Category Archives: religious love

How Doctors Can Be More Compassionate to Patients

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The lack of time, or “time famine,” is the major problem nowadays that deters us from being compassionate to others in our daily encounters. This problem also does not allow doctors to allot sufficient time to interact with patients compassionately in the manner in which they would like to do so. Many doctors regret that they do not have the time to treat patients with compassion, as they would like to.

The problem is specifically intractable in medicine. Healthcare providers in clinics often feel they cannot sufficiently care for their patients the way they would like.

It’s hard to think of something more serious than telling a patient bad medical news. Can medical educators teach physicians how to show real compassion for patients professionally?

How to Show Compassion Professionally

Let’s consider how the researchers from Johns Hopkins University taught cancer doctors the way to support their patient encounters.

Here is a script that doctors can use in their medical practice. Beginning the appointment, the oncologists say:

“I know this is a tough experience to go through and I want you to know that I am here with you. Some of the things that I say to you today may be difficult to understand, so I want you to feel comfortable stopping me if I say something that is confusing or doesn’t make sense. We are here together, and we will go through this together.”

Then, by the end of the appointment, the doctors say:

“I know this is a tough time for you, and I want to emphasize again that we are in this together. I will be with you each step along the way.”

It appeared that when doctors shared these words with their patients, the patients perceived their doctors as warmer, more caring, and more compassionate care providers. These patients experienced less anxiety than other patients.

The study demonstrated not only how compassion matters but how quickly a doctor can display compassion to a patient, even in forty seconds and in 99 words, which eased a patient’s anxiety.

How Much Time Does It Take to Express Compassion?

Other studies have supported this discovery about how little time doctors need to express compassion.

Stephen Trzeciak and his colleagues conducted the study in the Netherlands that showed that it takes only 38 seconds for doctors to express compassion when they deliver bad news to patients to ease the patient’s anxiety.

The study of Rachel Weiss and her colleagues demonstrated that the longer compassionate statements, the better they reduce patient anxiety.

How to Express Compassion in Daily Social Communication

What about other daily situations involving social connections? Can we spare a few seconds to communicate with someone close to us, with our loved one or friend, or with our neighbor, expressing simple words of compassion?

  • Great job today. I know it’s been tough this past week. I see how hard you are working and I’m proud to be working alongside you.
  • I really admire how you are rolling with the punches. I want you to know you’re not in it alone. I’m here, too, and we’ll figure it out together.
How Helping Others Could Make You Feel Less Rushed by Gabriella Kellerman (2023)

Keep in mind that even the brief moments of your time given compassionately to someone else can make a difference in their life as well as in yours.

Give Compassionate Love to Each Other!

We need to rely on each other. We must care about each other. We need compassion for each other to feel good, be good, live well, and do what we are doing well. We need compassionate love for each other to do well in our personal lives.

The modern way of life, with its daily rush and lack of time, presents increasing barriers to personal connections. Nevertheless, we can pursue compassionate social behavior and feel that we have time to spare for it.

When “Small Love” Is Compassionate

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Compassionate love is a benevolent emotion that involves giving as a way of loving. The compassionate feelings and actions of small love help another person’s well-being. This form of small love emphasizes the well-being of another person, even in occasional daily situations.

Men and women may exhibit compassionate love or the bystander effect in the daily circumstances they encounter. “Small love” means loving the neighbor or another person we occasionally encounter.

When Are People More Willing to Help in an Occasional Interpersonal Encounter?

Let’s look at the experimental situation that researchers set up to explore this question.

“At 10:00 a.m. on December 14, 1970, a sunny day in Princeton, New Jersey, the first batch of volunteers arrived for a psychology experiment. The participants were seminary students at Princeton Theological, studying religion in preparation for a life of spiritual service.”

When the participants arrived at the study, they were informed that the experiment would look into the career paths of seminarians. Researchers gave each participant reading material to help them prepare a short talk on the topic.

They gave half of the participants a sheet of paper with questions and suggestions for making the most of their seminary education. They gave the other half a copy of the well-known New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan, who stops on the side of the road to assist someone in need.

The volunteers who participated in the experiments were unaware that all of this was just a prelude.

Then, the administrator of the experiment told each volunteer that, because there wasn’t enough room, they would have to walk to another building to give their talk. They gave the participants a map that showed how to get from one building to the next. The route went through an alley. One by one, the people took off. When participants walked into the alley, each of them encountered a startling sight:

“a pile of a man, slumped and motionless in a dark doorway, moaning in distress.”

How Helping Others Could Make You Feel Less Rushed

The Critical Moment of the Experimental Situation to Show Small Love

Here was the critical moment of the experiment: “Who would stop to help, like the Good Samaritan, and who would pass him by?”

“The groaning man, a disguised member of the research team, noted the reactions of each seminarian. Some hurried past without noticing him. Others looked or nodded but didn’t stop. Some paused briefly to ask if the man was all right. And then there were a few “superhelpers” who guided the suffering man inside, refusing to leave until care had arrived.”

How Helping Others Could Make You Feel Less Rushed

Who slowed down? Who was in a hurry? What made a person decide whether or not to help another person in need?

Researchers John Darley and C. Daniel Batson expected that priming the students’ minds to think about the Good Samaritan would make them more likely to help a person in need. The intention was to demonstrate scripture’s power to inspire moral behavior by showing “small love” to a stranger.

What the Results of the Study Revealed

However, the results of the study did not support the expected effect:

“Students who hadn’t read the parable helped (or neglected to help) in similar numbers to those that had. None of the other variables Darley and Batson tested—such as what type of religious beliefs the participants held—made a difference, either.”

How Helping Others Could Make You Feel Less Rushed

The only factor that affected the willingness to help was the time pressure.

“Students who were told to hurry to their destination were significantly less likely to stop to help a man in pain. Students who were told they had a bit of spare time to make the walk stopped more frequently and offered more substantial forms of help.”

Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). ” From Jerusalem to Jericho”: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior

Surprisingly, seminary students who devote their lives to serving others are less likely to help someone in obvious need if they are short on time.

The feeling that we lack time to help others can be deceptive. And, actually, we can extend our time by connecting with others.

Religious Kindness Leads to More Giving

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Love is one of the most valuable human attitudes and emotions. It is present in all religious teaching across many religions.

Religious Teachings of Love

God encourages people to love and be kind to others. Here are, for example, some examples of Christian teachings on love:

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.”

Romans 12:9-10

Islam teaches people to love each other for the sake of Allah. Allah will ask on the Day of Judgment:

“Where are those who loved each other for the sake of My glory? Today, on a day when there is no shade but Mine, I shall shade them with My shade.”

Abu Hurairah, (Muslim)

Religious Kindness and Love for Others

Do religious people love only others who are of the same faith? Or can they be kind to others of any religion? Do their religious kindness and love cross religious borders?

According to the results of some studies, religious people can be prejudiced, and intergroup bias can decrease prosocial behavior and love for others of different religions.

A recent study, however, has shown that thinking about God encourages prosociality toward religious outgroups. This tendency spreads across cultures.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago investigated

  • whether members of specific religions engage in altruistic behavior that only benefits members of their religion, or
  • whether they are willing to treat members of other religions in the same manner.

It turns out that religious people, regardless of how they practice their faith, are more likely to be kind to others.

As Michael Pasek, an assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, states:

“Religion is often thought to promote intergroup conflict and fuel hostility between people who hold different beliefs. Quite to the contrary — our findings suggest that belief in God, which is an important aspect of most world religions, may sometimes promote more positive intergroup relations.”

The leading author of the study, Michael Pasek, and his team have conducted field and online studies in which more than 4,700 people participated. They were from different cultural and religious backgrounds: Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Middle Eastern, Fijian, and American Jewish people.

Participants had the opportunity to share money with anonymous people of various religions. The participants played multiple rounds of a real-world economic game. They needed to divide a sum of money among themselves and people from different backgrounds. During the first round, participants had to carefully consider their choices. Then, in the later rounds of this economic game, the researchers asked them to think about God before making a decision.

By the way, we should keep in mind that “Americans unsure about God are a fast-growing force in politics.“

Thinking of God Makes People More Generous

Nevertheless, when we think about God, we feel more kind and generous and give more to others.

The results of the study showed that thinking about God has a significant impact on decision-making. In the experimental situation, it resulted in an 11% increase in giving compared to the first rounds of the study.

As Jeremy Ginges, professor of psychology at The New School of Social Research, explains,

“Belief in gods may encourage cooperative norms that help us trade goods and ideas across group boundaries, which is essential to human flourishing. Of course, we are also a parochial species. Our team is now investigating how moral and supernatural beliefs help people balance their parochialism with their need for intergroup cooperation.”

Ginges then adds that there is a trend indicating that religion may prompt people to lend a helping hand more frequently. However, this is not always the case. Some members of a religion may believe that their faith requires them to support their own group more frequently than others.

Anyway, the results of this study demonstrate that religious faith is not responsible for as much intergroup violence, suffering, and distress. Contrary to this, religious faith actually helps strengthen interfaith connections.

The Religious Bias of Love and Prejudice

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Many religious teachings emphasize love, kindness, and generosity as the primary cultural values. Whether or not you are religious, you have probably heard of the “Golden Rule.” It states that you should treat others as you would like to be treated. A version of this rule exists in all major world religions. Why does religious prejudice still exist?

Does religion increase moral behavior? Or, why do religious cultures explicitly or implicitly teach prejudice?

Religions encourage prosocial behavior and teach us to love each other. Religious teachings suggest people treat others with kindness, generosity, and positivity. Based on the review of many studies on religion and prosocial behavior, researchers have concluded that religious people’s faith tends to increase their prosocial behavior.

Why then don’t we always practice what we preach?

The Paradox of Religious Love

The question arises: why does religion also influence actions and viewpoints that seem to conflict with these religious principles?

Throughout history, religions have been a force behind atrocities like wars and massacres committed against people of other faiths. We know about the stories of religious crusades. We remember the French Wars of Religion in 1572 and the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of people.

Why Religious People Can Be Prejudiced

While religion teaches prosocial behavior, research shows that when people identify themselves closely with one’s religion, this can lead to their racism and homophobia. The social psychological effect of intergroup bias can explain how religion can produce prejudiced attitudes and behaviors.

How Intergroup Bias Decreases Prosocial Behavior and Love

The intergroup bias is the human propensity to think favorably about the groups we are a part of — an “ingroup”.” Yet we think more negatively about the groups you are not a part of—”an outgroup.” While we think that outgroups violate our ingroup values, we perceive them as dangerous to our ingroup.

In light of this social psychological effect, we can understand why religious beliefs can produce both prosocial behavior and prejudice. On the one hand, people direct their prosocial behavior primarily at members of their own ingroup. On the other hand, people focus their prejudice on members of other groups, particularly those they view as threatening.

However, it is unclear whether religion boosts prejudice or if there is another factor at play. Annetta Snell and her colleagues thoroughly reviewed the findings of psychological research, which used priming techniques to explore whether religion might increase prejudice.

What the Priming Studies Are

Priming is the method of subtly encouraging someone to think about a thought or concept in such a way that they are barely conscious of this subtle influence. Researchers employ the strategy of priming to influence people’s opinions when they don’t want to be too explicit in their influence. The purpose of such priming is to increase a concept’s awareness in the brain of a person in order to detect differences in subsequent behaviors and attitudes.

In one type of priming technique, for example, people unscrambled short sentences with religious words. That was implicit religious priming. Then these participants responded to the questions that assessed their prejudice toward various religious groups.

Researchers compared the responses of these participants with those of other people, whom they primed with unreligious (neutral) words. The higher level of prejudice in the group primed with religious words than in the group primed with neutral words should provide evidence that religion causes prejudice.

What the Priming Studies of Religious Beliefs Show

Annetta Snell and her colleagues have reviewed 44 studies estimating how much this kind of priming increases prejudice. They concluded that the priming of religious thoughts increases prejudice across all target groups, such as Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. However, researchers found that this effect of religious priming is relatively small.

However, researchers found that priming religion increases prejudice toward members of sexual and gender minorities as well as towards atheists. These findings indicate that religious people tend to perceive members of sexual and gender minorities, as well as atheists, as especially threatening to their religious views. It is likely they perceive those as violating their religious values.

Thus, priming religious thoughts increases prejudice due to intergroup bias and perceptions of threat. However, it would be inadequate to excessively generalize these findings. When primed with religious thoughts, not all people show prejudice towards other groups. And religious leaders and community members can mitigate the negative social effects of religious prejudice if they explicitly oppose prejudice towards other cultural groups.