CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 2,200Emotions and Moral BehaviorPsychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentMindfulness and Compassion Interventions

Compassion: an evolutionary analysis and empirical review

Open access
Goetz, Jennifer L., Keltner, Dacher, Simon-Thomas, Emiliana·2010·Psychological Bulletin
DOI 10.1037/a0018807PMC PMC2864937
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

What is compassion? And how did it evolve? In this review, we integrate 3 evolutionary arguments that converge on the hypothesis that compassion evolved as a distinct affective experience whose primary function is to facilitate cooperation and protection of the weak and those who suffer. Our empirical review reveals compassion to have distinct appraisal processes attuned to undeserved suffering; distinct signaling behavior related to caregiving patterns of touch, posture, and vocalization; and a phenomenological experience and physiological response that orients the individual to social approach. This response profile of compassion differs from those of distress, sadness, and love, suggesting that compassion is indeed a distinct emotion. We conclude by considering how compassion shapes moral judgment and action, how it varies across different cultures, and how it may engage specific patterns of neural activation, as well as emerging directions of research.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1037/a0018807

Cites

259 of 259 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Empathy and compassion are related but distinct prosocial emotions that consist of cognitive and affective components and can be learned with practice.

    “Although there are varying definitions of empathy and compassion, they are often considered related but distinct pro-social emotions that consist of cognitive and affective components and can be learned with practice (Bibeau, Dionne, & Leblanc, 2016; Goetz, Keltner, & Simon-Thomas, 2010).”

    From A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of the Effects of Meditation on Empathy, Compassion, and Prosocial Behaviors (2018) · cites this paper as Goetz, Keltner, & Simon-Thomas, 2010

    The Critical Summary of Alternatives (page unavailable) distinguishes compassion from empathic distress and describes compassion as involving appraisals and feelings. It also says loving-kindness meditation may cultivate a lasting disposition toward compassion. These passages do not establish that empathy itself can be learned with practice or that both empathy and compassion have the claimed cognitive and affective components. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Love and compassion are self-transcendent emotions, a family of emotions that increase prosocial behavior, perceptions of connectedness, and the tendency to transcend self-centered needs to focus on the needs of others.

    “Love and compassion are self-transcendent emotions, a family of emotions that increase prosocial behavior (113, 114), perceptions of connectedness (115), and the tendency to transcend self-centered needs to focus on the needs of others (116).”

    From MDMA-Assisted Therapy as a Means to Alter Affective, Cognitive, Behavioral, and Neurological Systems Underlying Social Dysfunction in Social Anxiety Disorder (2021) · cites this paper as [113]

  • The evolved value of caring for others had many potential advantages, including infant survival, survival of helpful relatives, indicating self as a desirable friend, as a sexual attractor and for cooperation.

    “The evolved value of caring for others had many potential advantages, including infant survival, survival of helpful relatives, indicating self as a desirable friend, as a sexual attractor and for cooperation [9, 54].”

    From The development of compassionate engagement and action scales for self and others (2017) · cites this paper as [54]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 261 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 8

  1. Blum L 1980 Compassion Rorty AO Explaining emotions 507 517 Berkeley University of California Press
  2. Bockover MI 1995 The concept of emotion revisited: A critical synthesis of Western and Confucian thought Marks J Ames RT Emotions in East Asian thought: A dialogue in comparative philosophy 161 180 Albany State University of New York Press
  3. Brown DE 1991 Human universals New York McGraw Hill
  4. Clore GL Ortony A 2008 Appraisal theories: How cognition shapes affect into emotion Lewis M Haviland-Jones JM Barrett LF Handbook of Emotions 3rd 628 642 New York Guilford Press
  5. de Silva P 1995 Theoretical perspectives on emotions in early Buddhism Marks J Ames RT Emotions in East Asian thought: A dialogue in comparative philosophy 109 122 Albany State University of New York Press
  6. Hatfield E Caccioppo JT Rapson RL 1993 Emotional contagion New York Cambridge University Press
  7. Izard CE 1977 Human emotions New York Plenum Press
  8. Kahneman D 1999 Objective happiness Kahneman D Diener E Schwarz N Hedonic psychology New York Cambridge University Press

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Goetz, J. L., Keltner, D., & Simon-Thomas, E.
Affiliations
University of California, Berkeley (US)
ORCID
Venue
Psychological Bulletin
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
2010-05
Volume
136
Issue
3
Pages
351-374
ISSN
  • 0033-2909 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1455
DOI
10.1037/a0018807
PMC
PMC2864937
OpenAlex
W2148616640
Cited by
2,200
References
261
Citations by year
2026: 168 · 2025: 203 · 2024: 164 · 2023: 218 · 2022: 209 · 2021: 201 · 2020: 169 · 2019: 155 · 2018: 139 · 2017: 131 · 2016: 110 · 2015: 94 · 2014: 84 · 2013: 66 · 2012: 56
FWCI
67.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Psychological Bulletin (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (T32-MH067562)
  • Metanexus Institute
  • Russell Sage Foundation
  • Fetzer Foundation
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
Keywords
compassion, evolution of emotions, cooperation, protection of vulnerable persons, caregiver behavior, touch, vocalizations, physiological responses, social approach, moral judgment, cross-cultural variation, neuronal activation
MeSH terms
Adult, Animals, Arousal, Child, Preschool, Cooperative Behavior, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Emotions, Empathy, Biological Evolution, Facial Expression, Female, Humans, Infant, Male, Morals, Motivation, Nonverbal Communication, Social Support, Socialization, Touch, Empirical Research

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review