Echoes of compassion in the Global Flourishing Study: Cross-national distributions and predictors of prosociality and loving care

Abstract

Background. This article explores compassion as a manifestation of ‘love in action’ (sometimes termed compassionate love) that can be expressed in many ways. As a first step, we focus on four key outcomes: three compassionate acts (helping strangers, volunteering, and charitable giving) and a broader measure of love that encompasses compassion (showing love and care to others). We view compassion as an outcome that is associated with identifiable enabling conditions (e.g., good health), as well as a cause of valued well-being outcomes, but little is known about cross-national variation in such associations.

Methods. We synthesized a series of studies that used data from the Global Flourishing Study (GFS), a diverse and international sample of 202,898 individuals across 22 countries. These studies examined the distributions of three compassionate acts and showing love/care across (1) countries, (2) demographic categories, and (3) examined candidate childhood predictors of the compassionate acts and showing love/care in adulthood, and cross-national variation in these associations.

Results. First, across all measures, there was meaningful variation across countries (e.g., helping strangers ranged from 11% [0.11, 0.12] in Japan to 83% [0.81, 0.84] in Nigeria) and within countries across measures. Second, there was meaningful demographic variation between measures across countries (e.g., love/care and charitable giving increased with age, helping strangers decreased with age, and volunteering was more uniform [until 80+]). Finally, when evaluating childhood predictors, the three compassionate acts and showing love/care had some similarities, and some differences (e.g., experiencing childhood abuse was associated with a higher likelihood of compassionate acts in adulthood, but lower love/care).

Discussion. These cross-national findings provide insights into the key sociodemographic variables and childhood predictors that may help guide the development of the epidemiology of compassion, including the emergence of a case definition for compassion itself. Cross-national variations in patterns across these measures suggest that future research must attend to important contextual differences.