A Spoonful of Compassionate Love Helps Prosocial Behaviors Go Round

Relationships are integral contributors to our overall health and wellness and it would be a mistake to overlook them. Recent social psychology research, with a focus on progressive pro-social behaviors, find students with progressively positive attitudes towards schoolwork a result of their teachers’ autonomous motivation to display compassionate love and empathy. Successful teacher-student relationships are shown to preexist and otherwise fluidly operate as components of a teacher’s personality. Such teachers' compassionate and empathic personality characteristics were found to be hallmark facets within their professional teacher-student relationships. Teachers’ near innate stable sense of self, emotional security, and self esteem are salient traits attributed to exhibiting genuine motives and supportive engagement toward their students.

Compassionate love as related to promoting progressive prosocial behaviors were found to be motivated by an autonomous “attitude towards other(s)… Cognitions and behaviors that are focused on caring concern, tenderness (Davis & Dupper, 2004).”

It’s worth noting that these motivations were founded on the principles of self-sacrifice, involvement and commitment –Absent of self-served social, bureaucratic and or economic ambition or gain. Essentially, children and their attitudes toward school work markedly improve as teachers inject their deep seeded passion and love for education and their students. True feelings, as is true with teachers and parents-alike, towards their students require selflessness. Simply put, passive involvement will not suffice!

While applying empathetically age and developmentally appropriate approaches it is also beneficial to not lose sight of the bottom line—”Motives for teaching matter (Virat et al., 2020).” Now more than ever, from young educators to recently newly appointed homeschool teacher-parents, it would behoove all to be mindful of their motives in view of their students. It’s hard work, but it pays off. In short: Thank you teachers!

© 2021 Christopher Schroeder of New World Psychology, LLC.