From Aversive, Toward Appetitive: A Behavioral Conceptual Analysis of Compassion

Behavior analytic practice is fundamentally prosocial, aimed at helping individuals by expanding their repertoires to be more meaningfully effective. Behavior analysis, however, has faced criticism for lacking qualities of compassionate practices such as warmth and flexibility. Recently, more attention is being paid to how we might foster such practices consistent with behavior analytic principles. A concise but comprehensive functional definition would support these efforts by making compassion directly actionable. This paper provides a brief review of the features of compassion as characterized in the behavior analytic literature, examines converging functional dimensions in a comprehensive conceptual analysis, and proposes a functional definition of compassion in terms of the interlocking functional relations involved for provider and recipient of compassion. Finally, we will explore implications of this conceptualization in terms of recommendations for creating compassionate contexts for learning and nurturing compassionate behavior.