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I think altruism's
a very important characteristic of human beings.
Humans do show generosity and helpful tendencies.
This is something that emerges in babies,
in the second half-year of life it flowers.
You can't help but smile when you see a little human being
toddle over and help another human being
even though they don't know that person.
And you start wondering why does that happen?
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That, in part, is what our Templeton Project
is indeed about.
To find out what components of this might be biological,
built-in and what might emerge from very early
social interaction with others.
And that's very, very difficult to tease apart.
And that's the magic of being a developmental psychologist.
Philosophers, religious leaders, others have asked
for millennia where does this come from?
How can we possibly study the origins
of something like altruism?
You know, we need to clearly be able to define
an altruistic act.
Altruism comes from the french altruisme
which was coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte.
Comte was putting out there a philosophy of life
which he believed should really focus on others.
That was his phrase.
Vivre pour autrui so as to live for others
he'd find that as the core ethical goal
of the human species.
Altruism comes into play when there's a little form
of sacrifice or cost to the self and despite that
one helps or assists the other to do them some good.
I mean people jump into the ocean to save drowning people
and sometimes that's at a cost to themselves.
You don't only do that because of the sort of rules
or laws, you do it because somehow you feel it in your gut
that helping others, even if it comes at a cost to you,
there's something good about that
and so that pro-social attitude that human beings
have of course is very important to society
and civilization.
My theory is actually that we're not born altruistic
in the sense that a one hour old baby would act in
an altruistic way to the mother or doctor.
We're probably not doing altruistic acts
at three months of age but we are biologically prepared
to interact in social way about others and to detect
the connection between self and other and that
fundamental connection of recognizing that people
out there are like me and I am like them
I do believe is present at birth
and I think gives rise to our altruistic behaviors.
It's as if you take the biological roots
of recognizing others like me, add social interaction,
and what flowers from that is altruism.
It's a dynamic interplay.
It is not taught explicitly.
It arises in the child from implicit understanding
of others and their social interactions with others.
I think saying that there's biological roots
still allows for there to be individual differences
individual tendencies
doesn't mean that everybody's identical.
(upbeat music)
We are trying to test the specific core question
about altruism.
Can children at this young age give up something
of value to a stranger?
Are you ready?
An adult picks up a piece of food
that the child likes like a grape.
So we fumble it when we show it
and then we start reaching for it
so it's very clear that the experimenter
would like to retrieve that fruit.
So the child has a mini decision to make
at that moment.
They can toddle away to their mother,
they can pop it in their mouth,
or they can choose to take this grape
and give it to another person.
The toddler sort of looks wide-eyed and then
what we're finding is they toddle over,
pick up this highly desirable piece of food
and gives it back.
They continue to show helpfulness
time after time after time even though they
have not received a reward.
And we're taking that as acting altruistically
because giving away food is like to a child
that's something of value.
Just like giving away money.
It's called hot cognition,
not cold cognition,
not something that doesn't matter to them
and I must say we were surprised to see how
the children responded.
That tells us that prior to language,
prior to laws, prior to the threat of punishment,
human beings are built to interact in an altruistic,
pro-social way where we will mutually help one another.
I think part of the child's motivation is they can
recognize the similarity between self and other.
They want help from others.
They want others to give the object back to them
that has fallen out of their hands
and they can relate their own past experience,
their own sense of self and their desires
to what they see your desires being.
The recognition that you are like me.
That person's out-stretched hand trying to reach
for an object is being like my own out-stretched
hand when I am trying to reach for an object.
This fundamental identity between self and other
I think is enormously important.
It's related to imitation
Imitation is, it is this fundamentally important
way that they learn about people,
they learn about objects,
and they learn about themselves
and their own powers and abilities from watching others.
It is a very, very rapid learning channel
in young babies.
They're like little sponges learning from us all the time
and they're learning social lessons from watching us.
Part of the messages we try to share with parents
is that you are a role model for your child.
You are your child's first teacher.
The way we interact with each other,
the child is processing that.
They're picking up those patterns of behavior
simply from watching us and it changes them.
(violin music)
In my I'm most interested in how does the baby recognize
that you are like me
and we're studying that through neuroscience.
MEG stands for magneto encephalography
which measuring the magnetic field that's coming
from the brain when the baby thinks or feels
there's synaptic connections and firings inside their brain
and that makes a little minute electrical signal.
The electrical signal changes the magnetic field
outside the baby's brain.
I'm using MEG at the moment for babies' sense of touch
and how they relate self and others.
I wanna show you the brain reaction in a 29 week old baby,
a 7 month old baby when we touch their hand
and what we think is the adult hand region
is somewhere in here so I want you to see
what brain region becomes active we touched
and boom we see the most significant activity
where we expect in the hand area
and the really interesting thing was in the next study,
when they watch somebody's foot being touched
you'd see activity in the foot area
and when you watch the hand in the hand area
and that shows that there's some similarity
at a neuro level between my hand and your hand,
my food and your foot.
It means that the baby is understanding your body
using the same sort of neural tissue and the same
neural networks that they use in processing touch
to their own body..
So at the neuroscience level, there is a connection between
self and other as young as seven months of age.
So we're beginning to map out the neuro-scientific basis
of body perception.
I think that's the earliest foundation for what
will develop into feelings of empathy and altruism
for other.
There's got to be this fundamental sense
that you are like me and I am like you.
We just think this is laying the foundation for
social, developmental neuroscience
a field that we think is going to explode.
There are many, many, many fascinating questions
to ask once you find out that the fundamental kernel
do our little babies help others in altruistic ways
to begin with?
We really want to get at, you know, does this
behavior last?
Does it go beyond another context?
How far can we push it?
Are there people you wouldn't help?
Do you help people who are like you,
more people who are in your tribe,
people who are part of your group
more than you help people in the out groups?
Could your parents over-ride some natural tendency
to altruism?
Our study, it doesn't answer the question of why
we might grow up and de-humanize other groups
who are not like us.
Why do we separate into tribes and divide
the world into us and them?
What I think it does show is prior to dividing the world
into us and them, the children feel a much more
global sense of others are like me.
A sense of we-ness.
A sense of us.
One might say that we're just beginning to toddle
in our understanding of what makes us uniquely human
and how we flower and develop in our families
and cultures through social interactions.
It is fascinating to combine brain and behavior,
especially when you can do it on important
and fascinating questions.
Nothing could be more exciting.
(dramatic music)