Why Do Good? Brain Study Offers Clues - Forbes.com
I came across this very interesting article in Forbes the other day. It reports a recent study on the neurophysiology of "altruism." The researchers designed an experiment to see what regions of the brain increased in activity in altruistic people, as opposed to selfish people, upon seeing something good happen to someone else. They hypothesized that the "warm and fuzzy" department would increase activity, that is, the region associated with pleasure and reward. This would support the belief I've often heard that all love and service is really self-serving; I help other people because it feels good, or because it gives me something to be proud about.
Surprisingly, the study found that it is not the reward system, but the system that responds to meaningful stimuli in the environment, which is active, for example, when I see something threatening to me. Under the constraints of the experiment, this region was much more active in those who exhibited unselfish than in those who were selfish.
What motivates people to do good, the study suggests, is not self-satisfaction, but a deep, even primal solidarity by which I identify with a neighbor, realizing that "that could have been me." I haven't read the full study, only the report in Forbes, but it leaves me with some new questions. Here are a couple.
What I would study if I were a neurologist:
1) What trains or cultivates the region of the brain in question so that one responds to situations others face? Personal tragedy? Service work?
2) "Altruism" (there must be a more profound word they could have used!) often moves us to make costly sacrifices. How do ascetic practices, such as fasting, affect this region of the brain?
3) How much depends on genetics? How much on the way a child is raised?
Anyway, I was pretty pleased to see that a new scientific study is challenging the widespread assumptions of rational choice theory. Perhaps it will turn out that humans are even biologically a bit deeper than modern economics suggests.
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1 comment:
Ex-roomie, a very fascinating article. Recently, I have been reflecting upon two specific works of Walker Percy: The Last Gentleman and Lost in the Cosmos (The Last Self Help Book). Percy, who intended to become a pathologist until he contracted TB, has some very insightful reflections upon the modern age and its need for answers through science. Reading this article, I am reminded of Percy's reflections because his novels- specifically the two aforementioned- deal with characters most often in existential angst searching for answers, but only through the lenses of science.
Ultimately Percy wants to show that as much scientific discovery we may realize, the question of "who man is" still goes largely unanswered. How interesting it is that science in this instance, when seeking explanations for a seemingly unscientific phenomenom of altruism, stumbles upon something rather remarkable: perhaps human beings, even physiologically, are naturally built in a way far more profound than rational choice theory can offer. Though he died in 1990, Percy's voice not only remains relevant, but perhaps even prophetic.
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