The Charter for Compassion
Thursday, November 12th, 2009 | Tags: altruism, compassion, events | 1 Comment »When renowned religious scholar Karen Armstrong won the coveted TED prize, she was asked to make a single wish, one that the TED community would help her achieve. Her modest request? To unite the world around compassion. Now, one year later, she's ...
Global Giving
Monday, September 21st, 2009 | Tags: Giving, altruism, cooperation, empathy, globalization, money, prosocial behavior, social connections | Leave a Comment »It’s a small world we live in, increasingly connected by technology, trade, and common threats to our species’ survival. Cooperation and collaboration are needed to overcome the enormous environmental challenges before us. But will globalization encourage this kind of cooperation—or ...
Good News for NPR
Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | Tags: Generosity, Giving, altruism, goodness, money | 1 Comment »Ever wonder about those people who donate to NPR pledge drives year after year, even though everyone else still enjoys the same listening benefits they do? And if you are one of those people, ever wonder if you’re alone? A new ...
How Good Are You?
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 | Tags: Prejudice, altruism, compassion, empathy, goodness, morality, prosocial behavior, psychology, social intelligence | Leave a Comment »The folks at the Utne Reader asked me to contribute to their "Alt Wire," billed as "a morning digest of links and information collected and explained by a different guest blogger every weekday." So today, I wrote this post, listing ...
Darwin’s Touch: Survival of the Kindest
Thursday, February 12th, 2009 | Tags: Dacher Keltner, altruism, compassion, cooperation, evolution, genetics, goodness, prosocial behavior, psychology | 2 Comments »Two hundred years ago today, Adam Gopnik writes in Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, two pebbles -- Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln -- were dropped into the sea of life. Their ideas and ...
The Birthday of Karl Menninger
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 | Tags: Bystander, altruism, helping behavior, prosocial behavior | Leave a Comment »I listen to Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac podcast and heard that Tuesday was the birthday of Karl Menninger, the man known as the "dean of American psychiatry," born in Topeka, Kansas in 1893. When someone asked him what ...
Participate in a Study on Heroism & Altruism
Thursday, May 29th, 2008 | Tags: Bystander, altruism, helping behavior, heroism, prosocial behavior, psychology | 1 Comment »Led by Dr. Philip Zimbardo, a new study is examining how people view ideas such as altruism, heroism, and other helping behaviors. Greater Good is helping to recruit participants for this study. More information is below and at http://www.socialpsychresearch.org. Researchers from the ...
Altruistic voting
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 | Tags: altruism, politics | Leave a Comment »It's always interesting to come across real-world examples that corroborate scientific research findings, and that's what happened when I was reading the newspaper this morning. Last fall, I wrote in Greater Good about new research showing that the greatest factor that ...
Is aging altruistic?
Monday, January 28th, 2008 | Tags: altruism, development, evolution, genetics | Leave a Comment »Researchers at the University of Southern California have made yeast cells live 10 times longer than they naturally would by putting them on a strict, low-calorie diet, and removing RAS2 and SCH9, two genes that cause the yeast to age. Regardless ...
What makes us want to be good?
Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 | Tags: altruism, goodness, happiness, helping behavior, human nature, prosocial behavior, social connections | Leave a Comment »Readers who saw this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine might have been forgiven for thinking they were cracking open the latest issue of Greater Good. The cover story--"The Moral Instinct." by Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker--explores the evolutionary and neurobiological ...
