The Domesticated Brain (23 page)

For humans, helping is all about emotions. We help others out of the goodness of our hearts. As Abraham Lincoln said, ‘When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.’ The kindness of strangers reminds us
that humans are an altruistic species willing to help others even when there is no obvious pay-off. We do so because it seems right but also because we feel better about ourselves and worse when we do not. When we help others we get a ‘warm glow’– an experience that registers in the pleasure centres of our brain.
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The other mechanism that promotes altruism is not pride, but the fear of criticism from others for not helping. Swiss economists Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter developed a cunning game to test people’s motives to help the group.
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They had teams of adults play a game where they were given tokens worth money that they could either keep or put into a collective pot as an investment that would be paid out to everyone irrespective of whether they contributed to the pot or not. The best strategy is for everyone to contribute, but someone who wants to get the most out of the game – in other words, to be a freeloader – should not contribute any of their own money and just reap the benefits of all the other players willing to make a contribution. The game was played anonymously, but after each round of the game it was revealed who had contributed what. Now players were given the chance to ‘fine’ those who had not contributed sufficiently to the pot. The twist was that whoever imposed the fine also had to pay for the privilege even though they would not get their money back.

As the study progressed, something interesting happened. Even though it came at a cost to impose a fine, players were more willing to pay up in order to punish freeloaders. Over time, freeloaders started to contribute more to the pot as the rounds continued. Anonymous punishment was changing
their behaviour. We prefer to punish transgressors even when it comes at a cost to ourselves, but that punishment eventually changes selfish people’s behaviour.

Revenge is a dish best served cold

People will do things that come at a cost to themselves just because they know that the cost will be greater for someone else they wish to hurt. They will say, ‘I know it was wrong but it was worth it just to see the look on his face.’ It is an act of revenge but one that comes at a personal cost. Why do we do this? Consider the following scenarios. How would you like £10 for doing nothing? No strings attached. You would probably eagerly say yes. Now imagine a different scenario where I offered £100 to another person who was allowed to keep some of it only if they shared it with you. Whether or not they got to keep any money depended on your decision. What if they offered you £10 and kept £90 for themselves? Chances are you would refuse the offer and you would both end up empty-handed. Why? In both situations you would be getting exactly the same amount of money for doing nothing and yet most people think that it is unfair to be offered anything below 20 per cent. Rather than accept something for nothing, they would prefer that the other person did not get anything at all.
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This scenario, known as
the ultimatum game
, demonstrates that humans have a sense of fairness. This comes with domestication, where there are implicit rules operating as much as codes of conduct. Most people would rather sacrifice than suffer to see someone else do better than them. This is when
we act out of spite. The reason is that we have a sense of fair play and when we think that others are benefiting unfairly we then seek a way of redressing the balance. However, that requires giving up or rejecting a potential reward. It’s a bit like not eating the marshmallow now so that you can benefit from knowing that you have ensured that things are fair. This requires inhibiting the urge to take the money, which is why the PFC of adults who play the ultimatum game is activated when they reject derisory offers.
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Also, when adults have the PFC part of the brain temporarily disrupted, using a very powerful brief magnetic pulse, they do not reject the meagre offer even though they know it is unfair.
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Chimpanzees do not have this sense of fairness, which is why they do not share food when they have cooperated together to retrieve it. It also explains why they will happily accept something rather than nothing in a chimp version of the ultimatum game.
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However, the primatologist Frans de Waal disagrees that non-human primates lack an understanding of fairness and argues instead that social animals do have a sense of fair play. One of the best examples he gives is the video of a capuchin monkey trained to exchange a rock for a piece of cucumber.
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Cucumber is a rather unappetizing food, but they will happily accept a trade unless they see another capuchin in the cage next door being offered a desirable grape instead of a dull piece of cucumber. In this situation, the first capuchin threw a temper tantrum at the injustice of the situation, rattling the cage in anger, and tossed the food back at the experimenter. The trouble with this interpretation is that capuchins and chimpanzees will show outrage even when there is no other animal around benefiting from
these exchanges.
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They don’t care whether or not another animal gets a good trade, only that they do not get one.

Another negative emotion related to perceived injustices is jealousy. Jealousy is one of the most corrosive aspects of social development, and it can endure well into adulthood. We do not easily grow out of this mindset as it comes to shape the way we perceive justice in the world. Most industrial disputes are not to do with an individual’s own working conditions and salary but more to do with those of everyone else. Our decisions are driven by the sense of relative comparisons.
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When we learn that other people in our company earn more than us, we are indignant as we perceive this as a devaluation of our own self worth.

If we care so much about our self worth, why do we go out of our way to help or harm others at all? Surely the best strategy is not to expend resources at all. This has been studied in a field of behavioural economics known as
game theory
, made famous by the Princeton mathematician John Nash (the subject of the Hollywood blockbuster
A Beautiful Mind
). Nash studied negotiation situations using mathematics to determine the optimal strategies. One particular game-theory problem, known as the prisoners’ dilemma, led him to conclude that non-cooperation was the best policy. In this game, two suspects are interrogated in separate prison cells and must decide whether or not to inform on each other. The dilemma is that each is offered a deal of freedom if they inform on the other, putting their fellow suspect in jail for six months. If they both inform, then they both get three months. If both prisoners keep quiet, they only get one month apiece. Nash mathematically modelled the prisoners’ dilemma over
many repetitions of different responses and concluded that the optimum strategy was to always defect and rat on the other person.
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However, if this is the case, then why do we see cooperation in the natural world, especially amongst humans – a question that dogged Darwin himself?

This has always been a puzzling aspect of cooperation. However, as Richard Dawkins has pointed out in
The Selfish Gene
, it is not the individual who benefits from these acts of revenge or altruism but rather the genes that shape these social behaviours.
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If genes produce behaviours in individuals that lead to a better fit for the group in the environment, because they generate the best strategy for procreation, these genes will win out and multiply, even though the individual may make sacrifices for the common good.

Another factor when it comes to humans is that we are not mindless vehicles for our genes. Game-theory problems assume that the decisions are made entirely independently, but if prisoners are allowed to communicate, cooperation rather than being selfish wins out as the most successful strategy.
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Most importantly, domestication shapes how we feel about our decisions. We experience a mental and emotional life that motivates us to help or harm others and those reactions are shaped by our interpretations of what is right and wrong; interpretations that come from participating in a culture where we are expected to contribute.

Appeals to the heart

Charities depend on the milk of human kindness, but it turns out that this willingness to help depends on how much we
see ourselves related to others. Read the following appeals from two charity campaigns and decide which you would be more likely to donate money to:

A) Any money that you donate will go to Rokia, a seven-year-old girl who lives in Mali in Africa. Rokia is desperately poor and faces a threat of severe hunger, even starvation. Her life will be changed for the better as a result of your financial gift. With your support, and the support of other caring sponsors, Save the Children will work with Rokia’s family and other members of the community to help feed and educate her, and provide her with basic medical care.

B) Food shortages in Malawi are affecting more than three million children. In Zambia, severe rainfall deficits have resulted in a 42 per cent drop in maize production from 2000. As a result, an estimated three million Zambians face hunger. Four million Angolans – one-third of the population – have been forced to flee their homes. More than 11 million people in Ethiopia need immediate food assistance.

Paul Slovic, a University of Oregon psychologist who advises governments and charities, has shown that when cases are presented like this, adults are more likely to give to little Rokia and offer twice as much than to donate to a cause that supports millions.
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The amount they give is directly related to the emotions they experience, indicating that the quickest way to a donor’s pocket is not through the head but through the heart.

Those we relate to more easily trigger our emotions because we can identify with them. This phenomenon,
known as the
identifiable victim effect
(IVE), is well appreciated by numerous charities that use the poster-child strategy to focus a campaign around an individual rather than a group. News media also exploit the IVE to maximize the impact of a story by providing a face and identity to tug at our emotional heartstrings. The public is more likely to rally around the plight of a single victim who can be identified than many unknown victims. You may have noticed the same strategy creeping into politicians’ rhetoric when they illustrate their case with an individual who they describe in ways the public can identify with. It seems that we can more easily empathize and understand the plight of one as opposed to many.

Even though we may be aware that we are being manipulated, we still find it difficult to avoid the IVE. One reason is simply the difficulty of comprehending the suffering of vast numbers.
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As Joseph Stalin once remarked, ‘The death of a single Russian soldier is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.’ When we hear of a mass loss of life we are unable to comprehend it – to get our heads around it. It would appear that we are simply overwhelmed by the numbers. We are much more likely to act when we are faced with one victim or, as Mother Teresa explained, ‘If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.’

There are a number of possible reasons why we are more likely to help one versus many. For a start, we are sensitive to the numbers involved. We reason that saving ten out of one hundred is more effective than saving ten out of one million. Dealing with many seems daunting and ultimately doomed to failure. With an identifiable victim
there is a well-constrained target, one that is achievable. If this were true, then we would be more willing to help a small rather than a large number. However, there is something that rings hollow about the argument based on relative numbers. The IVE drops off rapidly if you increase the number of victims from one to two. Slovic has found that as soon as you introduce Rokia’s brother, ‘Moussa’, sympathy and donations decline significantly.
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This suggests that it is the individual we identify with because we find it easier to empathize with the plight of one person. As we will read later, we are always at the mercy of the group when it comes to our decisions, but we can more easily put ourselves in another’s shoes than imagine the suffering of more than one person.

Gut reactions

Much of our moral reasoning seems to be guided by emotional reactions to what we think is right and wrong. When we consider immoral acts, we may literally feel disgusted and repulsed. Domestication shapes these gut reactions, using them to fuel our sense of moral outrage. For example, homosexuality is tolerated in many societies both today and in the past, which indicates that there is no natural built-in prejudice against same-sex relationships. If children are raised in a society that condemns the practice, they must be assimilating the moral outrage projected by the group as a personal feeling of disgust.

The reliance on feelings of disgust has been referred to as the
wisdom of repugnance
by those revolted by certain acts
who feel justified for condemning others’ behaviours because it makes them feel sick.
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The problem with moral repugnance is that what people find disgusting depends on who you ask. As the evolutionary psychologist Jesse Bering points out in his recent exposé of human sexuality,
Perv
, there is considerable variation in so-called typical sexual behaviour.
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The disgust factor is a poor barometer of what and why some sex acts are considered wrong. Consider the following scenario as a way of examining your own moral attitudes and repugnance. Imagine that a brother and sister who are both over the age of consent are on holiday and decide one night to have sexual intercourse. Both willingly agree to participate, take adequate precautions and decide not to tell anyone. Even though no one was hurt in any psychological or physical way and both enjoyed the experience, do you think that they acted immorally? Most people who consider this scenario are disgusted, but when asked to explain why, they are unable to provide a good reason as to why it is so wrong. As the psychologist Jonathan Haidt
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puts it, they are ‘morally dumbfounded’.