Written by Michelle Brandt.
Great piece on compassion from Stanford’s Emma Seppala, PhD, whose work on PTSD and veterans was recently covered here. Tackling the question of whether women are more innately compassionate than men, Seppala outlines some of the scientific research on the topic before concluding:
Rather than suggesting that [bonding and nurturing] tendencies might have made women more compassionate than men, I would argue that they would simply have altered the expression of compassion. While women’s expression may have become one of nurturing and bonding, men’s compassion was expressed through protecting and ensuring survival (hunting, warfare). Compassion just took on a different “look and feel” depending on our evolutionary needs for survival.
To read the full article, click here.
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