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Compassion is a social feeling that motivates people to go out of their way to relieve the physical, mental, or emotional pains of others and themselves. Compassion is sensitivity to the emotional aspects of the suffering of others. When based on notions such as fairness, justice, and interdependence, it may be considered partially rational in nature. Compassion involves "feeling for another" and is a precursor to empathy, the "feeling as another" capacity (as opposed to sympathy, the "feeling towards another"). In common parlance, active compassion is the desire to alleviate another's suffering. Compassion involves allowing ourselves to be moved by suffering to help alleviate and prevent it. An act of compassion is one that is intended to be helpful. Other virtues that harmonize with compassion include patience, wisdom, kindness, perseverance, warmth, and resolve. It is often, though not inevitably, the key component in altruism. The difference between sympathy and compassion is that the former responds to others' suffering with sorrow and concern whereas the latter responds with warmth and care. An article in Clinical Psychology Review suggests that "compassion consists of three facets: noticing, feeling, and responding". Etymology The English noun compassion, meaning "to suffer together with", comes from Latin. Its prefix com- comes directly from com, an archaic version of the Latin preposition and affix cum (= with); the -passion segment is derived from passus, past participle of the deponent verb patior, patī, passus sum. Compassion is thus related in origin, form and meaning to the English noun patient (= one who suffers), from patiens, present participle of the same patior, and is akin to the Greek verb πάσχειν (paskhein, to suffer) and to its cognate noun πάθος (= pathos). Ranked a great virtue in numerous philosophies, compassion is considered in almost all the major religious traditions as among the greatest of virtues. Theories on conceptualizing compassion Theoretical perspectives show contrasts in their approaches to compassion. Compassion is simply a variation of love or sadness, not a distinct emotion. From the perspective of evolutionary psychology, compassion can be viewed as a distinct emotional state, which can be differentiated from distress, sadness, and love. Compassion is, however, a synonym of empathic distress, which is characterized by the feeling of distress in connection with another person's suffering. This perspective of compassion is based on the finding that people sometimes emulate and feel the emotions of people around them. According to Thupten Jinpa, compassion is a sense of concern that arises in us in the face of someone who is in need or someone who is in pain. It is accompanied by a kind of a wishing (i.e. desire) to see the relief or end of that situation, along with wanting (i.e. motivation) to do something about it. Compassion is however not pity, neither an attachment, nor the same as empathetic feeling, nor even just simply wishful thinking. Compassion is basically a variation of love. To further this variation of love, Skalski and Aanstoos, in their article The Phenomenology of Change Beyond Tolerating, describe compassion with the definition of alleviate in mind. In the definition for alleviate there is no mention of taking, stopping, or fixing someone's suffering. It is simply trying to make it less severe. This has a connotation of desperation of sorts. Desiring so little from such a dire situation can be described as inspiring feelings to help with another's suffering in any way. Emma Seppala distinguishes compassion from empathy and altruism as follows: "... The definition of compassion is often confused with that of empathy. Empathy, as defined by researchers, is the visceral or emotional experience of another person's feelings. It is, in a sense, an automatic mirroring of another's emotion, like tearing up at a friend's sadness. Altruism is an action that benefits someone else. It may or may not be accompanied by empathy or compassion, for example, in the case of making a donation for tax purposes. Although these terms are related to compassion, they are not identical. Compassion often involves an empathic response and altruistic behavior. However, compassion is defined as the emotional response when perceiving suffering which involves an authentic desire to help." In addition, the more a person knows about the human condition and human experiences, the more vivid the route to identification with suffering becomes. Identifying with another person is an essential process for human beings, something that is even illustrated by infants who begin to mirror the facial expressions and body movements of their mother as early as the first days of their lives. Compassion is recognized through identifying with other people (i.e. perspective-taking), the knowledge of human behavior, the perception of suffering, transfer of feelings, knowledge of goal and purpose-changes in sufferers which leads to the absence of the suffering from the group. Personality psychology agrees that human suffering is always individual and unique. Suffering can result from psychological, social, and physical trauma which happens in acute and chronic forms. Suffering has been defined as the perception of a person's impending destruction or loss of integrity, which continues until the threat is vanquished or the person's integrity can be restored. Compassion therefore has three major requirements: The compassionate person must feel that the troubles that evoke their feelings are serious; the belief that the sufferers' troubles are not self-inflicted; and the ability to picture oneself with the same problems in a non-blaming, non-shaming manner. Because the compassion process is highly related to identifying with another person and is possible among people from other countries, cultures, locations, etc., compassion is characteristic of democratic societies. The role of compassion as a factor contributing to individual or societal behavior has been the topic of continuous debate. In contrast to the process of identifying with other people, a complete absence of compassion may require ignoring or disapproving identification with other people or groups. Earlier studies established the links between interpersonal violence and cruelty which leads to indifference. Compassion may induce feelings of kindness and forgiveness, which could give people the ability to stop situations that have the potential to be distressing and occasionally lead to violence. This concept has been illustrated throughout history: The Holocaust, genocide, European colonization of the Americas, etc. The seemingly essential step in these atrocities could be the definition of the victims as "not human" or "not us". The atrocities committed throughout human history are thus claimed to have only been relieved, minimized, or overcome in their damaging effects through the presence o.... Discover the Kelly Mcgonigal Timothy Mccall popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Kelly Mcgonigal Timothy Mccall books.