PSY336H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter N/A: Sexual Selection, Ingroups And Outgroups, Electrodermal Activity
Document Summary
Compassion: an evolutionary analysis and empirical review summary. Hypothesis that compassion evolved as a distinct affective experience whose primary function is to facilitate cooperation and protection of the weak and those who suffer. Compassion is described as a vicarious experience of another"s distress, a blend of sadness and love, or a subtype of love. Definitions of compassion and levels of analysis of affective experience. Their definition: the feeling that arises in witnessing another"s suffering and that motivates a subsequent desire to help. It is an affective state, characterized by subjective feeling. Sympathy, pity, and empathetic concern are compassion-related states. May therefore share: similar antecedents, ley appraisal components, core action tendencies, and physiological responses. May differ from compassion in terms of peripheral appraisals and certain display behaviours. Levels of analysis can include emotions (context-specific from a clear cause), moods or sentiments (longer-lasting, not specifically related to a cause), and traits (general styles of emotional responses that persist across context and time).
