Chapter 19
Compassion
People Affected: everyone older than 24 months
Type of Emotion: conceptual coercion
Conceptual Trigger: “ I can prevent harm to an unfortunate person ”
Mental Effect: negative
Conceptual Stop: “ I prevented harm to an unfortunate person ”
Key Feature: the more preventable harm, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect generally stronger in women
Type of Emotion: conceptual coercion
Conceptual Trigger: “ I can prevent harm to an unfortunate person ”
Mental Effect: negative
Conceptual Stop: “ I prevented harm to an unfortunate person ”
Key Feature: the more preventable harm, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect generally stronger in women
Purpose
Compassion encourages everyone to help the unfortunate.
Helping the unfortunate saves lives. Helping strangers whose homes have burned down prevents them from dying of exposure or starvation. Calling an ambulance for a stranger who has fallen unconscious prevents that person from suffering further injury.
Helping the unfortunate also lowers the cost of insurance. Without compassion, you would need two of everything. You would need a second home, stocked with food and clothes. You could not count on your neighbors to help you if your first home burned down. You would also need to take a buddy everywhere. You could not count on strangers to call an ambulance if you fell unconscious.
Lowering the cost of insurance is more important more than saving lives. Saving lives affects a small percentage of a group. Lowering the cost of insurance affects everyone.
Conceptual Trigger
Compassion is triggered when you can prevent harm to an unfortunate person.
Harm is anything which reduces happiness. You feel compassion when you see somebody fall to the ground because of illness. You also feel compassion when you see somebody humiliated because of their race.
Compassion requires misfortune. You feel compassion when you see a double-amputee begging for change. You do not feel compassion when you see an able-bodied man begging for change.
If compassion did not require misfortune, it would reduce group survival. Everyone would feel compassion whenever someone asked for money. The streets would be lined with able-bodied beggars.
Compassion requires that you can prevent harm. You feel compassion if you see somebody fall to the ground in front of you. You do not feel compassion if you see somebody fall to the ground on America’s Funniest Home Videos. You cannot prevent harm to the videotaped person. Instead, you feel humor.
Compassion can be mistakenly triggered by other species. You feel compassion when you see a dog hit by a car. Compassion is mistakenly triggered because you misinterpret “prevent harm to an unfortunate person” as “prevent harm to an unfortunate animal”.
The more a species looks human, the more they mistakenly trigger compassion.
Animals with forward-facing eyes trigger compassion more than animals with side-facing eyes. Lions trigger more compassion than gazelles.
Animals with limbs trigger compassion more than animals without limbs. Gazelles trigger more compassion than fish.
Plants never trigger compassion. We kill trees just to decorate our houses for a week.
Mental Effect
Compassion encourages everyone to help the unfortunate.
Helping the unfortunate saves lives. Helping strangers whose homes have burned down prevents them from dying of exposure or starvation. Calling an ambulance for a stranger who has fallen unconscious prevents that person from suffering further injury.
Helping the unfortunate also lowers the cost of insurance. Without compassion, you would need two of everything. You would need a second home, stocked with food and clothes. You could not count on your neighbors to help you if your first home burned down. You would also need to take a buddy everywhere. You could not count on strangers to call an ambulance if you fell unconscious.
Lowering the cost of insurance is more important more than saving lives. Saving lives affects a small percentage of a group. Lowering the cost of insurance affects everyone.
Conceptual Trigger
Compassion is triggered when you can prevent harm to an unfortunate person.
Harm is anything which reduces happiness. You feel compassion when you see somebody fall to the ground because of illness. You also feel compassion when you see somebody humiliated because of their race.
Compassion requires misfortune. You feel compassion when you see a double-amputee begging for change. You do not feel compassion when you see an able-bodied man begging for change.
If compassion did not require misfortune, it would reduce group survival. Everyone would feel compassion whenever someone asked for money. The streets would be lined with able-bodied beggars.
Compassion requires that you can prevent harm. You feel compassion if you see somebody fall to the ground in front of you. You do not feel compassion if you see somebody fall to the ground on America’s Funniest Home Videos. You cannot prevent harm to the videotaped person. Instead, you feel humor.
Compassion can be mistakenly triggered by other species. You feel compassion when you see a dog hit by a car. Compassion is mistakenly triggered because you misinterpret “prevent harm to an unfortunate person” as “prevent harm to an unfortunate animal”.
The more a species looks human, the more they mistakenly trigger compassion.
Animals with forward-facing eyes trigger compassion more than animals with side-facing eyes. Lions trigger more compassion than gazelles.
Animals with limbs trigger compassion more than animals without limbs. Gazelles trigger more compassion than fish.
Plants never trigger compassion. We kill trees just to decorate our houses for a week.
Mental Effect
Compassion varies with the preventable
harm. The more harm you can prevent, the
stronger the negative effect. You would
feel compassion if you saw an elderly man in a burning house. You would feel stronger compassion if you saw
a young child in a burning house. Saving
the young child would prevent the loss of more years of life.
Compassion varies to increase the likelihood of helping. Stronger compassion makes you more willing to rescue a young child than an elderly man.
While the strength of compassion determines the likelihood of helping, the wording of its conceptual stop determines how much you help.
Compassion does not vary with the number of unfortunate people. Compassion is triggered by one person at a time. You do not feel more compassion if many people are involved in a tragedy. Charities have learned this. They focus on unfortunate individuals when raising funds, not on the number of unfortunate.
Conceptual Stop
Compassion stops when no further harm can occur. Simply put, compassion stops when an unfortunate person is safe. If you rescue an unconscious child from a burning house, your compassion will continue if you lay the child on the ground and walk away. Your compassion will not stop until emergency workers are caring for the child.
You feel neutral when compassion stops. Heroes do not feel a positive effect after rescuing somebody. They just stop feeling the negative effect of compassion, unless they start talking to the media. Then they start feeling pride.
Other Species
Mammals that live in groups feel compassion.
Vampire bats feel compassion. Vampire bats do not always find a host every night. If they do not find a host, they may die before the next night. When bats return to the cave and find a starving neighbor, they will often regurgitate blood to feed their neighbor, whether the neighbor is kin or not.
Dolphins can feel compassion mistakenly triggered by another species. In New Zealand, a pod of dolphins protected a group of swimmers from a great white shark that was stalking them. The dolphins stayed between the swimmers and the circling shark until the swimmers reached safety. As reported in Dolphins Prevent NZ Shark Attack (BBC News), marine biologists say such altruistic behavior is common in dolphins.
Bonobos can also feel compassion mistakenly triggered by another species. Frans de Waal reports the following in his book Our Inner Ape: “ . . . consider a zoo bonobo named Kuni. When she saw a starling hit the glass of her enclosure, she picked up the stunned bird and climbed to the top of the tallest tree. She carefully unfolded its wings and spread them wide, holding one wing between the fingers of each hand, before sending the bird like a little toy airplane out towards the barrier of her enclosure. But the bird fell short of freedom and landed on the bank of the moat. Kuni climbed down and stood watch over the starling for a long time. By the end of the day, the recovered bird had flown off safely.”
Compassion varies to increase the likelihood of helping. Stronger compassion makes you more willing to rescue a young child than an elderly man.
While the strength of compassion determines the likelihood of helping, the wording of its conceptual stop determines how much you help.
Compassion does not vary with the number of unfortunate people. Compassion is triggered by one person at a time. You do not feel more compassion if many people are involved in a tragedy. Charities have learned this. They focus on unfortunate individuals when raising funds, not on the number of unfortunate.
Conceptual Stop
Compassion stops when no further harm can occur. Simply put, compassion stops when an unfortunate person is safe. If you rescue an unconscious child from a burning house, your compassion will continue if you lay the child on the ground and walk away. Your compassion will not stop until emergency workers are caring for the child.
You feel neutral when compassion stops. Heroes do not feel a positive effect after rescuing somebody. They just stop feeling the negative effect of compassion, unless they start talking to the media. Then they start feeling pride.
Other Species
Mammals that live in groups feel compassion.
Vampire bats feel compassion. Vampire bats do not always find a host every night. If they do not find a host, they may die before the next night. When bats return to the cave and find a starving neighbor, they will often regurgitate blood to feed their neighbor, whether the neighbor is kin or not.
Dolphins can feel compassion mistakenly triggered by another species. In New Zealand, a pod of dolphins protected a group of swimmers from a great white shark that was stalking them. The dolphins stayed between the swimmers and the circling shark until the swimmers reached safety. As reported in Dolphins Prevent NZ Shark Attack (BBC News), marine biologists say such altruistic behavior is common in dolphins.
Bonobos can also feel compassion mistakenly triggered by another species. Frans de Waal reports the following in his book Our Inner Ape: “ . . . consider a zoo bonobo named Kuni. When she saw a starling hit the glass of her enclosure, she picked up the stunned bird and climbed to the top of the tallest tree. She carefully unfolded its wings and spread them wide, holding one wing between the fingers of each hand, before sending the bird like a little toy airplane out towards the barrier of her enclosure. But the bird fell short of freedom and landed on the bank of the moat. Kuni climbed down and stood watch over the starling for a long time. By the end of the day, the recovered bird had flown off safely.”
Happiness Dissected is a more practical version of The Origin of Emotions.