The Science of Happiness | Emiliana Simon-Thomas (2020)
Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Science Director at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, discusses how cultivating compassion and connection, rather than mere empathy, leads to greater happiness and well-being. She also explores a scientific definition of love and the concept of "wise selfishness."
Deep Dive Analysis
19 Topic Outline
Introduction to Wise Selfishness and Compassion Research
Emiliana Simon-Thomas's Buddhist Upbringing and Quest for Happiness
Defining Compassion: Emotion, Urge, and Intention to Help
Differentiating Empathy from Compassion
The Selfish Aspect of Compassion and Generosity
Why Humans Often Lack Compassion: Individualism and Compassion Collapse
Training Our Capacity for Compassion: Mindfulness and Tonglen
Reframing Selfishness: Benefits of Compassion and Social Bonds
Regulating Emotions as a Component of Compassion
Empathy Fatigue vs. Indefatigable Compassion
The Biological Basis of Love and Connection
Defining Love Beyond Romance: Barbara Fredrickson's Love 2.0
The Importance of Self-Compassion
Social Connection and Happiness: Introverts and Random Acts of Kindness
The 'Cheater's High' and the Innate Dislike of Unfairness
Are Humans Fundamentally Good? Evidence from Infants
Compassion as a Route to Resilience and Handling Adversity
Common Misconceptions About Compassion
Resources from the Greater Good Science Center
7 Key Concepts
Wise Selfishness
This concept suggests that while humans are inherently selfish, true happiness comes from caring for other people. It's about recognizing that what makes us happy is intrinsically linked to pro-social behaviors, making generosity and compassion a 'wise' form of self-interest.
Compassion
Defined as an emotional state experienced when encountering suffering, accompanied by an urge and intention to do something to alleviate that suffering. It involves activating care and nurturing systems, orienting oneself as a care provider rather than focusing on personal distress.
Empathy
Described as the ability to resonate with others and understand the meaning of their emotional expressions. It is considered necessary for compassion but not sufficient, as empathy alone can lead to personal distress or apathy rather than an urge to help.
Compassion Collapse
A phenomenon where compassion wanes and becomes flat as the number of suffering victims increases. This occurs because individuals feel unempowered and unable to meet the expectation of fixing widespread suffering, leading them to block feelings of compassion.
Love 2.0
Barbara Fredrickson's concept that redefines love as any moment of trusting, biologically resonant exchange of goodwill, understanding, and benevolence between humans. It suggests an unlimited capacity for experiencing love in everyday interactions, not just romantic or familial contexts.
Self-Compassion
Applying the same concern about suffering to one's own life circumstances, honoring the fact that one deserves not to suffer. It involves reorienting away from a hostile, self-critical inner voice and recognizing external and internal factors causing harm without self-blame.
Cheater's High
The feeling of pleasure or excitement derived from getting away with an ethically questionable or immoral act. While providing a short-term buzz, the underlying sense of unfairness can still chip away at one's sense of ease in the world.
8 Questions Answered
Compassion is defined as the experience one has when encountering suffering, coupled with an urge and intention to do something to alleviate that suffering, activating care and nurturing systems.
Empathy is the ability to resonate with and understand another's emotional expressions, serving as a necessary but not sufficient component for compassion, which additionally includes the intention and urge to act and alleviate suffering.
Humans often lack compassion due to habits of thought, early experiences, an individualistic culture emphasizing self-interest and competition, and phenomena like 'compassion collapse' where overwhelming numbers of victims lead to feelings of powerlessness.
Training compassion starts with mindfulness to observe one's mental responses to suffering, includes practices like Tonglen meditation, and involves regulating one's own emotional distress to better understand and respond to others' suffering constructively.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas argues against 'compassion fatigue,' stating that compassion is indefatigable because it is intrinsically fulfilling and invigorating, unlike empathy fatigue which can occur from merely absorbing emotions without healthy management.
Scientifically, love can be defined as any moment of trusting, biologically resonant interaction between humans where goodwill, understanding, and benevolence are exchanged, suggesting an unlimited capacity for experiencing it in daily life.
Yes, humans are fundamentally good, evidenced by studies showing infants prefer nice puppets and toddlers spontaneously help adults without prompting or reinforcement, indicating an innate pro-social tendency.
Relating to stressful experiences with compassion fosters a sense of efficacy and agency, motivates action to relieve suffering, and helps individuals rebound from setbacks by facing difficulties rather than avoiding or suppressing them.
37 Actionable Insights
1. Practice Wise Selfishness
Care for other people, as this is what truly makes human beings happy and constitutes ‘wise selfishness’.
2. Train Your Compassion Capacity
Actively work to improve your capacity for compassion and connection, as it is trainable and leads to happiness.
3. Practice Self-Compassion
Apply the same concern for suffering to your own life circumstances, honoring your right not to suffer and reorienting away from a hostile inner voice.
4. Relate to Stress with Compassion
Approach your own stressful experiences with self-compassion to foster efficacy and control, motivating action to relieve stress and build resilience.
5. Avoid Stress Amplifiers
Do not respond to stress with rumination, self-criticism, or stoicism (stifling emotions), as these prolong and intensify chronic stress.
6. Cultivate Compassionate Intent
When encountering suffering, cultivate the urge and intention to do something to help and alleviate that suffering.
7. Channel Empathy to Care
When feeling empathy, channel that feeling into activating your care and nurturing systems, as empathy alone is not sufficient for compassion.
8. Activate Reward Pathways with Compassion
Extend compassion to others, as this activates reward pathways in the brain, making it intrinsically pleasurable and reinforcing.
9. Give to Others
Practice generosity and give to others, as this lights up reward pathways in the brain, making it intrinsically reinforcing.
10. Manage ‘Compassion Collapse’
Recognize that you don’t have to ‘fix’ everything to feel compassion, especially in overwhelming situations, to prevent emotional shutdown.
11. Mindfulness for Compassion
Practice mindfulness to cultivate greater awareness of your mental responses to suffering, helping to interrogate reflexive judgments and shift perspective.
12. Interrogate Reflexive Judgments
Interrogate immediate judgments about others’ suffering (e.g., unworthiness) or your own ability to help (e.g., cost-benefit analysis) to unravel unhelpful thought patterns.
13. Practice Tonglen Meditation
Engage in Tonglen meditation by visualizing breathing in suffering, transforming it within yourself, and breathing out healing and love to strengthen your motivation for service.
14. Practice ‘Love 2.0’
Seek and engage in ‘Love 2.0’ moments by exchanging goodwill, understanding, and benevolence with others, without assuming threat or competition.
15. Practice Discerning Compassion
Apply compassion and love with discernment, avoiding excusing malevolent behavior or engaging with those who mean to do you harm.
16. Strengthen Bonds Through Caregiving
Engage in caregiving and supportive interactions with others to release oxytocin, strengthening social bonds and increasing feelings of trust and affection.
17. Perform Random Acts of Kindness
Regularly perform simple random acts of kindness, such as holding a door or offering specific thanks, as this scientifically increases happiness.
18. Avoid Pity, Embrace Compassion
Distinguish compassion from pity, as pity implies deserved suffering or inferiority, while compassion involves genuine concern for welfare.
19. Compassion Without Endorsement
Feel compassion for someone’s suffering even if you do not endorse their actions or choices, as compassion is about addressing suffering, not absolving responsibility.
20. Avoid Empathic Distress
Do not mistake compassion for taking on someone else’s pain or getting lost in empathic distress, as true compassion involves relating without mirroring suffering.
21. Be Good for a Better Life
Strive to be good, as this is the fundamental route to a healthier, longer, and happier life.
22. Strengthen Pro-Social Abilities
Channel and strengthen pro-social abilities like attuning to others, being responsive, and finding delight in others’ pleasure to improve your overall well-being.
23. Cultivate Happiness & Kindness
Cultivate your own happiness and kindness, recognizing that these have positive global consequences and make the world a better place.
24. Embrace Indefatigable Compassion
Do not limit your capacity for compassion, as it is an indefatigable resource that is fulfilling and healthy for yourself.
25. Build Social Bonds Through Kindness
Be generous, kind, and supportive of others to create meaningful social bonds, which serve as a source of support and personal well-being.
26. Reduce Self-Focus
Reduce excessive self-focus, as constantly thinking about yourself does not lead to happiness.
27. Leverage Social Support
Actively seek and utilize social support from others, as being with friends makes the world an easier place to navigate.
28. Prioritize Quality Friendships
Focus on the quality of your social connections rather than the quantity, as quality is more important for happiness.
29. Introverts: Engage Socially
If you are an introvert, engage in happiness-boosting social activities, as these actions have a greater positive effect on introverts than extroverts.
30. Push Comfort Zone for Happiness
If you genuinely desire happiness but find it challenging, push yourself out of your comfort zone to engage in happiness-boosting behaviors.
31. Avoid Cheating and Meanness
Avoid cheating or being mean, as any short-term ‘buzz’ is often outweighed by long-term consequences, including internal feelings of unfairness.
32. Compassion is Courage
Recognize that compassion is a strength and an act of courage, as being an agent of support for others is often harder than walking away.
33. Compassion is Advantageous
View compassion as beneficial and advantageous, not as a costly sacrifice or drain, due to its positive impact on relationships and personal well-being.
34. Pursue Real Happiness
Embark on a lifelong quest for understanding real happiness in life.
35. Err on Side of Connection
Err on the side of connecting with others, such as striking up friendly conversations, rather than assuming threat or exasperation.
36. Compassion Beyond Politeness
Understand that compassion is a fundamental human tendency, distinct from mere politeness or courteousness.
37. Utilize Greater Good Resources
Explore resources from greatergood.berkeley.edu, ggia.berkeley.edu (Greater Good in Action for practices), and edx.org (Science of Happiness course) to learn and apply scientific insights.
7 Key Quotes
everybody's selfish; that's the way we're wired as a species, but if you're going to be selfish, you should be wisely selfish.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama (as quoted by Dan Harris)
Empathy is really more simple. And it is our ability to resonate with each other, and our ability to understand the meaning of another person's emotional expressions.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas
What it means to me is that we're evolved for generosity. Like, we have evolved as an ultra-social species. And it is in our biology that we find opportunities to be generous, to care for others, to feel compassion and extend it to others, intrinsically reinforcing.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas
I think compassion is indefatigable. We can keep being compassionate because it's actually something that is fulfilling and sort of salubrious in our own right.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas
Love is any time you're with another human and you're just having a trusting, biologically resonant moment, right? Where you're exchanging goodwill and understanding and benevolence.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas (referencing Barbara Fredrickson)
I think that humans are more good than evil.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas
being good is really the route to a better life.
Emiliana Simon-Thomas
2 Protocols
Tonglen Meditation
Emiliana Simon-Thomas- Visualize suffering happening in the world (e.g., a specific group or general suffering).
- On the in-breath, visualize pulling in that suffering, like an 'existential vacuum cleaner,' bringing it into yourself.
- On the out-breath, visualize transforming the suffering within yourself and shedding it back out as love, affection, support, and caring sentiments.
Random Acts of Kindness Practice
Emiliana Simon-Thomas- Decide to perform small acts of kindness for a set period (e.g., 10 days).
- Examples include: opening a door for someone carrying bags, offering a more specific and extended 'thank you' to a spouse, offering help to someone who looks like they need it, or telling a joke to a colleague.