Ep 171: Instilling Compassion for Principled Teens

Dexter Dias, author of The Ten Types of Human, offers insight on the personality “apps” that drive human behavior. Plus, how to instill compassion and help your teen avoid burning out their kindness!

Full show notes

When we’re bombarded with some of the terrifying stuff on the news these days, we might find ourselves wishing there were more compassionate people in the world. Luckily, If we can raise the next generation to be considerate, kind and morally educated, we might be able to steer our society in a better direction. That being said, it’s no easy task to teach teenagers to practice empathy!

This week, we’re talking all about compassion–how we can help teens develop it, and why they’re often at risk of losing it. To get to the bottom of what it really means to be compassionate, we’re diving deep into the psychology and evolutionary development that defines our empathetic impulses. By doing this, we can go beyond just telling teens to be nice; we can teach them to think critically about their own social behavior.

We’re welcoming Dexter Dias to the show this week! Dexter is a barrister (the British version of a lawyer), involved in some of the most prominent human rights cases in recent years. He’s facing issues like terrorism, murder, crimes against humanity and more. Dexter’s a prize winning scholar of Cambridge university, a visiting researcher at Harvard and has written reports to the United Nations! All of this work defending vulnerable people as well as studying human behavior has taught him a thing or two about the ways we empathize with one another.

In our interview, Dexter and I are talking about how humans can sometimes burn out when they’re expressing compassion left and right–and how you can teach yourself and your teen to avoid this problem. Plus, we’re discussing evolutionary development to understand why we sometimes let our compassion be overridden by our need to fit in.

The Challenges of Being Compassionate

Although we know our teens are good people, actually practicing compassion every day can be pretty tough for their growing minds. As you may recall, the halls of high school can be vicious...meaning that teens aren’t always as nice to their peers as they could be. Dexter explains in the episode that the socially vicious behavior of adolescents is largely a result of unconscious activity in their minds, triggered by cues they may not even be aware of. 

In fact, our behavior is so controlled by these subconscious impulses that we don’t even need to be able to see others to feel triggered by them. Dexter and I discussed research featuring blind patients which demonstrated that our neural systems are able to pick up aspects of human conduct and behavior without even viewing them. Dexter and I chat more about the implications of this fascinating study in the episode!

Dexter describes one of these subconscious impulses–the fear of ostracism–as one the driving forces of human behavior….especially teenage behavior! Humans have a deep need to belong, explains Dexter, a need which developed as we evolved through time. When our ancestors were faced with danger, being part of a group gave them a better chance at survival. Nowadays, this survival technique still lingers, and is particularly strong among teenagers still finding their way. 

But is it really that big of a deal if your teen finds themselves excluded from the lunch table? Yes, according to Dexter! He explains that the pain caused by rejection is just as strong as physical pain, because it comes from the same neural activity. Not to mention that In our modern world social media causes teens to be conscious of their social standing 24 hours a day. The anxiety about fitting in follows them home from school, and is present in every like and follower they recieve–or don’t receive.

This intense desire to fit in with our peers can cause people to do some frankly terrible things. As a human rights lawyer, Dexter sees the connection between some of the world's worst atrocities and our fear of ostracism. If we’re going to be compassionate and teach our kids to do the same, Dexter says we’ll have to overcome this deeply rooted need for approval from others. In the episode, he explains that the focus needs to shift from changing the attitude of individuals to really transforming our culture as a whole.

Although this fear of not belonging is one of the greatest risks to our compassion, there are others. Dexter explains that we can often become emotionally overwhelmed, causing our compassion to suffer. But don’t fret, there are solutions!

Handling Compassion Overload

When we open ourselves up to being compassionate to others, we can sometimes find ourselves facing a lot of stress. Dexter explains how this is often a problem for him in his work as a human rights lawyer. Although he wants to help those in need, it can be tough seeing the injustices of the world and feeling like you’re up against the impossible. Front line workers like social workers, nurses and aids often find themselves the most at risk of this feeling, but it can happen to any of us. Something as simple as volunteering at a food bank can cause this overwhelming stress at the state of the world!

Dexter warns that this feeling can lead to serious burn out if not treated or prevented. To keep compassionate teens from losing steam, he explains that they’ve sometimes got to put themselves first. Although it might seem contradictory, taking care of ourselves is the only way we’ll have the energy to care for others! Dexter recommends reflecting and practicing discipline to make sure you and your teen are watching our own health and happiness along with the wellbeing of others.

In the episode, Dexter and I also talk about how we can work on being aware of the injustices of the world without becoming so sad or angry that we’re incapable of helping the vulnerable. He and I discussed a study in which participants were exposed to disturbing images of those in need. By measuring their reactions, Dexter explains that the participants were found to have serious physiological distress, simply as a result of viewing suffering. 

But when prompted to think critically about how they could improve the situation they saw on screen, they were found to experience the effects at a lower frequency. By changing their perspective to one of productivity and action, they were able to increase their capacity  for compassion. In our interview, Dexter and I talk more about how we can bring this perspective into everyday life.

Evolutionarily, humans developed to stick in small groups, meaning our compassion can only stretch so far before it suffers. As we’ve developed as a species, we’ve mostly lived in small groups, far apart from one another–much different from our modern urban, city-dwelling way of life. This means that in our everyday life, our ability to be compassionate is tested by interacting with so many people! In the episode, Dexter explains how one hundred and fifty is the magical number of people we can hold compassion for. Any more than that and we get overwhelmed!

One way of combating this is keeping compassion local, Dexter explains. Many people find themselves much more inclined to help those in their own communities rather than a greater global cause, and Dexter believes this is a good place to start. ...