Compassionate Love Research Articles

Attachment Style, Spirituality, and Compassionate Love Among Mental Health Professionals

The present study examined the relationships among attachment style, spirituality, and the expression of compassionate love by licensed mental health professionals. Specifically, this study sought to examine whether attachment styles and spirituality would predict compassionate love for close others, a specific close other, and strangers and humanity. The sample of 156 (47 male, 109 female) mental health professionals completed online surveys. As expected, results indicated that greater secure attachment and greater spirituality related to greater expression of compassionate love for a specific other. Contrary to our hypotheses, greater secure attachment, but not spirituality, related to greater expression of compassionate love for close others, and neither predictor was related to compassionate love for strangers. We explored the implications of the findings and directions for future research.

The Views of Students Related to Compassionate Love and Compassionate Love Education Course after Taking Compassionate Love Education Course

The aim of this study is to investigate the views of students about compassionate love and Compassionate Love Education after the elective course of Compassionate Love Education. The research was carried out within the scope of the “phenomenology” of qualitative research patterns. The study group consists of third year undergraduate students who take selective Compassionate Love Education course at a state university during the fall semester of the 2017-2018 academic year. Document review was used as data collection method. The documents are the evaluation articles of the students. In the analysis of the data, content analysis method was used. The results of the self-evaluation of the students after the lesson show that most of the students started to question their opinions about the concept of compassionate love and that their definition of compassionate love and their approach to the concept of compassionate love changed. After course, students generally stated that they were satisfied with course, that they thought it was beneficial, that it gave their life the awareness about compassionate love, and that it gave them different perspectives on compassionate love. In line with the results of the research various suggestions have been developed such that the right understanding of compassionate love for the students starting from pre-school should be created and course of Compassionate Love Education should be included in curriculums at the associate and undergraduate level as an elective course.

Unpacking a servant leadership style in women business owners

Purpose This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies. Design/methodology/approach This study is prepared by an independent writer who adds his/her own impartial comments and places the articles in context. Findings This research paper concentrates on whether 12 surveyed female business founders in the USA possessed the traits of a gender-congruent servant leadership style, such as authenticity, stewardship, and providing direction to people in their team. Collectively, these traits are rooted in a source of compassionate love that has become lacking in many modern business settings. Originality/value The paper saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

Examining University Students’ Self-Compassion and Compassionate Love Levels in Terms of Perceived Parental Attitudes

The aim of this research is to investigate the relationship between parental attitudes perceived by the students, self-compassion and compassionate love levels, and differences occur in parental attitudes, self-compassion and compassionate love levels according to various variables. The research was conducted with 326 university students studying in different departments of Sakarya University Faculty of Education. Parental Attitude Scale (PAS), Self-Compassion Scale (SCS), the Compassionate Love Scale (CLS) and Information Collection Form were applied in the study. The research data were analyzed by correlation, T-test and One Way (ANOVA). The results of the research revealed that the self-compassion level of the students who perceived the parents' attitudes as democratic was high, whereas the self-compassion level of the students who perceived the parental attitudes as authoritarian and protective-demanding was low. It was also found out that the students who perceived their parents' attitudes as authoritarian and protective-demanding had high compassionate love levels. The present study demonstrated the authoritarian and protective-demanding parental attitudes perceived by university students differed according to sex, the democratic parental attitude differed in terms of the number of siblings, and the compassionate love differed in terms of gender. It was revealed that there was a negative relationship between self-compassion and compassionate love.

A French adaptation of the Compassionate Love Scale for teachers: Validation on a sample of teachers and correlation with teacher autonomous motivation

Despite the abundant literature on teacher-student relationships teacher emotional involvement has not been much studied. The social psychological concept of compassionate love describes a type of love that occurs in many relationships and some relational jobs. It can be measured using Sprecher and Fehr's (2005) Compassionate Love Scale (CLS). The first aim of our study was to translate into French and adapt the Compassionate Love Scale for teachers and to determine the metrological qualities of the translated scale, especially factor structure. The present research provided the first test of the scale's temporal stability. The second aim was to evaluate the relation between compassionate love and teacher autonomous motivation. Data were collected via an online questionnaire. In contrast to the one-factor solution provided by previous validation studies, our exploratory factor analyses revealed a two-factor solution (sensibility and sacrifice), which points out the need for further studies. The internal consistency is excellent and its test-retest reliability is good. The French scale for teachers is correlated with empathic concern and spirituality measures, and predicts teacher autonomous motivation. Our study was the first to apply the CLS to teacher-student relationships, thereby opening up new research perspectives.

Are women business owners authentic servant leaders?

PurposeThe study of women business founders provides an opportunity to determine their unique leadership characteristics. Starting a business may be a way for women business owners to be authentic and create more people-centered businesses. Servant leadership’s gender integrative attributes where both agentic and communal behaviors are valued may be more congruent and reflective of the leadership behaviors of women entrepreneurs. Recently, the motivation of compassionate love was theorized to be an antecedent to servant leadership and, it is argued, exists in conjunction with authenticity. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate compassionate love, authenticity and servant leadership and determine whether they exist in the behaviors of founding female business owners.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative research study used summative content analysis of telephone interviews conducted with 12 women business owners of professional service firms in four US states to determine whether these women’s motivations, traits and behaviors were consistent with the compassionate love servant leadership model and whether authenticity was the cornerstone of servant leadership.FindingsThe analyses found that these women revealed a strong authenticity orientation as they enacted a compassionate love servant leadership style within their businesses. Themes that emerged from the study were agency, calling, humility, trust and respect, self-development, stewardship, authenticity and providing direction. The study revealed support for some of the characteristics associated with compassionate love servant leadership and two characteristics which were unique to this study.Research limitations/implicationsAs a qualitative study of 12 individuals, these findings may not be generalizable beyond the four US states of professional service enterprises of women business founders. Future research should test the full servant leadership model of women business owners on a larger group of business founders and the sub-themes where little support exists.Practical implicationsThe more gender integrative style of compassionate love servant leadership may be beneficial for women owners to employ as business leaders.Originality/valueThis research revealed support for a variation of compassionate love servant leadership model. The resulting servant leadership model herein was a mixture of agentic and communal leadership motivations, traits and behaviors useful to women business founders. Behaviors of authenticity were found to complement compassionate love. These women were able to extend the boundaries of what it means to be a leader and incorporate behaviors associated with both their gender and leadership roles, thus expanding their ability to successfully empower and equip themselves to navigate barriers unique to women leaders.

The Diversity Intelligent Servant Leader: Developing Leaders to Meet the Needs of a Diverse Workforce

The Problem The ability of organizations to realize diversity remains problematic. To meet the needs of the modern workforce, new diversity and leadership approaches are required. The Solution Diversity intelligence, a promising new human resource development (HRD) tool, leads to enhanced inclusion and equitable treatment in the workplace. Several propositions herein advance that diversity intelligence is an antecedent to the compassionate love servant leadership model. The author describes the potential value diversity intelligent servant leaders provide to society, organizations, leaders, and especially employees with protected class status. This article addresses the implications of the propositions to theory and explores the intersection of servant leadership and diversity and inclusion research streams, practice describes how organizations and HRD professionals can benefit from and implement these arguments, and social impact discusses the benefits society can accrue when all organizational members are engaged, productive and valued. The Stakeholders This article benefits organizations, leaders, employees, and HRD professionals as well as leadership and diversity and inclusion scholars and practitioners.

The Hea/r/tist Part: Turning the Point of Mothering Toward 100%

ABSTRACTIn this Defining Moments essay, I story the a/r/tographical practice of coming to understand who I am as a mother, artist, researcher, and teacher in the face of my experiences with infertility, pregnancy loss, and the death of my son Milo. Through living inquiry and artistically capturing the turning points that have defined me over time, I make sense of what it means to do hea/r/t work as I engage compassionate love alongside those I mother.

The development and validation of the Lovingkindness-Compassion Scale

This study was to examine the construct of Lovingkindness-Compassion and to development of the Lovingkindness-Compassion Scale (LCS). Five Buddhist monks were interviewed for a definition of lovingkindness-compassion. Based on their responses, potential items related to the LCS were created. This study analyzed the validity and reliability of the LCS in a sample of 469 university students. The results showed a three-factor structure using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) as well as confirmatory factor analysis (CFA): compassion, lovingkindness, and self-centeredness. Also, the results indicated that the LCS was significantly correlated with self-compassion, compassionate love, social connectedness, empathy and satisfaction with life. This study supported the reliability and validity of the LCS to measure lovingkindness-compassion.

Compassionate Love for a Romantic Partner Across the Adult Life Span.

Compassionate love has received research attention over the last decade, but it is as yet unclear how it is experienced over a lifetime. The purpose of this study was to investigate compassionate love for a romantic partner throughout the adult life span, exploring individual differences in the propensity to experience compassionate love in regard to age, gender, religion, love status, love styles, and subjective well-being. The results showed that religion and love status display significant effects on compassionate love. Believers experienced greater compassionate love than nonbelievers, and individuals in love presented greater compassionate love than those who were not in love. Love styles and subjective well-being were found to be related to compassionate love. These findings corroborate studies that indicate that individuals who experience higher compassionate love for a romantic partner are more likely to report Eros, Agape, and subjective well-being.

Compassionate love predicts long-term survival among people living with HIV followed for up to 17 years

A budding literature has shown the benefits of compassionate love on psychological well-being. Yet, much less is known on its relevance for health outcomes. The purpose of the present study is to examine the effects of compassionate love on survival among people living with HIV (PLWH). 177 PLWH at the mid-stage of illness participated in a longitudinal study of stress and coping. They completed questionnaires, interviews, and essays every 6 months. Three components (giving and receiving compassionate love, and compassionate love toward self) were rated using interview and essay transcripts. Giving compassionate love and compassionate love toward self predicted longer survival, even when controlling for substance use and social support. Only giving compassionate love remained a significant predictor when controlling for adherence. Being compassionate toward others as well as oneself may have survival benefits. Giving compassionate love appears to be more important than receiving.

Personality, Relationships with Others and Psychological Well-Being: A Pilot Study on the Gabonese Older People

Each Individual is linked to his social environment by support relationships. This concern both aid that the individual himself provides and his social resources. We studied the hypothesized mediator role, in aging, of relationship with others, including in particular perceived social support (PSS) and compassionate love (CL). PSS and CL were studied in the link between personality and psychological well-being (PWB) to Gabonese older people. The data were collected using Likert questionnaires in a sample of 155 (94 men and 61 women) older people. Findings revealed the mediator role of CL between two dimensions of personality (agreeableness and openness) on the one hand and PWB on the other side. PSS was also found to be a mediator only between agreeableness and PWB. Our findings support the influence of relationship with others in enhancing PWB. The latter would be more fostered when individuals receive and give support. The present study has implications in nursing home as well as at home. It allows relatives to better interact and take their parents to foster their PWB. Similarly, it may contribute to health care research and provide knowledge about older people care at nursing home. It encourages the implementation of clinical interventions in a goal of promoting social interactions in which older people can give compassionate love and receive social support. Finally, the study highlights the importance of the development of person-centred practice in Nursing Home Services.

The Co-Production Model of Thai Film Industry and Movie Business: Applying the Conceptualization of Compassionate Love Relationship-Led Merit Based Investment

The purpose of writing this research was to establish the co-production model of Thai film industry and movie business for merit-based investment towards the very innovative concept of compassionate love relationship. Researches of very outstanding pundit and contemporary leading practitioner were investigated to comprehend the very obligation of this unavoidable concept. Now most companies of ASEAN films and movie business ignore one of their best opportunities for honing traditional investment competitive advantage: proactively managing the merit-based pay by tax incentive systems. Thus, most research has focused on the effect of merit-based pay on individual motivation and business organizational security in terms of organizational performance. Yet, Thailand Board of Investment outlook towards Thailand 4.0 attempts and many conclude that merit-based incentives is rooted in a desire to better aligning additional incentives for investment to enhance the country’s overall competitiveness and industries. Thus, this paper expending the conceptualization of co-production model as an authentic magnitude construct with compassionate love relationship-led merit based investment. So the research briefly summarize beneficial proposes a conceptual model for the new wave of The Co-production Model of Thai Film Industry and movie business based on ample literature review and practices relevant to compassionate love relationship-led merit based investment.

The relationship between elevation, connectedness, and compassionate love in meaningful films.

The relationship between elevation, connectedness, and compassionate love in meaningful films.

The Co-Production Model of Thai Film Industry and Movie Business: Applying the Conceptualization of Compassionate Love Relationship-Led Merit Based Investment

The purpose of writing this research was to establish the co-production model of Thai film industry and movie business for merit-based investment towards the very innovative concept of compassionate love relationship. Researches of very outstanding pundit and contemporary leading practitioner were investigated to comprehend the very obligation of this unavoidable concept. Now most companies of ASEAN films and movie business ignore one of their best opportunities for honing traditional investment competitive advantage: proactively managing the merit-based pay by tax incentive systems. Thus, most research has focused on the effect of merit-based pay on individual motivation and business organizational security in terms of organizational performance. Yet, Thailand Board of Investment outlook towards Thailand 4.0 attempts and many conclude that merit-based incentives is rooted in a desire to better aligning additional incentives for investment to enhance the country’s overall competitiveness and industries. Thus, this paper expending the conceptualization of co-production model as an authentic magnitude construct with compassionate love relationship-led merit based investment. So the research briefly summarize beneficial proposes a conceptual model for the new wave of The Co-production Model of Thai Film Industry and movie business based on ample literature review and practices relevant to compassionate love relationship-led merit based investment.

Secular Examination of Spirituality-Prosociality Association

Religious beliefs in Chinese cultural background, especially in Chinese secular society, have rarely been systematically investigated. The nonreligious-based population in China endorses certain supernatural beliefs or has related transcendent experience, even though they usually claim themselves as non-believers. Therefore, the current research examined the spirituality-prosociality association in Chinese secular background, demonstrating how spiritual connection with the transcendence related to individual secular social life. A total of 440 Chinese participants completed our questionnaires in three survey studies. The results showed that: 1) for the nonreligious-based population in China, spirituality was positively connected with personal prosocial trait, prosocial attitude, and prosocial behavior; 2) the prosocial trait of compassionate love partially mediated the association between spirituality and daily prosocial expenses on time and money; and 3) personal emphasis on moral principles such as ultimate justice beliefs partially mediated the association between spirituality and interpersonal altruism in organizational settings. Limitations and future directions were discussed.

Changes in older couples’ compassionate love over a year

Although compassionate love has been identified as a key characteristic of healthy relationships, it is unknown how it changes over time. Thus, both self- and spouse-reported compassionate love toward a spouse were assessed from a sample of 64 older married couples to begin to understand the course of compassionate love and to identify predictors of potential changes over a 1-year period. In contrast to prior theoretical and cross-sectional work, results indicated that compassionate love modestly declined over two waves spaced approximately 17 months apart. Although health was largely unrelated to compassionate love, wives’ attachment avoidance emerged as a consistent, negative predictor of compassionate love for both husbands and wives. These preliminary findings raise some concern for older spouses as they transition into more caregiving roles, as the need for compassionate love is theorized to be greater later in life. Future research should focus on replicating these findings in more diverse samples of older adults to capture how compassionate love develops amid the unique challenges associated with aging.

Spirituality and Compassionate Love in Psychiatrists and Psychiatric Social Workers

Compassionate Love leads to the most social good for those who are its recipients. However, self-benefits may also occur as a result of experiencing compassionate love for others. Mental health professionals and clinicians have long noted the positive benefits of giving to others or having altruistic orientation toward others. For example, according to the helper therapy principle, identified in social work research done with self-help groups (Reissman, 1965) doing something for others is fulfilling and can increase the self-esteem of the person providing the help. A small amount of research, much of it conducted with older adults and cross-sectionally, indicates that giving to others is associated with life satisfaction, happiness, and self-esteem (Caprara & Steca, 2005; Simmons, 1991). However, almost no research has examined the outcomes for the self of experiencing pro-social emotions, such as empathy, sympathy, or compassionate love. Feeling intense pro-social emotion, distinct from engaging in a helping behavior, may also result in many positive benefits to the self, including increased self-esteem, general positive mood, and closeness to the targets of one's empathy or compassion. Furthermore, when people themselves become the target of another's compassionate love or empathy, they may experience increase in self-esteem and good mood.Compassionate love, however, is more encompassing and can be experienced for family, friends, peripheral ties, and all ofhumanity (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). Compassionate love is a central feature in many religious traditions (Underwood, 2002) and is a self-giving, caring, love that values the other. It is associated, but not synonymous with, related concepts such as empathy, perspective-taking, altruism, social support, volunteerism, romantic love, and familial love. Although empathy has long been viewed as a major factor in promoting prosocial behavior toward others (Davis, 1996; Dovidio & Penner, 2001) compassionate love can be considered to be a more long-lasting, pro-social, emotion directed toward others, and thus may be more likely to lead to altruistic behavior (Sprecher & Fehr, 2005). Sprecher and Fehr have defined compassionate love as: an attitude toward other(s), either close others or strangers or all ofhumanity; containing feelings, cognitions, and behaviors that are focused on caring, concern, tenderness, and orientation toward supporting, helping, and understanding the other(s), particularly when the other(s) is (are) perceived to be suffering or in need.Recently, a call has been made for more scientific study of compassionate (or altruistic) love (Post et al., 2002). In a recent set of studies, Fehr and Sprecher (2004) using a prototype analysis (Fehr, 1988) examined the key features of compassionate love reflected in laymen conceptions. Through various studies, including social cognition tasks such as reaction times to features of love, it was found that compassionate love is a complex and multifaceted concept. The features that laymen regard as most central to the concept are those that are considered to be central to love in general trust, caring, honesty. The researchers concluded that what is unique to compassionate love is the inclusion of features that depict selflessness, putting the other head of oneself, making sacrifices for the other, and so on (Fehr & Sprecher, 2004).Scientists also have recently measured compassionate love, as attitude directed toward others, in order to examine the correlates of the experience. Sprecher and Fehr developed a compassionate love scale that can be used, in different versions, to measure compassionate love forhumanity/strangers, close others (family & friends), and a specific close other. They found that people experience compassionate love to a greater degree for close others than for strangers/humanity, that scores on the compassionate love scale are correlated positively with providing social support for others and with volunteerism, and that spirituality and religiosity are associated positively with experiencing compassionate love, particularly for humanity and strangers. …

Effects of Functional Analytic Psychotherapy Therapist Training on Therapist Factors Among Therapist Trainees in Singapore: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Functional Analytic Therapy (FAP) therapist training protocol was effective in improving empathy and FAP skills among Singaporean therapist trainees. These improvements were maintained at 2-month follow-up. The training was found to be acceptable in the Singaporean context, although several adaptations were suggested to increase the compatibility between FAP principles and local cultural norms.

Does Loving-Kindness Meditation Reduce Anxiety? Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial

Although loving-kindness meditation (LKM) has shown some promise as a psychological intervention, little is known about the effectiveness of LKM for reducing one of the most prevalent mental health problems: anxiety. To build knowledge in this area, we conducted a randomized controlled trial, assigning non-clinical undergraduates to either a four-session, group-based LKM intervention (n = 38) or a waitlist control (n = 33). Self-reported anxiety, compassionate love, and self-compassion were assessed at pretreatment, posttreatment, and 8-week follow-up. Relative to control participants, participants in the LKM intervention reported higher compassionate love and self-compassion at posttreatment and higher self-kindness (a component of self-compassion) at follow-up. Anxiety ratings did not significantly differ between conditions at posttreatment or follow-up. Study limitations and directions for future research are discussed.