January 31, 2016

Final Draft

SOWING SEEDS OF COMPASSION

A look at compassion building through the lens of the K-5 Community Heroes Program

By Suzanne Lettrick, Ed.M., M.Ed.

Marin County, California

ABSTRACT
This qualitative study analyzed various reflections and behaviors of a random group of K-5 participants of The
Community Heroes Program in Marin California, as a way to understand both internal (i.e., neurological) and
environmental factors potentially related to compassion building in youth. Findings seem to have identified distinct
empathetic responses, which might relate to or corroborate different neurological systems for empathetic response
found in the literature. This study also suggests that affiliative emotions (i.e., empathy) as well as latent proclivities
for prosocial behavior may be developed via several “external to self” components: exposure to community issues
and strategies for helping others, adult scaffolding, and engagement with others. Components “internal to self,”
namely imagination, non-affiliative emotions (i.e., sadness, anger) and self-awareness also seem to play a role. These
components seem to birth a more robust model to consider for compassion building among youth in the digital era:
one that not only takes into account the importance of concern for others and empathetic response, but one that
also seems to benefit from explicit practice, dialogue, modeling, reflection time and exposure to the range of
community issues as well as strategies for dealing with them.

PROBLEM
The Digital Era along with its beloved technologies have reshaped people, cultures, and environments. It has
also been culprit to the cavernous gap between rich and poor (Economist, 2006) and a progenitor of great
apathy (Zaki, 2010) among people who now work, engage, and live “together yet alone” (Turkel, 2011). Paul
Piff, UC Irvine professor of psychology and social behavior summarized the debilitating effect the divide
between “haves and have nots” has on the care we provide our fellow humans: “With money comes a
decreased level of compassion towards other people and an increased focus on yourself” (Nickbilton, 2015).
Sara H. Konrath, in a 2010 University of Michigan study, revealed how empathy levels have decreased over
the last 30 years, with an even steeper drop since the turn of the last century. The study suggests that this
significant decline is partly due to humans’ increasing physical isolation from each other. There is some good
news, however. “’The fact that empathy is declining means that there’s more fluidity to it than previously
thought,’ [Konrath] says. ‘It means that empathy can change. It can go up’” (Zaki, 2010).

And why wouldn’t we want it to go up? Even basic prosocial behaviors demonstrated in early childhood seem
to directly correlate to later … successes (Caprara et al, 2000). “When children learn how to calm
themselves... use language to express their feelings and treat others with kindness, they are laying the
foundation for future success and wellness” (Kris, 2015).

Given these societal changes and challenges, it is helpful to understand the architecture of empathy and
compassion as well as environments and strategies that might promote these qualities. This study utilized
Jennifer Goetz’s (2004) synthesized definitions of empathy and compassion:

Empathy “is … a mirroring or vicarious experience of another’s emotions, whether they be sorrow or joy.”
Compassion is the next step in that it “stems from the suffering of another, but… includes the need or
desire to alleviate suffering” (action). For the sake of this study, empathy will be considered a state of being
that may or may not lead to compassion, the agent for prosocial behavior or action.

LITERATURE and older model for the architecture of compassion

A preliminary model regarding the architecture of compassion was devised in1987 by James B. Stiff (Michigan
State University), et al just at the time, almost 30-years-ago, empathy levels started to plummet (Konrath,
2010). The data revealed to Stiff and team, at that point, “that prosocial behavior is primarily motivated by
concern for others, that emotional reactions to the perceived distress of others are preceded by a concern
for others….” (Stiff et al, 1987). Hence:

*Concern for others ! Emotional reactions ! *Prosocial behaviors

*concern for others is “a general concern … for the welfare of others” without experiencing the corresponding emotions of others (Stiff, 6).
* Prosocial behaviors are “those intended to help other people. Prosocial behavior is characterized by a concern about the rights, feelings and
welfare of other people. Behaviors that can be described as prosocial include feeling empathy and concern for others and behaving in ways to
help or benefit other people” (Cherry, 2015).

The assumption here is that basic positive and negative emotions, such as sadness, anger, fear, joy play an
important role in triggering prosocial behaviors: without an emotional reaction a prosocial behavior might not
occur. Another assumption with this 1987 model is that a prosocial behavior would most likely occur when an
emotional reaction is experienced. This study will primarily focus on the latter of these assumptions shedding
more light on whether this “compassion paradigm” is a constant or whether --along with changes in society--
our formulas for raising youth who naturally engender prosocial behaviors must also change. Leaders of
programs intended to consistently draw out prosocial behaviors from their participants would benefit from
knowing the physiological and social mechanisms at play when compassionate acts are catalyzed.

Distinct neurological systems of empathy

According to the literature, there are at least two distinct neurological wiring systems for empathy (Simone G.
Shamay-Tsoory). One system is based on emotion (“emotional contagion”) and a second is based on
cognition (“perspective taking/ ToM”). Emotional contagion “occurs when one person experiences an
emotional response parallel to, and as a result of, observing another person’s actual or anticipated display of
emotion” (Stiff et al, 5-6). A second system involves what researchers call “cognitive empathy” and includes
perspective taking strategies. Perspective taking is “the ability of an individual to adopt the viewpoint of
another” (Stiff et al, 5). The researchers examined brain lesions involving regions of the brain thought to be
responsible for cognitive empathy *(Ventro medial prefrontal –VM-- of areas 10 and 11) and emotional
empathy *(Inferior frontal gyrus – IFG--area 44) and discovered that there are indeed two separate or
independent (yet in some cases/situations, overlapping) regions of the brain responsible for a person’s
empathetic response. This study assumes that the emotional empathetic response is a lower less advanced
(developmentally) system since rats and birds are able to perceive another’s emotional state. The cognitive
system is considered a more advanced system found also in chimpanzees, since “higher order” beings are able
to engage in perspective taking. According to this study, emotional empathy develops in infants, while
cognitive empathy comes along a bit later in life (in children and adolescents). Younger children, for example,
would experience emotional contagion, but perhaps not cognitive empathy. Older children --after
developmental milestones were reached—would express both emotional contagion and cognitive forms of
empathy.

A third distinct neurological system of empathy: Putting self into another’s shoes
In a 2009 study, researcher Katharine N. Thakkar, et al revealed that “the ability to imagine one’s self in the
shoes of another relates to mental rotating, maneuvering self into the other’s literal space / shoes “… and that
“empathy might be, in part, spatially represented.” In this system, imagination plays a role both in “rotating to
fit” and in working to feel how another might be feeling: According to this study, a component of empathy
includes simulating how others are feeling. This practice of imagining yourself in the shoes of another has a
different neurological system than emotional contagion and cognitive empathy: “Separate lines of
neuroimaging research have noted involvement of the same brain area, the *parietal cortex, during tasks
involving visuo-spatial processes and empathy,” said Katharine Thakkar.

Developing empathy
Though multiple regions of the brain may be associated with the empathetic response, researchers debated
whether or not one could voluntarily activate it. A 2014 study shed light on this question. Affiliative emotions
(those connected to the “development of social and emotional bonds with others” (Merriam-Webster, 2015),
such as “guilt… and tenderness/affection) depend on a frontopolar-septohypothalamic network … that is
selectively engaged by affiliative compared with non-affiliative emotions such as anger/indignation, or disgust.
Affiliative emotions are a key ingredient for moral behavior and empathy…” (Moll et al, 2014). This
interesting 2014 study shows that “humans can voluntarily enhance (or control) brain signatures of

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tenderness/affection, unlocking new possibilities for promoting prosocial emotions and countering antisocial
behavior” (Moll, J., et al., 2014)

Environments and strategies

Given it is possible to activate one’s affiliative or prosocial potential, it is then helpful to understand whether
and which environments especially draw out these qualities. A few studies indicated the effectiveness of safe
settings (Logan, 2008) and exposure to the human experience (Greene, 2014), though not necessarily in the
real world. A 2008 study shows that a person’s ecosystem may affect his or her ability to express affiliative
emotions: “the experience of family violence may inhibit children's ability to express affiliative emotions in an
interpersonal context.” (Logan, D.E., et al., 2008). The opposite then is assumed to also be true: safe
environments allow individuals to “express affiliative emotions in an interpersonal context.” In an online
Atlantic Monthly article entitled, “Why the Rich Don’t Give to Charity,” UC Berkeley psychologist Paul Piff’s
research “suggests that exposure to need drives generous behavior,” which caused Ken Stern, the article’s
author, to ask: “…could it be that the isolation of wealthy Americans from those in need is a cause of their
relative stinginess?” If this were true, a socio-economic ecosystem or environment into which one is born
might also cause an individual to naturally become more prosocial or not than if born into another ecosystem.
Other studies have shown that one does not have to be in real life settings to activate affiliative emotions.
The trials and journeys of characters in literature (Keen, 2006), live theater (Greene et al, 2015), and
films/videos (Gross et al, 1995) may also trigger our emphatic responses. These studies point to the fact that
the generation of empathy within a human can and does occur by way of various and distinct neurological
mechanisms as well as within diverse environments. Given the aforementioned documented drop in
empathetic response in the 21st century, a good enough goal for a program in this regard would be to
increase basic feelings of empathy from one human toward another. However, feeling concern/empathy for
another, the model created by Stiff and team in 1987, does not seem to guarantee that most individuals will
automatically engage in pro-social behaviors or acts of compassion today.

Compassion education in the 21st century

Reviewing current research on educational programming intended to draw out prosocial behaviors in this 21st
century “ecosystem of self-interest” is key. One such study from 2014 reveals that “explicit instruction can
build social – emotional skills and transform societal patterning.” Kenneth Dodge, psychologist from Duke
University, analyzed the results of a decades-long study on a program called FastTrack (k-age 25) which
included classroom lessons, home visits, tutoring, and parent training to explicitly help children develop social-
emotional skills to counter adult psychopathology and enhance child wellbeing (Dodge, K., et al., 2014). After
the deliberate and structured process, 10% fewer children in the program experienced “internalizing,
externalizing, or substance abuse” by age 25. Explicit early intervention methods proved to counteract
entrenched demographic patterning.
Along with explicit instruction and the development of an intentional ecosystem for positive change,
adult scaffolding and the “practice of compassion” has been shown effective in promoting pro-social behaviors.
In her study, Marilyn Price-Mitchell Ph.D. (2010) found that “adults scaffold inner strengths in young citizens”
and providing ways for children to practice compassion “helps instill compassion” (Price-Mitchell, 2010).

MARIN COUNTY demographic and need

In 2010, Marin County, CA, was listed as the 18th wealthiest county in the U.S. (Levy, 2010). Statistics from
the U.S. Census Bureau reveal the following about this affluent community:
Income
• The per capita income in Marin is $56,791 (2009-2013), which is more than double that in the USA
• The median household income was $90,839 (2009-2013), which was just less than double that in
the USA
Poverty
• 8.5% of people in Marin County live in poverty, compared with 14.5% in the USA
Ethnicity (top three only)
• 86.2% white, compared with 72.4% white in the USA
• 15.7% Hispanic or Latino (just under the USA rate of 16.3%)
• 6.0% Asian (5.3% in the US)

Education
54.6% bachelors degree or higher, compared with 28.8% in the USA

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The Marin County demographic is relatively wealthier, whiter, and better educated than demographics found
in most other American counties. This lack of diversity and relative affluence has created unique issues
regarding raising children in Marin. Madeline Levine, the Marin County-based clinical psychologist, lecturer on
youth and adolescent issues, and author of The Price of Privilege knows first hand the issues affecting youth in
affluent Marin County. She states, the “outgrowth of materialism is the notion that there are ‘winners’ and
‘losers,’ the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’ Parents need to check in with themselves regularly and avoid
endorsing values that pit children against each other or suggest that resources are so scarce that children must
be in constant competition” (Levine, 2008).

COMMUNITY HEROES, GENERAL INFORMATION

Community Heroes (CH), a subsidiary program through the non-profit organization Go Inspire Go, is one
program recently piloted in Marin County seeking to increase prosocial behaviors among local youth. The
Community Heroes Club was developed in 2013 by Kala Venugopal Shah, a Marin “mom of three boys
under 10, since she was searching for concrete ways to teach her kids about gratitude, compassion and
service” (GIG website, 2015).

The program’s purpose is to “[provide] inspiration and the tools to spark imagination and action. By sowing
the seeds of compassion in elementary school, these students will grow into service veterans by middle and
high school, conducting sophisticated and deeply impactful projects within the community.”

Sun Valley Elementary School pilot program

CH began its pilot program at Sun Valley Elementary School on Happy Lane in San Rafael, SE Marin County.
Sun Valley is a public, K-5 school with similar demographics as Marin: 70% white students, 18% Hispanic, 7%
mixed ethnicities and 3% Asian. Nineteen percent (89.5) of the 471 students receive free or reduced-price
lunch.

For three years, the Community Heroes program has been actively testing Go Inspire Go’s (their parent
organization’s) theory that “Authentic storytelling + Leveraging Social Media = Social Change. Using Go
Inspire Go's inspirational videos to anchor a curriculum around compassion, gratitude and service, Community
Hero students are asked to:
1. Identify a problem in their community
2. Think about how they can help contribute toward solving the problem….” (GIG website, 2015).
3. Identify and develop activities in order to practice acts of compassion

The Community Heroes Program strategy in helping young people understand what it means to “sow the
seeds of compassion” and how to be a Community Hero themselves lies in a multi-stage process, in this
developing order with some overlap:
1. Exposing children to examples of real humans in need and how real community citizens (community
heroes) worked to alleviate these issues via Go Inspire Go videos “geared to educate and inspire
kids about finding their power to act” (GIG website)
2. Discussing areas of need within their own local, national and global communities with CH leader/s
3. Discussing and developing services projects as a CH group to help alleviate selected community
issues

Description of weekly CH program

The pilot Community Heroes Club at Sun Valley Elementary School works with self-selecting students
between the ages of 5-10 who volunteer their time to learn and dialog about community issues as well as
devise community service projects. A roll is kept based on students who have attended at least once in the
past, but credit is not given for this program. Children are not required to attend all or any meetings. They
also may leave the room at any point during the roughly 40-minute lunchtime program held in the school
library every other week. As a result of this format, children flow in and out, but for the most part do stay for
much of the Community Heroes session. Students who attend seem engaged and intrinsically motivated
when present (as per researcher’s observations).

Summary of average CH 40-min program protocol

1. Actively greet everyone at the door to help all feel welcome given this program is voluntary

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2. Updates for their own and Kala’s CH efforts (to help students know their weekly meetings don’t just end
there).
3. Open discussion: While kids are eating an open discussion about recent events in their own lives, which tie
into the CH topic of the day. Kids have a chance to speak up and share.
4. Focus now on the topic of the day: (i.e., everyday, simple acts of kindness). One of two mediums for
conveying the topic of the day will occur:

• Video Students move into computer lab (next to library) to preview topic addressed in community
service example video. Then they watch the video together. They have a discussion there post-video.
Common questions post video: How did you feel? What was important? What can we do? Students
are shown at least community service video in 70% of the Ch sessions.
OR
• Activity Students stay in the library for activities (past example: read letter from a San Quentin
inmate and asked whether we can have compassion for him? And then we wrote letters to him
(although these letters were not actually sent--was an exercise about compassion). Students are
provided activities in approximately 30% of the sessions.

Outside of weekly meetings, the Community Hero students and leader/s engage in regular group community
service projects including a Day of Giving, handing out flowers to fellow students and school staff, making
capes for sick kids in the hospital, planting gardens in the community, collecting clothing, supplies, books/
shoes, and organizing bake sales/ fundraisers for specific groups in need (often related to a current event, such
as disaster and relief efforts).

STUDY GOALS
This qualitative survey was conducted toward the end of the second year of the Community Heroes pilot
program in order to gain initial insights on the following topics:
1. Impact: Does the Community Heroes program kindle prosocial behaviors in youth? What does this
look like?
2. Compassion research compatibility: How does the current research on the architecture of human
compassion corroborate Community Heroes strategies and outcomes?
3. Suggestions for improvement: How could the Community Heroes program (and similar community
service organizations) improve its impact on developing and increasing prosocial acts among youth?

SAMPLE
For this study, 26 children from Sun Valley Elementary School (24% of CH total population) between K-5th
grade (see details below) were randomly selected and interviewed. The students chosen to interview were
randomly selected in that they were in the library and near the researcher at the time of each of the seven
consecutive Monday interview dates. Participants were not required to interview with researcher, so only
those interested in being interviewed took part. One student didn’t finish her interview on one day, so she
finished her interview two weeks later. It should be noted that most students within this sample are in the
middle- to upper class socio-economic spectrum. All speak English as their primary language.

Number of years attending CH: 23% only one year (2014); 77% two years

Break down of participants per grades

K: 1 student 3.8%
1st: 4 students 15.28%
2nd: 6 students 23.08%
3rd: 5 students 19.23%
4th: 6 students 23.08%
5th: 4 students 15.38%

Study participants boys v. girls

Boys: 3 11.54%
Girls: 23 88.46%

Percentage of CH students in study

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26 random students / 107 students total CH population = 24%
Boys to girls in total CH population:
boys = 13/ 107 = 12%
girls = 94/107 = 88%

Ratio of boys to girls in study is similar to ratio of boys to girls in entire CH pilot program

CONTROL GROUP
For the control group, 21 children between grades one through five at Laurel Dell Elementary, CA were
randomly selected and interviewed on December 11, 2015. These students had never attended a
Community Heroes event, and there was no Community Heroes Program at their school. Parents gave
permission to the school principal in order for their children to participate anonymously in this study. Four
interviewers interviewed 4-5 students each one-on-one within the 45-minute window provided by the school.
Each interview took approximately seven minutes. See interview questions in the appendix. These students
were only shown the two most popular videos as identified by the sample Community Heroes population
before their interviews: 1) girl who builds oven in Africa and 2) man who lends his home to a homeless family
for a year just before their interviews. It should be noted that most students within this control group sample
are in the lower- to middle class socio-economic spectrum. Sixty two percent (62%) are English language
learners with Spanish as the primary language spoken at home.

Break down of control group per grades

K: no students
1st: 3 students 14.29%
2nd: 6 students 28.57%
3rd: 3 students 14.29%
4th: 3 students 14.29%
5th: 6 students 28.57%

Study control group boys v. girls

Boys: 10 47.62%
Girls: 11 52.38%

PROCEDURES
The format for this study included semi-formal interviews for three to four random Community Heroes
participants within the program’s lunchtime window of 40-minutes every Monday on the following dates:
April 21, 28; May 5, 12, 19, 28 and June 2, 2014. See interview questions in the appendix. Students were
randomly selected based on availability during the time frame and interest in being interviewed. Only one
child out of 26 requested, declined to be interviewed. In order for the one interviewer to question as many
Community Heroes participants in a given 40-minute window, she asked as many of the eight interview
questions as possible, taking approximately 12-17 minutes to interview each child. Children were not
interviewed together, but one at a time. Other students were not allowed within earshot of interviewee
during the interview to keep students from hearing each other’s answers. Interviews occurred in one secluded,
though occasionally noisy, part of the library while Community Heroes activities were occurring in another
section of the same library. All efforts were made to reduce sociability bias, so students would not just tell
interviewer what they thought she wanted to hear. This includes having the interviewer not watch any of the
videos before students were interviewed so as not to lead them when identifying community heroes or
community issues in any of the videos they addressed.

The control group was interviewed several months later on December 11, 2015. See interview protocols in
“control group” section above.

Interviews
Interviews were recorded with permission and knowledge of students. Parents were also sent a letter
mentioning this study and asking anyone not interested in having his or her son or daughter interviewed for
this project to please let us know. All parents gave tacit permission in that no one requested their child NOT
to be interviewed. The interviews were recorded using an iphone 5C. Interviews were then transcribed word

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for word by interns, and then reviewed for accuracy. Participants’ answers were aggregated for each question
and patterns were coded to determine primary findings.

Videos
This study focused primarily on the videos students were shown in the course of their 1-2 years in the
Community Hero program. These videos, most of which were produced by GoInspireGo, the parent
organization of Community Heroes, exhibited “community heroes” helping a person or people in need in
their communities. Initially, investigator was going to give the participants a list of the videos they may have
seen in the last couple of years to trigger their memory during the interview; instead students were asked to
tell the researcher which videos they each remembered watching (up to three), since we wanted to
understand which videos students could remember (if any) on their own and whether these video subject
memories would be drawn upon in any way to help participants understand what a community hero is, what
needs people exhibit, or if participants could or would apply the concepts of the videos into their own lives
with service projects of their own.

FINDINGS
Videos remembered best
100% 26/26 of the students answered this question

TWELVE videos remembered clearly

• POVERTY: man lending his home to homeless family for a year (11 students remembered this
video) (SERVICE STRATEGY: Give home or something you own)
• INTERNATIONAL/POVERTY: Teen girl goes to Africa to build oven for villagers (9) (STRATEGY:
raise money and give time/ service / product)
• KIDS/ILLNESS: NICO boy with cancer giving Halloween costumes to other kids (8) (STRATEGY:
collect products and give away)
• NATUAL DISASTER: Earthquake / Haiti and rescue (6) (STRATEGY: volunteer to collect
medical supplies, help people on the ground)
• Tie between:
POVERTY: city cook (STRATEGY: use own money to pay for and make food)
KIDS/DISADVANTAGE: football game and autistic child (STRATEGY: be kind and
supportive)
KIDS / ILLNESS: mom made capes to give to sick kids (STRATEGY: use own money to make
capes/ product and give away)
• HOW TO BE A HERO: inspired year (GIG) (3 each) (Strategy: envision yourself as hero
when an adult)
• KIDS/DISADVANTAGE: Anti-bullying (2) (STRATEGY: create club)
• POVERTY: Adopt a Family (1) (STRATEGY: donate time and resources)
• BEING KIND TO ANYONE: They are the stars (1) (STRATEGY: pass out flowers to
others)
• ANIMALS: Vegan boy (1) (STRATEGY: give up eating animals, become an advocate)

What is a community hero?

100% 26/26 of the students answered this question correctly, compared to 57% of the control group who
answered this question correctly.

Most (73%) said that a community hero is either someone who helps “people who need help” or helps
people “in the community.”

The next most common answers (8%) include:

• A community hero is someone who helps those in other communities too, including the world
• A community hero is someone who doesn’t just think about him or herself, but others as well.
According to one fifth grader: “…they don’t think the world revolves around them. They think it
revolves around other people.”
• You can be a community hero even if you do “a small thing.”

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Other participant comments include how community heroes are self-motivated, inspirational, happy to do the
work, effective, determined, and believe their presence and efforts matter. They said community heroes:
• Do “as much as they can” (2nd grade)
• “Do good stuff” (2nd grade)
• Are inspiring… and have a pass it on quality (2nd grade)
• “Like to help” (3rd grade)
• “Just [do] great things” (4th grade)
• Engage in “random acts of kindness” (4th grade)
• Help “without having to be encouraged” (4th grade)
• “Make community a better place” (4th grade)
• “Really persevere in helping a certain cause. Maybe not all causes, but they find a cause that's really
meaningful to them and they really work hard to get that cause solved.” (4th grade)
• “Help out no matter what” (5th grade)
• “See how they can make a difference” (5th grade)

The Community Heroes program has been effective in helping young people define “community hero.” Most
students provided an accurate answer without prompting from investigator. Only two students missed the
mark somewhat: one second grader felt a Community Hero is a “place that you help sick people [with]
cancer and get money for” (perhaps meaning the CH class itself), and a first grader felt it was the people in
the videos “that do something you can learn about.”

Could you identify the community hero and his or her act of compassion
in videos?
69% 18/26 of the students answered this question based on memory of these videos.

“…these people decided to start a club if you got a bad text on your phone then they would help you..” 2nd
grade

“Well, there was this kid, but he was not like everybody else so he had a disability. He wanted to play football really
bad on the team so the guys helped him…. so he was in a wheelchair … with a jersey on holding the football and
everybody...all the boys surrounded him.
… They made sure that he made it.” --first grade

“…not everyone would just give up their house to some homeless people. You have to be compassionate and very
giving.” 3rd grade

“…she had to raise a bunch of money, she had to go over there, she had to build it...” 4th grade

Of the 90% of CH students who were asked/answered this question, 69% accurately identified the heroes
and the heroic acts in the videos remembered.

ACTS of SERVICE that stood out from the videos participants remembered seeing
Raising/ Giving money
General helping others
Sharing home with homeless family
Giving food
Making an oven to give food
Collecting shoes to give away
Collecting and giving costumes / capes to kids in hospital
Starting a club (anti-bullying)
Supporting others with a goal
Giving flowers

Could you identify a community issue or problem in the videos?

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77% 20/26 of the students answered this question. (100% of the control group students could name the
issue in the African video --people needing food-- while 71% of the control group students properly named
the issue of homelessness in the second video. One student in the control group even mentioned how he
and his family had gone without food at one point and needed to go to his cousins in order to eat.) This
personal exposure to real issues seems to highlight the fact that exposure whether in daily life or within a
program intended to provide exposure are both potentially effective means for helping youth identify areas of
need within a community.

Community Heroes sample responses:

“The mom didn’t have enough money and because they had a teenager they couldn’t live in a place for homeless
people.” 3rd grade

“Kids who aren’t … believing in themselves because they are really sick.” --4th grade

“He was a professor. He had a good job and when you have things...and you’re happy, you start to notice how other
people are living and that’s what he wanted to solve.” --4th grade

“…people were getting bullied, and he just didn't think that was okay.” --4th grade

“We were hoping if they were having a bad day, [giving flowers] would brighten their day. If they were having a
good day, it would make it even better.” --5th grade

“They were trying to make someone else feel good, [someone] who doesn’t really have that much time to
shine.” --5th grade

The interesting pattern for this question is that there was a clear division between CH children who knew
and/or could express their knowledge about the issue people faced in the videos and those who did not.
Children in kindergarten and grade two had a difficult time either identifying or expressing in words the “issue
or problem” in society the heroes in the videos were trying to tackle. No child in grade one answered the
question, so this grade was omitted from this section. Older children in grades 3-5 had a better handle on
accurately answering this question. The divide between having and not having an answer was most likely not
due to misunderstanding the terms “issue” or “problem,” since all children knew to (and did) ask questions
when they did not understand a question. The interviewer also noticed when a student seemed confused by
a question due to lack of concept or vocabulary knowledge and would state the question another way until
the child understood what was being asked. It might be likely that developmental aspects (i.e., age markers
when one can grasp more complex concepts such as societal issues) in general might have played a role in
whether a participant knew or could express information about the issue being addressed in a particular video.

If you look at the data as a whole, it seems CH is doing a pretty good job of helping children identify and
understand issues people face in the videos.
Total number of times all participants (K-5) knew the community issue in the video: 74%
Total number of times all participants (K-5) did not know the community issue in the video: 26%

The data became more revealing when analyzed by grade groupings. Older children (gr. 3-5) were able to
accurately identify, understand and express community issues in each video more than younger children (K-gr.
2):

Total number of times participants (gr. K-2) knew the community issue in the video: 40%
Total number of times participants (gr. K-2) did not know the community issue in the video: 60%
Total number of times participants (gr. 3-5) knew the community issue in the video: 88%
Total number of times participants (gr. 3-5) did not know the community issue in the video: 12%

This discrepancy could also be due to developmental milestones participants reach between grades 2 and 3,
as this was the juncture where students were more apt at identifying, understanding and expressing issues
revealed in the videos.

! 9!
Did you “put yourself in the shoes” of anyone in the videos?
73% 19/26 of the Community Heroes participants answered this question and knew what this phrase meant.
(Compare this to 24% of the control group students who had heard of or knew what this phrase meant. This
disparity could be due to the language barrier within the control group, and it most certainly seems to stem
from a lack of exposure to this phrase. Once these students were introduced to the concept, many of them
could then say that they did “put themselves into the shoes” of someone in the videos as seen by the details
below.)

Two factors were analyzed in this section:

1. Which people in the videos, if any, did students find they naturally put themselves into the shoes of
(hero, person being helped, both or none)?
2. Whether participants used first person or third person or both messages to talk about their
understanding of how others in the video might be feeling

A. SELF IN ANOTHER’S SHOES

Put self in shoes of person being helped in videos 61% or 22/36 responses
Put self in shoes of the hero in videos 25% or 9/36 responses
Did not put self into anyone’s shoes in given video 14% or 5/36 responses

% of students = never put themselves in the shoes of another in video: 11% or 2/19
% of students = put self into shoes of hero and person being helped in same video: 11% or 2/19
(3rd and 4thgrade)
% of students = put self into shoes of a person and no person in different videos 11% or 2/19
% of students = put self into shoes of hero and other in different videos 26% (grades 2-4) or 5/19
% of students = always put self into shoes of another in videos 90% or 17/19

Most students who answered this question sought to put him or herself (90%) into the shoes of generally
one and sometimes more than one (11%) person in each video to try to understand how each person felt in
that setting. A couple of participants talked about why they use the strategy of putting self into another’s
shoes. A 4th grader said, “I was trying to figure out what she (the homeless mom) was feeling … or why this
was so important because I didn’t really understand why she would be feeling this way. Then I understood,
because it would feel really bad.” A first grade participant mentioned that putting herself into the shoes of
others clarifies initial confusion that sometimes she initially feels regarding another’s actions or emotions. She
said she puts herself into the shoes of different people: “…sometimes my teacher, sometimes my mom,
sometimes my dad. I do it to my neighbors and even the neighbors that I really don’t like….” She said she’s
trying to figure out “what’s bothering them, or why they won’t really come near other people, because …
sometimes they look a little sad.”

When looking at total CH participant responses, the trend was for these participants to put themselves into
the shoes of those needing assistance, rather than into the shoes of the heroes in these videos. This is an
interesting finding, since given the fact that most of the CH participants are from relatively affluent families,
they seem to gravitate to trying on the shoes of those people who might be least like them demographically.
“To figure things out,” as mentioned by some of the CH participants, could be the reason why more children
than not put themselves into another’s shoes in the first place, and why these middle to upper socio-
economic participants, more often than not, put themselves into the shoes of those needing assistance: to
better understand how it would feel to be in need or in a position not so familiar to them. (Interestingly,
control group children tended to put themselves either into the shoes of the Hero --43% girl in Africa / 29%
man lending home-- or into no one’s shoes --29% or 48%-- before they put themselves into the shoes of
those needing help --19% or 14%. This might also corroborate the above hypothesis.)

There was another trend separating younger and older CH children. Older children (grades 3-5, with the one
kindergartener being an anomaly) were more likely (73%) to put themselves in the shoes of those receiving
help in the videos. Younger children (grades K-2) more often than not (56%) put themselves into the shoes
of the heroes in the videos.

! 10!
Study participants seemed to exhibit three primary methods for gaining awareness into how a person in
the video might be feeling in his or her situation. These intrinsic strategies seem to be mechanisms through
which one human can gain some understanding about another’s situation “in situ” and gauge his or her
“emotional condition” in that setting.

1. Imagining self in another’s shoes: first person 67% in 20/30 responses

Participants “tried on” how the other person might be feeling in the moment via this strategy. “I
messages” were predominant in students’ answers in this category, as though he or she became a
person or people in that moment in the video. Comments in this category include:
• “It felt good that I could help” (second grade)
• “I would probably be very gracious and I would work harder” (4th grade)
• “I would think that my life would be really tough and just scoring a goal and making it … would
just feel really good (5th grade)
None of these participants actually were experiencing in the real world what they were expressing;
they were imagining what it would feel like to be in another person’s shoes in the videos. They used
expressions of emotion to convey their perceived understanding: “felt good,” and “feel really good.”
When the one kindergartner was asked if he put himself into the shoes of anyone in the video
exhibiting an American girl in Africa building an oven for villagers, for example, he said he put himself
into the shoes of the villagers. He said, “I thought about if you did that to me.” He then said it would
feel “good”. He said he would like to eat “cake” from the oven. A third-grade boy also put himself
into the shoes of the people receiving the oven. Without being prompted to talk about bread, he
imagined eating bread from it: “I like the doughiness and the inside,” he said. Participants who utilized
the strategy of putting themselves into the shoes of another to gain an empathic understanding for
how another would feel provided their relation to the other in “I messages” indicating a potential
sense of embodiment into the other’s literal shoes.

This strategy fits with one of the three systems of empathy discussed in the literature review:
imagining oneself in the shoes of another. Participants seeming to engage this strategy also made use
of imagining not only of being in the shoes of the other person (“mental rotating, maneuvering self
into the other’s literal space / shoes,” Thakkar, 2009), but also having parts of that person’s life in
their own life (regardless of whether these components were a part of the participants’ real life or
not). For example, a fourth grader, though an only child, was able to imagine what it would feel like
to have a younger sibling who was being bullied: “If I had a younger brother or sister and I saw
someone bullying (him/her) I would feel really strongly that I need to change that.” She was able to
put herself into the shoes of another person to imagine being in a life that was not parallel to her
own experience.

2. Cognitive empathy/ perspective taking of the cognitive system: third person 33% in 10/30
responses
Utilizing this strategy, participants were “able to separate their own and another’s distress” (Shamay-
Tsoory, 2010) and remained a separate identity in relation to the other person in order to develop a
conclusion about that other person’s “state.” Prior knowledge or emotional experience was not
required, however. Though participants were explicitly asked if they put themselves into the shoes of
another person in the video (method #1), a few provided answers in the third person perspective,
suggesting that they were not immersing themselves into the shoes of the other, but that they were
exploring the other’s status from what might be the other’s perspective while remaining in his or her
(the viewer’s) own body or removed perspective. Third person comments in this category include:
• “During one point she was crying and she was really happy that they liked it” (1st grade)
• “They felt really happy” (2nd grade)
• “I think she felt that she raised a really big hero … I think it made her feel very special inside”
(3rd grade)
• “He kind of felt like he could do something” (4th grade)
• “The kids would really appreciate it” (5th grade)
These participant responses reveal that instead of “becoming” the person or putting themselves fully
into the shoes of the person in the video, they were viewing the other’s situation from a third
person (distinct from them) perspective. One participant revealed that she could see the facial
expressions of a mother receiving help (“she was crying”) and used this information to understand

! 11!
 how the mother might be feeling. Though not fully embodying the other person’s shoes, perspective
taking was a method that seemed to allow these participants some entrance into how the other
might be feeling. This strategy fits with the cognitive form of empathy, another of the three
physiological systems of empathy discussed in the literature review. The cognitive form of empathy
(Shamay-Tsoory, 2010) involves the “theory of mind mechanism” which is “part of the core
architecture of the human brain, and is specialized for learning about mental states” that are separate
from our own (Leslie, 2004).
The majority of participants who exhibited this third person perspective also, and
sometimes in the same sentence, would express their understanding in the first person. This might
corroborate the research (Shamay-Tsoory, 2010) showing how these mechanisms, though distinct
neurologically, could also overlap. The theory that cognitive empathy develops after emotional
empathy might explain why some participants utilized both first person and third person
perspectives. These first person/ third person participants might be exhibiting the developmental
markers of having reached the cognitive development stage of their empathetic development.
There was no obvious dividing line when participants started utilizing third person more than 1st
person. For example, 66% of second graders employed third person (the potentially
developmentally higher approach), with 40% of 3rd and 5th graders employing it. First person use was
also random across grades with 1st grade (33%) being the lowest and K (100%), 2nd grade (80%) and
4th grade (66%) being the highest users of first person.

3. Exposure or prior experience 17% in 5/30 responses

Participants also utilized previous and concrete experiences in their own world when grappling with
what someone else (a stranger, even) might be going through in his or her world. Participants who
employed this strategy brought his or her prior experience of a third party (separate from person
observed in video or from self) into the “figuring out” process. For example, a second grader said
she was able to understand how the people who helped the sick boy (Batman) in one video might
have felt, since she did something similar for her grandfather when he was sick. She explained: “The
people who helped him feel happy, because my grandpa had cancer and I helped him.” Interviewer:
“Was that [experience] helpful for you … given you’ve already been through something like that…
with your grandfather? Did it help the video make more sense?” “Yes.” This participant immediately
connected “people .. feel happy” to her experience with her grandfather: “because … I helped him”.
Her effort helping another third party person (grandfather), allowed her to somewhat understand
how the people in the video might be feeling when helping someone else with cancer. A first grader
brought her experience with her sick aunt to light when watching this same video. “There’s a kid
that never had cancer before and he did something good for kids with cancer, but then he got
cancer; he got the same thing [as] the kids.” And in her very next sentence, she said: “Sometimes I’m
sad because my aunt has cancer and she only has a year left to live.” Participants didn’t give much
segue in either case between the experience of a person in the video and their own experiences.
The strategy of bringing in a prior (and in these cases, emotionally charged) real world experience
seems to help these participants relate in some way to the experiences of people in the video. This
process might be akin to the third mechanism of empathy discussed in the literature: emotional
contagion. Prior understanding of how something felt from an earlier and similar real world
experience seemed to trigger a sudden reminder of that feeling when watching a person in the
video deal with a similar situation.

Did any of the CH videos (or otherwise) inspire you to do something in

your community? What are your ideas?
92% 24/26 students answered this question (71% of control group children responded yes to this
question)

“I got them to come here [Community Heroes]. I sort of told them this is a really great place and I told them that
you could save peoples lives.” --first grade

“…doing nice things makes me remember that I should be happy, because I did something else to make other
people happy.” --first grade

! 12!
“So I just kind of felt like Community Heroes did make me realize there are problems out there, [and] you just kind
of have to decide on which one you really think is most important.” –fourth grade

“I think it just made me want to do more for the community… before I didn’t want to do as much….” -fourth
grader

“before I started community heroes I did a lemonade stand; and I didn’t really know what to do with that, but once I
got into community heroes I had an idea of what to do….” fourth grade

“… before Community Heroes I used to just think of one thing which was homelessness, but now I realize that
there are so many other things.” –fourth grade

“It inspired me … even though I’m a kid, I can still make a huge, huge difference. Just because I’m a kid doesn’t
mean I can’t do stuff.” --fifth grade

(Control group responses as to how videos inspired them to help their community include: helping own
mom, give food to homeless, build shelter for homeless, donate to Africa, give something they own, and help
kids.)

96% of CH participants who answered this question have thought of or

have been thinking of independent ways to serve their communities.
This study focuses on strategies participants said they would utilize when building their own service projects.
It also addresses the issues they wanted to tackle.

CH Participants’ proposed STRATEGIES for helping others

Raise money: 33% of the responses
• General mention 55% of these answers
• Lemonade stand
• Bake sale
• Walk dog
Student ideas regarding what to do with the raised money:
• Give camp kids supplies with money raised
• Give toys to sick kids
• Give to homeless shelter or make a shelter
• Give to Community Heroes
Create programs for kids 19%
Basic: “Be nice” 11%
Be a leader for CH 10%
Create career and give portion of in-kind 10%
• Design clothes and give percentage of clothes to poor
• Open restaurant and give percentage of food to poor
Other: 22%
• Plant trees after natural disaster
• Give people medicine and food
• Start a Community Heroes program
• Learn about immigrants and help them
• Adopt a family

Participants’ proposed COMMUNITY ISSUES to address

Poor people 44%
Kids in general 19%
• General mention 40%
• Help orphans
• “Help them appreciate what they have”

! 13!
 • “Help them shine”
International 19% (India, Canada, Africa, immigrants)
Environment/animals 13%
Sick people 10%

An interesting demographic some students mentioned Community Heroes has inspired them to assist is
themselves. Ten percent of students mentioned CH has helped them specifically improve as people:
Help self 10%
• Became more accepting of other people’s ways (become less controlling) (1st gr.)
• Mindset: Knowledge that kids can do something too (5th gr.)

State of Individually proposed projects at time of study

Participants expressed various ranges of thought they have put into their community service ideas mentioned
above. It should be stated here that the Community Heroes program at the time of this study did not require
or expect students to come up with their own community service projects. It is not required that students
volunteer during group service projects developed primarily (but not exclusively) by the leader. Some do and
some do not. In 2016 Kala Shah added: “I have seen an increasing [number] of individually initiated projects....”
Community Heroes participants each (except for one who had “no idea”) had either a concrete idea or a
general idea of a helpful project they wanted to develop in their community. The way this study defines
“concrete” or “general” is as follows:

Concrete idea: participant knew specific strategy AND demographic

General idea: participant only knew strategy OR demographic OR neither

Those who had relatively concrete project ideas: 66%

Those who had only general project ideas: 33%
No particular pattern arose between grade levels regarding those having concrete or general ideas. It was
randomly dispersed. Almost every grade level had at least one participant with a general rather than a
concrete idea, and concrete ideas were 100% more common.

Percentage of students who had started developing these specific individual project ideas
at time of interviews
0%

DISCUSSION
The 1987 compassion paradigm developed by J. Stiff et al at the start of the “great empathy decline” three
decades ago seems to need a revisit and a revision in light of the unprecedented socio-economic
transformations our society has and still is evolving through. This newer, more practical model does not
simplify or assume (as Stiff et al might have done) that one will naturally feel emotional reactions for others or
that these emotional reactions will intrinsically dovetail into acts of compassion (prosocial behavior). The new
model assumes that in order for emotional reactions to turn into acts of compassion across the average
demographic of youth, especially in such affluent and “disconnected” (Levine, 2008) communities as Marin
County, or in the “together yet alone” (Turkel, 2011) digital era worldwide—a more comprehensive model is
needed. The more robust model for compassion building among youth in this “together but alone” digital era
seems to benefit from shoring up an ecosystem in which young people in all demographics could have more
time, reflection space, exposure, explicit modeling, and practice in which to foster these prosocial traits and
behaviors as well as authentic concern for others.

2015 more robust revision of the 1987 MODEL (recommended for grades K-5)
(Items in green are from original model)

Concern for others

! Emotional reactions! adult scaffolding
! Explicit instruction
!Practice with group and
without

! 14!
 !Time to reflect, explore, devise
!Ecosystem for prosocial
behavior among youth

REVIEW OF COMMUNITY HEROES GOALS

Does the Community Heroes program kindle intrinsic acts of
compassion in youth?
According to this study’s data, yes, the CH program does kindle service ideas within the majority of it
participants, but a “next level” of adult scaffolding seems important in order to help students develop their
own effective service projects.

Videos viewed and connection to own project

Yes
Types of issues students want to handle in their own community seem to be directly correlated with the top
three video topics students learned about through the Go Inspire Go videos (and similar): poverty, issues
regarding children, and international

Patterns / connection to the three neurological ways of empathizing (in this study) to
doing own project
For future analysis, since no student had yet developed his or her own project at the time of these interviews,
this question will need to be answered in the future.

Patterns between being able to identify hero/issue and doing own project
“The GIG video--gave examples about how to be a Community Hero, so I was like, ‘Oh I don't normally do
that. I've done that a couple of times, but I don't normally do that, so maybe I could start doing that.’” Gr. 5

Since no student had yet developed his or her own project at the time of these interviews, this question will
need to be answered in the future.

How does current research on human compassion corroborate

Community Heroes program paradigm?
Distinct neurological systems of empathy
Cognitive empathy: third person
Seen exhibited in participants when responding to video scenarios
Previous exposure
He/she messages

Role of putting one’s self into the other’s shoes: first person
Seen exhibited in participants when responding to video scenarios
Expressed in “I messages” (first person)
Emotions are being engaged to sense how others are feeling
Role of imagination here: Some participants (3rd grade boys, especially) seemed more creatively engaged than
others when imagining how others might be feeling in the videos

Emotional contagion: third party experiences

Seen exhibited in participants when responding to video scenarios
Most often seen when participants randomly brought up their emotionally charged memories of relatives who
suffered from cancer after contemplating community heroes helping cancer victims in the videos.

Voluntary activation of affiliative emotions

Seen exhibited in participants

! 15!
Videos and other activities seemed to activate students’ affiliative (compassion) and nonaffilitative (i.e.,
happiness, sadness) emotions. Participants expressed their feelings verbally.

Exposure and experience to develop foundation and provide ideas and strategies
Many students’ community service ideas were based on issues and strategies they were previously exposed to
in Community Heroes.
Issues: poverty, children’s issues, and international concerns
Strategies: raise money, volunteer time,
Service experiences with the group in real world settings as well as the CH leader role modeling forms of
leadership (“this is what it looks like to create a project/program” modeling)

Explicit instruction, adult scaffolding, and compassion practice

The videos along with the pre- and post-video dialogues with the leader, group “compassion” practice during
Day of Giving, and other class activities were explicit ways that did seem to result in the development of a
compassionate ecosystem (Community Heroes program ecosystem) where young people recognize what it
means to be a community hero, have pretty good understanding of social issues needing attention, and see
themselves as able (though “just kids”) to help. Students were thinking about developing their own service
projects at the time of these interviews, but adult scaffolding (to learn how to develop their projects) were
still important. Community Heroes group projects were very much aligned with the “scaffolded” and
“practice-based” methods recommended.

LIMITATIONS of this study

• Small relatively homogenized sample (i.e., upper middle class, Caucasian)
• Small relatively homogenized control group (i.e., ESL learners, lower middle class)
• No pre- / post- test
• Students’ answers and organic patterns within the Community Heroes program set the course of
direction when choosing literature to review initially, instead of using the traditional method of
developing a study around the literature.
• Many sample participants did not answer all questions due to time and in some cases shyness, or
similar
• Control group mostly English as second language (ESL) learners
• Difficulties in omitting all forms of sociability bias: young students telling interviewers what they think
they want to hear

RECOMMENDATIONS for FUTURE STUDY topics

• Use pre/post test (children and parents)
• What conditions were present for participants to put themselves into the shoes of some in the
video/s and not others?
• Affect on non affiliative emotions (anger, sadness, disgust) on ability to act with compassion
• the role of mindfulness on empathy
• the role (and level) of imaginative play in the home on empathy and community service output
• The role of explicit perspective taking activities on empathy development
• The effect of accurately naming your own emotions on empathy development
• The role of socio economic status and culture on compassion building

Current STRENGTHS of Community Heroes program based on research and this study
• EXPOSURE to
o Rich information regarding community issues already being addressed AND ones that
might need attention
o Stories of people in need and examples of people (heroes) who find a way to help those in
need
o Strategies for helping others
" “I never really thought that capes could make someone feel stronger. I never thought
that…never. That never would have crossed my mind. Interviewer: So now what do you
think about [super hero] capes? SG: I think ‘strong.’” --5th grade
• ROLE MODELING (Kala, Toan, Community heroes in the videos)
o curiosity

! 16!
 o interest in service
o collaboration
o “everyone can help” mindset
o positive energy
o idea generation
o moving in the process
o working in the unknown
o generosity of heart
o comfortable in his or her own skin with an altruistic reason for being there
• PRACTICE SERVING with group
o Day of giving
o Adopt a Family
o Giving flowers to teachers
o Making capes for sick children
• FREEDOM
o Room for students to be where they are in the process (developmental stages, multi-age
challenges, interests, external commitments, family obligations)
• DIALOGUES about issues, heroes, people in need, strategies, service ideas
o Children seem to be able to identify and understand community issues by watching videos
together and dialoguing (before and after activities/videos) about community issues
• SELF-SELECTING NATURE of program (honors the learner-centered, intrinsic nature of the child)
• TIME to reflect on own emotions, desires, and needs in order to better able put self in shoes of
others
• STUDENT OWNERSHIP Students are not micromanaged in CH. Student leaders are provided the
space to naturally emerge.
• DOCUMENTATARY nature of the program (Videos record experiences of learning / giving)

RECOMMENDATIONS for CH and similar programs based on this study

New strategies to consider:
• Practice and assistance devising own student projects in the community
o Though most students had concrete or general ideas for their own service projects none of
their new and independent ideas (at the time of the interviews) were yet developed
• Spend more time dialoging with and providing activities for young (K-2) students regarding issues in
the community (i.e., homelessness, equality, healthcare, gender/race, water) to help them develop a
greater understanding and background knowledge about these more complex and oftentimes
abstract issues
• Explicitly discuss and help students accurately name their own emotions
• Create activities that will increase emotional contagion (journaling to unlock feelings and reasons for
feeling) and cognitive empathy (perspective taking activities)
• Increase time spent in imaginative play and perspective-taking play with others (recommendation for
home and schools)
• Consciously seek to engage all forms of empathy (cognitive, emotional contagion, and self in other’s
shoes)
• Problem solving skill building in order to create innovative strategies for helping the community

More of what is already being done:

• More exposure to those in need in Marin, nation…
• More exposure to varied strategies students could employ in order to become community heroes
• Provide explicit activities to help students understand, grapple with and explore perspectives and
emotions different from their own in a given setting
• Confirm actual understanding of issue and actual need before creating service projects
• Document student work via photography and videos and have them dialogue about the learning
taking place in these photos and videos (Making Thinking Visible)

APPENDIX

! 17!
Interview questions for Community Hero sample

1. How long have you been coming to community heroes?

2. How did you get involved? Why do you come?

3. What is a community hero?

4. Which community hero videos do you remember seeing (3)? What stood out for you in these videos?

5. What was the problem that someone was trying to help solve in each video?

6. Who was the community hero in this video and what did he/ she do to help others?

7. Do you know what it means to put yourself in the shoes of someone? If no, interviewer explains this phrase,
and then asks last question in this #7 set. If yes, move directly to this question without explaining phrase: Did you
put yourself in the shoes of anyone in the first… video? If so, whose shoes? How might it feel?

8. Did any of the videos (or anything else in CH) inspire you in any way to be a community hero or do
something in your community? What are your ideas?

9. Anything else you want to say about CH?

Interview questions for Control Group

1. What is a community hero?

2. What do you remember from the first video? (Girl builds an oven in Africa)

3. What do you remember from second video? (Man gives home to homeless for one year)

4. What was the problem someone was trying to help solve in the first video?

5. What was the problem someone was trying to help solve in the second video?

6. Who was the hero in the first video? What did that person do to help others?

7. Who was the hero in the second video? What did that person do to help others?

8. Do you know what it means to put yourself in someone else’s shoes? If no, interviewer explains this phrase,
and then asks last question in this #8 set. If yes, move directly to this question without explaining phrase: Did you
put yourself in the shoes of anyone in the first… video? If so, whose shoes? How might it
feel?
9. Did any of those videos today inspire you to do something in your community? Explain.

10. Do you and your family help the community in a way? Explain.

! 18!
Three distinct “EMPATHY” regions in the brain mentioned in above literature review

*Ventro medial prefrontal section for cognition emotion (“perspective taking/ ToM”)

http://events.tru.ca/sites/default/files/images/events/ventromedial%20prefrontal%20cortex.gif

! 19!
*Inferior frontal gyrus: emotional empathy (emotions of others can be perceived/sensed/ third party)

http://static.memrise.com/img/400sqf/from/uploads/course_photos/Inferior_frontal_gyrus_animation-
14_dragged.jpg

! 20!
 *parietal cortex: visuo-spatial processes (motor) and empathy (putting self in another’s shoes)

https://sccpsy101.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/parietal_lobe.jpg

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THANK YOU TO THE FOLLOW ING PEOPLE FOR THEIR ASSISTANCE W ITH THIS STUDY
Community Heroes co-founders
Toan Lam
Kala Shah

Transcribers
Melissa Ament
Amanda Camarillo
Yahaira Cespedes
Aarti Gudka
Kim Ho
Nicolas Jones
Lucy Pecora

Control Group interviewers

Noa Daniels
Toan Lam
Kala Shah

Formatting and literature review research (introduction)

Gabriel Renneisen

Sun Valley Elementary School

Librarian: Leigh Ann Bostian

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Principal: Julie Harris
Assistant teacher: Karen Lloyd

Laurel Dell Elementary School

Principal: Pepe Gonzales

Contact:
Suzanne Lettrick, M.Ed., Ed.M.
415.259.7492
Suzanne@gleansworld.com

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