Why developing a motivation of compassion is a necessity

By Dr Lynne Reeder

In our unsettled and uncertain world, one question we should be asking is: why is it so difficult for us all to get on?

I've been thinking about what motivates humans to care for one another for decades. My PhD was written at a time when there was some hope that external factors such as the increasing reliance on trade between countries, the opportunity to travel and experience other cultures and nations personally, the dependence on global financial markets being linked 24/7, and the media's capacity to bring into our living rooms the shocking atrocities occurring in real time would all have created compelling reasons for us to want to get on.

But that hasn't happened – indeed, the initial promise of a more collaborative global world has faltered, leaving us to deal with more fractured and tribal national states.

It's frustrating that even with recent breakthroughs in neuroscience that mean we are better informed as to how the mind works and how our emotion regulation systems are impacted, how our cogitative biases interpret data, why we prefer simple answers to complex questions, and why we create 'in and out' groups – that we continue to work within these evolutionary and psychological constraints when dealing with problems that require multifaceted and insightful solutions.

In seeking to address these questions, I have been interviewing some of the world's leading academics in compassion science over the past six months, and their responses are captured in the report Future Directions in Compassion Science.

Compassion science examines what motivates humans to care for one another. It gathers evidence of the incentives for compassion and its effect on our physiology, including the connections between human wellbeing and compassion training interventions.

Importantly, this new science conceptualises compassion as a motivation that, in evolutionary terms, organised human attention, thoughts, feelings, and actions in very different and more constructive ways to other human motivations such as fear or revenge.

So, how does the motivation of compassion work? Professor Tania Singer, Director of the Social Neuroscience Lab, Max Planck Society in Germany, in describing the mechanisms of compassion training, observed that neuroscience tools are confirming that

"compassion training works by supporting the upregulation of our systems of care and affiliation. In compassion, you accept the reality that is out there, but you activate the system that will allow you to be resilient against the potential negative effect of being overwhelmed and empathic distress." Professor Tania Singer

These academic conversations also examined the practical application of compassion, finding that it has important implications in areas like business and commerce. At Stanford University, studies conducted by Associate Professor Daniel Martin found that compassion training can improve employees' psychological safety and wellbeing, mitigating the negative behaviours within businesses that can disrupt valuable innovations.

Perhaps one of the most important lines of inquiry for compassion science relates to humanity's tendency for indifference to human suffering.

Director of the Compassionate Mind Foundation UK, Professor Paul Gilbert, stressed that future studies need to go beyond compassion as an individual support mechanism to systemically address the more harmful side of human nature – stating that compassion investigates the ways in which humans cause suffering through their indifference to the suffering of others.

He challenges us all to modify our harmful behaviours with his perceptive observation that

"a motivation of compassion pushes us to understand how we have structured the world, and to ask, how can we structure it better, not because we may suffer, but because others are suffering." Professor Paul Gilbert

Compassion is vital for human wellbeing, and now researchers, including those referenced in this report, are demonstrating how it manifests in the brain. Advancing the understanding of the neurobiology of compassion and its application in every area of human endeavour will remain an important evidence-based research undertaking well into the future.

To further support the growth of this discipline, the Future Directions in Compassion Science report includes nearly 40 potential PhD questions that will be disseminated to universities and research centres worldwide to advance the research already occurring in those groundbreaking centres. I worked on the final report and developed the PhD questions with my colleague Dr Marcela Matos at the University of Coimbra in Portugal.

Having completed this study, I don't underestimate the huge challenge we all face in adapting our motivations, behaviours, and mindsets to better respond to humanity's significant challenges. Regardless, compassion science is providing new insights into motivation and actions that will assist us in making those crucial adaptations.

Dr Lynne Reeder is an Adjunct Research Fellow in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing at Federation University Australia. She is also the National Lead of the Australian Compassion Council who oversee the work of the Charter for Compassion in Australia.

Related reading:

The science of compassion and empathy

Self-care through self-compassion