Spirituality Practice, Generosity and Religiosity in Affluent Societies

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Spirituality Practice, Generosity and Religiosity
in Affluent Societies

• Ron Anderson ,
• University of Minnesota, USA
• Foundation for Compassionate Politics
• rea_at_umn.edu

Presentation at the International Society for
Quality of Life Studies Florence, Italy, July 21,
2009
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Spirituality Perspective
Spirituality is the ability not to worry about
spirituality ---from Peace, Love, and Chocolate
Spiritual Humor

• Spirituality is contemplating ultimate human
  concerns, including suffering
• Compassion is the desire to alleviate this
  suffering
• Generosity is acting on this compassion
• Generosity thus becomes the practice of
  spirituality

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Conceptual framework

• Sociology of Caring Compassion, the conceptual
  starting point
• Oliners sociology of caring
• Wuthrows theory of compassion individualism
• Bellahs sociology of commitment
• Etzionis Spirit of Community
• Ecological economics, a guidepost
• Suggesting that we ask what are the elements
  needed for sustainability of social
  organizations?

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Ingredients of Compassion
Peace
Responsibility
intersection that defines a truly
sustainable community or society
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Compassion Action Index
Nine Components ( Sample Indicators)
Socio-Economic Well-Being (Income Inequality) Child Well-Being (Often eating with parents) Human Life (Few homicides) Health (Low infant Mortality) Non-Violence (Low arms exports) Integrity Social Justice (Human rights protections) Civil Society (Low television viewing) Environment (Low carbon emissions) Generosity (Volunteering for social service work)
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Criteria for Selecting Indicators for the
Compassion Action Index

• Forty-two social Indicators were selected that
  reflected
• the degree of suffering in a society
• or whether the people were acting to reduce
  suffering either now or in the future.
• These 42 indicators fall into the 9 components

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Countries in the Compassion Action Index, 2009
The Twenty Most Affluent Countries The Twenty Most Affluent Countries The Twenty Most Affluent Countries
Australia Germany Portugal
Austria Ireland Spain
Belgium Italy Sweden
Canada Japan Switzerland
Denmark Netherlands United Kingdom
Finland New Zealand United States
France Norway
Rich countries with tiny populations were not
included.
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Calculation of the Compassion Action Index
Steps
Locate the statistic (e.g., or mean) for each country for any given indicator Calculate standard scores (z-scores) by subtracting each county statistic, x, from the mean of all countries, and dividing the result by the standard deviation of all countries Re-standardize each z-score to give each set of scores a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, just like an intelligence test score After this is done for all the indicators in a component set, e.g., health, then the mean of all non-missing scores is calculated for each country, to produce the component index score. The Compassion Action Index is the mean for each country of all nine component scores.
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A Glimpse at the Scores for 20 countries 9
Components
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(No Transcript)
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Does the Compassion Action Index Relate to
External Religiosity (Church Attendance)?
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Does the Compassion Action Index Relate to the
importance of ones belief in God?
Note The WVS question was How important is God
in your life?
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Does the Compassion Action Index relate to
happiness as measured by yesterdays feelings?
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Yesterdays Affect Scale

1. 14 self-report questions, each coded 1 for yes
   and 0 for noDid you experience the following
   feelings during A LOT OF THE DAY yesterday? How
   about..A enjoyment?B physical painC worryD
   sadnessE stressF angerG depressionH loveNow
   please think about YESTERDAY, from the morning
   untill the end of the day. Think of where you
   were, what you were doing and how you felt.I Did
   you feel well rested yesterday?J Did you smile
   or laugh a lot yesterday?K Did you learn or do
   something interesting yesterday?L Would you like
   to have more days just like yesterday?M Were you
   proud of something you did yesterday?N Were you
   treated with respect all day yesterday
2. Computation - Average positive affect
   (AHIJKLMN)/8- Average negative affect
   (BCDEFG)/6- Affect Balance Average
   positive affect - Average negative affect

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Does the Compassion Action Index relate to
happiness as measured by satisfaction with life?
Question in WVS How satisfied are you with
your life these days?
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Four Conclusions

1. Religious and spiritual approaches to social
   well-being argue that being generous or giving
   compassionate love are essential elements of
   quality lives. Yet we find that religiosity
   negatively correlates with compassion-based
   quality of life indicators, i.e., Compassion
   Action Index. Could it be that compassion is more
   prevelant in societies where the basis of
   morality and virtue are not grounded in beliefs
   about the supernatual? That is, situating
   compassion in community rather than dogma may be
   more effective.
2. The sociology of caring argues for generosity as
   the social fabric for communities and societies
   (Oliner ). The Compassion Action Index provides a
   beginning for empirical compassion studies across
   nations.

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Conclusions

• 3. The fact that the Compassion Action Index is
  correlated with major indicators of happiness
  confirms one type of external validty and
  suggests that further research in this direction
  should be encouraged.
• 4. Measures of generous behavior tend to be
  neglected in studies of the quality of life. This
  suggests giving this higher priority in future
  research, not just among affluent societies.

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CompassionatePoliitcs.org
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Why www.CompassionatePolitics.org?

• To promote deep caring for all human beings at
  all levels (personal, community, nation, and
  global)
• To educate and thus shape public policy toward
  greater compassion
• To be an intersection of ideas and people via a
  social network tool
• Release relevant data and reports on quality of
  life studies

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In September, 2009, look for CompassionatePoliitcs
.org

• CompassionatePolitics.org will feature
• International Advisory Board
• Technical details on Index 2009
• Articles by various authors
• Forum blog for open dialog
• Polls and surveys
• News and newsletters

Slides and charts from this presentation can be
found at http//www.soc.umn.edu/rea/