Compassionate action represents cognitions, affect, and behavior that is intended to ease the suffering of others, without feeling pity, superiority, or being judgmental. It is the Science and Research Interest Group’s primary purpose to examine conceptual frameworks for studying compassionate action as experienced in a variety of relationships and situations. The ultimate goal is to gain better understanding of compassionate action and to be able to suggest interventions to promote compassion in a world filled with hate, violence, and devaluation of the other.

Science helps us build a cohesive body of knowledge on the antecedents, manifestations, and consequences of compassionate action. The disciplines of psychology, sociology, communication studies, family studies, epidemiology, and medicine all contribute to our understanding of compassionate thinking and action, making compassion a multidisciplinary construct.

Putting science into compassion helps us to understand the inner workings of the kind of human behavior that is intended to benefit the other. The other side of that coin is putting compassion into science so that we can create a built environment that is compatible with the natural environment, which already comes with compassion built in. There is much we can learn using science to understand compassion. There is much we can do to feed that knowledge back into science and what we create using that science. The knowledge we gain must be used to put in place systems that mold the necessary substrates at the individual level for a more compassionate society. Without compassion, social malaise reigns, and anxiety and stress abound, leading to systems, where humans play a role, underperforming with wasted resources and more suffering.

1. To invite the DFW scientific community and its various disciplines to communicate with each other to synthesize knowledge that increases the community’s mindfulness of the need of the full expression of compassion in its work as it seeks to benefit the larger community.

2. To collaborate with the other interest groups of Compassionate DFW on the use of validated conceptual frameworks that promote compassionate action in their respective work.

3. To complement the scientific and technological aspects of the solutions to the most vexing problems we face with compassionate action in interpersonal, intergroup, and international relations to ensure we successfully meet these challenges.

4. To investigate when we are most likely to act in a self-centered, egocentric way, and when we are more likely to act in a compassionate, altruistic manner, so that we can intentionally make abundant the prosocial force of compassionate action.

5. To identify and engage in activities that give our society a new foundation based on universal kindness and altruism, because it is not just our best hope; it is an evolutionary imperative.

The Perot Museum

Integral Scientific Institute

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Saïd Majdi

Advisor on Science and Research, Compassionate DFW

Contact: said.majdi@integralscientific.org

Saïd Majdi is Principal Research Scientist at the Integral Scientific Institute. He has conducted seminal work on compassionate thinking and systems thinking. He received his MS in electrical engineering from the Paris Institute of Technology in Paris, France, with dual specialization in telecommunications and control engineering. He is an inventor and has spoken at national and international conferences on intelligent transportation systems. He currently serves on the Steering Committees of the Richardson Interfaith Alliance, Faith Forward Dallas, and the Interfaith Council of the Thanksgiving Square Foundation. He also serves on the boards of a number of nonprofit organizations.