James Kirby will cover four major themes that have been at the core of my research over the last 10 years, which include: 1) what is compassion – unpacking what it entails and how it can be directed towards others, towards the self, and how we can receive compassion from others; 2) the importance of family and how parenting matters in the development of compassion; 3) I will then pivot to how compassion is good for our mental health and wellbeing; and 4) review intervention programs that have been developed to cultivate compassion to help with mental health, social relationships and moral expansiveness.

In this talk Molly Crockett explores the history of ideas about human nature as well as empirical work investigating how our beliefs about human nature can create self-fulfilling prophecies.

Dave DeSteno offers a broad overview for how contemplative practices from different spiritual traditions can help foster compassion and empathy, and why they may be superior to strategies or interventions based on other techniques.

Jennifer Mascaro presents a short theoretical review of methodologies used in the empirical study of compassion.

When we cultivate compassion with and for ourselves, we begin to naturally see and extend this to other people.  It is a process and a practice, that when given time and space grows in ways we cannot fathom.