title: The Role of Compassion in Altruistic Helping and Punishment Behavior.
abstract: Compassion, the emotional response of caring for another who is suffering and that results in motivation to relieve suffering, is thought to be an emotional antecedent to altruistic behavior. However, it remains unclear whether compassion enhances altruistic behavior in a uniform way or is specific to sub-types of behavior such as altruistic helping of a victim or altruistic punishment of a transgressor. We investigated the relationship between compassion and subtypes of altruistic behavior using third-party paradigms where participants (1) witnessed an unfair economic exchange between a transgressor and a victim, and (2) had the opportunity to either spend personal funds to either economically (a) help the victim or (b) punish the transgressor. In Study 1, we examined whether individual differences in self-reported empathic concern (the emotional component of compassion) was associated with greater altruistic helping or punishment behavior in two independent samples. For participants who witnessed an unfair transaction, trait empathic concern was associated with greater helping of a victim and had no relationship to punishment. However, in those who decided to punish the transgressor, participants who reported greater empathic concern decided to punish less. In Study 2, we directly enhanced compassion using short-term online compassion meditation training to examine whether altruistic helping and punishment were increased after two weeks of training. Compared to an active reappraisal training control group, the compassion training group gave more to help the victim and did not differ in punishment of the transgressor. Together, these two studies suggest that compassion is related to greater altruistic helping of victims and is not associated with or may mitigate altruistic punishment of transgressors.
authors.affiliation: Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.|Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.|Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.
authors.forename: Helen Y
authors.initials: HY
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.affiliation: Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.|Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.|Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.
authors.forename: Andrew S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Fox
authors.affiliation: Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.|Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.
authors.forename: Heather C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Hessenthaler
authors.affiliation: Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.|Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.
authors.forename: Diane E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Stodola
authors.affiliation: Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States of America.|Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.|Waisman Laboratory for Brain Imaging and Behavior, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.|Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.|Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, United States of America.
authors.forename: Richard J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Davidson
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000533:Altruism; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011678:Punishment / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult