Other theories for the existence of altruism involve a reputation-based model and the negative-state relief model. In the reputation-based model, theorists believe that people commit altruistic acts in order to heighten their stature in society. On the other hand, the negative-state relief model, proposed by Robert Cialdini in accordance with his empathy-altruism theory, dictates that humans have a natural drive to alleviate negative feelings by engaging in uplifting behaviors such as helping and cooperation which shifts their focus from dwelling on their pessimistic thoughts to the happiness and gratitude they elicit when helping another person. In his empathy-altruism model, Cialdini also states that when one observes another individual who is experiencing a negative event, he exhibits similar feelings of discomfort or sadness as a result of empathic arousal and is thus inclined to interfere and help the other person resulting in an overall enhancement of mood for both parties. It has been stated that the limbic system helps integrate emotions and instinctual somatic behaviors as a result of its connection to the hypothalamus. Since the limbic system is also connected to the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive function in the brain, humans are also capable of identifying and understanding the emotional states of others also known as the “theory of mind”. These neural connections and the qualities they enable to human beings suggest that people are genetically prewired to be affected by the events that impact other people and as a result we are naturally inclined to help in situations that elicit negative emotions. Thus, by being altruistic we not only help those who we offer our assistance to but we also benefit because we feel a great deal better about ourselves and the situation at hand.
In a study conducted by Burt Leiman in 1978, kindergarten-aged and first grade children watched a nine minute videotape displaying a child who discovers that his beloved marble collection has been stolen. The film ends with a close up of the child’s face which displays a sad expression. The subjects’ faces were all videotaped during the session. Following the video, subjects were given a choice to play with an Etch-A-Sketch for fun or to work with a machine which would make marbles fall into a can which would then be given to the child in the video. Subjects whose faces were rated as having sad expressions during the movie, a facial response to empathic arousal, were found to choose working with the marble machine significantly more often than those who did not show signs of sadness. This study suggests that empathic arousal (demonstrated by the response of a sad expression) preceded most helping behavior.
Several scientists specializing in the field of neurology have used brain imaging techniques, particularly functional magnetic resonance imaging, in order to study the neural activity that occurs in response to various stimuli. An fMRI uses non-invasive magnetic pulses in order to measure the changes in oxygen levels present in regions of the brain which would then demonstrate the presence of nerve cell activity. By conducting an fMRI analysis on a subject while he is being presented with various stimuli, scientists could locate the areas in the brain, in addition to their corresponding traits or responsibilities in neural function, which are activated and thus responding to the stimulus presented at the time. Numerous studies have found that areas in the brain attributed to the function of reward-processing become activated when altruistic behaviors take place thus indicating that human beings experience psychological pleasure when they help or cooperate with others. By solidifying the association between these neural activations and the altruistic behaviors which seem to elicit them, we can come closer to truly concluding that behaving altruistically benefits society and ourselves not only as a result of the socialized norms which indicate that it is right to help others but also due to our innate predisposition to enjoy committing acts that appease the standards of altruism.
Research Objectives and Expected Significance
The purpose of this research is to test and thus further the scientific understanding of the association between altruistic behaviors and the neural circuitry responsible for reward-processing and empathic arousal that can serve to explain the origins of altruism in human development. By providing more evidence that supports the conclusions previously made which state that engaging in mutual cooperation and helping behaviors elicit activations in neural regions associated with rewards and empathy, science can advance in discovering the manners in which altruism can be predicted and potentially ways in which it could be encouraged in individuals who fail to demonstrate prosocial functioning.
This discovery could contribute to an enhancement in public policy which could learn to promote charitable giving in ways that would be capable of activating neural regions more effectively. For instance, offering a more interactive discussion on how money will be allocated and utilized in charitable pursuits, foundations can find a way to relate to audiences and present a situation which contributes to their perception of agency in the efforts of the philanthropist cause. In addition, by determining the neurological connections to prosocial behaviors, scientists can discover methods which could help trigger similar reactions and motivate such behaviors in people suffering from social disorders such as autism. Also, scientists could also find ways in which to better help sufferers of depression or drug addicts by providing them with mechanisms which could heighten their emotional states on a neurological level and also contribute to the public good as they would be participating in altruistic events. By discovering the reasons why people choose to engage in helping behaviors, we can finds ways in which to promote a greater degree of such actions which would not only benefit the individual altruist who receives psychological rewards for his actions but also helps the recipient of the help and essentially society as a whole since prosocial behaviors create a chain reaction as they progress between people. The phrase “pay it forward” attests to this chain reaction that takes place when an individual is witness to or the recipient of another’s altruistic behavior and is thus motivated to help another person as well
Detailed Description of the Proposal
This research aims to demonstrate that there is a clear association between the occurrence of altruistic behaviors and the experience of psychological enjoyment which occurs as a result of the activation which takes place in reward related neural circuits. The discovery of supporting evidence would then suggest that evolution has bestowed human beings with the mechanisms that render altruistic behavior psychologically rewarding. My study has prevailing strengths in its abstinence from self-reported measures, which are highly subject to social desirability bias, and monetary measures of generosity which are controversial measures of altruistic actions since each individual lives within different ranges of socioeconomic status and cannot offer as much in terms of donations as others may be capable of. By using a level of deception in testing participants’ willingness to help after they have received their compensation for participating in the fMRI study, I can truly see if it is accurate to assume that the levels of activation in an individual’s reward circuit when he/she is presented with altruistic stimuli (since human beings are known to be affected even by the sight of others’ actions, known as the perception of agency which contributes to theory of mind) can be reliable predictors of a person’s altruistic nature.
Participants
The participants for the study will be recruited by the use of advertising in the local newspaper. The ad will request the assistance of subjects over the age of eighteen who are willing to come into the lab for an afternoon and become the subjects of a study focusing on the neural basis of emotion. In return for their participation, subjects will receive compensation in the value of $50. By recruiting subjects with the promise of compensation, we are eliminating any volunteer biases that may confound the results of the study.
Method
Participants would be welcomed in a waiting area and asked to fill out a form of informed consent, however, some deception is necessary in order to eliminate the potential for the subjects to be biased or behave in ways they think the experimenter expects of them. Each participant is then guided into the room where the fMRI analysis is conducted in a blocked experimental design. The participants have been told that they will be presented with different stimuli depicting scenes which will elicit various emotions and based on the activations found in the brain, the scientists will be able to identify the regions associated with the emotions and/or reactions to the events. In actuality, scenes depicting altruistic events will be subtly interjected into the stimuli presented. The scenarios the participants are shown include depictions that symbolize materialistic or selfish desires such as the anticipation of getting paid on a Friday afternoon or buying new clothes, some that symbolize altruistic behaviors such as giving money to charity or volunteering to tutor a fellow student before a test, in addition to a few depictions which serve as neutral controls such as taking a walk in the park on a sunny day or having dinner with your family. The purpose of this procedure is to identify the participants who displayed the greatest levels of neural activity and resulting psychological enjoyment during their exposure to scenes of altruistic events which would then label them as the group with the greatest propensity for altruism.
After the fMRI analysis is finished, the participants are told that they have earned the money and they are entitled to get it fully but that the researchers would like them to help their efforts by filling out a long feedback report that might improve the research and answer questions about their experience. They would be told that it's a long feedback form that would need an additional hour of their time and this is going to be unpaid but it's important for the research and might add certain insights about the study. Those who will answer yes to that and would fill out the entire questionnaire are considered altruistic since those that would gain are only the researchers and not the participants who are choosing to help at the cost of their time and effort. After the participants have made their choices, they will be debriefed about the study. Once all the participants have left, we would isolate the results of the altruism test based on whether or not the participants were labeled as altruists in the fMRI analysis.
By comparing the two groups, we can deduce if those who were labeled altruists, based on the increased neural activation in response to altruistic stimuli, were truly the ones who passed the altruism test in agreeing to stay longer and offer their feedback without receiving compensation for it. If this is the result of the study, we can assume that there certainly is an association between the neural activity of the specified regions in the brain and the tendency of an individual to behave in altruistic manners. My working hypothesis is that the participants whom demonstrated the highest level of activation in the previously mentioned areas during the presentations of characteristically altruistic stimuli will demonstrate the greatest propensity to commit prosocial behaviors when they are tested in their willingness to help and by the same token, will be the group that chooses to stay later and fill out the feedback form for the researchers.
Preliminary Results
In the 2002 study, “A neural basis for social cooperation”, conducted by Rilling et all, subjects were monitored under an fMRI while they were playing the “prisoners’ dilemma game”. In this game, two players must simultaneously choose between actions of cooperation or actions of defection. If they both choose to cooperate, they will each earn a high payment of $10. If they both choose to defect, they would each receive a low payment of $5. However, if one player cooperates while the other defects, the cooperator will receive only $1 and the defector will receive $15. This game presents a cooperation dilemma in which self-serving motives can lead both players to choose defection despite the fact that mutual cooperation would actually maximize their joint payoff.
The fMRI results demonstrated that when mutual cooperation took place when the participant was playing with a human partner, the brain’s reward circuit including the nucleus accumbens, the caudate nucleus, ventromedial frontal/orbitofrontal cortex, and the rostral anterior cingulated cortex was activated at a greater level of intensity then when mutual cooperation took place in a game with a computer partner playing for the same amount of money. In addition, results found that a negative response of the dopamine system occurred when the subject cooperated but the partner defected which displays that there is a neural basis for strong reciprocity, the behavioral predisposition for altruistic punishment and rewarding which is essential for cooperation to take place. The results showed that mutual cooperation was the most common outcome in the games played even though a player was maximally rewarded for defecting if the other play cooperated.
In “Neural responses to taxation and voluntary giving reveal motives for charitable donations”, a study conducted by Harbaugh et al in 2007, an fMRI was used to observe the neural functioning of participants while they were playing a dictator game. In the game, each received $100 and was asked to make decisions about whether or not they would give the money to a local food bank. A mandatory condition was included as well as tax-like transfers of the money were also made to the food bank. A few results were brought to light throughout the course of the study. During the game, it was found that increases in the amount of money going to charity and decreases in the cost to the giver were both indicators of an increased likelihood that a voluntary transfer would occur. Their subjective satisfaction, found in the level of activation demonstrated in reward-processing neural regions, was greater in cases of voluntary transactions than in the mandatory condition. However, neural activity found in the fMRI analysis during the mandatory condition demonstrated that activation occurred in the ventral striatum (reward-processing region) when the monetary payment was made to the charity just as when it was made to the participant. This demonstrates that even mandatory taxation for a good cause can activate areas in the brain that are associated with individualistic rewards.
Similar to the intentions of my proposed study, the experimenters used brain imaging to classify people as “egoists” or “altruists” depending on whether their brain responded more when they received the money for themselves or when it was offered to be given to charity. Those who cared more about the money going to charity (displayed in the greater brain activation) were found to be twice as likely to make charitable donations voluntarily. It was also found that charitable giving produced more activity in the neural reward regions then it did when the participants were asked to the pay the same amount to the food bank as a tax thus indicating that voluntary giving produces a greater degree of neurological reward.
The final source of preliminary results is found in a study conducted in 2006 by Moll et al called “Human fronto-mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation” in which functional magnetic resonance imaging was used on participants when they were making anonymous decisions to donate or oppose actual charities which are related to various societal causes such as children’s rights, gender equality, and abortion. In the study, they demonstrate that the mesolimbic reward system is activated by donations in the same way that it is activated when monetary rewards are received. Participants were given $128 which they could choose to keep entirely for themselves or give away if they made altruistic choices. The experimental conditions were contingent on the decisions the participants made in the form of payment they chose. They were asked if they would consider a pure monetary reward, a noncostly donation, a noncostly opposition to the charity, a costly donation, and a costly opposition to the charity. At the end of the experiment, each organization and its cause were scored based on the participants’ familiarity with and associated moral emotion. Participants were also asked to fill out a survey rating their actual engagement in voluntary charitable activities.
They found that all participants made costly decisions in an effort to give to charity as they all sacrificed an average of 40% of their monetary reward. Participants took longer to make costly rather than noncostly decisions but they made charitable donations nonetheless. The charities which they rated as being most familiar and compassionate for were typically the ones they chose to donate to and the charities which functioned for the causes they ranked with low scores were those they ended up opposing. During periods in which they were given the pure monetary rewards and when they decided to donate, there was activation in the midbrain ventral tegmental area, the dorsal striatum and the ventral striatum which suggests that making a charitable donation and earning money for oneself activates reward related areas in the brain. The ventral striatum proved to be more active when decisions were made donate rather than accept the pure monetary reward.
In regard to the correlation between the participants’ self-reported engagement in real-life altruistic activities and brain activation patterns, it was found that the anterior prefrontal cortex activity that took place during costly donation periods highly correlated with the level of engagement participants reported in altruistic acts such as charitable giving. Based on these results, I have chosen to propose my study which would serve to isolate those considered “altruists” based on their level of neural activations when exposed to characteristically altruistic stimuli but instead of relying on self-reported measures of the participants’ engagement in volunteering activity, I prefer to take the approach of minor deception to truly test their genuine reactions to calls of altruistic duty. I believe my study not only takes the results of the previous studies mentioned a step further, but also demonstrates a way in which we can really test the reliability of using these activations as predictors of altruism and by doing so, discover ways in which to trigger similar reactions and harness the positive effects they have on people (both in their psychological reward and resulting mental self-enhancement to the individual altruist but also in the contributions it could offer to society as a whole) in order to promote prosocial behaviors in a world that truly needs and deserves some altruistic healing.
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