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 ...
The Horse Boy
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 | Tags: Uncategorized, children, compassion, family, parenting | 1 Comment »Please give your heart and soul a treat and see the documentary film The Horse Boy, now opening in theaters nationwide. (See http://www.horseboymovie.com for a list of upcoming screenings.) I recently saw the film at the Mill Valley Film Festival ...
Why to Be Good, How to Be Happy
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 | Tags: Dacher Keltner, compassion, events, happiness | 4 Comments »This Thursday, the Greater Good Science Center will be hosting "Why to Be Good, How to Be Happy," the third seminar in its "Science of a Meaningful Life" series and its first in Los Angeles. We want to hear from those ...
Testing Positive Psychology
Thursday, August 13th, 2009 | Tags: Forgiveness, Generosity, compassion, development, gratitude, happiness, helping behavior, meditation, mindfulness, motivation, optimism, prosocial behavior, psychology, self-actualization | 1 Comment »Are there really steps people can take to increase their overall happiness and life satisfaction? For the past decade, researchers in the positive psychology movement have tried to identify effective, everyday strategies for making people happier. Recently, researchers Nancy L. Sin ...
What happens when compassion hurts?
Friday, May 8th, 2009 | Tags: Uncategorized, compassion, empathy, goodness, helping behavior, human nature, mindfulness, violence | 3 Comments »This is the edited transcript of a May 7 talk I gave to the nurses of UC Berkeley Health Services on surviving compassion fatigue. I’m going to warn you: This is a somewhat difficult talk, full of paradoxes. I’m going ...
Just in Time for Mother’s Day
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 | Tags: children, compassion, empathy, family, health, meditation, mindfulness, parenting, psychology, trust | 1 Comment »It’s a shame Mindful Motherhood by Cassandra Vieten (New Harbinger, 2009) wasn’t around when I became a parent. I remember waking up to my crying baby and feeling a mixture of fatigue, confusion, and resentment as I rose from our ...
Empathy’s in Our Genes?
Thursday, April 30th, 2009 | Tags: Bystander, compassion, empathy, evolution, genetics | Leave a Comment »Pavlov taught his dogs to slobber at the sound of a bell. Now, in a recent study, researchers have taught mice to flinch in pain at the sound of a buzzer. The difference is that the mice learned that behavior ...
Men: Express Yourselves
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 | Tags: Giving, compassion, empathy, family, gender roles, happiness, health, helping behavior, marriage, prosocial behavior, psychology, social connections | 1 Comment »Strong, silent types take note: A recent study suggests that husbands who express their emotions to wives taking care of them have spouses who are less stressed and provide better care. In the study, published in the journal Emotion, researchers at ...
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 ...
