Compassion and Human’s Habits
Within a different approach to compassion, highly fulfilled people can reach personal excellence through seven compassionated habits (Marques et al., 2010). Habit one is pure motivation; people actions should be engaged to help and benefit other people without expectations and conditions. Habit two is gratitude; people’s life depends on the kindness of others, and their collaborative participation to make people living feasible. Habit three is generosity; people share their abundances with others. Habit four is harmlessness; it pertains to non-harming in terms of thought, speech and action. Finally, habit five is total acceptance; people accept themselves and other people as they are. A reflection on compassion is presented next.
Reflection
- Based on your personal understanding about compassion, how do you define compassion?
- How often you practice compassion?
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself in terms of being a compassionated person? (1 = lowest level of compassion, 10 = the highest level of compassion).
- How do you know you have experienced compassion?
- How does a non-verbal display of compassion look, sound or feel like?
- Have you helped a colleague to overcome a challenging task at work? If yes:
- What was the situation?
- How did you help your colleague?
- What was the outcome?
- After you helped your colleague, did you feel complete?
- How often do you acknowledge, praise and celebrate your colleagues’ personal milestones?
- What are your top three compassionate behaviors?
- How would you learn compassionate behaviors?
- How would you create a compassionate culture at work and at home?
What is Judgment?
In this section, judgment is explored and defined. There were found different approaches to define and apply judgment. Nevertheless, every definition and application of judgment leads to decrease the human’s willingness for change. For example, judgment is defined in the context of social judgment (Yzerbyt et al., 1998); judgment and arousal, motivation and stress (Roets & Hiel, 2011); judgment and morality (Aridag & Yuksel, 2010); and utilitarian judgment and emotions (Choe & Min, 2011). In the following paragraphs, judgment is discussed and presented.
Social Judgment
People can make biased judgments when they are influenced by categorical information and individuating data (Yzerbyt et al., 1998). In addition, unsophisticated and simple-minded information lead people to make a prejudiced conclusion. When individuals stereotype others, they are unable to make a sound judgment. For instance, people can think that a person with a low socio-economic background is an individual with a low level of intelligence and academic performance. Therefore, the use of minimal categorical information can mislead individuals when they make social judgments about a target person.
In the same vein, People’s private beliefs and impression management can negatively influence the decision making of individuals (Yzerbyt et al., 1998). People’s private belief is defined as the knowledge and the understanding that people have about the world. Since people have different cultural backgrounds, it is expected that people’s views are unique and subjective. For example, television’s viewers can make a quick political decision based on story of the news and their own value system. Therefore, people’s private beliefs and their impression management of the world can influence social judgment.
Judgment and Arousal, Motivation and Stress
Individuals’ judgment is impacted through arousal, motivation and stress (Roets & Hiel, 2011). When people change their emotion state, they experience the effect of arousal on their decision-making. Since arousal decreases the information processing time and the attentional capacity, individuals are more likely to make a biased judgment. As an illustration, people who often change their emotional state back and forward are more likely to be unable to carefully evaluate information. Thus, people’s arousal impacts people’s performance and ultimately it can affect the ability to make a sound judgment.
Along with this line, personal motivation can also influence people’s judgment (Roets & Hiel, 2011). Since people have the need for closure, people manage to make unworldly decisions. People inclination is to make decisions or judgments with limited information. For instance, people have the tendency to defend acquired knowledge from new knowledge or contradictory information to consolidate previous decisions. Hence, personal motivation such as the need for closure can influence people’s judgments.
Stress is also a factor that impacts human’s judgment (Roets & Hiel, 2011). People under stress show a low cognitive efficiency and ultimately, people are led to make wrong decisions. In addition, a high level of stress can reduce an individual’s ability to process information. For instance, people’s life-event stressors such as time pressure, change in climate and weather, pollution, natural disaster, change in economic condition, health injuries and illness, frustration and emotional conflict can negatively impact on people’s judgments.
Judgment and Morality
People use morality to frame their judgments (Aridag & Yuksel, 2010). Morality is defined as the internalized values of people. Since people use morality to make judgments, to act and to make decisions, the quality of the social relationship between individuals is shaped by moral judgment. However, personal distress is a barrier for the development of moral judgment. For instance, when an individual deals with personal distress, the individual is unable to see other people’s point of view and ultimately, make an unsound judgment.
Utilitarian Judgment and Emotions
There is a relationship between utilitarian judgment and emotions. Utilitarian judgment is about safeguarding the greatest total benefit for all people affected rather than favoring a few individuals (Choe & Min, 2011); however, utilitarian judgment is influenced by people’s emotions. Since people experience emotions during the judgmental act, negative and positive emotions lead people to make different judgments. Examples of negative emotions are guilt, anger, disgust, shame, sadness, and anxiety whereas happiness, empathy, compassion and content are examples of positive emotions. As a result, when people experienced happy moods, they are more likely to avoid conflict s, and ultimately to understand others point of view. A reflection on judgment is offered in the next section.
Reflection
- Based on your personal understanding about judgment, how would do you define judgment?
- On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate yourself in terms of being a good judger person? (1 = lowest level of judgment, 10 = the highest level of judgment).
- How well do you use categorical information and individuating data to make judgments?
- How do you know you are not using unsophisticated and simple-minded data to make judgments?
- How often do you stereotype other people when you make judgments?
- Are your private beliefs and impression management controlling your thinking when you make judgments?
- How do you know that you have experienced arousal, need for closure and stress when you make judgments?
- Is your morality aligned with your actions when you make judgments?
- What is the role of your emotions when you make judgments?
- How would do you define biased judgments?
- How often you practice biased judgments?
- What are the conditions for biased judgments?
- Have you experienced anxiety, guilt, sadness, disgust, anger or shame after judging people?
Shifting from Judgment to Compassion
In this section, the act of shifting from judgment to compassion is reviewed and discussed. There was found that the practice of compassion as opposite to practice of judgment can definitely boost and enhance the individual’s desire for change, new learning, transformation, and the willingness to accept new perspectives. For instance, the act of shifting is discussed as a significant and lasting change (Dutton & Workman, 2011); empathy as the precursor for change (Pavlovich & Krahnke, 2012); and transformation is not an isolated act (Grant, 2010). In the next paragraphs, the act of shifting from judgment to compassion is offered.