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David Brooks recently shared a conversation with a bank CEO. Economists found downside risks to continuing the bank’s presence in Italy. The CEO knew staying there would be unprofitable in the short term but didn’t want to be a “fair weather friend” and so remained in Italy. The CEO knew that banking is driven by trust, a goodwill asset controlled by customer emotions, not bankers. Research suggests positive emotions (gratitude and happiness) increase trust, and negative emotions (anger, betrayal) decrease trust.
A few years back, I was having a conversation with a brilliant Stanford student about crime maps. He suggested that a really cool use of mapping technology would be to map compassion. I thought to myself, that is a crazy idea, how would we do that? I shrugged it off and tried not to think about this issue, but it became something of a puzzle that I want to solve. How could this be done? Who would map compassion? Compassion is complex and can manifest itself in myriad ways, and most folks are not familiar with the technical definition of compassion as 1) noticing suffering, 2) feeling empathy and 3) taking action to ameliorate the suffering which would cue folks to see it in actual behavior.Recent social psychological studies in university settings suggests that witnessing both compassionate and pro-social behavior inspires others to behave in a similar manner, with significant psychological benefits for those witnessing the positive event. How do we feel when we witness others working together? Kindness? Compassion? Sharing? Giving? Haidt (2003b) calls the emotion ‘elevation’ (based on a 1771 description by Jefferson). Elevation is an emotional response to witnessing others acts which make us feel unselfish, often with a desire to act similarly. Haidt describes participants witnessing good deeds giving them a pleasurable feeling, sometimes feeling warm or pleasant in the chest that triggered desires of doing good deeds.
Kindness should be viewed as an indispensable part of the healing process. After all, it's been in the Hippocratic Oath for over a century: "I will remember that... warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug."
From the dawn of modern psychology, psychological theorists have emphasized the importance of positive human social connection for health, well-being, and survival. Both early and modern psychologists have argued that social connection—that is, the development of posi tive relationships with others in the social world—is a primary psycho logical need and motivator essential for human development and survival (Baumeister and Leary 1995,499; Hart, Shaver, and Goldenberg 2005, 1000; Maslow 1943, 375). Indeed, several decades of research on social connection now confirm that it is linked to a substantial number of psychological and physical health benefits as well as longevity (Berkman and Syme 1979, 201-202; Cacioppo et al. 2002,416; Pressman et al. 2005, 297).Despite its importance, sociological research suggests that social connection is waning at an alarming rate in modern American society. Household sizes are decreasing and biological family and friends are more geographically and emotionally disconnected from one another than ever before (Hobbs and Stoops 2002, 33; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, Brashears 2006, 358; Putnam 2001, 541). Consequently, loneliness, isolation, and alienation are rising (Lee and Robbins 1995, 232-241) and represent one of the leading reasons people seek psychological coun seling (Baumeister and Leary 1995, 497-529; McWhirter 1990, 419). A revealing sociological study found that in 2004 the average American reported having only two close others with whom to confide while nearly 25 percent of Americans reported having no one at all (2006, 371).
In view of the importance of social connection as a human moti vator and determinant of well-being, we examine the ways in which social connection has been defined in different psychological subfields, the consequences of social connection, the antecedents of social connection, and the cultivation of compassion as a way to increase social connection.
At the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, of which I am the founder and director, we have created programs and workshops whereby using science we promote the power of compassion and kindness to improve one’s health. At a recent workshop a participant who was going through cancer treatment shared how her world-renowned physician delivered her cancer diagnosis never looking her in the eye and explained her prognosis as a series of statistics and walked out abruptly. While a difficult situation itself, the physician compounded this by his less than empathetic manner that resulted in further pain to the patient potentially negatively affecting her prognosis. Stories such as this inspire our work at CCARE with clinicians to help them understand the power of the clinician-patient relationships on their patients’ health and give them tools to positively affect this relationship.