Compassion, the emotional
response of caring for another who is suffering and that results in motivation
to relieve suffering, is thought to be an emotional antecedent to altruistic
behavior. However, it remains unclear whether compassion enhances altruistic
behavior in a uniform way or is specific to sub-types of behavior such as
altruistic helping of a victim or altruistic punishment of a transgressor.
We
investigated the relationship between compassion and subtypes of altruistic
behavior using third-party paradigms where participants 1) witnessed an unfair
economic exchange between a transgressor and a victim, and 2) had the
opportunity to either spend personal funds to either economically a) help the
victim or b) punish the transgressor. In Study 1, we examined whether
individual differences in self-reported empathic concern (the emotional
component of compassion) was associated with greater altruistic helping or
punishment behavior in two independent samples.
For participants who witnessed
an unfair transaction, trait empathic concern was associated with greater
helping of a victim and had no relationship to punishment. However, in those
who decided to punish the transgressor, participants who reported greater
empathic concern decided to punish less. In Study 2, we directly enhanced
compassion using short-term online compassion meditation training to examine whether
altruistic helping and punishment were increased after two weeks of training.
Compared to an active reappraisal training control group, the compassion
training group gave more to help the victim and did not differ in punishment of
the transgressor.
Together, these two studies suggest that compassion is
related to greater altruistic helping of victims and is not associated with or
may mitigate altruistic punishment of transgressors.
Below: The association between trait compassion and third-party altruistic behavior after an unfair dictator transfer
Full article at: http://goo.gl/UEk9mv
By:
Helen Y. Weng, Richard J. Davidson
Osher Center for Integrative Medicine,
University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of
America
Helen Y. Weng, Andrew S. Fox, Heather C. Hessenthaler, Diane
E. Stodola, Richard J. Davidson
Center for Investigating Healthy
Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI,
United States of America
Helen Y. Weng, Andrew S. Fox, Heather C. Hessenthaler, Diane
E. Stodola, Richard J. Davidson
Waisman Laboratory for Brain
Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United
States of America
Andrew S. Fox, Richard J. Davidson
Department of Psychiatry,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America
Richard J. Davidson
Department of Psychology,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America
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