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Compassion comes easily to me.As the granddaughter of immigrants from Lithuania and Poland who spoke little English, I understand what its like to be treated as a stranger in America.As a journalist, I covered stories of war and trauma in the 1990s, including the crushing of Chinese protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, followed by the Soviet Unions collapse two years later. I covered the war between Iraq and Iran. I witnessed ethnic strife in South Africa and the toll poverty takes in Mexico.As a professor of cultural engagement and public diplomacy, I have watched and studied how compassion can help build and strengthen civil society.And having worked in senior levels of the U.S. government for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama on international conflict resolution, I have learned that compassion is a key ingredient of peacemaking.Especially now, as President Donald Trump seeks to deport millions of immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization and to stop funding the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has long spent billions of dollars a year helping the worlds poorest people, compassion seems lacking among U.S. leaders.Perhaps that all explains my curiosity about a new study on the state of compassion in Americapart of the glue that holds communities together.Defining compassionSociologists define compassion as the human regard for the suffering of others, and the notion of using action to alleviate this pain.The report that caught my eye was issued in January 2025 by the Muhammad Ali Center, which the late boxer cofounded 20 years ago in Louisville, Kentucky, to advance social justice.As the Ali Center explains, compassion starts with the individualself-care and personal wellness. It then radiates out to the wider community in the form of action and engagement.You can see compassion at work in the actions of a Pasadena, California, girl, who started a donation hub for teens affected by fires that ripped through the Los Angeles region in early 2025. She began collecting sports bras, hair ties, and fashionable sweaters, helping hundreds of her peers begin to recover from their losses in material and emotional ways.Its also visible in the estimated 6.8 million people in the U.S. who donate blood each year, according to the American Red Cross.Were grateful to blood donors across the country who generously give to help patients in need.Severe winter weather and wildfires have impacted our blood supply since the new year, and we appreciate everyone who has made, kept and rescheduled their blood donation appointments pic.twitter.com/TperMufpjq American Red Cross (@RedCross) January 24, 2025 Resilience in AmericaWhile Ali is best known for his battles in the ring and his outspoken political views, he also helped those in need in the U.S. and other countries through large charitable donations and his participation in United Nations missions to countries like Afghanistan, where he helped deliver millions of meals to hungry people.The researchers who worked on the Ali Center report interviewed more than 5,000 U.S. adults living in 12 cities in 2024 in order to learn more about the prevalence of compassionate behaviors such as charitable giving, volunteering and assisting others in their recovery from disasters.They found that the desire to help others still animates many Americans despite the nations current polarization and divisive politics.The center has created an index it calls the net compassion score. It approximates the degree to which Americans give their time and money to programs and activities that nurture and strengthen their communities.Cities with high compassion scores have more community engagement and civic participation than those with low scores. A higher-scoring community performs better when it comes to things like public housing and mental health resources, for example. Its residents report more career opportunities, better communications between local government and citizens, more community programs, and more optimism around economic development where they live.The report provides some clues as to what drives compassionate behavior in a city: a sense of spirituality, good education, decent healthcare, resources for activities like sports, and opportunities to engage in local politics.All told, Americans rate their country as a 9 on a scale that runs from minus 100 to 100.The report also identified some troubling obstacles that stand in the way of what it calls self-compassionmeaning how volunteers and donors treat their own mental and physical health. Frequent struggles with self-care can lead to rising levels of isolation and loneliness.From left: Jeni Stepanek, chair of the Muhammad Ali Index; Lonnie Ali, cofounder and vice chair of the Muhammad Ali Center; and DeVone Holt, the centers president and CEO, at the launch of the Muhammad Ali Index on January 16, 2025 [Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Muhammad Ali Center]Doubting their own capacityThe 2025 Compassion Reports findings show that many Americans still want to live in a compassionate country but also that Americans view the country as less compassionate today than four years ago.The report delves into gaps in compassion. About one-third of those interviewed acknowledged that there are groups toward whom they feel less compassionate toward, such as people who have been convicted of crimes, immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization, and the rich.Only 29% said they feel compassion toward everyone.The report also identifies gender gaps. Despite expressing greater awareness of systemic challenges, the women surveyed reported less self-compassion than men.Its not the first compassion study ever done. But I believe that this one is unique due to its focus on specific cities, and how it assessed limits on the compassion some people feel toward certain groups.Helping health and humanityThe Compassion Institute, another nonprofit, seeks to weave compassion training into healthcare education to create a more caring and humanitarian world. It cites the benefits of compassion for human beings, with everything from reducing stress to alleviating the effects of disease on the mind and body.Academic institutions, including Stanford University, have conducted many studies on how teaching compassion can guide healthcare professionals to both treat patients better and achieve better outcomes.A team of Emory University researchers examined how training people to express more compassion can reduce stress hormones levels, triggering positive brain responses that improve immune responses.Offering an advantageAlthough there are plenty of adorable videos of dogs and cats behaving kindly with each other or their human companions, historically compassion has differentiated humans from animals.Human beings possess powers of emotional reasoning that give us an edge.Scholars are still working to discover how much of human compassion is rooted in emotional reasoning. Another factor theyve identified is the aftermath of trauma. Studies have found evidence that it can increase empathy later on.You might imagine that in a world of hurt, theres a deficit of compassion for others. But the Ali Centers report keeps alive the notion that Americans remain compassionate people who want to help others.My experiences around the world and within the U.S. have taught me that human beings both have the power to be violent and destructive. But despite it all, there is, within all of us, the innate ability and desire to be compassionate. That is a net positive for our country.Tara Sonenshine is an Edward R. Murrow professor of practice in public diplomacy at Tufts University.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
