Compassion Training Expands 'Moral Circle', Study Finds
Participants showed increased concern for diverse groups, including outgroup members and stigmatized individuals, after a brief compassion training program.
- Research shows that a short period of compassion training can significantly expand a person's 'moral circle', or the group of people they care about and are willing to help.
- The study involved 102 participants who attended a two-hour seminar on compassion training, followed by two weeks of guided audio exercises.
- Two weeks after the program, participants showed greater moral expansiveness towards family and revered groups in society, such as charity workers.
- Three months after the program, moral concern for others had increased across the board, including towards outgroup members, stigmatized members of society, animals, plants, the environment, and even supposed 'villains' in society.
- The researchers suggest that compassion and moral expansiveness are closely connected, and that the improved results at the three month mark may have been due to continuing the audio exercises, or a 'sleeper effect' where it takes time for people to shift their moral view.
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