![]() ![]() ![]() Instead, compassion has been described as a vicarious experience of another's distress (e.g., Ekman, 2003 Hoffman, 1981), a blend of sadness and love (e.g. ![]() These debates highlight the question that motivates the present review: What is compassion? Ironically, despite pervasive theoretical claims and numerous studies of a state-like episode of compassion, it is largely absent from traditional emotion taxonomies and research (e.g., Boucher & Brandt, 1981 Ekman, 1999 Izard, 1977 Roseman, Spindel, & Jose, 1990 Smith & Ellsworth, 1985 Tomkins, 1984 for an exception, see Lazarus, 1991). Within evolutionist thought, controversies have swirled around whether compassion and sympathy are the products of evolutionary processes, as Darwin assumed, or tendencies too costly for the self to align with the tenets of evolutionary theory ( Cronin, 1991). Within debates about the nature of altruism, researchers have sought to document that a brief state like compassion is a proximal determinant of prosocial behavior ( Batson & Shaw, 1991 Eisenberg & Miller, 1987 Hoffman, 1981). ![]() Within studies of morality, theoretical claims about compassion reach contrasting conclusions: some theorists consider compassion to be an unreliable guide to judgments about right and wrong, whereas others view compassion as a source of principled moral judgment ( Haidt, 2003 Nussbaum, 1996, 2001). ![]()
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