Research Objectives

- Charles Darwin

The center is planning to focus its initial research to test several hypotheses -- That compassion can be trained, that it has important applications in secular fields, that contemplative systems target and enhance neural networks associated with compassion and finally, that rigorous scientific enquiry that draws from the insights of a multitude of disciplines – economics, philosophy and contemplative traditions – can greatly enrich our scientific understanding of deeper qualities of the human mind and heart such as compassion, altruism, and kindess.

Could training compassion have ramifications for recidivism and violence in prisons, or social education in schools? Could it influence cooperative behavior in business settings and negotiations? The center aims to launch a thorough, multidisciplinary examination of compassion -- Its neural correlates in decision making, group behavior and first-person, contemplative applications to create a strictly secular and scientifically rigorous theoretical paradigm for investigating these questions.