The purpose of emotions has been debated by philosophers over the centuries, with the help of neuroscience we are beginning to understand emotions on a deeper level and the roles they play in all aspects of our lives. Human beings are social beings and our lives are intertwined and linked with each other. Prosocial emotions are also known as self-transcendent emotions as they transcend self and focus on the welfare of others. They promote ‘we not me’ thinking and the idea of the ‘common good’ as opposed to individual needs. One of these emotions is compassion which is part of a wider collection of prosocial emotions which include: gratitude, love, awe, inspiration, appreciation, elevation and admiration (Stellar, Gordan, Piff et al, 2017). These emotions are the glue that bind individuals together into social relationships forming stable and cooperative groups. They allow us to benefit from the advantages of working collaboratively where we achieve more together than we could do alone. According to Steller et al, (2017) compassion is defined as “feeling concern for another’s suffering accompanied by the motivation to help”. Compassion is often linked to empathy and altruism, but unlike empathy which is about sharing someone’s feelings, compassion is different because of the motivation to help. Altruism is kind, selfless behavior that may be initiated by feeling compassion but not always.

 Armstrong (2006) as cited in (Keltner, Oatley & Jenkins, 2014) referred to compassion as the ‘master’ social emotion. She conducted a survey analysing the major religions and belief systems over the last 2,500 years and found that compassion was considered to be the premier virtue. To understand emotions and where compassion fits, it is handy to consider an evolutionary perspective and take into account our three human social motivations of attachment (care and protection), assertion (power, competition, hierarchy and status) and affiliation (cooperation and affection) and our anti-social social motivation of hostility that are our adaptations to being able to live a social life with other human beings.

We have a strong social motivation to care and protect an infant and form physical and emotional bonds to another person and this is known as attachment (Keltner, Oatley & Jenkins, 2014). Feeling compassion activates a subcortical area of the midbrain called the periaqueductal gray. This part of the brain is old from an evolutionary standpoint suggesting that its pro-social function has been important for a long time. The periaqueductal gray has three different processes:

• promotes nurturing and care

• pain regulation

• is stimulated by negative emotions and signs of distress.

Parents are tuned into the distress signals of their child, they are driven to want to look after their child and ease their pain. A soothing hug from a caregiver is a compassionate response to a distressed child who recognises that they are safe through the touch of the caregiver. This feeling is universally experienced across cultures and is an important evolutionary adaptation as infants spend a long time dependent on caregivers before they can function independently. Without basic care a child simply will not survive.

We also have a social motivation for affiliation and connection. Affiliation promotes feelings of warmth and affection and is known as the social motivation to cooperate and share resources, which is a fundamental aspect of compassion. We are drawn to being part of groups and as a humane society we are called to care and nurture children that may or may not be our own offspring. If you combine the social motivation of attachment to care and protect, and the social motivation of affiliation for warmth and affection, then developing compassion in our society would appear to be a good thing. This seems so easy and common sense but there are also other social motivators that need to be considered.

We have a social motivation of assertion otherwise known as power and it is the motivation to compete and conflict and to maintain or elevate one’s status in a group. Whether we like it or not groups are arranged with carefully regulated power dynamics in hierarchies. This motivation serves us because hierarchies enable us to distribute resources and the law dictates the rules of how we act in these societal hierarchies. With power comes responsibility such as: a parent has the responsibility to care for a child; a teacher cares for and teaches their students; police provide protection and uphold the law; and governments have a responsibility to consider the welfare of their people. We see the influence of status playing out in many platforms including the rise of social media where many people spend considerable time maintaining and elevating their social media status. The price of losing status is shame which is an emotion that can have lingering effects over a long period of time.

What is this anti-social motivation of hostility?

Although we have this amazing human capacity to emotionally bond through attachment, assertion and affiliation and a tendency to form cooperative ‘in-groups’, we also have a darker side of hostility, contempt, hatred and exclusion for people who do not fit into what we perceive as our ‘in-group’. When we are in the ‘in-group’ we focus on our similarities within that group and with the ‘out-group’ we focus on the differences. This is the ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality. Members of ‘out-groups’ can become targets of prejudice, cruelty and hatred and this can be the basis for conflict and wars. The reality is ‘in-group’ and ‘out-group’ behavior plays out in most social contexts. It served as well when we lived in small tribes back in the day, but it doesn’t serve as well in a global, diverse community where we are all human beings on the same team. What if we could shake our evolutionary shackles and free ourselves from our hostility and hatred for people who we perceive as different from us? Maybe, deliberately learning to feel compassion, gratitude, appreciation, admiration and awe for people that are unlike ourselves is a good starting point to counteract our antisocial tendencies and reduce our harmful behaviors. We saw this play out in real-time in Christchurch, New Zealand after the shootings on March 15. Our prime minister Jacinda Ardern led the world in compassion and caring and for that I am deeply proud. The outpouring of love, inclusion and compassion plus the catch phrases ‘we are one’, ‘they are us’ resonated around the globe.

From a biological standpoint, caring can help a person feel physically safe and secure because compassion affects the autonomic nervous system, specifically the parasympathetic nervous system by increasing the activation of the vagus nerve that innervates the heart and causes it to slow down (Stellar, Gordan, Piff et al, 2017). Compassion is associated with the release of oxytocin and this indicates to the body that it is safe by deactivating the fight/flight response.  As opposed to a high stress environment that triggers the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis and a flow on effect is high adrenaline and cortisol levels and in the long term a lowered immune response (Stellar, Gordan, Piff et al, 2017). Compassion allows us to ‘tend and befriend’ which is a typical female response to stress but is also seen in males where we seek social and emotional support. This concept first came to light by a psychology professor Shelly Taylor (2011) and her colleagues when they studied females’ response to stress. They found that females’ aggression and fear response was less intense than men and often women would seek out support in times of stress and form groups and tight alliances.

The emotional climate of a society depends on what cultural lens is used. Western cultures tend to promote individuality and Eastern cultures collectivism (Keltner, Oatley & Jenkins, 2014). Taking into account the nuances between different cultures, compassion is consistently valued reinforcing the idea it is indeed the ‘master’ prosocial emotion Armstrong (2006) as cited in (Keltner, Oatley & Jenkins, 2014). If we take a Māori world-view Manaakitanga is the concept of hospitality, care and kindness. For the purpose of this article, compassion is used as the western emotion term that appears to best fit this concept, bearing in mind that there is no exact translation. Manaakitanga is based around the idea that on the marae the host has a responsibility to care for their visitors. This not only includes providing food, rest and shelter for their physical (taha tinana) needs, but also kindness and compassion for the visitor’s emotional (taha hinengaro), social (taha whanau) and spiritual (taha wairua) needs as discussed by Barlow (1993) as cited in (MacFarlane, 2010). In a teaching context, MacFarlane makes it clear that promoting manaakitanga is not an option for a teacher, rather it is necessary and teachers have an obligation to set up reciprocal relationships. Manaakitanga is not just confined to the classroom, it is in any social relationship. Without valuing others then you cannot expect to be valued yourself. The idea of reciprocity resonates throughout his article and holds true to the research from Stellar et al (2017) and Keltner et al (2014) where compassion increases generosity and the likelihood that this generosity would be given back in the future thus increasing social bonds.

Unfortunately, most of us have experienced scams, fake charities and the exploitation of goodwill where our compassion has been taken advantage of. The accompanying feelings of vulnerability or anger can harden our hearts as inauthentic and fake self-transcendent emotions tends to have a negative impact on future cooperation (Stellar, Gordan, Piff et al, 2017). The saying ‘once burnt, twice shy’ comes to mind. If we are going to work together better in the future we need genuine, heartfelt compassion in all aspects of our lives that focuses on the ‘we’ not ‘me’ with kindness as our default way of interacting with others.

Further investigation into the understanding and application of complex prosocial emotions like compassion are needed to build a global world that is cooperative and affiliative. Along with a deepening of our understanding of anti-social emotions and in-group/out-group behavior.

Many metaphors describing compassion are connected to feelings in the heart such as ‘big-hearted’ and ‘heart-felt’. Compassion seems to be the emotion at the ‘heart’ of humanity. We are only just beginning to understand compassion and its power to transform relationships as it focuses our attention on others’ needs and concerns rather than our own self-interest.

Sources

Keltner, D. Oatley, K & Jenkins, J. (2014). Understanding Emotions 3rd Edition Text. New Jersey: Wiley

MacFarlane, A. (2010). An educultural approach to classroom management: Integrating body, mind and heart. Journal of Physical Education New Zealand. 43(1), 7-11.

Stellar, J. E., Gordan, A. M., Piff, P. K et al. (2017). Self-Transcendent Emotions and Their Social Functions: Compassion, Gratitude, and Awe Bind Us to Others Through Prosociality. Emotion Review, 9(3)200-207.

Taylor, S (2011). 2011 Tend and Befriend Theory. Retrieved from https://taylorlab.psych.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2014/11/2011_Tend-and-Befriend-Theory.pdf