Compassion Week 2023 — The Arithmetic of Compassion

by Maili Smith

We are excited to celebrate another successful Compassion Week in the books!

This year, during the first week of August, a group of 20 international scholars from Italy to Israel to Colorado to Oregon met at the University of Oregon to present and discuss their work, which focuses on topics central to the arithmetic of compassion. The group has been meeting annually since 2012, when Paul Slovic sought to bring insights from contemporary psychological research into pressing humanitarian problems. The group formed to present and discuss research that scientifically examines when and why people help others, worry about climate change and global warming, endorse cooperative and peaceful solutions to conflicts, or engage in partisan framing in times of crises—-or when and why people fail to do these things.

The group listens to Professor Scott Slovic’s talk on “Environmental Vulnerability and the Literary Imagination”. *Photo Credit: Lauren Hodges*

Topics this year included “The Role of Morality in the Acceptance of Migrants” to “Effects of Fluency and Familiarity on Evaluations of Sustainable Technologies” to “Time Capsule Letter to Future Generations: Will we Solve the Climate Crisis?” The entire schedule of talks can be found here.

Professor Leaf Van Boven presented a talk entitled “As the World Burns: Psychological Barriers to Addressing Climate Change and Covid-19—And How to Overcome Them” that was open to the public on the University of Oregon campus. Professor Van Boven studies the everyday understanding of emotions and of social psychological processes in the self and in other people at the Environment, Decision, Judgment, and Identity Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder. He argued that much of the polarization that we experience in American politics is arbitrary, and a product of strong political lines rather than fundamental policy differences.

Professor Van Boven gives a public address about arbitrary polarization on August 1st, 2023. *Photo Credit: Lauren Hodges*

The mission of the event is to foster collaboration and promote real-world impacts across countries represented at Compassion Week. This year fostered spirited discussions, creative research propositions, and collaboration. The group also enjoyed a day trip to the Oregon Coast and a pizza night complete with corn hole, as by tradition. For researchers interested in joining the group or organizing a similar event, please contact the organizers.