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I think altruism's

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a very important characteristic of human beings.

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Humans do show generosity and helpful tendencies.

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This is something that emerges in babies,

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in the second half-year of life it flowers.

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You can't help but smile when you see a little human being

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toddle over and help another human being

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even though they don't know that person.

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And you start wondering why does that happen?

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That, in part, is what our Templeton Project

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is indeed about.

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To find out what components of this might be biological,

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built-in and what might emerge from very early

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social interaction with others.

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And that's very, very difficult to tease apart.

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And that's the magic of being a developmental psychologist.

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Philosophers, religious leaders, others have asked

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for millennia where does this come from?

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How can we possibly study the origins

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of something like altruism?

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You know, we need to clearly be able to define

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an altruistic act.

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Altruism comes from the french altruisme

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which was coined by the philosopher Auguste Comte.

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Comte was putting out there a philosophy of life

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which he believed should really focus on others.

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That was his phrase.

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Vivre pour autrui so as to live for others

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he'd find that as the core ethical goal

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of the human species.

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Altruism comes into play when there's a little form

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of sacrifice or cost to the self and despite that

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one helps or assists the other to do them some good.

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I mean people jump into the ocean to save drowning people

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and sometimes that's at a cost to themselves.

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You don't only do that because of the sort of rules

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or laws, you do it because somehow you feel it in your gut

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that helping others, even if it comes at a cost to you,

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there's something good about that

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and so that pro-social attitude that human beings

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have of course is very important to society

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and civilization.

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My theory is actually that we're not born altruistic

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in the sense that a one hour old baby would act in

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an altruistic way to the mother or doctor.

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We're probably not doing altruistic acts

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at three months of age but we are biologically prepared

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to interact in social way about others and to detect

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the connection between self and other and that

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fundamental connection of recognizing that people

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out there are like me and I am like them

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I do believe is present at birth

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and I think gives rise to our altruistic behaviors.

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It's as if you take the biological roots

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of recognizing others like me, add social interaction,

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and what flowers from that is altruism.

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It's a dynamic interplay.

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It is not taught explicitly.

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It arises in the child from implicit understanding

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of others and their social interactions with others.

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I think saying that there's biological roots

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still allows for there to be individual differences

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individual tendencies

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doesn't mean that everybody's identical.

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(upbeat music)

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We are trying to test the specific core question

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about altruism.

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Can children at this young age give up something

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of value to a stranger?

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Are you ready?

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An adult picks up a piece of food

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that the child likes like a grape.

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So we fumble it when we show it

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and then we start reaching for it

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so it's very clear that the experimenter

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would like to retrieve that fruit.

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So the child has a mini decision to make

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at that moment.

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They can toddle away to their mother,

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they can pop it in their mouth,

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or they can choose to take this grape

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and give it to another person.

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The toddler sort of looks wide-eyed and then

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what we're finding is they toddle over,

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pick up this highly desirable piece of food

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and gives it back.

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They continue to show helpfulness

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time after time after time even though they

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have not received a reward.

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And we're taking that as acting altruistically

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because giving away food is like to a child

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that's something of value.

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Just like giving away money.

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It's called hot cognition,

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not cold cognition,

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not something that doesn't matter to them

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and I must say we were surprised to see how

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the children responded.

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That tells us that prior to language,

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prior to laws, prior to the threat of punishment,

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human beings are built to interact in an altruistic,

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pro-social way where we will mutually help one another.

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I think part of the child's motivation is they can

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recognize the similarity between self and other.

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They want help from others.

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They want others to give the object back to them

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that has fallen out of their hands

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and they can relate their own past experience,

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their own sense of self and their desires

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to what they see your desires being.

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The recognition that you are like me.

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That person's out-stretched hand trying to reach

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for an object is being like my own out-stretched

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hand when I am trying to reach for an object.

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This fundamental identity between self and other

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I think is enormously important.

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It's related to imitation

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Imitation is, it is this fundamentally important

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way that they learn about people,

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they learn about objects,

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and they learn about themselves

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and their own powers and abilities from watching others.

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It is a very, very rapid learning channel

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in young babies.

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They're like little sponges learning from us all the time

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and they're learning social lessons from watching us.

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Part of the messages we try to share with parents

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is that you are a role model for your child.

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You are your child's first teacher.

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The way we interact with each other,

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the child is processing that.

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They're picking up those patterns of behavior

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simply from watching us and it changes them.

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In my I'm most interested in how does the baby recognize

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that you are like me

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and we're studying that through neuroscience.

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MEG stands for magneto encephalography

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which measuring the magnetic field that's coming

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from the brain when the baby thinks or feels

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there's synaptic connections and firings inside their brain

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and that makes a little minute electrical signal.

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The electrical signal changes the magnetic field

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outside the baby's brain.

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I'm using MEG at the moment for babies' sense of touch

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and how they relate self and others.

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I wanna show you the brain reaction in a 29 week old baby,

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a 7 month old baby when we touch their hand

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and what we think is the adult hand region

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is somewhere in here so I want you to see

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what brain region becomes active we touched

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and boom we see the most significant activity

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where we expect in the hand area

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and the really interesting thing was in the next study,

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when they watch somebody's foot being touched

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you'd see activity in the foot area

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and when you watch the hand in the hand area

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and that shows that there's some similarity

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at a neuro level between my hand and your hand,

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my food and your foot.

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It means that the baby is understanding your body

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using the same sort of neural tissue and the same

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neural networks that they use in processing touch

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to their own body..

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So at the neuroscience level, there is a connection between

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self and other as young as seven months of age.

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So we're beginning to map out the neuro-scientific basis

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of body perception.

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I think that's the earliest foundation for what

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will develop into feelings of empathy and altruism

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for other.

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There's got to be this fundamental sense

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that you are like me and I am like you.

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We just think this is laying the foundation for

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social, developmental neuroscience

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a field that we think is going to explode.

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There are many, many, many fascinating questions

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to ask once you find out that the fundamental kernel

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do our little babies help others in altruistic ways

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to begin with?

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We really want to get at, you know, does this

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behavior last?

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Does it go beyond another context?

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How far can we push it?

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Are there people you wouldn't help?

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Do you help people who are like you,

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more people who are in your tribe,

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people who are part of your group

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more than you help people in the out groups?

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Could your parents over-ride some natural tendency

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to altruism?

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Our study, it doesn't answer the question of why

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we might grow up and de-humanize other groups

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who are not like us.

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Why do we separate into tribes and divide

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the world into us and them?

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What I think it does show is prior to dividing the world

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into us and them, the children feel a much more

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global sense of others are like me.

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A sense of we-ness.

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A sense of us.

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One might say that we're just beginning to toddle

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in our understanding of what makes us uniquely human

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and how we flower and develop in our families

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and cultures through social interactions.

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It is fascinating to combine brain and behavior,

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especially when you can do it on important

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and fascinating questions.

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Nothing could be more exciting.

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(dramatic music)