Week Three - Empathy, Compassion, and Kindness

• Terms of Happiness-Definitions
• kindness, or pro-social
• a general, everyday term describing behaviors that involve being friendly, generous, or considerate
• compassion
• the feeling that arises when you witness another’s suffering and feel motivated to help relieve that suffering
• altruism
• when we act to promote someone else’s welfare, even at a risk or cost to ourselves
• empathy
• the ability to sense other people’s emotions (affective empathy)
• the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling (cognitive empathy)
• sympathy
• feel sympathetic towards another person's difficulties, but not feel inclined to help
• pity
• Feeling sorry for the suffering or misfortune of someone else
• Empathy
• What is it?
• to be able to sense or understand others' emotions, but not necessarily feel inclined to help
• Compassion
• What is it? 
• the feeling that arises when you witness another's suffering and want to help relieve that suffering 
• How do we define it?
• Stages of Compassion
• Empathy
• Feelings (distress or caregiving urges)
• Judgements about the self, others, the setting, and society
• It is different from:
• Empathy
• Mimicry
• Pity
• being distressed by others difficulties (does not lead to happiness)
• It is one of the primary pathways to human happiness and "the good life"
• has been an idea for quite some time, seen in many religions
• What triggers compassion?
• images
• experiences
• being presented w other people who are suffering
• vulnerability
• Why are we compassionate?
• Evolutionary adaption - Charles darwin
• helps us get along in communities
• help us take care of others in need
• raise number of offspring
• Vagus nerve
• when compassion is induced, vagus nerve ramps up influence on body
• What motivates kindness?
• Empathy 
• Social Status
• Gratitude
• Compassion
• How compassion can lead to happiness
• Empathy makes you more socially adept
• Reduced distress, heightened care-giving is good for health and well-being
• Judging yourself as capable (Self-efficacy) linked to resilience and happiness\
• Ppl feel more similar to others, more likely to reach out and make social connections :)
• The Happiness-Kindness Loop
• volunteerism enhances well-being and life expectancy
• how kindness affects well-being
• less loneliness, stronger immune system, better overall health
• fewer aches, less depression
• helping others helps prevent heart disease
• 55 age + : volunteering for 2 or more places reduces likelihood of death by 44%
• Biological evidence that kindness fosters happieness
• makes us feel good in the moment 
• boots our sense of purpose
•  kind acts build up evidence of our contribution to something beyond ourselves 
• Kindness is contagious
• kindness gathers its own momentum
• its impact goes well beyond our personal happiness or the well-being of the person we help
• it can affect countless people whom we may never even meet

Questions

• Empathy involves a physical response to other people’s emotions, understanding what emotional expressions mean, and considering why emotions are happening.

  Compassion typically emerges out of an empathic response. How do empathy and compassion differ?

  
  

  Compassion happens in response to any kind of emotion while empathy only occurs in response to other people's pain and suffering.

  It is much more difficult to suppress compassion than to suppress empathy.

  People are more often motivated to escape the situation when they feel compassion than when they experience empathy.

  Compassion necessarily involves feeling motivated to help someone in need, or to do something to relieve another person’s suffering. correct

  
  

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  Question 2: Checkboxes

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  Several teams of researchers from around the world have evaluated the impact of compassion training programs on mental, social, and physical functioning.

  Which of the following are consistent with findings that have been reported by these studies?

  
  

  Please CHECK ALL that apply, and do not check options that do not apply. If you select the correct answer(s), you will see a single green check appear to the left of the top-most correct answer.

  People who completed compassion training reported increased subjective happiness.

  People who practiced compassion the most during compassion training showed the lowest stress activation during a laboratory test that induced stress.

  People who completed compassion training were more vulnerable to exploitation.

  People's brains did not respond differently to compassion-eliciting stimuli after participating in a compassion training program.

  correct

  
  

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