Video:

Empathy, Compassion Kindness Scientist 

'This profile on UC Berkeley Professor Dacher Keltner highlights his breakthrough research on the science of kindness and compassion.'
 

2011-0-29 - Dacher Keltner: The Compassionate Instinct - A Darwinian Tale of the Survival of the Kindest

About Book: Born to be Good by Dacher Keltner

• About Book: Born to be Good

• Darwin  talks about emotions: compassion

• From personal experiences

• There's hope for better communities

Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life @GoogleTalks - 2009-01-2009

 

My favorite emotion Compassion +Sympathy

• Sympathy Breakthrough in battle

  • many soldiers don't shoot the gun

• We're wired to feel

• Science says we wired to nasty life - the bad is stronger than good

  • it's selfish motives

  • negative contamination

  • self-interest is default

• The Cynics

  • Freud -

  • Ayaan Ryan - altruism is an act of treason

• Darwin

  • talked about sympathy as strongest instinct

  • emotion is evolutionary

• Story of compassion

• Flows from Darwinian analysis - we are

  • reconciliation

  • hierarchy

  • care takers

• Human offspring are born very vulnerable

  • need caretaking

• They study positive emotions

• Focus on compassion

  • Compassion - concern for the welfare of others who are in need or suffering

  • Empathy - mirroring of understanding of others emotions

• compassion has had critics in western thought

  • Emanuel Kant - didn't like it - is to subjective

• Darwin thought is was the strongest instinct, explains it through natural selection

• Karen Armstrong says at the heart of religious traditions is compassion

• Emergence of prosocial emotions

• He started looking at compassion

  • what do people look like when they feel compassion?

  • looked at photos - didn't work

  • checked voice/sound - is like a sight

  • touch conveys compassion best

    • they did tests with conveying emotion through touch

  • contagious compassion

    • Social networks

    • happiness, kindness spreads in social networks

  • shift away from self-interest

    • Increase the gains of giving

    • minimize the costs of giving

    • increase sense of common humanity- Peter Singer

• Vegas nerve

  • bundle of nerves

  • takes care of others

  • brainstem and influences many parts of body

  • heart rate

  • helps orientate to others

  • stimulates oxytocin and trust

  • relates to connection - prosocial - compassion

• Physical display of compassion and love, etc.

• Advantages of being prosocial

• Q and A

  • role of institutions?

    •  in group out group

    • institutions codify traits

    • institutions are formed from these emotions

  • Google School of personal growth - empathy boot camp

    • Megan ???

  • thinking with the heart - vegas nerve

    • rational and bodily

    • gut feeling

FloraTV: Does Darwin Illuminate Emotion & Spirituality?  11.08.09
   Dacher Keltner - Paul Ekman

• Heroic Compassion

• Global Compassion

• Darwin, Spirituality and Compassion

• Compassionate Outliers and Evolution

• Q4: Evolution of Heroic Compassion

• Q12: Heroic Compassion and Emotional Aberration

TEDxBerkeley - Dacher Keltner - 04/03/10

• Compassion in face to face combat

  • sympathy breakthroughs

• Darwin - Survival of the Kindest

• Signals of Compassion in the face?

  • image

  • voice

  • touch - trusting behavior

• Viral Goodness - contagious

• Activation in the brain - in old part

• Oxytocin

  • more generosity

  • genes for selfless behavior

• Compassion deficit

  • by country - US is low.

  • more compassion less bullying, violence, etc.

Bloggerheads.tv
Dacher Keltner; University of California-Berkeley, Greater Good Science Center
Robert Wright;  The Evolution of God, Nonzero, NAF, meaningoflife.tv
 

Dacher calls for more touching; Bob doesn’t quite embrace the idea (04:22)
The evolution of awe (04:06)
The new science of oxytocin, the “love hormone” (10:58)
Dacher recounts hanging out with the Dalai Lama (06:04)
The vagus nerve as a center of sympathy (05:47)
The upside of embarrassment, the benefits of teasing (07:48)