A reflection on my day of compassion

Growing up I had to learn how to accept the fact that my life was different from the lives of a lot of other people. My house didn’t look like their houses, my family didn’t look like their families, and we always seemed to be struggling more to make ends meet.  However, I learned to be grateful for the fact that at least I had a home, a family, and food on the table, things that so many people in the world and in my surrounding community seemed to lack.  I believe my grateful attitude interacts with my heightened ability to sympathize/empathize with others, creating my compassionate nature.  Although tackling social issues such as education and domestic violence is important to me, planning for a Day of Compassion made me realize that at times I may be blind to the struggles that some of the most important people in my life are going through.  I certainly feel that most of the time I can discern on a superficial level when friends and relatives are fighting a battle in their life.  However, at times I don’t think I really understand how much these people are hurting until the inevitable emotional/mental breakdown occurs.  It is because of this somewhat lack of awareness that the target of my assignment was my roommate.

For the past two months I have been limited to only attending necessary functions such as classes and meetings, but even these activities are physically painful because of my nerve damage.  As a result of my limited physical mobility, my roommate has taken on the bulk of our house chores and has “taken care” of me when things get bad.  Although this shift was necessary, I feel sad that she has to take care of the apartment in addition to being president of our student club and be a full-time SU student (we all know how that is). My decision for my roommate to be my target was strengthened after having a conversation with her about her own heightened stress levels caused by juggling various school and professional activities.  My conversations with her led me to define compassion as engaging in behaviors that minimized disruptions during my roommates’ work (school and professional) and/or that maximized her enjoyment during disruptions in her work.

Consistent with my definition of compassion, I completed acts what would be considered small acts of kindness.  To begin the day, I did acts that I considered as minimizing disruptions and alleviating her workload around the house.  For example, I cooked us brunch rather than relying on her to make us lunch.  We have not had breakfast or brunch since fall semester because I am the primary cook and usually take the initiative to plan certain meals, so I thought it would be a nice treat for that day.  After serving brunch, I knew she forgot to get a napkin, so I brought one to her before she was about to get up again to get one.  Aside from cooking brunch and napkin giving, I loaded the dishwasher and unloaded it after the washing was complete.  As late afternoon approached, I engaged in behaviors that maximized her enjoyment during disruptions.  For example, she wanted to watch movies while she worked, so I let her choose all three movies we watched.  This may not seem too significant, but I realized that I tend to be the one who dictates what movies we watch most of the time (I can only handle Robin Hood Men in Tights once every three months), so at least this time I knew for a fact that she would really enjoy watching all the movies.  I think the best act I did that day was finally baking the spice cake we bought weeks ago.  My roommate loves sweets and always gets excited when I make us desserts.  Therefore, I thought she would enjoy being able to indulge in her sweet tooth when she took breaks during her work.  What I was unprepared for was her level of excitement when it came to the process of the cake being done.  The first time the oven timer beeped, the cake needed more time in the oven so I put it back. I then realized by my roommate’s pout that she wanted to check the cake, so the second time the timer beeped I let her check the cake; she had the biggest grin on her face. I also let her frost the cake, which she enjoyed doing as well. In the end, I was able to give my roommate an enjoyable activity to work on between doing her other assignments. She got to frost her cake and eat it too; all I had to do was get the process in motion.

Throughout the day I knew my roommate noticed a change in my behavior because she would ask me how my foot was feeling and how my back was feeling (I had injections there a couple of days before).  Based on these questions, I don’t think she noticed I was being extra considerate but rather that I was being slightly more mobile.  Each time I did a kind act she would smile and say, “Aww.”  At one point, she said, “Aww, you’re so sweet”.  Based on that one statement, I can conclude that one some of my more overt behaviors she made a personal attribution (Heider, 1958).  That is, she attributed my behaviors to an internal characteristic of my personality (i.e., sweetness or kindness).  The most logical reason for why she would make this attribution is that I’m generally a kind person, so she’s previously experienced my kindness toward her and witnessed my kindness toward others.  Furthermore, there was no way she could have made a situational attribution because she was unaware that I was conducting a Day of Compassion and all of my actions took place in our apartment.  According to Heider (1958), people have a tendency to attribute behaviors to people’s personalities because the individual becomes more salient than the situation that surrounds them.  Therefore, because our apartment is a setting we always inhabit, it faded into the background and left only me and my actions as salient. 

Despite being intrinsically motivated to be considerate of others, I will admit that being reminded that this assignment required me to be compassionate for the whole day gave me extra motivation to continue my attempts at showing consideration for my roommate.  Furthermore, I kept reminding myself of how stressed I get at times.  I remembered the few times I realized I skipped a meal because I was so overwhelmed with the work I needed to get done.  I also remembered the many times when I tried to rush through a meal or was aggravated in a meeting where only three people showed up because I could be using that time to work on other projects.  As I reflected back on this remembering process, I realized that my thoughts reflected findings that show that people have a tendency to help similar others, specifically members of one’s ingroup (e.g., Xu et al., 2009).  Although I still had quite a bit of work to do myself and was in a bit of pain, I was able to put aside my own problems and focus on being considerate to my roommate because I could relate to her based on a similar shared SU/college experience.  

My brief internal struggles during this day hint at possible psychological costs of behaving compassionately.  A decrease in physical and mental health is the most prominent psychological cost of behaving compassionately that I have witnessed and have heard stories about.  However research shows that negative effects on health are more likely to occur when behaving compassionately involves constant and exhausting demands (Fujino & Okamura, 2009).  For example, when my grandpa developed colon cancer, my mom was the one who gave him his medication, cleaned his bed sheets, and cleaned his colostomy bag.  When I got older and spoke to her about it I realized that taking care of my grandpa was emotionally and cognitively draining for her.  Another psychological cost of helping others is that you could unintentionally do more harm than good to the person you are helping.  That is, research has suggested that when stigmatized groups receive help from nonstigmatized groups, especially unsolicited help, members of the stigmatized group may feel worse about themselves (Blaine et al., 1995).  Aside from these two psychological costs, there are also psychological benefits to behaving compassionately.  In general, helping others (e.g., volunteering) is associated with feeling better about yourself as well as with positive increases in mental and physical heath (Dillard et al., 2008; Piliavin, 2003).  I can attest to feeling good when helping others because just seeing how happy my roommate was when she was able to frost and eat our spice cake, made spending time making the cake worth it.  When contemplating both sides, I personally believe that the psychological benefits outweigh the psychological costs of behaving compassionately because I have internalized the idea that helping and being considerate of others is the right things to do.  Therefore, I think in most situations and with time and guidance it’s possible for people to learn how to set limits and not overexert themselves in their quest to alleviate others’ suffering.  In addition, I cannot help but think of the numerous non-psychological benefits that result from being compassionate toward others (e.g., the abolishment of slavery in the U.S.), so I am definitely biased when it comes to the idea of helping those who are in need and/or who are actively seeking help.

Were I to try and encourage others to conduct their own Day of Compassion, one social psychological concept I would rely on is the good mood effect, which is the idea that helping behaviors increase when an individual is in a good mood and has been supported by a growing body of research (e.g., Aderman, 1972; Forgas et al., 2008) .  Therefore, I could attempt to put others in a good mood by offering them help when they need it, epically when other people around them are not being helpful.  Lately, I have also received forwarded emails from a friend that include cute pictures of baby animals, pictures with funny or charming captions, and short inspirational stories that give a person hope for humanity.  I always have a smile while reading these emails and generally feel in a better mood after, so it is possible I could help put my friends and relatives in a good mood if I actually continue the forwarding chain on of these days.  Then based on the good mood effect, my friends and relatives may feel more inclined to help others that day.  Although the good mood effect is effective, it would only allow me to potentially get others to increase their helping behaving in general.  To specifically encourage others to behave as I did, I would rely on priming.  It has been shown that when primed to adopt another individual’s perceptive, people were more likely to help that individual despite potential costs and being given the choice not to help (Baston & Powell, 2003).  I would apply this idea to others through conversation about their roommates’ current situations and activities.  If people mention something that is stressing their roommate, I would guide the conversation to focus more on how the roommate is feeling as a way to highlight the feelings and difficulties that roommate is going through. I would then probably mention how when either I or my roommate is feeling stress the other makes cupcakes for the one who is stressed and maybe there is something similar that they could do for their own roommate.  Hopefully by emphasizing how the roommate must be feeling and giving them an example of how roommates can help alleviate each others’ stress, other people may attempt to actively help alleviate their roommate’s own stress.

As I have reflected back on my entire experience during my Day of Compassion in this blog, I truly do believe that one month from now my behavior will be changed from what it was at the beginning of the semester because of this one day.  Specifically, seeing my roommate all excited about our baking of the spice cake as shown to me that we need to actively make time to bake like we did last semester.  We both find baking lethargic, but for whatever reason we just have not found the time and keep putting the baking off this semester. Therefore, I am now even more motivated to have baking sessions at least twice a month until the end of the school year.  Moreover, my Day of Compassion really emphasized how there is now an imbalance of work between my and my roommate.  Although there is a good reason for this imbalance, I have become more motivated to take advantage of the few times that I do not feel like I am in such a bad state physically. For instance, I am going to try and slowly start to make more dinners during the weekend because from Friday to Saturday I tend to move less, so sometime I’m not in so much pain.  Lastly, I will make a conscious effort to tolerate Robin Hood Men in Tights at least once every two months instead of every three months; after all we will be rooming together our senior year.  In the end, I do not regret my decision to actively and consciously be considerate toward my roommate, especially because I have been blessed to have her in my life and in that she is willing to help me in my darkest moments. The least I could do is try to be just as good of a friend to her.

(n = 2,281)        

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Aderman, D. (1972). Elation, depression, and helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 24, 91-101.

Baston, C. D., & Powell, A. A. (2003). Altruism and prosocial behavior. In T. Millon & M. J. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of psychology: Personality and social psychology (Vol. 5, pp. 463-484). New York: Wiley. 

Blaine, B., Crocker, J., & Major, B. (1995). The unintended negative consequences of sympathy for the stigmatized. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25, 889-905.

Dillard, A. J., Schiavone, A., & Brown, S. L. (2008). Helping behavior and positive emotions: Implications for health and well-being. In S.J. Lopez (Ed.), Positive psychology: Exploring the best in people: Vol. 2. Capitalizing on emotional experience (pp. 101-114). Westport, Ct: Praeger.

Forgas, J. P., Dunn, E., & Granland, S. (2008). Are you being served…? An unobtrusive experiment of affective influences on helping in a department store. European Journal of Social Psychology, 38(2), 333-342.

Fujino, N., & Okamura, H. (2009). Factors affecting the sense of burden felt by family members caring for patients with mental illness. Archives of Psychiatric Nursing, 23(2), 128-137.

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York:Wiley.

Piliavin, J. A. (2003). Doing well by doing good: Benefits for the benefactor. In C. L. M. Keyes & J. Haidt (Eds.), Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived (pp. 227-247). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Xu, X., Zuo, X., Wang, X., & Han, S. (2009). Do you feel my pain? Racial group membership modulates emphatic neural responses. Journal of Neuroscience, 29, 8525-8529.