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. 

Emiliana Simon-Thomas shares findings from a widely distributed online platform for promoting well-being (Pathway to Happiness on the Greater Good in Action website) which features several compassion-promoting practices, and discuss the opportunity for further leveraging resources like this to extend the reach of compassion strengthening resources to people with diverse backgrounds, cultural identities, beliefs, and ideological orientations.

In this talk, Liz Grant looks at how compassion moves partnership from being transactional to relational, and how the design principles of compassion can change the way that we design and deliver care for all together.

Tyralynn Frazier explores the transformative process of rebuilding school systems that are perceived as broken.