The Compassionate Instinct

After completing an initial analysis of the ICRC’s data, Briton and Leaning obtained funding for a new analysis from the Fetzer Institute, a private foundation that supports scientific research. They sorted by hand through hundreds of pages of interview transcriptions, looking for mentions of compassion or altruism.

By finding and categorizing these behaviors, Briton and Leaning write in their report on their project, they hoped to suggest “possible ways of encouraging the expression of positive other-centered behavior in wartime conditions.” In other words, if their research could indicate why some people exhibit the better qualities of human nature, especially in brutal circumstances, perhaps it could help societies deliberately promote altruism and compassion in the future—during war and potentially in everyday life as well.

Briton and Leaning were not the first to examine such questions about altruistic and compassionate behavior; indeed, their project is the latest in a series of research on the topic. Perhaps the most notable work on the subject is Samuel and Pearl Oliner’s 1988 book The Altruistic Personality, a study of people who rescued Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust. Occasionally, Briton and Leaning’s report highlights similarly heroic deeds that meant the difference between life and death. But for the most part, their project has focused on the significance of everyday acts of altruism in the context of war, not necessarily the heroism of moral exemplars. To them, when one’s sense of morality is embedded in a world of hate and murder, some of the simplest acts—sharing a glass of water or temporary shelter with the enemy, for instance—take on extraordinary significance. These altruistic acts enable people on the giving and the receiving ends to reclaim their humanity and moral dignity at a time when both are usually obscured by the fog of war. Sometimes, even doing nothing—simply not committing violent acts—can be compassionate, according to Briton and Leaning, who call such (non) actions “compassionate restraint.”

What could motivate such acts? Briton and Leaning say it will take much more research on the topic before we know for sure. But they have identified four main factors: feelings of self-efficacy, a desire for reciprocity, a sense of group affiliation, and a wish to reclaim one’s moral identity.

Examples of self-efficacy can take different forms. The report quotes a Palestinian ambulance driver who said that because of his profession, he would rescue a wounded Israeli soldier, even if that soldier had killed a relative of his. It also cites a Christian Lebanese journalist who used his press ID to rescue Muslims from danger. These stories echo a point made often in psychological literature: people are more likely to try to help someone if they think they’re capable of succeeding. A sense of personal usefulness can trigger altruistic impulses that might otherwise remain dormant.

According to Leaning, this is key to why the ICRC trains soldiers in the principles of international humanitarian law. She thinks it is extremely important that governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like the ICRC “drill into soldiers that there is a moral decision process that they are responsible for.” These tools of moral reasoning usually don’t come instinctively, she says. Instead, soldiers must be made to feel that ethical decision making is a part of their job, and they must receive thorough instruction in making these decisions—something most governments haven’t been proactive about, she says.

Those combatants who performed altruistic acts often attributed their behavior to reciprocity—the idea being that they treated their enemies the same way they wanted to be treated in return. Briton admits that this idea might not sound too “touchy feely” But she theorizes that combatants may have cited reciprocity as their motive as a “face-saving device”: rather than seeming soft, they could present themselves as tough-minded, pragmatic soldiers, even when their actions were motivated largely by compassion. Other interview subjects explained reciprocity not as a calculated means to be rewarded for positive behavior, but as a way to stop violence by treating others with the kindness they would want to experience themselves. For instance, an Afghani housewife remembered how her father spared the life of a man who had killed her brother, saying that revenge only causes more bloodshed; a tribal elder in Somalia said he would “treat civilians of my enemies just as I am treating my own civilians. I will be kind to them.”