From Oxytocin to Compassion: The Saliency of Distress

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Compassion is a warm response of care and concern for those who are suffering, which drives individuals to devote their resources for the sake of others. A prominent evolutionary framework grounds compassion in the neurobiology of the caregiving system - the inborn motivation to support close others in times of need. The current review paper investigates the neurobiological mechanisms of compassion, and in particular, the neuropeptide oxytocin which is known to play a significant role in caregiving. Integrating the state-of-the-art literature on oxytocin with the current understanding of compassion, we suggest that oxytocin regulates the necessary precursor of compassion, i.e., the saliency of pain and distress cues. In according to this view, social cues are more likely to be noticed and responded to in an oxytocin-enriched environment. This framework focuses on the saliency processes in the context of social suffering. It sheds light on two central aspects of compassion. First, it highlights the less investigated initial stages of compassion, i.e. sensitivity and attentiveness to pain and distress. Second, it opens the door to the vast variability of social responses when facing suffering others, by demonstrating that emotions, motivations and behaviors elicited by such sensitivity to pain are crucially dependent on context and personality. ABSTRACT: Compassion is a warm response of care and concern for those who are suffering, which drives individuals to devote their resources for the sake of others. A prominent neuroevolutionary framework grounds compassion in the neurobiology of the mammalian caregiving system. Accordingly, it has been suggested that the oxytocinergic system, which plays a central role in parental caregiving and bonding, provides the neurobiological foundation for compassion towards strangers. Yet, the specific role of oxytocin in compassion is far from clear. The current paper aims to target this gap and offer a theoretical framework that integrates the state-of-the-art literature on oxytocin with research on compassion. We suggest that oxytocin mediates compassion by enhancing the saliency of cues of pain and distress and discuss the plausible underlying neurobiological substrates. We further demonstrate how the proposed framework can account for individual differences in compassion, focusing on the effects of attachment on caregiving and support. The proposed framework integrates the current scientific understanding of oxytocin function with compassion-related processes. It thus highlights the largely ignored attentional processes in compassion and taps into the vast variability of responses in social contexts involving pain and suffering.