Compassionate love: accomplishments and challenges in an emerging scientific/spiritual research field

Abstract

Psychological qualities of central interest to religion and spirituality, including virtues such as love, are drawing increasing scientific attention. One recent large-scale research initiative funded by Fetzer Institute focused on compassionate love (CL), an other-centred form of love with recognisable analogues in all major faith traditions. We review findings and impacts from 55 peer-reviewed publications generated by 31 projects funded since 2001. We examine major findings, the role in each study of spirituality/religion, and whether the article cited previous CL literature or used CL terminology. Studies varied greatly in how they operationalised CL. Evidence supported numerous antecedents and consequences of CL. Trend analyses indicated that CL terms are increasingly cited in scientific literature. We suggest future directions for CL research, and identify challenges and opportunities likely to generalise to scientific research initiatives in other fields related to religious/spiritual qualities.

Keywords:

• compassionate love
• compassion
• love
• altruism
• empathy
• spirituality
• religion

Acknowledgement

The author gratefully acknowledges support from the John E. Fetzer Institute, and help from Wayne Ramsey and Dave Addiss.

Notes

Notes

1. The term “compassionate love” emerged from work by WHO to develop cross-culturally useful tools to measure quality of life. One facet under study was “loving kindness, or love for others … The Buddhists were not happy with the word ‘love’ but wanted ‘compassion’ to be used … The Muslims … (from Indonesia, India, and Turkey) were adamant that compassion was too ‘cold’ and that ‘love’ needed to be there as it brought in the feeling of love, the element of affect … ‘compassionate love’ was the compromise phrase … [which] captures both aspects, addressing human suffering and encouraging human flourishing” (Underwood, 2008, pp. 8--9).

2. Web-searches on Google for “compassionate love” showed little evidence of substantial contemporary popular usage (e.g., only seven hits on 30 June 2010 in the “Google News” database for news that has appeared at “any time”).

3. Love's second definition, according to the Oxford Universal Dictionary, is “In religious use, applied to the paternal benevolence and affection of God, to the affectionate devotion due to God from his creatures, and to the affection of one created being to another thence arising” (Little, Fowler, Coulson, & Onions, 1955, p. 1171).

4. The full report provides further details on many topics discussed here, including citations to the non peer-reviewed publications from the RFP and the full set of 67 RFP-supported journal articles, published reviews of the Science of Compassionate Love, additional investigator-reported influences from the RFP, ways of refining the CL-2002 “cognitive accuracy” criterion, the history of English usage of CL, and ways that CL development efforts might proactively encourage citation of the CL literature.

5. To date, Leaning's report has not been published, but was presented at a 2004 public conference, and has been provided to the funder and the original data collector, the International Committee of the Red Cross.

6. Within religious traditions, romantic love has long been recognised as an exceptionally potent metaphor and tool for cultivating intense love for God. Romantic love as a metaphor for exemplary divine love has been used in the bible (Song of Songs) and by many Western mystics (Underhill, 1911). In Hinduism, aspirants in the bhakti tradition cultivate an attitude towards God that corresponds to one of several primary human relationships (child, servant, friend, parent, lover); in the madhura bhāva, the romantic attitude, tradition recognises that “all the elements of love – admiration, service, comradeship, communion – are present” (Prabhavananda, 1963/1979, pp. 329–330.).

7. Professor Rusbult passed away in January, 2010 (http://www.carylrusbult.com/, accessed 7 September, 2010).

8. Wisdom and spiritual transformation have each been the focus of recent funding initiatives by the John Templeton Foundation.