Radical Compassion

It might seem counterintuitive to think that helping other people will help you in any way. But Jonathan Haidt has probably researched this topic more than anyone, and he’s come to a simple conclusion: People with the most meaningful lives tend to participate or contribute to things that are bigger than themselves. There are a lot of theories on why that is, but one thing’s for sure — if you want to have a meaningful life, you shift your focus to helping others in a balanced way.

 

Are You Asking Yourself, “What’s Missing?”

So often, people fail to stop and think about what they really want in life. We grow up, go to school, get into college, earn a degree, and find a job because that’s what we’re supposed to do. The next thing we know, we’re looking in the mirror, wondering what happened to the last 10, 20, or 30 years.

 

This kind of automatic decision-making can lead to an unfulfilling life. Many people who take this route end up feeling like something is missing because they spend years pursuing their own self-interests without contributing to other people or causes. What’s missing is a sense of being a part of something bigger than themselves.

 

Get Outside Yourself

I had a professor (for organizational behavior, no less) who once rambled on about how he got an office that was 16 square feet bigger than his colleagues’ while he was still a junior professor. That extra 16 square feet went right to his head.

 

This is a classic example of material possessions achieving nothing more than swelling an ego. “Things” don’t help anyone but you, and they are ultimately unsatisfying. There is certainly a need to make money for provision of food and a home, but shifting your focus off your own ego and on to ways you can contribute to others’ happiness will make you happier in the end.

 

That professor was proud of himself for attaining his slightly larger office, but it didn’t take much time for the glory of 16 square feet to wear off. We all get an ego boost from small things at times, but it’s important to keep yourself from being tricked into believing that those things will have a lasting effect.

 

Make Someone’s Day!

If being other-focused is somewhat new to you, it’s best to start small. In fact, even if you decide to make a career change or a big commitment to help others or you’ve been doing it for years, these small actions can instill a greater sense of meaning in your life.

 

Acknowledge People

During any given day, you might see a bus driver, a mail carrier, a neighbor, a barista, a cashier, your co-workers, and dozens of other people. Give them a smile, ask how they’re doing, and wish them a happy day. In other words, value and appreciate them — don’t merely overlook them on your way to something else.

 

Keep Track of Kind Actions

I’m a big believer in changing the things you can track and measure. One trick I like comes from Tibetan monks. Put a few rocks, pebbles, or coins in your left pocket and, every time you do a good deed, transfer one rock to your right pocket. Hopefully, by the end of the day, your right pocket will be full.

 

Complete a 30-Day Challenge

Most people have good intentions and want to be better people. They would love to call their moms more, send their wives flowers, and buy the next guy in line a coffee. But life and routine get in the way. A great way to overcome your daily slump and start good habits is to complete a 30-day challenge of kindness. For example, spend a dollar a day on someone else or write a thank-you note for someone each day. It could be any small act of kindness. This is a simple but life-changing challenge.

 

Do the “3 Good Things” Exercise

Martin Seligman researched this exercise, and it has proven to have lasting effects on people’s levels of happiness. At the end of the day, ask yourself what three good things happened that day, as well as why you think they happened. By reliving those experiences, you’ll sleep better and get your brain thinking about doing good things for others with more regularity.

 

Take Small Actions with Great Intentions

For me, this means believing that with every interaction I have with someone, no matter how small, I have an opportunity to make his or her day. This is especially true when that other person is doing a mundane job and sees hundreds of people walk by every day without so much as a “thank you.”

 

If you think people choose to help others because they are overflowing with so much happiness they just can’t hold it in, think again. Most people are made happy by helping others, not the other way around. And it’s true for everyone: The less you focus on yourself and the more you focus on the people around you, the more fulfilling and meaningful your life will be.

Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., is the world’s leading scientific expert on gratitude. He’s a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, the founding editor-in-chief of The Journal of Positive Psychology, and the author of Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier, and so he’s written a lot about the benefits of gratitude.

Gratitude is, of course, an important aspect of joyful appreciation, or mudita, which is the practice that we’re exploring at the moment as part of our 100 Days of Lovingkindness. So here are a few ways that Dr. Emmons has shown gratitude can enhance our lives.

 

Gratitude enhances positive emotions: Emmons points out, as I have elsewhere, that we quickly habituate to pleasant circumstances, and that our positive emotions tend to wear off quickly. We’re wired as novelty seekers, and while we may celebrate some new development in our lives — a nice spell of weather, returning to health after an illness — the enjoyment quickly wears off, and we’re left with the existential “meh” that is so familiar to many of us. In fact we generally start seeking things to be discontented with. But when we consciously practice gratitude, we appreciate life’s benefits and are less likely to take them for granted. We find that we celebrate the many ways that goodness is woven into the fabric of life, and we feel more joyful and engaged.“

 

Gratitude blocks toxic, negative emotions: such as envy, resentment, regret — emotions that can destroy our happiness,” Emmons says, using language almost identical to Buddhist teachers of the last 2,500 years. He points to research suggesting that gratitude reduces the frequency and duration of periods of depression, and that people who are more grateful are less prone to envy and resentment. And this is exactly what we’d expect; resentment and envy are the direct emotional opposites of joyful appreciation. If you’re experiencing appreciation and gratitude, it’s impossible to feel envious or resentful at the same time.

 

Gratitude protects against stress: People who tend to be grateful bounce back more quickly from adverse circumstances, loss, suffering, and injury. They’re more emotionally resilient. Their ability to seek the good prevents them from focusing too much on the negative in situations. Someone who’s of a grateful disposition who suffers a disability is more likely to focus on the things they can do rather than to dwell on the things they can no longer do.

 

Grateful people have a higher sense of self-worth: When we lack gratitude, we’re more likely to think that the world is against us and that nothing is going right in our lives. Therefore we think that we’re not worth much. Gratitude makes those kinds of cognitive distortions less likely. When we’re grateful we value what we have rather than focusing on what we don’t have. We may feel grateful just for being, for having air to breathe. We recognize that even when some things are not going the way we want them to, the vast majority of circumstances are conspiring to support us. When we look at ourselves, we appreciate our own qualities, and see someone who is basically loved and supported by the universe.

 

I’d add to Dr. Emmons’ thoughts by pointing out that gratitude is a powerful reinforcer of social connections. People love to be appreciated and rejoiced in. When we expression our gratitude and appreciation of others, we cement powerful bonds, and feel connected. Those social connections are not only of practical benefit — people who like us are more likely to help us, but those people are more likely to be there for us emotionally. And feeling that we’re a part of a rich social network, which is more likely if we’re grateful to others, helps us to feel less alone with our problems. Studies have shown that feelings of isolation are actually as damaging for our health as cigarette smoking, so feeling connected to others provides valuable benefits to our physical and mental health.

 

Could news make you unhappy? There's a good article and some recent research that gives us more insight about the facts and what you can do about it.

As I fled Sandy Hook Elementary on the morning of December 14, 2012, clutching two of my student's hands tightly, I thought, "thank you, thank you." From that moment on I realized it is not the moment that defines you, it is how you react to the moment that defines you.

As I reflected in the days following, I knew we had to make a choice for ourselves, our students, our nation, and our world. If we were going to choose love, kindness, compassion, empathy, and hope after such terror and destruction, then we needed to teach this to our students. But at this point, I still had a large question to answer. How?

We returned to our new school at the beginning of January. One of the most uplifting aspects of being back at school—next to the joy in seeing my students' smiling faces—faces that at one point I didn’t know if I'd ever see smile again—was the outpouring of generosity from around the world. So much love came into our school and my classroom in the form of letters, books, pencils, supplies, games, toys, happy meals, cupcakes, teddy bears, and the list goes on and on.

I stepped back and I realized that while my students were beyond deserving of all these special gifts, I needed to teach them a very important lesson.

I brought a large box a friend had mailed to my class and placed it in front of the room. "This box is filled with things for us to use during recess." I told my students. As I pulled out puzzles, games, coloring books, and markers their eyes grew wide.

I paused and asked, "Do you know why someone sent this to us?" Their hands shot up. "Because they wanted us to be happy." Or: "They wanted to be nice." Or: "They wanted us to have fun at recess," they replied.

"You're all exactly right!" I told them. "Someone did this for us for all of those reasons. In life, when someone does something nice for you, you have to do something nice for someone else, and that is what we are going to do! We are going to find a class somewhere in the United States and we are going to make them feel the way we do right now: Happy."

"Who are we going to help?" the asked. "How are we going to help them?" They were equally—if not more—excited at the thought of helping someone else, as they were for the gifts they had just received.

Children are able to understand the importance of helping others, of giving, and of making a difference. As their teachers, we need to provide them with the opportunity to do so. That is how the idea to create a nonprofit, Classes 4 Classes, Inc., was born.

The mission of Classes 4 Classes is to teach every child in our nation that our lives are not separate and that everyone has the power to take action and create positive change. We do that by giving every K-5 classroom in America the opportunity to help another class, to care for another class, to be kind to another class, and to learn empathy by thinking of another class.

Students in one K-5 classroom give a gift that fulfills a need or educational objective to another K-5 class, anywhere in the country. The receiving classroom is able to accept their gift onlyafter they've selected yet another classroom to give to, thus teaching children to "pay it 4ward."

When doing something for someone else, we come to understand that it truly is a far better gift to give than to receive. The platform provided by our website actively engages students in learning a social curriculum, not by talking about kindness and empathy, but by living it. This encourages the development of emotional intellect, which is the key to forming healthy relationships.

If, after such a horrific event, we are going to choose love, caring, consideration, compassion, empathy, and hope—which I so believe we should—then we need to teach that to our students. We need the students in our nation to have the opportunity to be a part of something that exhibits all of these things, a part of something bigger than themselves, bigger than all of us.

There will never be words to explain that tragic day. There will never be answers to all of the whys. All we can do is to make sure that we teach every child in our nation to care for one another by caring for others. When we teach kindness, compassion, love, and empathy, there is no room for hate.

Could we diffuse some of the intense political polarization in our country — on matters, say, like health care or global warming or voter registration — by asking individuals who hold extreme views to describe exactly how their proposed policy solutions would work in the real world?

 

Yes, according to a study published recently in the journal Psychological Science. In a series of experiments, a team of researchers led by psychologist Philip Fernbach of the University of Colorado found that

1) people generally know less about public policies than they think they do, and

2) once they realize their lack of knowledge, they tend to moderate their views.

 

No surprise with that first finding. I suspect, however, that many people will find the second finding at least somewhat unexpected — but also, perhaps, hopeful.

 

“Many of the most important issues facing society — from climate change to health care to poverty — require complex policy solutions about which citizens hold polarized political preferences,” write Fernbach and his colleagues in the introduction to their study. “A central puzzle of modern American politics is how so many voters can maintain strong political views concerning complex policies yet remain relative uninformed about how such policies would bring about desired outcomes.”

A trio of experiments

To get to the bottom of this apparent paradox, the researchers designed three separate experiments. In the first, 198 U.S. residents (Democrats, Republicans, independents and a handful of "others") were asked to state their position on six political policies using a seven-point scale, from “strongly against” to “strongly in favor.” The participants were also asked to rate (using another seven-point scale) how knowledgeable they were about each of these issues.

 

The policies involved imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program, raising the retirement age for Social Security, transitioning to a single-payer health care system, establishing a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions, instituting a national flat tax, and implementing merit-based pay for teachers.

 

Each participant was then asked to provide a detailed mechanistic explanation for two of the policies. In other words, they were asked to explain precisely how the policies worked — or didn’t work — to achieve their intended outcomes.

 

After explaining the mechanisms of the policies, the participants re-rated their positions on each of them — and rated how certain they were of those positions.

 

Fernbach and his colleagues found that “asking people to explain how policies work decreased their reported understanding of those policies and led them to report more moderate attitudes toward those policies.”

And the people who reported the greatest decline in their perceived understanding of an issue tended to moderate their views the most.

Less likely to donate, too

The second experiment, which involved 141 participants, was similar in design. Only this time, some of the participants were asked to list the reasons why they held a particular position on a policy rather than to explain how the policy worked.

 

Fernbach and his colleagues found that this task did not moderate the participants’ views, although it didn’t necessarily increase the extremity of those views either, as had been demonstrated in earlier research.

In the third experiment, 101 participants were asked to provide either a mechanistic explanation of a policy or the reasons why they supported or opposed it. They were then given the option of donating a small bonus payment for their participation in the study to an organization that advocated for the issue in question or to one that advocated against it. They could also opt to keep the bonus payment themselves or to turn it down altogether.

 

The experiment found that participants who moderated their views after being asked to explain how a policy worked were less likely to donate to an organization that supported their original position.

Needed: more education 

The results of these three experiments suggest, say Fernbach and his colleagues, “that generating mechanistic explanations leads people to endorse more moderate positions by forcing them to confront their ignorance. In contrast, reasons can draw on values, hearsay, and general principles that do not require much knowledge.”

 

The first step, therefore, to diffusing political polarization might be to encourage people to recognize that political policies are highly complex and that their personal knowledge of the detailed working of those policies — particularly the ones for which they hold extreme positions — is likely to be very limited.

 

“Previous research has shown,” note Fernbach and his colleagues, “that intensively educating citizens can improve the quality of democratic decisions following collective deliberation and negotiation. One reasons for the effectiveness of this strategy may be that educating citizens on how policies work moderates their attitudes, increasing their willingness to explore opposing views and to compromise. More generally, the present results suggest that political debate might be more productive if partisans first engaged in a substantive and mechanistic discussion of policies before engaging in the more customary discussion of preferences and positions.”

 

One can always hope.

 

The study appears in the May issue of Psychological Science.

 

The track record of wins for campaigns that use nonviolent direct action continues to grow. More activists around the world at this very moment are planning and carrying out campaigns than anyone can count.

 

The Global Nonviolent Action Database includes accounts of over 800 campaigns; researchers rate each on a scale of 0 to 10 to estimate its degree of success in achieving its goals. Many of the campaigns score 10, some score 0 and most fall in between. Today’s activists are bound to wonder: when campaigns win, how do they do it?

 

Mechanisms of change

 

When I tackled this question in graduate school in the 1960s, I noticed that movements’ pathways to success are different. So I focused on these differences to identify mechanisms for achieving success.

Gandhi sometimes said that his aim was to convince the opponent that the campaigners were correct. I used Gandhi’s word and called that mechanismconversion. One success happened when lower caste Hindus rebelled because they weren’t allowed on a temple road used by upper caste Hindus. The dalits were said to make the road unclean simply by using it.

 

Gandhi encouraged them to take direct action, and they occupied the temple road even when the monsoon flooded the road and they had to stand in water up to their waists. After a year the police took down the barricade preventing the dalits from proceeding on the road. But the campaigners decided to go for conversion, and they continued their vigil for four more months until the upper caste Hindus were convinced that the dalits were right.

 

As I searched through other cases, however, conversion seemed very rare, and Gandhi himself eventually dropped the conversion pathway when facing the British Empire. “England will never make any real advance so as to satisfy India’s aspirations till she is forced to it,” he said. “British rule is no philanthropic job, it is a terribly earnest business proposition worked out from day to day with deadly precision. The coating of benevolence that is periodically given to it merely prolongs the agony.”

 

England must be “forced,” Gandhi said — the mechanism of coercion. When we coerce we force a change against the will of the opponent, who still disagrees with us about the issue but must give in anyway.

We find this mechanism in the dozens of cases in the database where dictatorships are overthrown nonviolently. The shah of Iran in 1979 remained as fascistic and bloody-minded as ever, but he got on the plane to the United States because his people had shown they would no longer be governed by him.

 

So far, so good — conversion and coercion, two mechanisms very different from each other. But additional campaigns I was running into didn’t use either of these mechanisms. The people weren’t willing to wait until the opponent finally converted to their point of view, nor could they always mount such massive noncooperation as to be able to coerce.

I then identified a third mechanism, persuasion. Gene Sharp, when he drew from my work for his foundational book The Politics of Nonviolent Action, expanded the description of that mechanism into accommodation: The opponent realizes that yielding to the demands of the campaigners is the best thing to do under the circumstances, even though not actually forced to do so. In his later work Gene addeddisintegration, to identify regimes or opponents that actually dissolve under the impact of the campaign. That brought us to four pathways to success: conversion, coercion, accommodation and disintegration.

 

The mechanism more available to most of us

 

I was especially curious about the aspect of accommodation that I called persuasion, because so many winning campaigns have achieved this, and yet it seemed to me fairly tricky. It’s available to the labor movement, although labor is presently growing weaker in many countries, and to activists of many kinds. This is the pathway by which the opponent still has the means to maintain the oppressive policy and still believes in it — austerity or fossil fuels would be current examples of that situation — only to later shift once there is no longer the willingness to keep the machinery of punishment going that’s needed to continue the injustice.

 

The courageous women who used direct action to demand suffrage in the United States show us one version of how this works. The women of the early 1900s were not going to coerce the men to give them the vote. Nor could they convert the men to feminism; a century later most men in this country still aren’t there. The women’s strategy illuminates the pathway that might be most available for high-stakes issues in so-called liberal democracies.

 

When the United States joined World War I, a number of advocacy organizations did the expected thing and dialed back their pressure until after the war. The militant women led by Alice Paul did the opposite. They escalated their tactics and picketed the White House, which had never before been picketed, to pressure President Woodrow Wilson.

The women branded him with the title of the hated German emperor by writing on their picket signs, “Kaiser Wilson.” Their boldness got them physically attacked by passersby and thrown into jail, where they escalated still further by prolonged hunger strikes. A number of the women, when released, went right back to the picket line; one woman was arrested dozens of times!

 

The larger and more cautious part of the women’s suffrage movement was appalled at the polarization caused by this nonviolent direct action, and it’s true that at first many doors closed to the cause of suffrage in a nation at war. I interviewed Alice Paul many years later and found in her the shrewd strategist who knows that polarization can close doors in the short run and open them for the longer run — it’s all in the timing.

 

What she did next was send women recovering from brutal prison treatment out on speaking tours to tell the story of their suffering. The public continued to dislike the picketing but became empathic with these women who were suffering for their beliefs. Power-holders started to feel the heat. U.S. Representative Volstead of Minnesota said, “While I do not approve of picketing, I disapprove more strongly of the hoodlum methods pursued in suppressing the practice.”

 

Finally, the fact of suffering became stronger than resistance to women voting, and one congressman is reported to have said, “While I have always been opposed to suffrage, I have been so aroused over the treatment of the women [in prison] that I have decided to vote for the federal amendment.”

 

A critical mass of the opponents, including President Wilson, was persuaded that, even though the women were wrong, they were not really so bad as to justify long and brutal prison sentences.

 

How does persuasion use the opponent’s violence to win?

 

To understand how this works we need to remember something about systematic violence. In social conflicts the people tasked with violent repression are given dehumanized images to help them do their work. Ancient Greek soldiers waged war against “the barbarians.” White people were taught that African slaves were “animals.” The Nazis called Jews “vermin” and U.S. soldiers called Vietnamese “gooks.” Detainees in Guantanamo are “terrorists” — “the worst of the worst.”

 

When I research some successful persuasion campaigns in detail, I find that the campaigners use tactics that brilliantly undermine the images that perpetrators use to support their violence. Movement tactics vary, depending on the specific context and set of images.

 

The Danny Glover film Freedom Song shows graphically how detailed and nuanced these tactics can be; the film is based on the 1961 entry of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee into Ku Klux Klan-dominated Mississippi. When activists’ lives are on the line, attention to detail can make the difference between a beating and killing. Here’s a sample of racist imagery: “Black men carry razors and knives” and “demonstrators are riff-raff with nothing better to do.” Before confrontations the black students dressed in shirts and ties, carried their schoolbooks, and left their knives at home. The early SNCC and others were systematically undermining the framing that racists needed fully to unleash their repression.

 

What the white, middle-class suffragists and the black students had in common was a knack for focusing their opponents’ attention on something the opponents could not have seen earlier. The previously infantilized women, by dramatizing their own strength and determination, pierced sexist paternalism. The previously dehumanized black students, by dramatizing their own intelligence, courage and dignity, weakened racist contempt.

 

SNCC organizer Charlie Jones once told me about the white woman entering a southern lunch counter who went hysterical when she saw black students sitting where she thought only white people should be. She launched a torrent of abuse at the biggest student, then violently pushed him off his lunch counter stool. He fell to the floor, paused a moment to gather himself, calmly rose to his full height while holding her with his gaze, and motioned with outstretched hand that she was free to go.

 

She broke into tears and was led from the store by a friend. A week later the woman had joined a white women’s auxiliary working in support of the sit-ins, a group of allies that made it difficult for the racist power structure to keep repressing the students.

 

Similar stories can be drawn from many struggles in many cultures. The key is that the campaigners’ suffering is voluntary. Involuntary suffering such as that experienced by victims of genocide rarely has this effect. The dehumanized image of a group that perpetrators need to continue their violence is contradicted, in all cultures I know of, by dramatized courage. The campaigners’ refusal to run and hide, but instead to step up to “take it,” is a universal signifier of courage and carries a contagious self-respect.

Gene Sharp’s metaphor of “political jiu-jitsu” is fitting, since martial artists, like nonviolent campaigners, are eager to use the opponent’s apparent strength against him. Sometimes this means changing his mind or heart, while other times it doesn’t. Either way, campaigners can win.

 

 

I think I first heard the phrase “people over process” a few years ago in Illinois. I was in a room with a hundred or so people, studying Restorative Circles, and most of us were intently focused on the mechanics of the process. A participant in a practice circle did something that wasn’t on the “script”, and it threw us (or at least me) into a tizzy. Dominic Barter, the developer of the process, said that given a choice between following the process or the person, choose the person. That stuck with me, and I have applied it in all sorts of settings since, and I notice when it isn’t applied to me.

 

In the realm of justice all too often the process takes precedence, and adherence to rules and policies, to the letter of the law, is seen by some as a virtue. There is a reason for this, one that is symbolized by the blindfold of Lady Justice. We want everyone held accountable to the same degree, no matter how powerful or pitiful they might be.

Of course, you’d have to be wearing a blindfold yourself to think this is the way things work. The disparities of the justice system are rampant, with minorities, the poor, LBGT and just about anyone else who is different than the “norm” over-represented in all phases of the system. It’s enough to make me despair at times, but occasionally I get to see justice play out as I think it should.

 

This happened earlier this week when I participated in a committee focused on what happens to the youngest kids accused of delinquency. Family and Children’s Services and the Department of Juvenile Justice were represented, along with the court, the police department, the school system, a local provider of various mental health services, and the conflict center. Everyone was there to see what could be done to help not only the kids accused, but also their parents and siblings. All of the young people were under 12, and the majority were under 10.

 

As each family came in everyone was given a chance to speak and ask questions, with the common goal of figuring out what needed to happen next. Sometimes it was counseling, or a restorative process, support at school, help getting into summer programs, and any number of other proposed solutions.

 

I saw the face of our community represented in everyone there, from the various organizations to the parents and grandparents, everyone was concerned with the kids. No one was focused on rules or punishment, only in figuring out how to support these youngest citizens and their families in creating a successful environment for these kids to thrive. The committee didn’t avoid the hard questions, but when they asked it was with the goal of a solution.

 

Here, thanks to the judge’s willingness to focus on people over process, justice was done.

by Virginia Hughes 

When you hear Alzheimer’s, you probably think of memory loss, language problems, and general confusion. These cognitive symptoms of the degenerative brain disease are devastating, and so it makes sense that they get the most attention in the media and scientific community.

 

Of course, the disease has emotional consequences, too. Some of these aren’t the least bit surprising: Depression, irritability, and agitation are expected as memory wanes and daily life becomes more difficult.

But Alzheimer’s brings other kinds of emotional changes that aren’t as easily explained, as I learned from a study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers found for the first time that individuals with Alzheimer’s show a high level of ‘emotional contagion’, the unconscious ability to mimic another person’s emotions. And as the disease progresses, destroying more brain cells and cognitive skills, this emotional empathy gets stronger, allowing patients to become more sensitive — and more vulnerable — to the feelings, words, and behaviors of other people.

 

“Patients with Alzheimer’s can become very sweet and nice and warm, and we all just fall in love with them a lot of the time,” says lead investigatorVirginia Sturm, an assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco’s Memory and Aging Center. That might be because they’re picking up on emotional cues of the people around them, she says. “A caregiver’s emotional state can really influence the patient.”

 

This aspect of Alzheimer’s hasn’t been studied much, partly because complex social cognition is difficult to measure in people with declining intellectual capacity. That’s why Sturm was interested in emotional contagion. It’s a rudimentary imitation skill, present not only in adults but newborn babies, who cry in response to cries of other babies, as well as monkeys, rodents, and birds. “It’s a building block for more complicated forms of empathy,” she says.

 

Sturm’s team scanned the brains of 237 older people: 62 with mild cognitive impairment (a precursor to Alzheimer’s), 64 with Alzheimer’s disease, and 111 healthy controls. The researchers gave participants’ caretakers a questionnaire called the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, which measures emotional contagion (for instance, caretakers rated the accuracy of statements such as, “Being in a tense emotional state scares him/her”). The researchers also measured the participants’ depressive symptoms with the Geriatric Depression Scale.

 

Both emotional contagion scores and depressive symptoms rise as Alzheimer’s progresses, the study found. But only emotional contagion correlates with changes in the brain. The greater the loss of brain tissue from the temporal lobe —  a region important for memory and emotional processing, and the first area to degrade in Alzheimer’s — the higher the emotional contagion.

 

Emotional connectedness doesn’t happen in every type of dementia. In fact, people with frontotemporal dementia (FTD), caused by degeneration in the brain’s frontal lobe, seem to change in the opposite direction, becoming more aloof as the disease progresses. “They’re just really oblivious to social cues,” says Sturm, who has spent a lot of time doing psychological testing on FTD patients. “With them I have a really different feeling. I know that they don’t really care if I make small talk, so I won’t.”

How could these two similar forms of neurodegeneration lead to such different emotional outcomes? The answer probably lies somewhere in the yin and yang of the brain’s emotional and cognitive networks.

 

Several years ago, Sturm’s colleagues began scanning the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease and with FTD using a technique called resting-state functional connectivity. Unlike the typical brain scan, which captures the brain’s firing patterns while it’s involved in some specific task, such as looking at a picture or hearing words, this method scans the brain while the person is lying quietly, focused on nothing in particular. Even at rest, certain brain regions are known to synchronize their activity, ramping up or down at the same time, implying that they’re part of the same “functional” network.

 

Sturm’s colleagues showed that people with Alzheimer’s have weak connections (that is, out-of-sync activity) in the default mode network, which has hubs in the temporal lobe and the frontal cortex and seems to be important for episodic memory (and has been linked to a wide variety of other behaviors). Intriguingly, though, as this default mode network breaks down, another circuit, the so-called salience network, gets stronger. The salience network has hubs in part of the insula and part of the anterior cingulate cortex, both of which are involved in emotion and perception.

 

Perhaps most interesting of all: The opposite pattern happens in FTD. With that disease, Sturm’s colleagues found, the default mode network actuallygets stronger and the salience network gets weaker.

Nobody understands yet why the default mode network and the salience network have these reciprocal interactions, Sturm says. In the paper, she notes a similar relationship between emotional and cognitive circuits in post-traumatic stress disorder. In PTSD, emotional circuits get stuck in an over-active state, and this leads to shrinkage of the hippocampus, a region important for memory and cognitive control. Over time, the more cognitive, “rational” brain networks seem to lose their ability to dial down the emotional ones, leading to a positive feedback loop that can make PTSD worse. (I wrote about these stress circuits in a Nature story last year.)

 

The same kind of thing could be happening in Alzheimer’s disease, Sturm says, though for now that’s pure speculation. She plans to continue this line of research by taking a more thorough look at emotional contagion in dementia patients — by measuring how much their faces mimic other people’s emotions, for example. Because emotional contagion is exhibited by rodents, it might also be a good way to measure emotions in animal models of Alzheimer’s.

 

In any case, Sturm hopes that more researchers will consider the emotional side of the disease. “There’s been a lot about the memory problems in Alzheimer’s, but no one looks at the opposite side of the coin,” she says.

By Karen Ravn

May 25, 2013

"Prolonged sitting is not what nature intended for us," says Dr. Camelia Davtyan, clinical professor of medicine and director of women's health at theUCLA Comprehensive Health Program.

 

"The chair is out to kill us," says James Levine, an endocrinologist at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine.

 

Most of us have years of sitting experience, consider ourselves quite good at it and would swear that nature intended us to do it as much as possible.

 

But unfortunately, a good deal of data suggest that we're off our rockers to spend so much time on our rockers — as well as the vast variety of other seats where we're fond of parking our duffs. Here's a sampling of what scientists have learned about the insidious nature of sitting.

 

Repurposing gone awry

 

The human body was designed for walking, and people did a whole lot of that for millenniums. But lately, not so much. In general, scientists believe, Americans now sit for more than half of their waking hours. Sadly, the sitting position exerts forces on the body that it's not built to accommodate, Davtyan says, and so, as comfy as it may seem, couch potato-hood can lead to a host of woes, including poor circulation and assorted aches and pains.

 

Obe-sit-y epidemic?

 

We're not using much energy when we're sitting still, which is no doubt part of its appeal. But, of course, "not using much energy" is just another way of saying "not burning many calories," which is just another way of saying "watch out for extra pounds." "There is debate as to whether it is the chair or the knife and fork that have caused the increase in obesity rates," Levine writes in a 2012 article. A person with a desk job may burn 300 calories a day at work, he reports, but that same person might burn 2,300 calories a day in a job that requires considerable physical effort.

 

Assessing the damage

 

Sitting at your desk for hours on end, slaving away diligently, can increase your chances of getting a promotion — but alsodiabetes, heart disease or even an early grave. A study published in the journal Diabetologia in November 2012 analyzed the results of 18 studies with a total of nearly 800,000 participants. When comparing people who spent the most time sitting with those who spent the least time, researchers found increases in the risks of diabetes (112%), cardiovascular events (147%), death from cardiovascular causes (90%) and death from all causes (49%).

 

"Sitting is the new smoking," says Anup Kanodia, a physician and researcher at the Center for Personalized Health Care atOhio State University's Wexner Medical Center. As evidence, he cites an Australian study published in October 2012 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that compared the two pastimes. Every hour of TV that people watch, presumably while sitting, cuts about 22 minutes from their life span, the study's authors calculated. By contrast, it's estimated that smokers shorten their lives by about 11 minutes per cigarette.

 

How can this happen? Not only is sitting lousy at calorie burning, but it has been shown to suppress the production of an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase, which is essential for turning bad cholesterol into good. Sitting can also lead to insulin resistance and, therefore, trouble metabolizing sugar. All these strikes against it help to explain, at least in part, its association with heart disease and diabetes.

 

Is exercise the solution? Suppose you do 100 sit-ups every morning. Can you safely sit back and rest on your laurels the rest of the day? Research says no. Despite the good it does for you in many ways, exercise is not a vaccine against the ills of sitting. Once you burn a bunch of calories, they're gone, of course. But it doesn't take long for some of the other beneficial effects of exercise to wear off and the detrimental effects of sitting to set in. For instance, lipase production can go down by 90% within hours, a 2008 study in the journal Diabetes found.

 

Is there any hope? There are ways of outwitting our penchant for sitting. Levine has a treadmill at his desk that he strolls on all day long. He made his own, but many models are commercially available. Indeed, whole lines of furniture have been developed to facilitate what David Kahl calls "active sitting."

 

It can take a while for people to adjust to this new way of sitting, says Kahl, who owns the Ergo Depot in Portland, Ore. "But in the end I haven't had anybody say, 'I can't do it.'"

 

There are simpler steps to take too — e.g., merely increasing the number of steps you take during the day. But can such small things really make a difference? A study published last year in Diabetes Care showed you can improve your glucose metabolism with a two-minute walk every 20 minutes.

 

Considerable anecdotal evidence points in the same direction. True, many — perhaps including you yourself — have done some of their best work while sitting at their desks. "That's where I shine," the late writer Robert Benchley once said. But many others have achieved remarkable success while standing up on the job, including Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin, Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain.

 

And then there was Einstein, Levine notes: "He was riding a bike when he came up with e = mc⊃2;."

Imagine that you woke up tomorrow morning to discover $1 million under your mattress. Leaving aside the obvious lumpiness issue, take a moment to think: What would you do with that cash?

If you're like many people, contemplating your newfound wealth would probably make you think about one thing above all else: yourself. A growing body of research shows that the mere whiff of money draws out our selfish sides, focusing us on what that money can do for us, and us alone. Perhaps you imagined buying a raft of new possessions: a faster car, a high-end gas grill with rear rotisserie or even a new house, with a fancy rain shower in your commodious bathroom.

It's hard to imagine anything nicer than shampooing in your private tropical rain forest. But studies by a generation of behavioral scientists show that material goods often fail to deliver lasting happiness. Fortunately, our ongoing research offers a host of ways to wring more happiness out of every dollar you spend. And what's more, you don't need to be a millionaire to reap the benefits of happy money. Changing how you spend as little as $5 can lead to measurable increases in your happiness.

But making these changes requires challenging some of our fundamental assumptions about spending. It's hard not to view buying a house — which most Americans continue to see as a central part of the American dream — as a sensible investment. But new research shows that purchasing a home buys very little happiness.

A study of women in the United States found that homeowners were no happier than renters, on average. And even if you're currently living in a cramped basement suite, you may find that moving to a nicer home has surprisingly little impact on your overall happiness. Researchers followed thousands of people in Germany who moved to a new home because there was something they didn't like about their old home. In the five years after relocating, the residents reported a significant increase in satisfaction with their housing, but their overall satisfaction with their lives didn't budge.

So, diligently saving up for a down payment might not be such a good idea if it means skipping after-work beers with friends or your annual Valentine's Day celebration at a favorite restaurant.

And dozens of studies show that people get more happiness from buying experiences than from buying material things. Experiential purchases — such as trips, concerts and special meals — are more deeply connected to our sense of self, making us who we are. And while it's anyone's guess where the American housing market is headed, the value of experiences tends to grow over time, becoming rosier in the rearview mirror of memory.

And experiences come with one more benefit: They tend to bring us closer to other people, whereas material things are more often enjoyed alone. (We tend to watch our new television alone on the couch, but we rarely head to a wonderful restaurant or jet off to Thailand solo.) Decades of research point to the importance of social contact for improving mental and physical health.

So, doing things with other people makes a difference for happiness, and our research suggests that doing things for other people can provide an additional boost. In experiments we've conducted around the world, including in Canada, the United States, Uganda and South Africa, we find that people are happier if they spend money on others. And we've found that spending even just a few dollars on someone else provides more happiness than using the cash to treat yourself.

If experiences increase happiness and giving increases happiness, can we combine them to create the perfect happiness intervention? We tried this in a recent experiment, in which we handed out Starbucks gift cards on a university campus.

We told some people to head to Starbucks and buy something for themselves. We told others to pass their gift card along to someone else. And we told a third group of people to use the gift card to buy something for someone else — with the additional requirement that they actually hang out with that person at Starbucks.

Who was happiest? Those who treated someone else and shared in that experience with them. So the cost of increasing your happiness may be as cheap as two cups of coffee.

Taken together, the new science of spending points to a surprising conclusion: How we use our money may matter as much or more than how much of it we've got. Which means that rather than waiting to see whether you find $1 million under your mattress tomorrow, you can make yourself happier today. Switching your spending to buying experiences — for both yourself and others — can lead to more happiness than even the most amazingly Amazonian rain shower.

Some good news in data form.

If you buy into the medical propaganda that depression is the result of a chemical imbalance, then you've bought into just that - propaganda.

We've yet to see the evidence of those mysterious chemical imbalances, even though trillions of dollars are made promoting them.

Some research efforts still support the logical link between your actual life and your mood.

Analyzing data from nearly 5000 participants, with a follow up at 10 years, researchers have scientifically established what most people know intuitively. If your relationships are bad, your mood is likely to follow.

"Our study shows that the quality of social relationships is a significant risk factor for major depression," says psychiatrist Alan Teo, MD, of the University of Michigan. "This is the first time that a study has identified this link in the general population."

Relationship strain, feelings of isolation in relationships, a lack of support and other issues among spouses, families and friends contribute to depression. It isn't the quantity of relationships that is important, according to the research, but the quality.

Make no mistake about it; the quality of your relationships is a determining factor in your physical and mental health

"The magnitude of these results is similar to the well-established relationship between biological risk factors and cardiovascular disease," Teo says. "What that means is that if we can teach people how to improve the quality of their relationships, we may be able to prevent or reduce the devastating effects of clinical depression."

Yet, when you go to the doctor, how often are you asked about your relationships? The health of your relationships may be the most critical factor in your overall health, for that matter. Yet, most doctors never think to inquire. In fact, most doctors have horrible relationships skills.

What you can do to improve the quality of your relationships and increase your mood

Here are some ideas:

Forget your mood and focus on your relationships.

Which are the most important relationships in your life? What is wonderful about them? What is missing? What steps can you take to improve them, beyond passively wishing that other people will magically change?

Learn real relationship skills

Do you know how to take another person's perspective? Do you understand how to look at a relationship from a neutral perspective? Do you know your preferred way to receive love? Do you know your partner's? Do you know how to mediate a conflict when you are in the midst of one?

Most people do not have great intuition about these things. Most often, we assume other people should give love in the precise manner that we like to receive it. Most people assume that they should defend themselves with solid information when attacked. Most people assume the words they say are the most important aspects of the relationship. These assumptions are all dead wrong, even damaging to relationships.

Get some relationship skills! My professional bias is toward NLP or neuro-linguistic skills, but any conscious study is usually beneficial.

Beware of self-sabotage in relationships

The number one destroyer of relationships, in my experience working with people, is self-sabotage.

Beyond pure relating skills, self-sabotage is the number one issue in relationships. Most sabotage is done unconsciously, which is why it is imperative to expand your awareness? Do you unwittingly sabotage your relationships? Here are just a few signs that you do:

1. You don't express your needs
2. You take on more than your fair share of the burden
3. You resist accountability to your partner
4. You act like a child that needs supervision
5. You annoy your partner and encourage rejection

There are hundreds of signs that you are sabotaging your relationship, most of them leading to feelings of being controlled, deprived or rejected.

For your relationship to last - or more importantly - to be peaceful and happy, you must address the unconscious patterns of self-sabotage. To learn more about self-sabotage, watch this free, 20-minute video.

It is now firmly established that the health of your relationship is tied directly to your mental health. Guard it with care.

About the author:
Watch the free video The AHA! Process: An End to Self-Sabotage and discover the lost keys to personal transformation and emotional well-being that have been suppressed by mainstream mental health for decades.


Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/040370_relationships_depression_mental_health.html#ixzz2Ta90Qd5U

In this 7-minute video, psychologist Barbara Fredrickson explains that while it’s not always easy, by adopting a routine to generate positive emotions, you not only increase your happiness levels, but can alter your biological makeup for the better...

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5 Guidelines to Handling Differences Effectively

The factor that is most likely to predispose a couple to have an enduring successful relationship is:

 

Shared interests in commonAbility to avoid or prevent intense emotional conflictAbility to manage differences effectivelyShared political viewsStrong bonds of affection established early in the relationship

 

If you chose “C,” congratulations. You’re one of a minority of people who recognize the necessity, even in the best of relationships to have highly developed conflict management skills. All too many couples, especially those whose relationship has been characterized, particularly in the early stages, by strong feelings of mutual affection, can’t imagine how such a need could ever arise. In the early stages of infatuation, (literally meaning “a state of delusion”) it can seem unlikely even impossible that the need to learn how to engage in responsible arguing or “conscious combat” could ever even arise between two people who are so much in love.

 

As those of us who are veterans in the arena of relationships have come to learn, even relationships that begin in heaven, can and often do, in time expose shadowy aspects of each partner. As these aspects are gradually illuminated, we are challenged to deal with own and each other’s less than ideal qualities with skill, compassion, and tolerance. The cultivation of the open-heartedness that great relationships require as St.Francis reminds us is “a cup of understanding, a barrel of love, and an ocean of patience.”

 

It’s not just the exposure of our partner’s imperfections that we need all that patience to accept and live with, but it’s the exposure of our own imperfect aspects that get illuminated in reaction to them that leave us shame-faced and embarrassed.

 

The belief or expectation that “good” couples don’t or shouldn’t fight prevents us from admitting to each other (or even to ourselves) that we may need to learn to manage our differences more skillfully and perhaps make some changes in the process. Since change can and usually does involve stepping into the unknown and being at risk of losing something, there is a pretty high likelihood that there will be some resistance to taking this step.

 

The alternative to doing so is to deny, avoid, or bury unresolved differences, which inevitably does damage to the foundation and trust level, of the relationship. It also diminishes the capacity for intimacy that is available in the relationship. Unaddressed differences and emotional “incompletions” inevitably diminish the quality of a couple’s connection by eroding feelings of affection to the point where nothing but resentment apathy, and bitterness exist between them. Divorce or worse (a continuation of a dead relationship) is likely to follow.

 

The renowned marriage researcher John Gottman has studied thousands of couples in his Seattle “Love Lab” and found that these categories of couples that he observed: “validating, volatile and avoidant” it was the third group, the avoiders, who were most at risk of having unsuccessful marriages. Their failure to address issues that could be potentially divisive created an unintended self-fulfilling prophecy by causing the neglected differences to deteriorate and erode what Gottman refers as the “fondness and affection system”.

 

While volatile couples may experienc3e intense interchanges that can at times be painful to one or both of them, addressing a difference directly, even somewhat unskillfully is far better than avoiding the acknowledgment of differences altogether. Not surprisingly Gottman found that the validating couples were the most successful in sustaining long-term relationships with each other. Yet even they had their share of differences that needed to be addressed. The many differences between this group and the others is that they not only were willing to acknowledge and confront issues when they arose between them, but they addressed them with a high level of skill and were able to resolve differences (or in some cases learn to live with irreconcilable differences) efficiently and effectively.

 

These couples don’t generally come into their relationships with previously developed conflict management skills. What they do bring into their relationship is a willingness to learn, an openness towards each other’s feelings and concerns, and a commitment to bring a high level of honesty, respect, and integrity to their relationship. This intention is born out of an appreciation not only of each person’s partner, but of the intrinsic value of the relationship itself. This appreciation creates a mutual sense of  “enlightened self-interest” in which each partner is motivated by a desire to enhance the well being of the other in the recognition that in doing so they are enhancing their own well being in the process.

 

As couples embody these intentions they become less attached to their preferences and less inclined to willfully dominate each other, Differences don’t disappear; they simply become less problematic and less significant. When these couples find themselves in conflict, and they do from time to time, their interactions while passionate, are likely to be less destructive and often produce positive outcomes that enhance their relationship. This form of conflict management or “conscious combat” typically involves the following guidelines:

-A willingness to acknowledge that a difference exists within the relationship and to identify the nature of that difference.

-A stated intention on the part of both partners to work towards a mutually satisfying resolution to the problem.

-A willingness to listen openly and non-defensively to each partner as they declare their concerns, requests, and desires.

-No interruptions or “corrections” ‘until the speaker is finished.

-A desire on the part of both partners to understand what needs to happen in order for the each person to experience satisfaction with the outcome.

-A commitment to speak without blame, judgment or criticism focusing exclusively on one’s own experience, needs and concerns.

 

This process can be repeated until each partner feels that a satisfactory degree of understanding and/or agreement has occurred and there is a feeling of at least temporary completion shared by both partners. Prior to responding, it’s helpful for each to restate or paraphrase what they heard their partner say as may times as it takes to affirm a clear and mutual understanding of each other’s feelings needs and concerns.

 

Completion does not infer that the matter is now settled permanently, once and for all, but rather that an impasse has been broken, a negative pattern has been interrupted, or sufficient tension in the relationship has been lowered to allow for an appreciation and understanding of each partner’s perspective. The expectation that differences “should” be completely resolved after a single interaction can set couples up for frustration which often serves to intensify feelings of blame, shame, and resentment which tend to amplify the impasse.

 

In addition to patience, other qualities that enhance conscious combat are vulnerability, honesty, compassion, commitment, acceptance, courage, generosity of spirit, and self-restraint. While few of us come into relationships with these traits fully developed, committed partnerships provide an ideal setting to practice and strengthen them. The process can be demanding, but given the benefits and rewards, well worth the effort. See for yourself.

 

If we could wake up one day with the superpower of our choice, mind reading would top the list. (Okay, maybe flying, but let’s be realistic here.) The problems it would solve! The misunderstandings it could prevent! And now, new research brings that wish within reach.

According to a new study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, a form of meditation known as cognitive-based compassion training (CBCT) could be your ticket to being able to read others better.

 

First, the skinny on CBCT: Instead of focusing on breath and awareness—like you do with mindfulness meditation—compassion meditation involves contemplating specific things, like your affection for other people, in an effort to refocus your attitudes toward the people you interact with on daily basis, says study co-author Jennifer S. Mascaro, a postdoctoral fellow in the anthropology department at Emory University.

 

To see how CBCT can affect people’s empathy and our ability to read each other, Mascaro and her colleagues divided a small group of study participants into two groups: Half participated in an eight-week CBCT training course, while the other attended a weekly health discussion group. All participants were given MRI scans before and after their courses, and during the scans, they were shown photos of people's eyes and asked to discern the emotion of the person in the pics.

 

The results? Those who’d completed the CBCT course showed the most improvement on the photo test. Plus, their MRI scans revealed increased activity in two areas of the brain associated with empathy. 

 

Try this exercise in compassion meditation to help you connect—and better read—the people around you:

1. First, settle your mind. Begin by breathing mindfully. Then pay attention to how you’re feeling and what you’re thinking. You may notice that your thoughts and emotions change moment by moment, which reflect how our views aren’t fixed—and that we have the ability to change.

2. Next, become more aware. Bring to mind three people: a close friend, someone you don’t know very well, and a person you’re having trouble with. Imagine these three people standing before you, and notice how you feel toward each of them. Try to connect with them on a deeper level by trying to recognize that all three of these people are like you in wanting happiness, and that they, too, are vulnerable to stress and suffering. Take a moment to sit with this recognition.

3. Finally, cultivate your affection. Once you recognize the similarities in others, you can strengthen your positive feelings toward them. Start to notice that everything you depend on for survival—including food and shelter—depends on the effort and kindness of others. By shifting your perspective in this way, you can come to develop a deeper sense of gratitude toward other people, which strengthens your affection and empathy.

Read more: http://www.prevention.com/mind-body/emotional-health/compassion-meditation-shown-increase-empathy#ixzz2VK5vG8zc

AN EX-OFFENDER who has turned his back on crime will help launch an innovative project being piloted in Bersted and Barnham.

 

The ex-offender, who turned his life around after hearing how his actions had ruined lives, will be speaking at the launch event of a new restorative justice scheme.

 

Paul Wotherspoon, Arun District Council’s cabinet member for community development, said: “Restorative justice is a tried and tested approach which has proved a huge benefit to victims who have valued the chance to sit down with the person who’s been causing the problems and tell them how they feel.

 

“It also challenges offenders to think about their actions in a different way, so reducing the chance of re-offending and allowing them to make amends.”

 

Residents are invited to the information event on June 5 to find out how the scheme will allow people affected by nuisance behaviour to sit down with those responsible.

 

The person harmed will get the chance to say how they feel and the perpetrator can explain their actions and agree to repair the harm they have caused.

 

The scheme, which has the working title Restorative Arun: Giving Communities a Voice, will also be running initially in Angmering.

 

Bruce Tippen, from the Sussex Criminal Justice Board, said: “There will be a lot of interest elsewhere in Sussex to see how Restorative Arun develops these new approaches to solving local problems.

 

“This project and other restorative justice activities across Sussex are all part of a programme to help people have a greater say in dealing with anti-social behaviour and building confidence in the criminal justice system.”

The term ‘restorative justice’ means bringing the people responsible for a crime or conflict in direct contact with those affected or victims of their actions.

 

Meditation doesn't just make you a better person mentally and physically, but it could also make you a better person when it comes to compassion.  

 

Northeastern University and Harvard University researchers have shown that meditation can improve compassion and do-gooder behavior. The new findings are published in the journal Psychological Science.

 

For the study, researchers tested study participants' compassionate behavior after they underwent meditation sessions. Specifically, they did eight-week-long training sessions in two meditation types, after which they were tested to see if they would help someone (who was really an actor) in pain and using crutches while sitting in a fake waiting room.

Researchers found that only 15 percent of people who did not undergo meditation training helped the person with the crutches. But up to half of those who went through the training helped the person.

 

"The truly surprising aspect of this finding is that meditation made people willing to act virtuous -- to help another who was suffering — even in the face of a norm not to do so," study researcher David DeSteno, a psychological scientist at Northeastern University, said in a statement. "The fact that the other actors were ignoring the pain creates a 'bystander-effect' that normally tends to reduce helping. People often wonder 'Why should I help someone if no one else is?'"

 

Recently, a study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience showed thatmeditation's effect on brain processing of emotions may take place even when a person isn't meditating.

 

For all of the books (thousands) written on leadership, individuals (millions) who have participated in leadership seminars and dollars (billions) invested in leadership development, too many leadership experts still fail to distinguish between the practice of leadership and the exercise of bureaucratic power.

 

In order to engage in a conversation about leadership, you have to assume you have no power — that you aren't "in charge" of anything and that you can't sanction those who are unwilling to do your bidding. If, given this starting point, you can mobilize others and accomplish amazing things, then you're a leader. If you can't, well then, you're a bureaucrat.

 

To gain a true leadership advantage, organizations must be filled with individuals who understand how to maximize their own ratio of "accomplishment over authority." They must believe it's possible to do something big with a little dab of power. Think, for example, of Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, the world's largest compendium of knowledge. None of the thousands of individuals who've contributed to Wikipedia report to Wales, and yet, as a "social architect," he built a platform that energized and organized an extraordinary amount of human effort.

 

What, then, are the attributes of individuals who can inspire others and multiply their impact?

 

They are seers — individuals who are living in the future, who possess a compelling vision of "what could be." As human beings, we're constantly looking forward, and we love to sign on with individuals who are already working on "the next big thing."

 

They are contrarians — free of the shackles of conventional wisdom and eager to help others stage a jailbreak. It's exciting to be around these free-spirited thinkers who liberate us from the status quo and open our minds to new possibilities.

They are architects — adept at building systems that elicit contribution and facilitate collaboration. They leverage social technologies in ways that amplify dissident voices, coalesce communities of passion and unleash the forces of change.

They are mentors — rather than hoarding power, they give it away. Like Mary Parker Follett, the early 20th-century management pioneer, they believe the primary job of a leader is to create more leaders. To this end, they coach, tutor, challenge and encourage.

They are connectors — with a gift for spotting the "combinational chemistry" between ideas and individuals. They help others achieve their dreams by connecting them with sponsors, like-minded peers, and complementary resources.

They are bushwhackers — they clear the trail for new ideas and initiatives by chopping away at the undergrowth of bureaucracy. They're more committed to doing the right thing than to doing things right.

They are guardians — vigilant defenders of core values and enemies of expediency. Their unflinching commitment to a higher purpose inspires others and encourages them to stand tall for their beliefs.

They are citizens — true activists, their courage to challenge the status quo comes from their abiding commitment to doing as much good as possible for as many as possible. They are other-centered, not self-centered.

 

Critically, all these roles are rooted in the most potent and admirable human qualities — passion, curiosity, compassion, daring, generosity, accountability and grit. These are the qualities that attract allies and amplify accomplishments. These are the DNA strands of 21st-century leadership. Only by strengthening them can we fully unleash the latent leadership talents that reside in every organization.

 

Until now, little was scientifically known about the human potential to cultivate compassion — the emotional state of caring for people who are suffering in a way that motivates altruistic behavior.

 

A new study by researchers at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that adults can be trained to be more compassionate. The report, recentlypublished online in the journal Psychological Science, is the first to investigate whether training adults in compassion can result in greater altruistic behavior and related changes in neural systems underlying compassion.

 

"Our fundamental question was, 'Can compassion be trained and learned in adults? Can we become more caring if we practice that mindset?'" saysHelen Weng, a graduate student in clinical psychology and lead author of the paper. "Our evidence points to yes."

 

In the study, the investigators trained young adults to engage in compassion meditation, an ancient Buddhist technique to increase caring feelings for people who are suffering. In the meditation, participants envisioned a time when someone has suffered and then practiced wishing that his or her suffering was relieved. They repeated phrases to help them focus on compassion such as, "May you be free from suffering. May you have joy and ease."