported in carrying life’s burdens. For example, compassion reduces physiological markers of stress (Breines et al. 2014), and individuals who score higher on compassion are better able to receive social support, which leads to a more adaptive stress response (Cosley et al. 2010). This type of connection also promotes positive aging (Phillips and Ferguson 2013) For example, volunteers live longer than nonvolunteers, but only those who volunteer for other-oriented reasons and not self-oriented reasons (Konrath et al. 2012).
• Compassion is contagious: Compassion inspires what Johnathan Haidt calls “elevation.” Seeing someone engaging in acts of human goodness and kindness creates a warm, uplifting feeling that motivates others to do the same. Compassion leads to an upward spiral of collective good. When we are compassionate, it releases the bonding hormone oxytocin and activates areas of our brain associated with pleasure (Esch and Stefano 2011). Compassion feels good because we are wired to connect.

As Thich Nhất Hạnh writes in The Art of Living , “When we can generate understanding and compassion in our way of being and working together, everyone we interact with feels that energy right away and is able to profit from it” (Hạnh 2017 p. 64).

To learn more about compassion and how to bring it into your daily life, listen to Dr. Diana Hill’s podcast Your Life in Process .

Diana Hill, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, co-author of ACT Daily Journal , and the host of the podcast Your Life in Process.

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Compassion Defined

What is compassion.

Compassion literally means “to suffer together.” Among emotion researchers, it is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.

Compassion is not the same as empathy or altruism , though the concepts are related. While empathy refers more generally to our ability to take the perspective of and feel the emotions of another person, compassion is when those feelings and thoughts include the desire to help. Altruism, in turn, is the kind, selfless behavior often prompted by feelings of compassion, though one can feel compassion without acting on it, and altruism isn’t always motivated by compassion.

While cynics may dismiss compassion as touchy-feely or irrational, scientists have started to map the biological basis of compassion, suggesting its deep evolutionary purpose . This research has shown that when we feel compassion, our heart rate slows down, we secrete the “bonding hormone” oxytocin, and regions of the brain linked to empathy , caregiving , and feelings of pleasure light up, which often results in our wanting to approach and care for other people.

For more: Learn about self-compassion and compassion fatigue . Read Dacher Keltner’s essay on “The Compassionate Instinct” and Paul Ekman’s “Taxonomy of Compassion ,” which reviews different types of compassion.

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Why Practice It?

Scientific research into the measurable benefits of compassion is young. Preliminary findings suggest, however, that being compassionate can improve health, well-being, and relationships. Many scientists believe that compassion may even be vital to the survival of our species , and they’re finding that its advantages can be increased through targeted exercises and practice. Here are some of the most exciting findings from this research so far.

• Compassion makes us feel good: Compassionate action (e.g., giving to charity) activates pleasure circuits in the brain, and compassion training programs, even very brief ones, strengthen brain circuits for pleasure and reward and lead to lasting increases in self-reported happiness .
• Being compassionate—tuning in to other people in a kind and loving manner—can reduce risk of heart disease by boosting the positive effects of the Vagus Nerve , which helps to slow our heart rate .
• One compassion training program has found that it makes people more resilient to stress; it lowers stress hormones in the blood and saliva and strengthens the immune response. Compassion training may also help us worry less and be more open to our negative emotions. 
• Compassion could improve our mental health : One research review found that practicing compassion meditation improved participants’ emotional life, positive thinking, relationships, and empathy.
• Brain scans during loving-kindness meditation, which directs compassion toward suffering, suggest that, on average, compassionate people’s minds wander less about what has gone wrong in their lives, or might go wrong in the future; as a result, they’re happier.
• Practicing compassion could make us more altruistic . In turn, it may also help us overcome empathic distress and become more resilient in the face of others’ suffering.
• Compassion helps make caring parents: Brain scans show that when people experience compassion, their brains activate in neural systems known to support parental nurturance and other caregiving behaviors.
• Compassion helps make better spouses: Compassionate people are more optimistic and supportive when communicating with others.
• Compassion helps make better friends: Studies of college friendships show that when one friend sets the goal to support the other compassionately, both friends experience greater satisfaction and growth in the relationship.
• Compassion helps make better doctors: Medical students who train in compassion feel less depressed and lonely, and avoid the typical declines in compassion that happen during medical school.
• Feeling compassion for one person makes us less vindictive toward others .
• Restraining feelings of compassion chips away at our commitment to moral principles.
• Employees who receive more compassion in their workplace see themselves, their co-workers, and their organization in a more positive light, report feeling more positive emotions like joy and contentment, and are more committed to their jobs. A compassionate workplace culture is linked to less burnout, greater teamwork, and higher job satisfaction.
• More compassionate societies —those that take care of their most vulnerable members, assist other nations in need, and have children who perform more acts of kindness—are the happier ones .
• Compassionate people are more socially adept, making them less vulnerable to loneliness; loneliness has been shown to cause stress and harm the immune system .

How Do I Cultivate It?

We often talk about some people as being more compassionate than others, but research suggests compassion isn’t something you’re born with or not. Instead, it can be strengthened through targeted exercises and practice. Here are some specific, science-based activities for cultivating compassion from our new site Greater Good in Action :

• Feeling supported: Think about the people you turn to when you’re distressed and recall times when you’ve felt comforted by them, which research says can help us to feel more compassionate toward others.
• Compassion meditation: Cultivate compassion toward a loved one, yourself, a neutral person, and even an enemy.
• Put a human face on suffering: When reading the news, look for profiles of specific individuals and try to imagine what their lives have been like.
• Eliciting altruism: Create reminders of connectedness.

Compassion training programs , such as those out of Emory University and Stanford University , are revealing how we can boost feelings of compassion in ourselves and others. Here are some of the best tips to emerge out of those programs, as well as other research.

• Look for commonalities: Seeing yourself as similar to others increases feelings of compassion. A recent study shows that something as simple as tapping your fingers to the same rhythm with a stranger increases compassionate behavior.
• Calm your inner worrier: When we let our mind run wild with fear in response to someone else’s pain (e.g., What if that happens to me?), we inhibit the biological systems that enable compassion. The practice of mindfulness can help us feel safer in these situations, facilitating compassion .
• Encourage cooperation, not competition, even through subtle cues: A seminal study showed that describing a game as a “Community Game” led players to cooperate and share a reward evenly; describing the same game as a “Wall Street Game” made the players more cutthroat and less honest. This is a valuable lesson for teachers, who can promote cooperative learning in the classroom.
• See people as individuals (not abstractions) : When presented with an appeal from an anti-hunger charity, people were more likely to give money after reading about a starving girl than after reading statistics on starvation—even when those statistics were combined with the girl’s story.
• Don’t play the blame game: When we blame others for their misfortune, we feel less tenderness and concern toward them.
• Respect your inner hero: When we think we’re capable of making a difference , we’re less likely to curb our compassion.
• Notice and savor how good it feels to be compassionate. Studies have shown that practicing compassion and engaging in compassionate action bolsters brain activity in areas that signal reward .
• To cultivate compassion in kids, start by modeling kindness: Research suggests compassion is contagious , so if you want to help compassion spread in the next generation of young men and women, lead by example.
• Curb inequality: Research suggests that as people feel a greater sense of status over others , they feel less compassion.
• Don’t be a sponge : When we completely take on other people’s suffering as our own, we risk feeling personally distressed, threatened, and overwhelmed; in some cases, this can even lead to burnout . Instead, try to be receptive to other people’s feelings without adopting those feelings as your own.

Kindness and Compassion for Students

What are they.

Compassion is defined as the feeling that arises when you perceive another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.

Compassion can arise from empathy —the more general ability to understand and feel others’ emotions—but goes further by also including the desire to help. Of course, we can feel compassion without acting on it, and not all helpful acts are motivated by compassion.

When compassion does lead to action, we often call the result kindness. Kindness always includes the intention to benefit other people, especially (though not always) at a cost or risk to ourselves.

Research has shown that compassion and kindness are deeply rooted in human nature–our first impulse is to cooperate rather than compete. Even toddlers spontaneously help people in need out of genuine concern for their welfare. This innate kindness, however, often gets lost in a society built on competition. Schools have a golden opportunity to cultivate the compassionate side of students by creating a school culture in which kindness is valued and practiced.

• A science teacher sets up his classroom to cultivate students’ innate kindness and cooperation, rather than their selfish and competitive natures. He takes the time at the start of the school year to get to know students and for students to get to know each other by doing some fun icebreakers from Playworks, like Crooked Circle .
• To create an inclusive and connected classroom climate, students sit in a large circle for discussions and in small groups during regular instruction.
• Everyone is encouraged to practice self-care, taking short breaks when they need to in the “Chillax Corner”, and to take care of each other—noticing when a fellow student might be having a hard time and connecting with him or her.
• The curriculum is taught with a “prosocial” lens, taking into consideration how the scientific content might be used to benefit students’ communities and society in general.

Children’s understanding of kindness and compassion change as they mature. For example, their ability to be compassionate grows as they develop their perspective-taking ability and emotion regulation. Elementary age students and younger may view kindness mainly in concrete ways, such as in terms of the consequences of actions; whereas, older children and teens can appreciate the intentions behind the actions, allowing them to better navigate complex situations.

• A first grader might say kindness is asking someone to play, taking turns, or helping someone who is hurt.
• A high schooler gives his friend a hard time for choosing to go to the movies rather than study for an important test. At first, his friend is upset, but then realizes that the admonishment was made in his best interest.

Why Are They Important?

Research has found that practicing compassion and kindness can improve health, well-being, and relationships, as well as academic achievement. Of course, beyond our own lives, these qualities strengthen our communities and may even be vital to the survival of our species as a whole.

Kindness and compassion make us happier.

• Compassion training programs, even very brief ones, strengthen reward circuits in the brain and lead to lasting increases in self-reported happiness.
• Compassion training also enables us be more altruistic , and kindness does seem to be its own reward —giving to others activates those pleasure circuits and actually makes people, including kids , happier than spending money on themselves.

Compassion makes us more resilient.

• Feeling compassion helps us to overcome empathic distress —or the feeling for others that makes us so upset that we want to run away rather than help. We are better able to handle the strong emotions that occur when faced with others’ suffering.

Kindness and compassion are good for our health.

• Feeling compassionate can reduce the risk of heart disease by helping slow the heart rate , and compassion training has been shown to reduce stress hormones and boost the immune system.
• Acts of kindness such as donating money help lower blood pressure .
• People who volunteer are healthier overall, and teens who volunteer to help younger kids show reduced risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Kindness and compassion improve our relationships.

• Compassion is associated with more satisfaction and growth in friendships and makes us less vindictive towards others.
• Compassionate behavior is highly valued in romantic relationships: In surveys of over 10,000 people across 37 cultures, kindness was rated the most important quality in a mate, and the only one universally required.
• Altruism promotes social connections in general and creates ripple effects of generosity in communities.

Kindness and compassion benefit education.

• Preschoolers and elementary schoolers prompted to perform acts of kindness show increased well-being and social competence; in turn, prosocial (kind and helpful) peer interactions increase middle schoolers’ positive emotions and life satisfaction.
• Prosocial behavior in elementary school predicts higher academic achievement in middle school, and it predicts academic achievement in high school.
• High-quality service learning programs, which put compassion into action by combining classroom learning with real-world community service, have been shown to improve academic performance, student attitudes and behavior, and school climate.
• When high schoolers see their school as a kind place, they are more interested and motivated to learn .

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Do you want to dive deeper into the science behind our GGIE practices? Enroll in one of our online courses for educators!

REVIEW article

Ways of knowing compassion: how do we come to know, understand, and measure compassion when we see it.

• 1 Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, United States
• 2 Graduate Division of Religion, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States
• 3 Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States
• 4 Department of Spiritual Health, Woodruff Health Sciences Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States
• 5 Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States
• 6 Department of Psychology, Southern Oregon University, Ashland, OR, United States
• 7 School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, United States

Over the last decade, empirical research on compassion has burgeoned in the biomedical, clinical, translational, and foundational sciences. Increasingly sophisticated understandings and measures of compassion continue to emerge from the abundance of multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary studies. Naturally, the diversity of research methods and theoretical frameworks employed presents a significant challenge to consensus and synthesis of this knowledge. To bring the empirical findings of separate and sometimes siloed disciplines into conversation with one another requires an examination of their disparate assumptions about what compassion is and how it can be known. Here, we present an integrated theoretical review of methodologies used in the empirical study of compassion. Our goal is to highlight the distinguishing features of each of these ways of knowing compassion, as well as the strengths and limitations of applying them to specific research questions. We hope this will provide useful tools for selecting methods that are tailored to explicit objectives (methods matching), taking advantage of methodological complementarity across disciplines (methods mixing), and incorporating the empirical study of compassion into fields in which it may be missing.

Introduction

The last decade has seen a substantial increase in the empirical study of compassion. Programs of research investigate the phylogenetic continuity and evolutionary history of compassion ( Goetz et al., 2010 ; Preston and Hofelich, 2012 ; Gilbert and Mascaro, 2017 ; Marsh, 2019 ), the physiological systems supporting compassion ( Gilbert, 2014a ; Kemper et al., 2015 ; Wang et al., 2019 ), and the impact of compassion on psychological and physical health ( Galante et al., 2014 ; Neff et al., 2016 ). Along with this more foundational research, applied and translational studies examine the role and optimal manifestation of compassion in healthcare and educational settings, and test the efficacy of interventions and training programs aimed at expanding compassion toward self and others in a variety of contexts ( McCaffrey and McConnell, 2015 ; Bibeau et al., 2016 ; Sinclair et al., 2016b ; van Berkhout and Malouff, 2016 ; Luberto et al., 2018 ). Each of these domains of research has advanced in large part due to the development of measurement tools for identifying, describing, and quantifying compassion, as well as for empirically evaluating theoretical models of compassion. While this abundance of multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research has advanced what is known about compassion, the diversity of methods, assumptions, and theoretical frameworks makes it challenging to draw conclusions across studies and/or to incorporate compassion research into new fields, especially fields in which compassion may already be partially or implicitly operationalized.

While not without contention, large bodies of literature have generally cohered around a definition of compassion as a benevolent emotional response toward another who is suffering, coupled with the motivation to alleviate their suffering and promote their well-being ( Dalai Lama, 2002 ; Goetz et al., 2010 ; Halifax, 2012 ; Klimecki et al., 2013 ; Post et al., 2014 ; Singer and Klimecki, 2014 ; Strauss et al., 2016 ; Sinclair et al., 2017c ; Gilbert, 2019 ). From this starting point, we will survey research conducted on compassion and related constructs that share or resemble some or all of the basic criteria that characterize compassion. These are (1) an awareness of another’s suffering, (2) a benevolent emotional or affective response, and (3) the motivation to help or act ( Strauss et al., 2016 ).

This theoretical review of empirical methods used to study compassion has the broad aim of promoting communication, collaboration, and convergence across disciplines. Our goal as a team of interdisciplinary scholars trained in foundational and applied areas of public health (K.P., M.A., and T.F.), social psychology (P.C.), biological anthropology (J.M. and T.F.), psychiatry (C.R.), and religious studies (M.F.) is twofold. First, we provide an integrated and interdisciplinary theoretical review of methods currently used in the empirical study of compassion. Second, we examine the strengths and limitations of applying them to specific research questions. We hope this will provide useful tools for selecting methods that are tailored to explicit objectives ( methods matching ), taking advantage of methodological complementarity across disciplines ( methods mixing ), and incorporating the empirical study of compassion into fields in which it may be absent or non-operationalized ( methods missing ) (for an overview of key terminology used in this article, see glossary in Table 1 ).

Table 1. A glossary of terms and their associated definitions used in this paper.

Within the scope of this review, we have deliberately set aside a number of worthwhile goals. First, we do not intend to critique alternate definitions or ways of operationalizing compassion. Constructive critiques are ongoing to refine and validate the construct of compassion, but this is not our project ( Singer and Klimecki, 2014 ; Gu et al., 2017 ). Neither do we intend to privilege any empirical method or set of methods over others. For our purposes here, the suitability of a method is principally driven by research objectives. In addition, while many studies helpfully review and evaluate the impact of compassion ( Eisenberg et al., 2010 ; Perrone-McGovern et al., 2014 ), these are too numerous and wide-ranging to adequately evaluate here. Moreover, this will not be a systematic or meta-analytic review of any one method. Our goal, instead, is to forge connections between disparate areas of compassion research in order to generate an overview of the current state of available methods for studying compassion. Lastly, we do not seek to prescribe directions for future research. Rather, we will conclude with recommendations for selecting and combining methods to advance understandings of compassion and maximize knowledge transfer across domains.

Research indicates that compassion has immediate health benefits for both the giver and receiver ( Fogarty et al., 1999 ; Steffen and Masters, 2005 ; Galante et al., 2014 ), positively impacts relationship outcomes ( Neff and Beretvas, 2013 ; Perrone-McGovern et al., 2014 ), and improves resilience in the context of adversity threat ( Cosley et al., 2010 ; Neff and McGehee, 2010 ; Lim and DeSteno, 2016 ; Presnell, 2018 ). In medical care, compassion is linked with improved patient satisfaction, compliance, and clinical outcomes ( Patel et al., 2019 ). In the workplace, compassion is associated with improved employee resilience and retention, as well as overall organizational health ( Kanov et al., 2004 ; Spreitzer et al., 2013 ). In educational settings, compassion is associated with emotional well-being among children and adolescents ( Neff and Pittman, 2010 ; Roeser and Eccles, 2015 ), and cultivating compassion during adolescence may lay the foundation for well-being during this sensitive period of social development and beyond ( Játiva and Cerezo, 2014 ; Roeser and Pinela, 2014 ; Bach and Guse, 2015 ). Compassion also stands at the center of some third-wave psychotherapeutic interventions, which emphasize the relationship between thoughts and emotions ( Gilbert, 2010 , 2014b ; Hayes and Hofmann, 2017 ). For example, compassion-focused therapy is an evolutionarily and neurophysiologically informed approach to psychotherapy that aims to improve mental health by understanding and promoting a compassionate motivational system ( Gilbert, 2014b ).

In many contexts, compassion is thought to be trainable either as a skill in itself or as an emergent gestalt of underlying skills that can be cultivated ( Kanov et al., 2004 ; Klimecki et al., 2014 ). Motivated by this assumption, evidence-based training programs have proliferated for cultivating compassion for social and emotional health ( Pace et al., 2009 ; Germer and Neff, 2013 ; Jazaieri et al., 2013 ; Roeser et al., 2018 ; Schuling et al., 2018 ; Borden, 2019 ; Condon and Makransky, 2020 ). Compassion has also emerged as a core value and “active ingredient” of diverse helping professions and professional environments, especially in medical care. At least 25 interventions have been developed to cultivate compassionate nursing care ( McCaffrey and McConnell, 2015 ; Blomberg et al., 2016 ), and compassion training has become a more explicit goal of medical training and practice and is a key component of the American Medical Association’s first principle of medical ethics ( Shih et al., 2013 ; American Medical Association, 2016 ; Rao and Kemper, 2017 ). In addition, in 2013, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services implemented a value-based purchasing system that tied hospital reimbursement to patient satisfaction surveys, making patient-rated compassion critical to healthcare systems’ bottom line ( Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HHS, 2011 ).

While this breadth and depth of research on compassion and compassion training has arguably advanced scientific understanding and improved clinical, educational, and professional outcomes, there are several inherent issues complicating the study of compassion. First, because compassion includes both an affective and motivational component, there is a lack of consensus about how to compare and draw inferences from studies employing disparate units of measurement or levels of analysis. For example, recurring questions arise about relationships between behavioral and physiological observations on the one hand, and indicators of compassionate affect and motivation on the other: Can researchers intuit a compassionate state in the absence of physiological or behavioral data? Can researchers intuit a compassionate state from physiology or behavior alone ?

Second, prominent models of compassion implicitly or explicitly assume that compassion emerges from discrete competencies, which can, in turn, be differentially facilitated or inhibited ( Halifax, 2012 ; Lown, 2016 ; Gu et al., 2017 ). One influential evolutionary account theorizes that compassion is a suite of universal physiological and experiential responses that emerges because of situation-dependent cognitive appraisals. Besides the basic perception that someone is indeed suffering, compassionate responding is facilitated by the following appraisals: (1) the suffering individual is both relevant and of value to oneself; (2) the sufferer does not deserve their suffering; and (3) one is capable of helping ( Goetz et al., 2010 ). The influence of this and similar models has propelled research focused on emotions and skills that may be necessary but incomplete constituents of compassion. Understanding complex interactions among these components requires empirical strategies that can differentiate between them and explore their dynamics.

Third, compassionate responses themselves are context-, experience-, and state-dependent, requiring empirical methods sensitive to factors ranging from bodily states to social and environmental conditions. A large body of theoretical and experimental research indicates that compassion is influenced by the observer’s perceptions of the in-group/out-group status of the suffering individual(s) ( Cikara et al., 2011 ; Preston and Ritter, 2013 ). Such perceptions can depend on psychological resources ( Dyrbye et al., 2019 ), environment ( Kim and Lopez de Leon, 2019 ), psychological priming ( Mikulincer and Shaver, 2001 ), and training or intervention ( Kang et al., 2014 ). Understanding this broader picture of compassion, including psychological states and traits, relationships, environment, and personal history, is crucial for designing appropriate compassion research and for interpreting and contextualizing any findings.

Fourth, multiple related constructs, including but not limited to altruism, empathy, empathic concern, sympathy, prosociality, and care, overlap with broad understandings of compassion and should be considered part of the body of empirical knowledge about it. Significant obstacles to comparing data on compassion-related constructs arise because of well-documented shifts in how they are operationalized and defined ( Batson, 2009 ; Marsh, 2019 ). Yet, their conceptual relatedness suggests that mapping—that is, formalizing and conventionalizing how terms in one research domain correspond with one or more terms in another field—could reveal that transdisciplinary findings converge in significant ways. Related, disparate fields of inquiry have distinct sets of methodologies, assumptions, and theoretical frameworks, which we will explore below. All of these inherent challenges invite consideration from those designing, interpreting, and evaluating research on compassion in any discipline.

We understand ways of knowing compassion to be any empirical phenomena that signal to an investigator that compassionate affect, motivation, and action are present in an individual or group. This includes signs that a necessary component of or condition for compassion may be present. Such an empirical approach to understanding compassion requires a consilient effort to alternate between vantages that focus on measurable physical, biological, and behavioral changes, and on more holistic vantages that focus on human-level, emergent properties of experience and interaction ( Slingerland and Collard (eds), 2012a ). Each way of knowing compassion that we describe evinces strengths and limitations. Some are more deeply shaped by the propensities of humans as social beings, including tendencies toward explanatory confabulation, concern for socially desirable self-representation, expectancy bias, memory bias, errors in affective forecasting, and plain old not knowing . Through understanding these, we can identify complementarity among different frameworks and methodologies and combine approaches and findings strategically to strengthen evidence and claims.

Among the ways of identifying and quantifying compassion, four clusters of features serve as guideposts or heuristics: (1) empirical perspective, (2) state versus trait, (3) quantitative versus qualitative, and (4) ecological validity. Figure 1 organizes the major methodologies reviewed according to these guiding heuristics.

Figure 1. Mapping the ways of knowing compassion. This figure maps the major methodologies reviewed here into theoretical spaces. The shape of the methodology denotes frame of reference. Color represents the extent to which that method has ecological validity. Positioning on the x -axis corresponds to the extent to which a method measures internal versus external aspects of compassion. Positioning on the y -axis corresponds to whether the methodology is generally used to measure state or trait compassion or is used to measure both. Methods on the line between state and trait can be used to measure both, depending on the specifics of the methodology.

Empirical Perspective

To examine diverse methods for studying compassion, we will employ a heuristic feature related to the empirical perspective or point of view reflected in their evidence. That is, if there is a compassionate experience in question, it may be examined from a first-, second-, or third-person perspective. First-person data typically focus on the subjective experience and self-reported assessment of one’s own compassion, collected in scale questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups. Studies that rely at least partially on first-person perspectives collect participants’ reports on subjective experiences of compassionate feelings and motivations in response to others’ suffering. Methodologies rely on data emerging from first-person perspectives, when researchers collect, analyze, and interpret participants’ observations as primary evidence of compassion, or when study participants interpret their own experience of compassion as in phenomenological accounts. Second-person data often represent the perspective of the receiver or in vivo witness of compassion. Studies that depend on second-person evidence assess when and how participants recognize and experience compassion in others, be they companions, peers, caregivers, supervisors, or entire organizations. A third-person perspective, or observational perspective, applies when the experimenter or observer determines the presence, absence, and measurement of compassion, and interprets evidence such as physiological and behavioral observations. In this case, the observer neither experiences nor receives the compassion in question. These three perspectives can be mapped onto the emic and etic distinctions ( Pike, 1967 ). Here, third-person perspectives emerge from an etic point of view: observations made by persons outside and relatively objective to the compassionate feeling, action, or interaction under study. First- and second-person perspectives arise from the emic point of view, provided by those who have an insider’s perspective on the compassion (or lack thereof). Of note, we use this heuristic differently than qualitative researchers, who often refer to the interviewee and interviewer using a first- and second-person distinction ( Stelter, 2010 ).

Each empirical method or way of knowing compassion yields evidence from one or more of these perspectives and can be strategically selected to address the researchers’ questions, frameworks, or models of compassion. In other words, those interested in the internal thoughts or emotions surrounding compassion may be correct in prioritizing a first-person perspective. On the other hand, researchers interested in the behavioral aspect of compassion may be better served by informant-reporting and/or third-person measures (discussed below). Complementary first- and second-person measures may together create a more nuanced, accurate understanding of the relationship between internal states and external behavior. Moreover, combining self-report with second- or third-person reporting promises to generate new questions and hypotheses to explain conflicting evidence. In the main sections of this review to follow, we found empirical perspective to be a helpful superordinate criterion for organizing and presenting the various ways of knowing compassion.

State Versus Trait

Another heuristic is the familiar psychological distinction between dispositional or trait-level versus momentary or state-level measurement. Many studies employ measures that frame compassion as a fluctuating internal state , and self-report is used to query the extent to which a respondent endorses feeling compassion at that point in time. In addition to self-report measures of compassionate states, researchers also detect compassion by observing behavior—including speech—that is best explained by the occurrence of a compassionate state, such as responding to another person’s suffering with demonstrable care or help (or expressing the desire to respond). These approaches investigate the relationship between internal processes and/or external circumstances and varying intensities of compassionate affect, motivation, and observable behavior.

Other research methods seek to understand compassion as an enduring individual or psychological trait . Traits, unlike states, are relatively stable aspects of a person’s way of thinking, feeling, and acting across time and in a broad range of circumstances. Because fluctuating conditions or contexts tend not to dislodge an individual’s traits, their origins or causes are, in theory, traceable to more stable and general underlying processes. This is not to say that traits are immutable or hardwired. Indeed, contemplative practices and other ways of priming and cultivating compassion usually presume that repeatedly engendering compassionate states will gradually strengthen the corresponding trait ( McCrae and Costa, 1995 ; Baumert et al., 2017 ; Goleman and Davidson, 2017 ). Similarly, in the context of social and emotional education, traits are considered factors that have some level of mutability over child development ( Knafo et al., 2008 ; Bengtsson et al., 2016 ). This view of traits is informed by Bandura’s (1976 , 1999 ) impact on the field of behavioral learning, which posits that traits can be capabilities that are learned. From this perspective, compassion, like other social and emotional capabilities, can be cultivated over the course of child development and with training, an assumption that guides many social and emotional development programs. Some methods reviewed below aim to illuminate dispositional or trait compassion or the extent to which individuals tend to have compassion throughout their life.

Quantitative Versus Qualitative

A third heuristic category that distinguishes ways of knowing compassion is the distinction between quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data are numeric values that correspond directly or indirectly to measurements and/or observations of compassionate phenomena. Qualitative data, by contrast, describe compassionate phenomena in language or images to be interpreted using non-mathematical methods. While specific features of qualitative data, such as directions of change, intensities, frequencies, etc., can be systematically quantified, doing so rounds out potentially explanatory features and context that do not translate into numeric values ( Gavin, 2008 ; Ruane, 2016 ). Merging two of the heuristics that we will use here, all three empirical (first-, second-, and third-person) perspectives can be queried using quantitative and qualitative methods.

Ecological Validity

Lastly, ways of knowing compassion generate data that vary in ecological validity , meaning that they cannot be uniformly transferred or generalized from controlled settings to real-life contexts outside the research setting. Theoretically, the more closely a study’s methods mirror everyday life, the more ecologically valid their evidence will be. Usually, studies with stricter control of variables sacrifice this advantage in favor of precision, replicability, or other strengths. Ecological validity is an especially weighty consideration in light of the social and environmental situatedness of emotions and the centrality of emotion, in the form of affect and motivation, to our understanding of compassion and how it manifests ( Griffiths and Scarantino, 2009 ).

Ways of Knowing Compassion

First-person perspective.

In this section, we begin our review of ways of knowing compassion with research methods for collecting and analyzing first-person empirical evidence, including quantitative and qualitative approaches to understanding compassionate states and traits.

Quantitative

Self-report measures that use first-person data to quantify compassion are the most common methodological tools researchers use, particularly in the health and psychological sciences ( Sinclair et al., 2017c ), and are by far the most common outcome measures used in randomized controlled trials to assess the impacts of interventions for increasing compassion and prosociality ( Luberto et al., 2018 ). The majority of self-report measures assess compassion as a dispositional or trait-like quality. One example, the Compassionate Love Scale ( Sprecher and Fehr, 2005 ), rates 21 items reflecting two subscales: compassion toward significant others (example item: “If a person close to me needs help, I would do almost anything I could to help him or her”) and compassion toward strangers or humanity more widely (example item: “When I see people I do not know feeling sad, I feel a need to reach out to them”).

Self-report measures of the absence or inhibition of compassion are arguably more developed within the literature than measures of compassion itself. These compassion-negative constructs include empathic distress, 1 burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress. They indicate conditions in which a potential caregiver fails to experience or exhibit compassion. The implicit and sometimes explicit explanation is that the caregiver’s reserves of compassion are depleted and/or displaced by feelings of frustration, emotional isolation, exhaustion, and a decreased sense of accomplishment and meaning ( Boyle, 2015 ). Compassion fatigue has been studied among caregivers and providers who work in stressful environments and who are frequently exposed to suffering and death, including physicians, nurses, first responders, teachers in at-risk school districts, and spiritual caregivers ( Roberts et al., 2003 ; Yoder, 2010 ; Hotchkiss and Lesher, 2018 ; Buelher, 2019 ). In healthcare, the Professional Quality of Life Scale is frequently used to examine the relationship between compassion fatigue, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress among providers ( Alkema et al., 2008 ; Smart et al., 2014 ; Beaumont et al., 2016 ). While the construct of compassion fatigue receives frequent attention, critical reviews of this area highlight the need for further research that explicitly addresses the relationship between failures of compassion and compassion itself ( Fernando, and Consedine, 2014 ; Ledoux, 2015 ; Sinclair et al., 2017b ). Measurement will be integral toward this end.

Whether quantifying compassion or its absence, self-report measures have various limitations ( Strauss et al., 2016 ). Many commonly used scale questionnaires are retrospective in nature, meaning they require participants to summarize their experience over an entire day, week, month, or a lifetime (e.g., “How much stress have you felt over the past 2 weeks?”; Conner and Barrett, 2012 ). These retrospective measures tend to reflect participants’ beliefs about themselves rather than their actual behavior, lived experience, or physiological correlates ( Mauss and Robinson, 2009 ). Relatedly, in simulation or hypothetical scenario-based questionnaires, participants may be asked to recall or imagine a helping scenario, rate their sense of compassion, and speculate about whether they would help. Responses in this paradigm are most likely driven by generalizations about the self (e.g., “I am a compassionate person”) and about the value of specific emotions and helping behavior (e.g., “Compassion leads to helping, which feels good.”). People often underestimate or overestimate how they might feel in a hypothetical circumstance, which is known as a limitation in affective forecasting ( Wilson and Gilbert, 2003 ). For instance, physicians’ reports of their probable experience of compassion in response to hypothetical vignettes might not resemble their actual interactions with patients. Further complicating matters, the self-reported experience of an emotion does not always match prototypical conceptions of emotional experiences, for example, when fear feels pleasant during a scary movie. This mismatch has been shown to be true of compassion in particular, with study participants reporting that compassion prototypically feels uniformly pleasant yet describing both pleasant and unpleasant experiences of compassion ( Condon and Barrett, 2013 ).

Because of limitations of retrospective self-reports, many researchers rely on momentary measures, often classified as ecological momentary assessment or experience sampling techniques. These techniques require participants to carry a device, such as a smartphone, and respond to alerts or prompts in the moment throughout their day (e.g., “How much compassion do you feel toward your patients?”). Studies have shown that such measures are more closely associated with real-time physiology and behavior patterns than retrospective self-report measures ( Conner and Barrett, 2012 ). This technique has not been widely applied to the study of compassion; however, one experience sampling study demonstrated that compassion meditation training resulted in reduced momentary reports of mind-wandering and corresponding increases in self-reported caring behaviors ( Jazaieri et al., 2016 ). While findings from momentary assessment have high ecological, convergent, and predictive validity, they are time- and resource-intensive. Moreover, although momentary reports overcome some of the limitations of retrospective reports, they remain subject to social desirability and participant expectations, although likely to a lesser degree.

Qualitative

Qualitative, first-person methods based on narratives, interviews, interactions, or focus groups examine the richer contours of compassion. These approaches allow participants to contextualize their responses, appraise significance, and inform researchers about unexpected factors that arise in situ . They capture first-person experiences and interpretations, although not exclusively. To analyze the complexity of narratives, dialog, and descriptions requires rigorous planning, often relying on computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software ( Lewins and Silver, 2007 ; Saldaña, 2011 , 2016 ).

Qualitative descriptive (QD) research uses a variety of forms of data, including first-person accounts, to craft a detailed description of a situation or process and suggest further avenues of inquiry ( Sandelowski, 2000 ; Leeman et al., 2007 ; Kim et al., 2017 ). This method has been used to investigate experiences and causes of compassion fatigue among nurses ( Berg et al., 2016 ; Fukumori et al., 2018 ). Often, QD research is an initial step before more controlled and fine-grained experimentation and analysis ( Neergaard et al., 2009 ).

Grounded theory is a more methodologically formal procedure for analyzing qualitative data, which is used in the human, social, and health sciences. It involves time-consuming recursive sifting, categorizing (i.e., coding), and interpretation to discover recurring themes and patterns in participants’ responses and interactions ( Bryant and Charmaz, 2007 ). To understand compassion, grounded theorists examine firsthand accounts of participants’ perceptions and/or experiences by reviewing and sorting transcribed interviews and interactions to identify themes or patterns that recur throughout a data set and code passages of text exemplifying those themes. They then interpret the prevalence and significance of recurring themes and features (for examples, see Crowther et al., 2013 ; McPherson et al., 2016 ; Sinclair et al., 2017a ; Tierney et al., 2017 ; Jain et al., 2019 ). Many grounded theory accounts focus exclusively on respondents’ conceptual understandings of compassion and may not assess any specific occurrence of compassion. Such projects help constitute a way of knowing how compassion is understood by a person or group. In general, grounded theory is best suited to exploratory projects that supplement or pave the way for explanatory studies ( Bryant and Charmaz, 2010 ).

Other qualitative research in the human and social sciences relies on a phenomenological framework for collecting and analyzing first-person data ( Dowling, 2007 ). This approach takes inspiration from the philosophical phenomenological tradition initiated by Edmund Husserl and developed by subsequent phenomenologists interested in developing a rigorous “descriptive psychology” of conscious phenomena such as existence, perception, care, and empathy ( Husserl, 1989 ; Stein, 1989 ; Fisette, 2018 ; Zahavi, 2018 ). From its inception, phenomenology arguably launched the first-person empirical study of compassion-related experiences. Phenomenological method involves systematically altering one’s attitude toward one’s own perceptions and cognitions, which permits a more rigorous and systematic study of subjective states. By investigating how different phenomena appear to conscious awareness, phenomenologists seek to discover an underlying structure governing consciousness itself.

However, philosophically trained phenomenological researchers are quick to note that the majority of phenomenology-inspired scientific studies depart significantly from foundational methods and questions and are conspicuously unconcerned with investigating the structure of consciousness ( Giorgi, 2010 ; Smith, 2016 ). Phenomenology-inspired empirical studies of compassion address questions ranging from how participants identify subjective experiences of feeling, receiving, and training in compassion ( Pauley and McPherson, 2010 ), to what compassion “is like for them” to experience, receive, and cultivate ( Lawrence and Lee, 2014 ; Jarvis, 2017 ). Other studies address similar questions regarding compassion inhibition, fatigue, etc. ( Waite et al., 2015 ; Jack, 2017 ).

All qualitative first-person evidence has the potential to reveal insights into how compassion is conceived of and experienced firsthand and how conscious, subjective understandings, and attitudes lead to compassionate behavior. For example, qualitative approaches have documented the uniquely rewarding and replenishing feelings that can be associated with compassion, even in the face of suffering, a documented experience of highly trained contemplative practitioners ( Dreyfus, 2001 ). First-person perspectives also reflect human sensitivities to social desirability, usually framed as an evaluative bias, which is the tendency to present oneself in a positive light and potentially underreport socially undesirable thoughts or behaviors. The presence of an interviewer often increases social desirability biases, an effect that can be moderated by the gender and characteristics of the respondent ( Krumpal, 2013 ). Qualitative researchers have given rigorous thought to minimizing social desirability biased responding, especially in interviews about highly evaluative topics ( Fisher, 1993 ; Johnson and Van de Vijver, 2003 ; Bergen and Labonté, 2020 ). While subjective, qualitative accounts of compassion draw connections between experiences, interpretations, and acts of compassion, findings are often not intended to be generalizable or transferable to different groups and settings. Still, it is clear that first-person data can reveal otherwise unknowable information about the mental contents of the compassionate (or non-compassionate) individual being studied. In this way, first-person data can also be used to complement second- and third-person empirical perspectives.

Second-Person Perspective

The limitations inherent to first-person reports of such a highly evaluative construct as compassion highlight the importance of verification with other empirical perspectives. Methods examining second-person evidence of compassion, also referred to as informant reporting , is one approach for doing so. Examples of informant reports of compassion include teacher reporting on children’s compassion, often using a psychometric instrument such as the Prosocial Behavior subscale of the Teacher Social Competence Scale ( Harter, 1982 ). Other informant reports measure compassionate acts within an intimate relationship, for example, Reis et al. (2014) ’ 10-item dyadic inventory of compassionate acts.

Informant reporting by medical patients is a common method for assessing healthcare provider compassion ( Sinclair et al., 2017c ). Scale questionnaires measure general state-level compassion conveyed in a particular clinical encounter. Examples of such tools include the Physician Compassion Questionnaire ( Fogarty et al., 1999 ), the Compassionate Care Assessment Tool ( Burnell and Agan, 2013 ), the Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Scale ( Lown et al., 2015 ), and a new 5-item clinician compassion measure ( Roberts et al., 2019 ). Healthcare provider compassion is also measured by informant reports from colleagues in both allopathic and osteopathic medicine ( Evans et al., 2004 ), as well as clinical psychology ( Kaslow et al., 2009 ).

Some widely used measures of patient satisfaction in healthcare assess general aspects of care that are understood to tangentially reflect patient experiences of compassionate care. The Press Ganey patient satisfaction survey includes items assessing the degree to which hospital staff “addressed your spiritual needs” and “addressed your emotional needs.” One study of more than 1.7 million patient responses observed that ratings of how well staff addressed patients’ spiritual and emotional needs correlated with three Press Ganey performance areas: (1) staff response to concerns or complaints, (2) staff effort to include patients in treatment decisions, and (3) staff sensitivity to the inconvenience that health problems and hospitalization can cause ( Clark et al., 2003 ). The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, a patient satisfaction measure widely used in Medicare and Medicaid value-based purchasing, has versions for hospital (H-CAHPS) and outpatient (CG-CAHPS) contexts ( Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), HHS, 2011 ; Dyer et al., 2012 ). One cross-sectional study of 269 acute care hospitals in the United States found that hospitals that reward provider compassion and provide compassionate support for their employees have higher H-CAHPS ratings and are more likely to be recommended by patients ( McClelland and Vogus, 2014 ). The H-CAHPS survey has also been used to examine compassion in the context of a hospital chaplain consultation by measuring elements of the interaction commonly understood to comprise compassionate care ( Marin et al., 2015 ).

Qualitative research methods are also used to examine compassion from second-person perspectives. Indeed, this method may be a particularly apt alternative or complement to the measurement of overt or external behavior and its impact ( Vazire and Mehl, 2008 ). In-depth interviews allow participants to report on the importance and meaning of receiving compassion, specifics that could not be anticipated in a survey question and that may not translate into quantitative measurement. In their exemplary study, Sinclair et al. (2016a) interviewed 53 palliative care patients and used grounded theory to analyze their experiences of providers’ compassion. They also compared these experiences of compassion with patients’ experiences of related constructs, such as empathy and sympathy ( Sinclair et al., 2017a ). They found that patients viewed overt behaviors such as demonstrative and grandiose expressions of emotion as emblematic of sympathy and reported it as off-putting. In contrast, patients saw subtle behaviors, often falling outside of routine care and tailored to individual needs, as authentically compassionate ( Sinclair et al., 2017a ). The resultant empirical model of compassion is arguably the most comprehensive in clinical medicine. It identifies provider virtues such as authenticity, tolerance, and honesty as essential ingredients of compassion, and it details how these requisites of compassion are carried out in a clinical relational context.

While these strengths may tempt us to conclude that informant reports are inherently more reliable and powerful than self-reports of compassion, it is important to consider the potential sources of explicit and implicit bias when using second-person compassion data, just as with first-person data. Again, our point is not to discourage the use of any research method, but rather to assist in strategic use of multiple research methods to gain a clearer understanding of compassionate phenomena. First, it is likely that informant reports of compassion are skewed by cultural and class differences, as well as racial and gender biases, similar to those shown to impact informant reporting of other non-compassion behaviors and competencies (for example, in student evaluations, Fan et al., 2019 ). There is, moreover, some evidence to indicate that such biases may influence perceptions of care received from out-group members. For example, one study found that patient–provider social concordance levels (a measure of the patient and provider’s match on race, gender, age, and educational status) were related to patient ratings of satisfaction with their provider’s care ( Thornton et al., 2011 ). Therefore, rather than ranking the value of any one perspective on compassion, we believe that matching methods and perspectives to the research questions they are best suited to answer is vital, as we will discuss below.

Third-Person Perspective

A broad array of methods and evidence are used when observing compassion from a third-person point of view. In fact, any quantitative and qualitative data can be studied from a third-person standpoint, even when the evidence itself reflects participants’ subjective experiences of extending and receiving compassion. The crucial difference lies in whether data are examined for their insights into the subjective perception, experience, or understanding of compassion, or whether data are being marshaled as intersubjective evidence of compassion itself. In this review, we do not intend to overlook the ways that third-person observers’ subjective tendencies influence their findings and conclusions. This undoubtedly influences all research on compassion. However, we distinguish empirical perspectives as third-personal by emphasizing how the object of inquiry is specified, while remaining cognizant that there will be overlap and ambiguity in specific cases. Third-person evidence may include researcher’s observations of human-, animal-, and group-level behavior and functioning, as well as measurements of physiological changes from which compassion might be inferred, such as brain states, facial expressions, writings, etc. Human-made products—discourse, design principles, art, laws, archeological, and other artifacts—can also serve as intersubjective evidence of compassion. In the following section, we discuss several forms of third-person evidence from which a state or disposition of compassion may be inferred.

Compassionate Behavior

A great deal of behavioral research on compassion is conducted using social psychology experimental methodologies. Social psychologists generally view compassion as a prosocial state that is responsive to others’ suffering and that motivates costly helping behaviors intended to alleviate suffering, potentially at the expense of oneself. An action or state is prosocial to the extent that it is conducive to social bonding and acceptance. While prosocial helping is distinct from compassion, it is understood as an outcome of some compassionate motivational state. As such, costly helping behavior is often used to infer that compassion is present. For this reason, observations of helping behaviors have been instrumental in garnering ecological validity for compassion as a psychological construct that can influence human (and perhaps animal) behavior. Batson et al. (1983) pioneered several paradigms for studying costly helping in which participants observe a confederate —an actor posing as a study participant—typically facing a difficult situation, such as receiving electric shocks or experiencing distress over a car crash or academic demands. Importantly, these paradigms are constructed such that self-interested factors such as seeking social recognition and avoiding punishment could not explain the participant’s decision to engage in the costly helping behavior. Participants who opt to help are therefore thought to be demonstrating a compassionate state ( Batson et al., 1991 ; Batson, 2009 ; Goetz et al., 2010 ).

Confederate paradigms that assess prosocial behavior in real-time settings are perhaps the criterion standard for ecologically valid prosociality research—they overcome limitations of self-reports because of memory and affective forecasting biases and provide direct assessment of actions that alleviate others’ suffering in situations that reflect daily life. In this way, researchers can measure prosocial behavior when participants themselves are not aware that they are being observed. At the same time, confederate paradigms can be difficult or inefficient to implement, given that they require careful training of confederates and careful debriefing to assess participant suspicion. Additionally, some research scenarios may skew behaviors in a prosocial direction. For example, a participant might demonstrate compassion for someone receiving shocks or struggling with academic work within a confederate paradigm but may not be able to access or extend compassion as readily in a familiar context. Intriguingly, experiments using confederate scenarios have demonstrated the efficacy of mindfulness and compassion training for enhancing prosocial behaviors, even when situational pressures dampen the impulse to help, such as offering one’s seat to a stranger who is using crutches, even when others seated nearby are unresponsive and ostensibly less considerate ( Condon et al., 2013 ).

Other research in social psychology has used both naturalistic and simulated settings to demonstrate positive changes in real-world prosocial behavior after various types of meditation training across different contexts. In one study, mindfulness training was associated with participants’ increased willingness to interact with an ostracized individual via Cyberball, a computer-based ball-tossing game, an effect that was mediated by self-reported warmth and compassion ( Berry et al., 2018 ). Compassion training was also associated with reduced amygdala reactivity and more sustained visual attention to scenes of suffering in an experiment using an eye-tracking protocol ( Weng et al., 2018 ). In another experiment, compassion training was associated with greater increase in participants’ optimism and willingness to write a letter to a convicted murderer ( Koopmann-Holm et al., 2019 ). Behavioral markers of compassion in naturalistic settings, much like confederate-paradigm studies, can require extra time and resources to capture and evaluate, yet they reveal diverse genres of compassion-evincing behaviors across contexts and populations.

As an alternative to confederate and other behavioral paradigms, researchers often use controlled economic exchanges to examine generosity and cooperation in monetary transactions. Various studies have demonstrated that kindness-oriented meditation programs enhance prosocial behavior in the form of economic donations. Loving–kindness meditation has been shown to enhance prosocial helping in computer-based video games ( Leiberg et al., 2011 ) and in online economic transactions ( Weng et al., 2013 , 2015 ). Among preschoolers, a mindfulness-based kindness curriculum resulted in increased peer donations of stickers ( Flook et al., 2015 ). Economic paradigms have also been fruitful in neuroimaging studies that link compassion-related neural processes with prosocial behavior ( Leiberg et al., 2011 ; Weng et al., 2015 ; Ashar et al., 2016 ). While behavioral economic measures offer a well-controlled environment for research on prosocial behavior and are widely used for studying influences on human cooperation and moral decision-making, they are often conducted via computer-based interfaces and impose artificial constraints on social exchange. This approach lacks ecological validity with respect to real-time face-to-face social interactions. Results likely reflect distinctive psychological dynamics of exchange relationships that may not apply to the social bonds that occur in close communal relationships ( Clark and Mils, 1993 ). It is unclear to what extent economic generosity extends to common real-world situations involving the suffering of another individual that would purportedly elicit compassion (e.g., an interaction with a student who is struggling or a patient who is sick).

An alternative to experimental behavioral paradigms such as the confederate or behavioral economic approaches described above are naturalistic observational methods that increase ecological validity and reduce evaluative biases. One example is the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), an audio recorder that intermittently captures ambient sound throughout a person’s daily routine without the person being aware of when it is recording, yielding an acoustic log of the person’s day ( Mehl, 2017 ). Previous studies have used the EAR to examine fathers’ empathic language and compassionate responses to their child’s cries ( Mascaro et al., 2017 ). Another study used the EAR to examine correlations between (1) participants’ self-reported mindfulness and (2) language and behavioral indicators associated with mindfulness ( Kaplan et al., 2018 ). The authors found that self-reported mindfulness was not related to prosocial behavior as assessed by the EAR, highlighting the kind of mismatch that can occur between different empirical perspectives (first- vs. third-person). To our knowledge, few studies have explicitly used the EAR to study compassion in the wild , and it remains a methodological tool of relatively high and untapped potential. While naturalistic observations offer high levels of external and ecological validity, they often generate a wealth of data and are time consuming to code and evaluate. In addition, they may be prohibitive in contexts where privacy and confidentiality are at a premium, for example, in clinical contexts.

Compassion in Dyads

Some third-person methods assess compassionate responding by evaluating a dynamic encounter between two or more people, such that the measurement takes into account the interchange between individuals. In the field of family psychology, researchers investigate dyadic behavior between parents and children or between intimate partners. A standard experiment involves having a parent and child collaborate on a difficult task. Researchers code and quantify communication and behavioral indicators that convey warmth (e.g., affection, encouragement, etc.) or that lack warmth (e.g., criticism, eye rolling, etc.) ( Miller et al., 2015 ). Paradigms such as these can be used to couple personal, interpersonal, and physiological correlates with parental compassion ( Miller, 2018 ). For example, Leerkes et al. (2016) examined mothers’ physiological arousal and behavior in response to a distressed infant, with a focus on sensitivity (e.g., appropriate calming behavior) and lack thereof (withdrawing). Methods such as this have been used to examine the impact of life history or trauma exposure on maternal caregiving behavior that occurs in the context of a mother–infant dyad ( Strathearn et al., 2009 ). While the behaviors and constructs examined in these studies are often referred to as something other than compassion (e.g., parental warmth), from our perspective there is a great deal of overlap between these concepts and the model of compassion as an affective and motivational response to perceiving another’s suffering. We believe these findings will converge with those of related disciplines explicitly studying compassion.

Because compassion contributes to success in clinical encounters, third-person behavioral observations are also used to evaluate and understand compassion in these dyadic encounters. Interactions between patients and providers are either observed or recorded, and those data were analyzed using a variety of approaches (e.g., grounded theory). For example, Suchman et al. (1997) examined transcripts of clinical interactions for patients’ emotional expression (direct or implied) and corresponding physician responsiveness. Others have used an ethnographic observational approach and qualitative analysis to examine compassionate communication in hospice, in which the researchers provided a rich description of hospice workers engaging in emotion recognition, relating, and reacting to alleviate patient suffering ( Way and Tracy, 2012 ).

A dyadic approach avoids many of the limitations and biases inherent in the use of self-report questionnaires. It also yields more ecologically valid findings than many behavioral paradigms, and dyadic analysis is a particularly useful tool to understand how compassion unfolds verbally or non-verbally among individuals. However, dyadic approaches are not without limitations. Of primary concern is a lack of agreement regarding the optimal markers or exemplars of compassionate behavior. For example, what constitutes compassion in a provider–patient interaction? Across studies examining patient–provider communication, a diversity of linguistic and performative markers have been coded as compassion ( Beck et al., 2002 ). Common themes included reassurance, active listening, and responsiveness to emotional cues, yet consensus is lacking. Finally, if compassion requires an affective response and motivation to help, as is suggested by most definitions, then all observable behavior, whether occurring in dyads or not, must assess compassionate intentions primarily by inference.

Organizational Compassion

Emergent features of communities and organizations constitute yet another way of knowing compassion. In an influential article, Kanov et al. (2004) define organizational compassion as a collective noticing, feeling, and responding to suffering that promotes healing. They argue that organizational compassion differs from individual-level compassion in that it is collective, sanctioned, promoted, or codified by organizational norms and policies and then coordinated and propagated across individuals. Cameron and others likewise differentiate research investigating the culture and functions of an organization itself (“virtuousness through organizations”) from studies focused on individuals acting compassionately within an organizational context (i.e., “virtuousness in organizations”) ( Kanov et al., 2004 ; Dutton et al., 2006 ; Cameron, 2017 ). Of the former, empirically tractable factors such as shared values, shared beliefs, norms, practices, leaders’ behavior, and the structure and quality of relationships relate to and indicate the emergence of organizational compassion ( Lilius et al., 2008 ; Dutton et al., 2014 ; Cameron, 2017 ).

Physiology and Compassion

Detectable changes in the functioning and structures of the body are alternative ways of knowing compassion. In general, this physiological frame of reference rests on the tenet that brain and body systems are shaped by natural selection to engender compassion and related prosocial emotions and skills. A second tenet is that these states are associated with outward compassionate behavior. It follows from these assumptions that physiological assessment helps us understand the body’s necessary conditions and likely outcomes of compassion, as well as individual variation. In addition, there is often an implicit or explicit claim that physiological measures, not being subject to self-report biases described above, are inherently more accurate than other measures ( Kirby et al., 2017 ).

The neurophysiological domain advances our ability to describe and quantify the activity of neural systems involved in compassion using neuroimaging assessment tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) ( Kim et al., 2020a ), high-density electroencephalography and event-related potentials, and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) ( Petrocchi et al., 2017b ). A common method involves inducing the affective components of compassion in participants using emotionally evocative picture or video stimuli of suffering others and comparing this putatively compassionate neural response to that which occurs while viewing neutral stimuli or stimuli thought to elicit other emotions, such as pride ( Simon-Thomas et al., 2011 ; Klimecki et al., 2012 ). Other studies have examined the relationship between prosocial behavior during an economic game and neural activity elicited by compassion-inducing stimuli ( Weng et al., 2013 ). Still other neurophysiological studies also look for correlations between participants’ self-reported state-level compassionate affect and neural activity elicited by a compassion-inducing task (see for example, Marsh et al., 2014 ; Brethel-Haurwitz et al., 2017 ). Other studies have examined brain function during the self-directed cultivation of compassion, for example, during compassion meditation ( Engström and Söderfeldt, 2010 ; Schoenberg et al., 2018 ) or after compassion meditation training ( Mascaro et al., 2013a , b ). Findings from these assessments are inherently constrained by the relative paucity of ecological validity that can be achieved in a scanner environment, the inferences necessary to link behavior with internal compassionate states, and biases inherent in self-reports. Notably, a recent meta-analysis found some inconsistency in the existing findings on the neural correlates of compassion, especially with respect to the amygdala and midbrain regions important for pain modulation and autonomic function, which may relate to whether the compassion in question was generated as a “top-down” or “bottom-up” process. While there was a high degree of consistency in other brain regions thought to be important for compassion (anterior cingulate cortex, bilateral anterior insula, basal ganglia, and bilateral inferior frontal gyri), this meta-analysis pointed to a relative sameness in the methods used thus far to study compassion in the fMRI scanner. The researchers ultimately advocated increased specification of research targets and additional innovative methods to advance neurophysiological understandings of compassion ( Kim et al., 2020a ). Future research that combines multimodal physiological assessments will be informative for potentially providing convergent evidence about the bidirectional associations between multiple physiological systems important for compassion (e.g., see Nguyen et al., 2016 ; Petrocchi et al., 2017b ; Kim et al., 2020b ). Moreover, future studies combining neuroimaging assessments with behavioral and experience sampling methods will extend the ecological validity, precision, and discriminant validity of existing measures of compassion.

A related physiological methodology focuses on the role of neuropeptides thought to be important modulators of compassion. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide synthesized in the paraventricular and supraoptic nuclei of the hypothalamus and stored and released back into the brain and into peripheral circulation by the pituitary gland. Thus, oxytocin acts as both a hormone and a neuropeptide and has effects on both the brain and the body. Two decades of research have focused attention on the role of oxytocin in parental attachment and bonding, as well as in prosocial emotions, motivations, and behavior more broadly ( Bethlehem et al., 2013 ; Johnson and Young, 2017 ). For example, Palgi et al. (2014) conducted a double-blind, crossover experiment in which participants self-administered either intranasal oxytocin or a placebo before listening to stories of suffering and writing compassionate responses to the victims in each story. The presence of self-administered oxytocin was associated with more compassionate responses toward women but not toward men. Other groups have examined the relationship between endogenous oxytocin and the amount of compassion participants report receiving or experiencing toward others. For example, endogenous oxytocin levels are positively correlated with the amount of maternal compassion that patients with bipolar disorder report receiving as a child ( Ebert et al., 2018 ).

Other researchers have examined the possibility that autonomic responses to suffering, and their downstream impact on heart rate and breathing, can serve as a bodily signal of compassion. Porges’ polyvagal theory posits that, in the face of another’s suffering, an initial fight–flight response has to be down-regulated via myelinated vagal efferent pathways of the parasympathetic nervous system. Vagal tone, as the activation of these pathways is sometimes called, impacts cardiac function and the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis to support “spontaneous social engagement” in the face of distress by dampening other, less prosocial responses ( Porges, 2007 ). Early research in this area highlighted the measurement of heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator of parasympathetic activity. HRV is a measurement of the beat-to-beat changes in cardiac output, and early thought was that the ratio of high-frequency (HF) to low-frequency (LF) HRV reflects the intrinsic balance between parasympathetic and sympathetic activity. However, more recently, researchers have called into question whether the ratio of HF HRV to LF HRV is an accurate metric for the ratio between sympathetic and parasympathetic activity and identified alternate calculations of vagal tone as a more accurate reflection of the underlying physiology ( Heathers, 2014 ). HF HRV and the root mean-square of successive differences have both been used in recent research as a measure of autonomic control of the heart, mediated by the vagus nerve ( Matos et al., 2017 ; Petrocchi et al., 2017a ; Kim et al., 2020b ).

As recent critiques have improved the rigor of research using HRV as an index of vagal tone ( Heathers et al., 2015 ), accumulating evidence supports the measurement of HRV for understanding and evaluating compassion. Researchers have found that HRV relates to the experience of compassion and predicted compassionate behavior ( Stellar et al., 2015 ). Others have found that compassionate responses appear to rely on the parasympathetic nervous system to modulate the emotional response to suffering, as indexed by HRV ( Rockliff et al., 2008 ). Still others have found that training in compassion meditation or engaging with compassion-focused therapy improves HRV, either during a resting state ( Matos et al., 2017 ; Kim et al., 2020c ), in response to stressful stimuli or a task ( Petrocchi et al., 2017a ; Ceccarelli et al., 2019 ), or during compassion training itself ( Kim et al., 2020b ). While not explicitly investigating compassion, another recent study used tDCS applied near the left anterior insula and found that stimulation increased both self-reported soothing positive affect and HF HRV. This innovative methodological approach links a brain region hypothesized to be important for compassion and empathy to both compassion-related affect and changes in HRV ( Petrocchi et al., 2017b ). Based on these findings, some have argued that HRV should be included as a primary outcome measure when assessing and training compassion ( Kirby et al., 2017 ), and recent meta-analytic evidence supports this approach ( Di Bello et al., 2020 ).

Other researchers have used the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to quantify the spontaneous expression of compassionate affect elicited by video stimuli ( Baránková et al., 2019 ). One of the first uses of this methodology emerged in a study of adults and children whose facial movements were documented as they watched a compassion-inducing video ( Eisenberg et al., 1989 ). Researchers found that movements indicating “concerned attention” or “sympathy-directed toward another” correlated with later helping behavior. Compassionate facial movements included lowered and/or furrowed eyebrows, lowered upper eyelids, and sometimes raised lower eyelids, facing forward, and relaxation of the lower face and jaw. Another group used FACS to evaluate physiognomic responses to video stimuli of human suffering to determine whether responses were impacted by a 3-month meditation retreat ( Rosenberg et al., 2015 ). They found that the intensive meditation training increased facial displays of sadness and decreased displays of rejection (operationalized as anger, contempt, or disgust). Of note, a recent theoretical article by Barrett et al. (2019) is skeptical of facial indicators of emotion, arguing that people do not express emotions with enough consistency or specificity to allow for the kinds of inferences made from FACS assessment. Moreover, even among prominent emotion scientists who endorse the theory that a core set of emotions has discrete biological bases—often referred to as “basic emotions”—a large majority (80%) do not believe compassion to be a discrete emotion ( Ekman, 2016 ).

Compassion in Text

Other methodologies are used to qualitatively mine textual content for elements of compassion. Some researchers have used qualitative analysis of content from online platforms such as Facebook or Twitter to look at compassionate language and activity within a Facebook support group ( Pounds et al., 2018 ) or by soliciting Twitter users to describe instances of organizational compassion toward healthcare staff ( Clyne et al., 2018 ). As with non-virtual interactions, online communities can be analyzed at the individual or dyadic (and beyond) level, which has the potential to reveal the dynamic nature of the digitally mediated expression and reception of compassion ( Sun, 2019 ). Others have conducted archival text analysis, for example, analyzing first- and second-century medical writing for evidence of physician compassion ( Porter, 2016 ), or used exegetical and hermeneutic approaches to sacred texts to derive doctrinal or personal positions on compassion (See for example Sears, 1998 ; McCaffrey et al., 2012 ; Gibson, 2015 ; T̈āhir ul-Qādrī, 2015 ). While textual analysis has many of the strengths of the third-person perspective, one must consider the source of the text, which in some cases may be self-reported or informant-reported and therefore subject to the limitations of those methodologies.

Summary and Conclusion

In this review, we have surveyed a variety of indicators and measures that have been used to define and study compassion. Examining these methodologies in the context of one another is vital to making compassion research more accurate, reliable, and transferable. It is also key for increasing knowledge transfer across the range of academic disciplines and other fields of compassion inquiry. Compassion is a multifaceted, intersubjective object of inquiry, glimpsed from a variety of separate viewpoints, each of which contributes to the unity of knowledge about compassion. We end with three summary points:

Method Matching

First, we find it evident from this review that the method(s) chosen to evaluate compassion should be theory-grounded and guided by specific research hypotheses. There may be times when first-person self-report measures are the best choice; however, those should be privileged only when the person’s internal states are most crucial to the hypothesis being tested and with recognition of the limitations of this methodology. Similarly, it stands to reason that other hypotheses will require methods that tap other perspectives and frames of reference. For example, identifying facilitators and inhibitors of helping behaviors directed toward strangers would be most directly inferred from third-person (i.e., behavior-based) evidence rather than self-report.

We also suggest that more thought is warranted on the use of state measures of compassion when testing hypotheses about trait compassion. Behavioral and confederate paradigms are frequently used to measure changes in trait compassion, for example, after a compassion-training intervention. The underlying rationale is that one’s augmented compassionate trait makes it more likely that they will enter into a compassionate state, such that measuring the likelihood of a compassionate response tells us something about trait compassion. The relationship between trait and state compassion is of great interest to many, and more methodological sensitivity toward this issue will be important toward advancing the field of compassion science.

Method Missing

In addition, our review process showed that certain research areas that target compassion would benefit from measurement techniques that are more fine-grained and that explicitly assess compassion. Some K–12 education programs explicitly target compassion cultivation as a broader focus, yet the majority of the effectiveness studies that provide the evidence base for such programs do not assess changes in compassion as a primary outcome being measured ( Jones et al., 2017 ). This lack of explicit measurement makes it difficult to meaningfully evaluate whether compassion-based interventions targeting K–12 students actually promote the development of compassion. Given the demonstrated impact of compassion cultivation on resilience in adulthood ( Bach and Guse, 2015 ; Bluth et al., 2016 ), education research explicitly assessing compassion in childhood and adolescence is well-warranted. Relatedly, the field of social and emotional education development could greatly benefit from interdisciplinary collaborations to create such measures.

It is also clear that there is a lack of clarity about how to measure compassion at the level of organizations and communities. Do the three core components of compassion—awareness of suffering, an affective response, and a motivation to help—also hold for organizations and communities? If so, what do “awareness” and “affective response” look like at the community or organizational level, and how can it be measured?

We have made the claim here that discipline-specific constructs such as parental warmth share a conceptual relatedness with compassion, such that cross-disciplinary sharing may reveal convergences. While this idea has in part motivated the current review, we view this claim as an empirical question for future research. Thus arise questions such as “What does the construct of parental warmth share with compassion for those who are unrelated?” We acknowledge that questions like these are not new (e.g., see Swain et al., 2012 ), but we contend that they will be informed by increased sharing of methods across disciplines. Of note, given the problematic history of the conflation of terms and constructs across disciplines, such work will require care and precision so as not to cause further confusion.

Method Mixing

A key point that emerges from this review is the importance of strategic method mixing for studies of compassion. The multiple frames of reference we have discussed can be combined to create a more accurate understanding of the relationship between internal emotions, goals, and perceptions on the one hand, and external behavior on the other. There are valuable exemplars of method mixing already in the literature. For example, Sinclair et al. (2017a , 2018) used second-person qualitative evidence to understand the perspective of patients receiving compassion and then conducted a follow-up study to understand healthcare providers’ first-person experiences offering compassion. We are optimistic that future research across disciplines will continue to utilize method-mixing approaches; however, it is important to note that at times the results of such method mixing may contradict one another. In fact, this may be important in its own right. The resulting ambivalence can be addressed by enhanced research methods that combine and cross-reference multiple ways of knowing, such as correlating individuals’ self-report scale measures with their behavior, with informant reports, or by using neurophenomenological experimental designs. For example, within intimate couples, first- and second-person reporting could be combined to reveal discrepancies between the way compassion was intended and the way it was received. It is exactly this type of method mixing that has been called for in compassion neuroimaging studies, where researchers have argued that including measurements of both motivation and action in research on the physiology of compassion will be crucial toward establishing links between neurobiology, emotion, and behavior outside the laboratory ( Kim et al., 2020b ).

Moreover, method mixing could advance consensus within controversial areas such as self-compassion and compassion fatigue research. We believe combinations of first-, second-, and third-person compassion measures would help solidify our understanding of how compassion for self relates to compassion for others ( López et al., 2018 ). In clinical research, method mixing can inform how obstacles to provider compassion relate to compassion failures and in so doing will provide a more nuanced landscape for identifying organizational solutions and interventions. Progress here will move the field beyond vague and abstract notions of compassion fatigue resulting from a depleted compassion reservoir and toward a richer understanding of the contexts and resources that foster sustainable compassion. Increasing the versatility and eclecticism of compassion research is of critical importance to comprehensive and interdisciplinary examinations of diverse ways of knowing compassion.

Limitations

Our intent in this review was to summarize the current state of methodologies that are used to understand and quantify compassion across widely varying fields of inquiry. No doubt we bring our own disciplinary biases to this work, but throughout we have used this space to bridge disparate fields. These biases may have led us to overlook important methods that could have further enhanced this review. Moreover, while we defined compassion in accordance with our own disciplines, there are nuanced differences in how compassion is operationalized that will influence the methods chosen to study it. Because of issues of feasibility, while we attempt to incorporate disparate fields of compassion research, we were unable to review all areas to the same degree as the literature from psychology, religion, and contemplative science, with which we are most familiar.

We contend that a better understanding of ways of knowing compassion is a type of consilience that at its best can improve research design, unify knowledge, and bridge disciplines for the benefit of all investigators interested in compassion ( Wilson, 1999 ; Slingerland and Collard, 2012b ). Future research will advance our knowledge by innovating novel ways of combining the measurement of multiple indicators of compassion. Ultimately, research designs that link the affective, cognitive, and motivational components of compassion with compassionate behavior will be of benefit to the many clinical, education, organizational, and interpersonal domains in which compassion is so critical to positive outcomes.

Author Contributions

JM, MF, MA, PP, TF, and PC conceived of the manuscript and wrote significant sections. All authors provided critical and substantive feedback and critical revisions for important intellectual content.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Keywords : compassion, empathy, altruism, methods, phenomenology, compassion meditation

Citation: Mascaro JS, Florian MP, Ash MJ, Palmer PK, Frazier T, Condon P and Raison C (2020) Ways of Knowing Compassion: How Do We Come to Know, Understand, and Measure Compassion When We See It? Front. Psychol. 11:547241. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.547241

Received: 30 March 2020; Accepted: 28 August 2020; Published: 02 October 2020.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2020 Mascaro, Florian, Ash, Palmer, Frazier, Condon and Raison. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Jennifer S. Mascaro, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• 9 Powerful Benefits of Compassion

by Leigh Tremaine | Relationships , Self-Development

The benefits of compassion enrich all aspects of our lives. Compassion, driven by the desire to relieve suffering through loving-kindness, is a key element of heart-based support that can be extended to ourselves and others to assist the flourishing of life and the authentic self-realisation of all beings. Compassion is a natural instinct within us all, which is why its practice results in numerous health benefits for both the giver and the receiver. Compassion ultimately embodies the realisation that all life is one continuum and that what benefits the genuine wellbeing of others also benefits ourselves. Compassion is a defining trait of authentic being and is one of the signature states of the true self that unfolds with self-realisation.

What is Compassion?

Compassion is the practice of being present to the suffering of ourselves and others and responding from our awakened hearts with a desire to alleviate this suffering. Mindfulness helps us to be present to this suffering by clearing the mind of any reactive thoughts, judgements, and conceptual overlays that could get in the way. It also counteracts the reactive tendency to dissociate or be indifferent. As we become present with pure awareness to another being, we can meet them in a space of shared life and interbeing, where compassion can naturally unfold as we engage our hearts.

As we awaken to our greater interconnectivity in the web of life through mindfulness, our compassion can guide us to minimise the harm of our actions and inactions on our social and ecological environments. Compassion can therefore support sustainable living and our ability to honour all life.

Compassion and Suffering

Compassion motivates us to alleviate suffering, but what exactly is suffering? It clearly involves the experience of pain, distress, and hardship, but I will go further and include states in which the flourishing of life and authentic self-realisation is diminished or blocked. Therefore, my definition of suffering incorporates not only pain, distress, and hardship but also the suffering that arises when reactivity, dissociation, and delusions hinder self-realisation—the process of realising, embodying, and developing through the  true self that is the birthright of us all.

This definition of suffering makes it possible to extend our practice of compassion to include the desire to see a life relieved of the suffering of not being able to realise, embody, and fulfil their true nature or true self.

How to Practise Compassion

Compassion is expressed through acts of loving-kindness that help alleviate the suffering of others and ourselves. It can be practised on any scale and doesn’t have to involve big gestures. This means that a genuine, heart-based smile, kind word, or thoughtful action can qualify as an act of compassion. These are some of the small but genuine gestures that can make a big difference—especially when a whole culture is built upon these easily practised acts of compassion.

When we are mindful and consciously embrace the life before us with clear awareness, we can be more present to any suffering they are experiencing and allow our compassion to naturally arise as we wish them to be free from suffering. This compassion can then motivate us to help alleviate their suffering with our loving-kindness. As we interact with them, there will always be an opportunity to help alleviate their suffering because, even if it seems that we can’t change their physical situation, there will always be an opportunity for us to help alleviate their mental, emotional, or spiritual suffering.

For many people, suffering arises simply because they are caught in reactivity, delusions, or distorted states of mind. Here, our compassion and wish for them to be free from suffering mean that, if we are mindful, we will not feed into their reactivity or conspire with their delusions or distorted states of mind. Instead, we will attempt to gently guide them out of their mental suffering into a state of clarity and presence. This is a much better way of interacting with them than colluding with their suffering. In a spiritual sense, we all have a responsibility to hold our light in our interactions with those less fortunate than us who are struggling.

Sometimes, we may feel called to practise compassion as an act of service. This is a common experience when our spiritual growth and awakening unfold: our sense of essential identity expands to encompass others and eventually all life. When we are present from our hearts to others through mindfulness in this way, the need for others to be free from suffering is indistinguishable from our own. This is why a truly compassionate person will never take sides in a conflict or war because their heart embraces the suffering of all of humanity.

It is a good idea to make compassion a daily practice, for there is much need for it. And what we practise daily builds the momentum for it to become a positive and enduring habit. We can look for opportunities to practise compassion in every moment, rather than reserve it for a few select moments. Compassion shouldn’t be limited to those we favour or feel pity for: it is an all-embracing, unconditional practice. Even the people we find most challenging are human beings like us and experience suffering, and even their deliberately hurtful acts are perpetrated from a place of suffering and distortion.

Practising Self-Compassion

Self-compassion involves treating ourselves with loving-kindness, especially during moments of pain, distress, and hardship—whether they are physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual in nature. Many people choose to mask their suffering by distracting or numbing themselves, but this is not self-compassion. We need to stay aware of the state of our wellbeing so that we can respond with the most compassionate action to enhance it and alleviate our suffering.

Given the wider definition of suffering discussed above, self-compassion can be extended to include not only the desire to relieve our own pain, distress, and hardship but also the desire to more fully embody our true selves to relieve the hardship and suffering caused by the repression of our true selves.

Self-compassion excels in mindfulness-based self-development. When challenged by cognitive distortions like filtering and minimisation that cause us to perceive our value and potential negatively, we can choose to be more mindful and practise self-compassion by acknowledging, accepting, and appreciating ourselves and our full potential, challenging our cognitive distortions. This creates a kinder, more accurate, and more supportive self-perception and internal dialogue. And we quickly end the suffering of being trapped in a distortion of thinking.

Being compassionate towards ourselves means that we should always weed out our false needs and instead tend to our true needs. We should also be mindful not to overextend ourselves in our desire to be compassionate. We have a need for healthy boundaries to protect our health and wellbeing and to keep out the experiences and people that may drain or harm us.

The Benefits of Compassion

The benefits of compassion are now being studied and documented by researchers, with findings that show that practising compassion towards others enhances our health and wellbeing more effectively than engaging in purely selfish acts, such as spending money on ourselves. This highlights an important truth about authentic living: living a life of narrow self-interest perpetuates suffering because we act as if we are separate from the whole we are part of. By cultivating and expressing compassion, we shift our focus beyond the narrow ego self and open up to a sense of an enlarged or common identity discovered through the true self.

Today, the world needs our compassion more than ever before, and thankfully, the opportunities for expressing compassion are greater than ever before. The Internet enables us to connect globally and to become more aware of the suffering happening in the world. Staying present to our feelings of wanting to alleviate suffering and allowing them to propel us into action is an important motivational force for authentic living. This is why working in service to others and the natural environment is so rewarding, even if the extent of collective suffering is large and causes many people to numb out. While we are not responsible for the lives of others, we are responsible for honouring the social, ecological, and spiritual whole that we are part of, which we can do through acts of compassion. Making sure to balance our compassion for others with our compassion for ourselves is crucial so that we do not, for instance, neglect ourselves when serving others. Healthy boundaries are always needed with others.

Here are 9 powerful benefits of compassion :

• Compassion reduces suffering and contributes to the wellbeing of the whole, making the world a better place.
• Compassion opens your heart .
• Compassion  enlarges your perspective and identity as you discover your commonality with others, realising that, just like you, they experience suffering.
• Compassion increases your happiness , fulfilment, and wellbeing.
• Compassion deepens your connections , strengthening and enriching your personal, social, ecological, and spiritual relationships.
• Compassion  improves your health by strengthening your immune system, normalising your blood pressure, lowering your stress and depression, improving your physical recovery from illness, and even extending your life.
• Compassion enables you to understand yourself and others more as you seek to relieve suffering.
• Compassion  increases the possibilities for peace and reconciliation where there is conflict.
• Compassion is contagious and spreads outwards , inspiring further acts of compassion and kindness when witnessed and experienced.

Enrich your Life with MORE Compassion

Compassion is a natural state that enhances your relationships and reorients your life towards heart-centred service. It builds emotional intelligence . If you would like help developing greater compassion, or if you need to release some inner blocks to being more centred in your heart, book a personalised Guidance Call with me and discover how you can live more from your compassionate heart.

Did you find this article helpful? Leave a comment below and share the link on social media and other websites.

Lovely article, I have used some of your ideas in my work. Well done.

Thank you, Naomi

I loved the connection you created, this really touched my heart and found myself while saying to you “congratulations!” 🙂

Thank you for your kind words, Aydan!

nice article, may i point out that you misspelled practice. other than that, outstanding piece of work

Thank you, Taylor. Compassion is a key value for moving forward in every sense. I am not sure what you are referring to about the spelling. The UK spelling is practice (noun) and practise (verb).

I came across this post while trying to figure out why my husband lacks empathy, compassion. Thank You for your work and effort!

Thank you, Kelly. I hope it was useful. The good news is that compassion can be developed.

This is great & true according to my experience. Thank u

Thank you, Malama.

Excellent BE KIND ALWAYS

I find it really interesting that in this article it mentions that compassion improves your health. Spiritual care is important and I have only reached the surface with dabbling in yoga but I can potentially see the benefits of making my spiritual care a priority.

Thank you for sharing this, McKenzie! Our Compassion improves our health when we direct it towards ourselves and when we direct it to others. Self-care in its many aspects is so important, as is the awareness of the ways in which we may be suffering (sometimes this can be a revelation) and our desire and commitment to relieve that suffering where we can.

Glad to meet fellow vegans!

Welcome, Carol!

Just knowing small act of kindness can make someone feel better it also does make me feel better is so awesome. Thank you for your article

Thank you, Penny. Kindness is like gold and shines from our true nature.

Great and insightful

Thank you, Monique.

thank you very much, it helped a lot.

Thank you, Divyanshu

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Student Essays

Essay on Compassion | Meaning, Purpose, Importance of Compassion in Life

Compassion is the powerful motivating force that is essentially important in our lives. The following essay, written by our experts, sheds light upon the meaning, purpose and importance of having compassion in life This essay is quite helpful for children & students in their school exams, college test, etc

Essay on Compassion | Meaning, Purpose & Importance of having Compassion in Life

The Compassion is an emotional energy that we feel for someone or something else and which draws us to offer our support. If we have compassion for someone in need, it means that we feel their pain in our own hearts and are motivated to alleviate it in some way.

On a broader scale, compassion is loving kindness. It’s the heartfelt intention to offer hope and support, to feel someone else’s pain as if it is our own and to offer help.

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Compassion vs Empathy:

Empathy can be defined as, “the feeling that you understand and share another person’s experiences and emotions.”

While both compassion and empathy are about relating to the feelings of others, empathy is more focused on the other person’s emotions. Compassion expands that focus to include a desire to help. It shows up as wanting to support, to be there for someone in a time of need, and to offer help.

Empathy often causes an emotional resonance within us that motivates us to action, which is an aspect of compassion. However, empathy can be limited by our own feelings and experiences. For example, if someone else is feeling sad, but the only thing you can relate to in that moment is your own sadness, you may feel empathy for them but not be able to experience their sadness fully. This might lead you to try to cheer them up instead of letting them feel what they need to feel in order to heal.

On the other hand, compassion is more about emotional resonance and less about our own emotions. Because of this, it can be a more effective motivator for both giving and receiving help.

Kinds of Compassion

Compassion can be broken down into two categories: familial and altruistic. Familial love is the kind of compassion that comes from our personal family experiences. Whenever we feel love for someone in our family, we are experiencing familial compassion. For example, your parents showed you love and support when you were growing up—those are moments of familial compassion.

Altruistic love is the kind that focuses on loving others without any expectation for reciprocity. It’s the kind of love that you can feel for people you don’t know or have just met. It’s what leads to charity, volunteering, and philanthropy. People who dedicate their lives to helping others are often motivated by altruistic love.

Compassion in our daily Life

Having compassion for ourselves and others is an important part of keeping our hearts open. We all experience challenges in life that can cause us to shut down and close our hearts. When we have compassion for ourselves in these moments, it can prevent us from closing down further.

Compassion is also often necessary when helping others. If we are trying to support a homeless person on the street, for example, it’s much more helpful if we can offer them compassion. If we are judgmental of their situation, if we think that they “should” be doing something about it or that this is “their own fault,” we are not offering effective support. The same can be said for trying to help someone who is grieving, or a person struggling with anxiety.

It’s important to receive compassion as well as offer it. We all need support sometimes, and when we don’t get it, we can feel even worse about ourselves and the situation. If you are going through a tough time, it’s important to receive compassion from others to keep your heart open.

In order to offer compassion, we have to practice awareness of the suffering in our world and take a stand against it. We can’t offer compassion if we don’t know about the problem. In addition, mindful awareness of our own thoughts and feelings is a crucial part of compassion. Without self-awareness we can’t know what others need and we won’t be able to relate to them properly.

Developing Compassion in Life

Compassion can be developed by practicing mindfulness and meditation. Mindfulness is the practice of keeping our attention on the present moment and noticing how we’re feeling. We can think of this as “taking a moment” to check in with ourselves. Meditation is another way to practice mindfulness.

Compassion can also be encouraged by focusing on people’s beneficial qualities rather than their shortcomings or mistakes. If you focus mainly on the negative qualities of someone who is suffering, it can be harder to feel compassion for them. Another way to develop more compassion is by trying to imagine

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Compassion is essential to keeping our hearts open, and developing more of it will ultimately help us build better relationships with others. When we feel compassion, we feel motivated to help and support others, but it’s important to recognize that compassion is a whole-hearted feeling, not an emotion. Therefore it’s important that we also receive compassion from others, especially when we need it.

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Essay Samples on Compassion

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Leading with Compassion Has Research-Backed Benefits

• Stephen Trzeciak,
• Anthony Mazzarelli,
• Emma Seppälä

Why it helps you and your workplace — and how to get better at it.

How do organizations earn employee loyalty? Lasting relationships aren’t merely achieved through compensation and material perks; they’re nurtured by human connection and compassion. Research has shown the benefits of being compassionate on health and personal relationships, but it’s also incredibly beneficial to professional success — but it has to be authentically altruistic. The good news is that becoming more compassionate is not only possible; it’s actionable. The authors recommend managers take the following actions to grow in their own compassion: Start small, be thankful, be purposeful, find common ground, see it, elevate, and know your power.

With burnout rising, employee engagement falling, and and people continuing to quit their jobs even in the midst of economic uncertainty, organizations must sharpen their focus on employee retention. While compensation and benefits are an important part of retaining employees, the source of lasting loyalty to an organization is typically something deeper.

• ST Stephen Trzeciak , MD, MPH is chief of medicine at Cooper University Health Care, and professor and chair of medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.
• AM Anthony Mazzarelli , MD, JD, MBE is co-president/CEO of Cooper University Health Care, and the associate dean of clinical affairs at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.
• Emma Seppälä , PhD, is a faculty member at the Yale School of Management and the faculty director of their Women’s Leadership Program . She is the bestselling author of Sovereign: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy, and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty, and Chaos (2024) and The Happiness Track (2017), as well as the science director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education . Follow her work at emmaseppala.com or on Instagram . emmaseppala

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Emotions & Feelings — Compassion

Essays on Compassion

Brief description of compassion.

Compassion is the ability to understand the suffering of others and to take action to help. It involves empathy, kindness, and a willingness to alleviate the pain and struggles of others. Compassion is a fundamental aspect of human connection and is essential for creating a more caring and inclusive society.

Importance of Writing Essays on This Topic

Essays on compassion are significant for both academic and personal exploration. They allow students to delve into the complexities of human emotions and relationships, fostering empathy and understanding. Additionally, writing about compassion can inspire personal growth and encourage readers to become more compassionate individuals.

Tips on Choosing a Good Topic

• Consider real-life experiences where compassion played a significant role.
• Explore different perspectives on compassion, such as cultural or historical contexts.
• Choose a topic that challenges common misconceptions about compassion.

Essay Topics

• The role of compassion in healthcare settings
• How does compassion contribute to effective leadership?
• Discuss the impact of compassion fatigue on healthcare professionals
• Exploring the relationship between compassion and forgiveness
• The portrayal of compassion in literature and film
• Analyze the role of compassion in social justice movements
• The importance of self-compassion for mental well-being
• Compare and contrast cultural perspectives on compassion
• The ethical implications of showing compassion towards animals
• How does compassion contribute to conflict resolution?

Concluding Thought

Writing essays about compassion offers an opportunity to deepen one's understanding of human emotions and relationships. Through critical engagement with this topic, individuals can cultivate empathy and contribute to creating a more compassionate society. Embracing compassion in writing can lead to personal growth and inspire positive change in the world.

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On Compassion' by Barbara Lazear Ascher: Unveiling The Motivations

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What is compassion fatigue? Experts say taking care of others can hurt your mental health.

Can caring too much hurt your mental health ?

It's called compassion fatigue , and mental health experts say it's a phenomenon that occurs most commonly in people who work in professions like caretaking or who spend most of their time physically or emotionally taking care of another person.

Though compassion and empathy are wonderful qualities to have, they can also cause burnout, anxiety and depression if someone isn't showing the same kindness to themselves they show other people.

"It is a form of emotional and physical exhaustion that is accompanied by some emotional pain," says Sussan Nwogwugwu , a psychiatric nurse practitioner with Done. "These caregivers who continue to give themselves fully to this person that they're caring for in that moment find it very difficult to maintain a healthy balance of empathy and also being objective with their own personal responsibilities."

What are the effects of compassion fatigue?

Psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis says the mental health consequences of compassion fatigue can be severe, including anxiety, depression as well as thoughts of suicide. She says compassion fatigue may also cause someone to have nightmares about another person's trauma.

"It's feeling like you are just experiencing the same day over and over again, and there's nothing enriching your life," Sarkis says. "You aren't having any kind of fun. You don't feel like you're getting any kind of break."

Are you very agreeable? This personality trait may be why you make less money than your peers.

Nwogwugwu adds people who suffer from compassion fatigue are more prone to emotional outbursts as well as developing alcohol, drug or food addictions.

Sarkis says compassion fatigue can also damage the other relationships someone has in their life if they aren't aware of it.

"Before you saw people as basically good," she says. "You may start treating people in your family differently, because, when you're in a helping profession, you see the range of what people can do to each other."

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I'm struggling with compassion fatigue. What should I do?

Nwogwugwu and Sarkis agree the most effective defenses against compassion fatigue are therapy and self-care.

Sarkis says it's important to make self-care a regular part of your routine, rather than waiting for compassion fatigue to happen before practicing it.

"Self-care has to come first. That needs to be proactive self-care," Sarkis says. "Proactive self-care is, every day you do something to nurture yourself."

Here are some tips for taking care of yourself amid compassion fatigue:

• Develop a personal relaxation plan : "It could be taking a bubble bath, dressing in comfortable clothes, taking a walk, of course hiring a sitter or even creating activities that could happen outside the home," Nwogwugwu says. "It could be going for a drive, rolling down the car windows playing music and just anything that one is probably used to in the past that they can no longer do within that (caretaking) period. It could be reading a book, enjoying a night out ... eating regularly, ensuring that they are exercising, and sometimes, too, meditation helps a lot."
• Ask for help: "In psychiatry, there's something called respite care, where you can delegate care to someone else while you're taking a brief mental vacation," Nwogwugwu says. "It is very important to involve all the people to assist. It could be the church community. It could be friends. It could be family members. But definitely creating moments where you can enjoy some quiet time alone definitely helps you to recharge."
• Talk to someone: "It's great to have friends in (similar situations) because they can understand things in a way that other people might not," Sarkis says.

More: What happens when a narcissist becomes a parent? They force their kids into these roles.