The Art of Emotional Balance
When you think of models of compassion throughout time, what emotional state do you picture
them in? Do you picture Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa or Jesus Christ in a fiery rage, deep
shame or uncontrollable sorrow over all the suffering in the world? Do you picture them with
excessive warm and fuzzy feelings towards oppressors or persecutors to whom they still offer
compassion? Or do you picture them with some measure of equanimity and emotional balance,
even while taking action in the face of great suffering? As its Latin root
movere
(to move) suggests,
emotion can serve as a powerful motivator, propelling individuals towards certain action
tendencies
Fear motivates organisms to run from threats, anger to attack and defend
oneself, pleasure to approach. In fact, much of the literature on emotion and motivation is based
on the assumption that emotions are motivating, and a corollary to this, that more intense emotions
are more strongly motivating
Intriguingly, the link between emotion and compassion appears to
operate differently. That is, research is increasingly pointing towards a Goldilocks relationship:
compassion flourishes in emotional conditions characterized by not too much and not too little, not
too hot and not too cold, but a temperature
just right
, à la emotional balance. In this chapter, we
discuss the theoretical and empirical basis for understanding compassion as a motivation rather
than an emotion, and subsequently discuss the ways in which specific emotions can impede or
facilitate this motivational drive. From this, we discuss ways in which training in mindfulness and
emotion regulation can increase the drive to be compassionate.
Compassion as a Motive
In the absence of an agreed-upon definition of compassion, researchers often use other-oriented
emotion terms such as sympathy, empathy, empathic concern or pity as a substitute (for a review,
see Goetz, Keltner & Simon-Thomas, 2010
[see also
for a differentiating view on
empathy and compassion). Lexical studies across a number of different languages (e.g.,
English
Italian
and Chinese
also indicate that compassion is typically grouped together
with these emotion terms. We argue, however, that compassion is better conceptualized not as an
emotion itself but as a motivational drive that is enhanced or inhibited by certain emotional states.
Indeed, English dictionaries tend to focus on this core motivational aspect, defining compassion as
a “deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it” (American
Heritage Dictionary) or as the “human quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting
to do something about it” (Merriam-Webster). Similarly, the Dalai Lama has defined compassion as
“a sensitivity to the suffering of self and others, with a deep commitment to try to relieve it”
In all these definitions, what makes the construct unique is not a signature affective state but rather
an awareness of suffering and a motivation to relieve it.
Conceptualizing compassion as a motivation rather than an emotion has several important
implications. Its first implication is at the basic phenomenological level of what compassion is and
is not. As opposed to conceptualizing compassion in terms of the basic tenets of emotion (e.g., a
rapid and efficient signal with a distinct subjective, behavioral and physiological profile
,
compassion instead becomes a phenomenon defined by the characteristics of motivation: (a)
activation
, or the desire to initiate a behavior; (b)
persistence
, or continued effort towards a goal
even in the face of obstacles; and (c)
intensity
, or the degree of energy and concentration required
to pursue a goal
Affective, cognitive, biological and social factors contribute to motivational
drives, but they do not appear to define the makeup of compassion in terms of any singular
package or profile.
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