Compassion and altruism: how our minds determine who is worthy of help

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2015.02.002Get rights and content

Highlights

  • I distinguish compassion from empathy to sharpen precision in terms.

  • Compassion is a distinct emotional state that motivates altruistic action.

  • Compassion is modulated by the likelihood that recipients will reciprocate.

  • Compassion can be promoted through nonconscious nudges and meditation.

  • Compassion functions as a mechanism for self-regulation meant to build social capital.

The causal role of affective experiences in the generation of altruistic behavior has emerged as a topic of great interest during the past decade. If continued advancement is to be made, however, two primary issues need to be addressed. The first involves the use of terms such as empathy and compassion. The second involves examination of the ability of these emotional states to be tuned to the ratio of costs and benefits inherent in any given opportunity for altruistic action. In this article, therefore, I attempt to delineate a specific use for the term compassion to capture one aspect of what has traditionally been termed empathy and then show how this specific emotional state is contextually responsive to trade-offs involving immediate and delayed reward.

Introduction

Are we brutish and selfish beings by nature, with only willful adherence to ethical or religious doctrines reigning in our desires for individual gain at the expense of others? Or, are we compassionate at base, with our behaviors corrupted by logical strategies meant to convince us to pursue our own self-interest? These questions, which have been debated for centuries 1, 2, 3], still captivate our interest today 4, 5, 6]. And why not? Altruism  a willingness to help others at cost to oneself without an immediate or guaranteed return  is a powerful act. Not only is it viewed as a pinnacle of virtue by many, but, if emerging frequently enough, can function as a driving force for building cooperation and stemming violence in a society 7, 8].

If we are to further understanding of compassion and altruism, however, I believe the nature of the questions we have traditionally asked needs to be tweaked a bit. Rather than inquiring whether humans are altruistic or selfish at base, we need to accept that we’re both and neither. That is, we need to recognize that moral behavior varies not only between people, but also within them [9]. A strategy of consistent compassion (or lack thereof) would not be highly adaptive. Just as ample simulations have shown that human populations completely characterized by cooperators or cheaters are evolutionarily unstable 10, 11, 12], so too, in an analogous fashion, would be individual minds that always (or never) favored being the first to offer assistance. Increased success comes from being able to tune behavioral responses to the probabilities of potential ‘pay-offs’ provided by any given situation, which when it comes to compassion and altruism, means deciding whose pain it's worth to feel and exert effort to remediate.

Section snippets

Compassion versus empathy

Before delving more deeply into this issue, a pause to clarify terms is necessary. Both within and across the neural and behavioral sciences, the term empathy has been used loosely. For some, it refers to the ability to intuit what people are feeling [13]. For others, it reflects emotional contagion [14]. And for still others, it captures a discrete emotional experience meant to motivate altruistic action 15, 16]. As one might imagine, such varying uses can be problematic. Depending on the

Determining who is worthy of compassion

As is well recognized, Trivers’ [25] model of reciprocal altruism solved a principal problem in the study of altruistic behavior: why individuals assist others to whom they are not related. As he and others have now elegantly shown, the solution stems from delayed opportunities for ‘pay-back.’ That is, expending resources to help another in need at Time 1 can increase the likelihood of receiving help from the other at Time 2  a time when the initial helper may be in need. The underlying

Cultivating and nudging compassion

Recognition of the power of similarity opens several avenues for the design of interventions and nudges to encourage more compassionate interactions. One promising tool might involve social media. Consider the vast amounts of information about individuals’ likes, dislikes, group memberships, and preferences that corporations like Facebook, Google, and Twitter hold. If bits of information concerning what individuals in competition or conflict share in common could be subtly and selectively

Concluding remarks

In many ways, dilemmas relevant to compassion are similar to those characterized by intertemporal choice  dilemmas where decision options hold different consequences as time unfolds. While classic operationalizations of intertemporal choice usually involve money, food, or other similar tangible rewards, the dynamics of reciprocal helping behavior can also be accommodated. For example, the decision of whether to help someone in distress offers immediate rewards if altruistic behaviors are

Conflict of interest statement

Nothing declared.

References (40)

  • W. Hofmann et al.

    Morality in everyday life

    Science

    (2014)
  • R. Axelrod

    The Evolution of Cooperation

    (1984)
  • R.H. Frank

    Passions within reason: The strategic role of the emotions

    (1988)
  • W. Ickes

    Empathic accuracy: Its links to clinical, cognitive, developmental, social, and physiological psychology

  • E. Hatfield et al.

    Emotional contagion and empathy

  • C.D. Batson et al.

    Is empathic emotion a source of altruistic motivation?

    J Pers Soc Psychol

    (1981)
  • P.A.M. Van Lange

    Does empathy trigger only altruistic motivation? How about selflessness or justice?

    Emotion

    (2008)
  • J.L. Goetz et al.

    Compassion: an evolutionary analysis and empirical review

    Psychol Bull

    (2010)
  • P. Condon et al.

    Conceptualizing and experiencing compassion

    Emotion

    (2013)
  • O.M. Klimecki et al.

    Empathic distress fatigue rather than compassion fatigue? Integrating findings from empathy research in psychology and social neuroscience

  • Cited by (54)

    • Disentangling the road to a compassionate response to suffering: A multistudy investigation

      2023, Personality and Individual Differences
      Citation Excerpt :

      Reacting to the suffering of others with compassion might be an evolved ability essential to our development as individuals and as a society (Darwin, 1871; Goetz et al., 2010). The compassionate response is a key point in building social capital as it strengthens social bonds and cooperation (DeSteno, 2015; Li et al., 2018; Stellar et al., 2017). Furthermore, compassion has been shown not only to improve the welfare of the distressed person but also the well-being of those who express it (Klimecki et al., 2012; Mongrain et al., 2011).

    • Empathy regulation, prosociality, and moral judgment

      2022, Current Opinion in Psychology
      Citation Excerpt :

      Empathy has been defined in many ways [3,4], as have morality and prosocial behavior, as the latter can be defined by relation to motivating intentions (i.e. does a person mean to help), consequences for others' well-being (i.e. is the target of action helped), or a combination of the two [5]. Here, we focus on empathy as experience sharing (vicariously taking on others' feelings) and compassion (warm-hearted concern for others) [1,6]. Prosocial behavior refers to actions that are meant to improve others’ well-being (considering both intentions and outcomes) [5,7,8], and morality broadly refers to concerns about social relationships and virtuous conduct [9].

    • Motivated empathic choices

      2022, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
    • When does empathy feel good?

      2021, Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
    • Validation of the Persian version of the Compassionate Care Assessment Tool

      2021, International Journal of Nursing Sciences
      Citation Excerpt :

      Because of this, the terms “compassion” and “compassionate care” are usually used interchangeably in nursing literature to highlight the same meaning [6]. Emotional compassion develops as a result of witnessing others’ pain and hardship and leads to attempts to help [7]. Compassion begins with empathy and accomplishes with willingness and taking measure to decrease or remove the pain and suffering of others [5].

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text