When we come together, it is as if we have not been apart, even if years have intervened. We can comfortably pick up the relationship where we left off and not feel as if something was missing. It is this form of the affiliation drive that is the basis for the experience of compassion.
So compassion is empathy in action. It is based on a wholesome desire to connect with others and to meet their needs. The best way to understand what compassion is, however, is to see how it actually leads, in practice, to the renewal of both leaders and those around them, and ultimately to sustainable resonance and results. Overcoming Prejudgments It is impossible to be free of all prejudgment—we simply could not live in the world without some assumptions.
Empathy Versus Sympathy People often confuse sympathy, that is, feeling sorry for someone, with caring about someone and feeling compassion. What Drives Human Relationships? Learn More. Share this article Facebook Twitter LinkedIn. Related View All. Additionally, one of the interesting opportunities that arises when we do not do our compassion meditation practices is to see if, in that moment, we can practice compassion for ourselves.
It is important to notice whether we are bringing any expectations to the compassion practice. While relaxation and stress relief can be the goal of some meditations, in general this is not the case with compassion meditation. Compassion is ultimately about suffering, which can at times feel difficult to sit with. Finally, people often bring the expectation that because a compassion practice generated a certain feeling or experience before e.
As I often tell my students, reality is constantly changing time is passing and the earth is rotating as you read this , and thus it is a bit of a fallacy to expect that we, and the practice, will be the same day in and day out. The good news is that there are many varieties of different contemplative practices available that can help you to become more present and non-judgmental. Establishing new habits takes time. Be patient and keep trying.
Hooria Jazaieri, Ph. She studies the role of social cognitive constructs e. Become a subscribing member today. Scroll To Top Would you describe yourself as a compassionate person? Get the science of a meaningful life delivered to your inbox. Although these terms are related to compassion, they are not identical. Compassion often does, of course, involve an empathic response and an altruistic behavior.
However, compassion is defined as the emotional response when perceiving suffering and involves an authentic desire to help alleviate that suffering. Research by Jean Decety, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago, suggests that even rats are driven to empathize with another suffering rat and to go out of their way to help it out of its quandary.
Studies with chimpanzees and human infants too young to have learned the rules of politeness also back up these claims: Michael Tomasello and other scientists at the Max Planck Institute, in Germany, have found that infants and chimpanzees spontaneously engage in helpful behavior and will even overcome obstacles to do so.
They apparently do so from intrinsic motivation without expectation of reward. It is not surprising that compassion is a natural tendency, since it is essential for human survival.
Without it, the survival and flourishing of our species would have been unlikely. One more sign that suggests that compassion is an adaptively evolved trait is that it makes us more attractive to potential mates. Why is compassion so important to our survival? Part of the answer may lie in its tremendous benefits for both physical and mental health and our overall well-being.
Research by Ed Diener and Martin Seligman, leading researchers in positive psychology, suggests that connecting with others in a meaningful way helps us enjoy better mental and physical health and speeds up recovery from disease; furthermore, research by Stephanie Brown, at Stony Brook University, and Sara Konrath, at the University of Michigan, has shown that it may even lengthen our lifespan.
The reason a compassionate lifestyle leads to greater psychological well-being may be that the act of giving appears to be as pleasurable as the act of receiving , if not more so. Giving to others even increases well-being above and beyond what we experience when we spend money on ourselves. In a revealing experiment by Elizabeth Dunn , a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia, participants received a sum of money; half of them were instructed to spend the money on themselves, the other half to spend the money on others.
At the end of the study, which was published in the academic journal Science , participants who had spent money on others felt significantly happier than those who had spent money on themselves.
This is true even for infants. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the fact that giving makes us happier than receiving is true across the world, regardless of whether countries are rich or poor. Compassion, on the other hand, is more constructive. It starts with empathy and then turns outward, with an intent to help. With compassion, leaders make the conscious choice to turn emotion into action.
And in doing so, compassionate leaders are perceived as stronger and more competent , able to make decisions and get things done. And, compassion in an organization triggers other positive outcomes: improved collaboration, trust and team loyalty. Because compassion is intentional and solutions-focused — centered on how to help another person while actively considering the various trade-offs — it is restorative versus draining. And, when we deliver that help, we get the added bonus of a dopamine hit.
Helping feels good, and we are motivated to do it again in the future. For leaders, compassion is clearly the better choice over empathy.
And, because compassion is not an instinctive, purely emotional response, it can be trained and developed, just like any other leadership skill. In our client work, we have witnessed and supported great examples of compassionate leadership at global organizations like IKEA, Unilever, Cisco, and Marriott.
In addition to our client work, we have gathered data on compassion from 15, leaders around the world, the largest global sample to date on compassionate leadership. The data include the self-reported attitudes and internal states of leaders from nearly countries and more than 5, companies.
One of the most important revelations in the data is that having a regular routine of mindfulness — or some other contemplative practice — is one of the best paths for increasing compassion. Mindfulness generally makes people more self-aware. With greater self-awareness, leaders are more intentional about how they approach an issue and more thoughtful about how they respond to others. Mindfulness supports the deliberate and constructive decision-making that distinguishes compassion from empathy.
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