Pictures of the Mind: What the New Neuroscience Tells Us About Who We Are (FT Press Science) by Boleyn-Fitzgerald Miriam

Author:Boleyn-Fitzgerald, Miriam [Boleyn-Fitzgerald, Miriam]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: FT Press
Published: 2010-01-07T16:00:00+00:00

Wired for selflessness

In a world where entire communities have been left devastated by war and violent crime, the “baby in the basement” dilemma is more than a mere mind experiment. That humans possess natural tendencies toward competition and, under the wrong conditions, even extreme violence, seems uncontroversial. Yet wherever we turn, we see ourselves being awfully good to one another. Examples of selfless behavior abound, from the minor to the extreme—from shoppers sacrificing their place in the grocery line, and families donating cans and jars to food banks even when their own budgets are squeezed tighter than ever; to soldiers taking enemy fire to protect comrades, and civilians jumping into freezing rivers and charging into burning buildings to save the lives of perfect strangers. Our most dramatic acts of altruism seem to happen when we don’t have time to reflect because we simply have to do. This is when altruism seems absolutely instinctual—perfectly devoid of any selfish motive—which raises the question of who or what is pulling our strings when we sacrifice our own needs and desires, our own safety, even our own lives for the safety and happiness of others.

Evolutionary biologists have long theorized that tribes of early humans needed cooperative skills to thrive in groups and therefore to survive as individuals—an explanation that might work just fine to explain our kind behavior at the grocery store or the food bank, but that comes up lacking when we’re plunging into an icy river. The evolutionary origins of some of our most spectacular displays of altruism may always elude the lens of science, but cognitive scientists pose equally intriguing questions about our present-day motives for giving. Using real-time fMRI imaging, we can watch brain activity that coincides with self-sacrificing and cooperative behavior, and we are learning that our altruistic tendencies are just as much a part of our wiring, just as automatic and “natural” a part of our brain activity, as violence-provoking emotions like fear, lust, and anger.

Psychologist Ulrich Mayr and economists William Harbaugh and Daniel Burghart of the University of Oregon wondered what it is exactly that “motivates people to see beyond themselves.”33 They designed an fMRI study to tease apart the motives of “pure altruism,” the satisfaction we take from increases in the public good regardless of our own involvement, and what has been called the “warm glow” effect, the pleasure we take in playing the role of benefactor. Some economists have argued that it is always the warm glow effect that motivates our altruistic behavior—that there is no such thing as pure altruism when it comes to charitable giving—but the Oregon study indicated otherwise. FMRI images showed that donating money to a local food bank, and to a lesser degree, paying an involuntary “tax” that would benefit the food bank, activated the brain’s reward centers—the same areas that brighten when we eat yummy desserts, get paid, or take recreational drugs. “The most surprising result is that these basic pleasure centers in the brain don’t respond only to what’s good for yourself,” said Mayr.

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