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Why do we care for others: bridging evolutionary biology, neuroscience and social psychology

Natural selection has fine-tuned the mechanisms that serve the specific demands of each species’ ecology, and social behaviors are best understood in the context of evolution. Evolutionary altruism makes no assumptions about motivations or intentions. It considers only effects in terms of fitness consequences. Pure altruism refers to behavior that benefits the recipient at a cost to the actor (de Waal, 1996). In fact, there are many forms of altruism and prosocial behavior accross species, including reciprocal altruism, cooperation, mutualism, parental care and even self sacrifice. Evolutionary theory leads us to suspect that they stem from mechanisms that evolved through different processes and are designed in different ways. The problem of altruism is intimately connected with questions about the level at which natural selection acts: if selection acts exclusively at the individual level, then altruism cannot evolve. However, altruism may be advantageous at the group level.

Like in other mammalian species, emotions and feelings may be shared between individuals, but humans are also able to intentionally “feel for” and act on behalf of other people whose experiences may differ greatly from their own. This phenomenon, called empathic concern or sympathy, is often associated with prosocial behaviors such as helping kin, and has been considered as a chief enabling process for altruism. According to Wilson (1988), empathic helping behavior has evolved because of its contribution to genetic fitness (kin selection). Altruistic behavior arose to help family members and those inclined to return the favor (Hamilton, 1964). Ultimate accounts of altruistic behavior stress return-benefits. In humans and other mammals, an impulse to care for offspring is almost certainly genetically hard-wired. Altruistic traits evolved because they benefit the group and in spite of the fact that they are deleterious for the individual. Social learning explanations of kinship patterns in human helping behavior are thus highly plausible.

I will make it apparent that a complete understanding of altruism, prosocial behavior, and empathy requires attention to be paid to multiple levels of analysis, from cultural, behavioral, psychological, physiological and molecular. This key idea is that each level constraints and can be articulated with the other. I will argue that empathy and altruism are functionally linked, with their roots in the mammalian evolution of parental care. In human, emotional connectedness combined with metacognition and increased self-other distinction account for complex forms of altruistic behavior. I will also argue that there is no automatic link between altruism and morality. Altruism can induce partiality and cause people to violate ethical norms. The process of group selection does not eliminate competition from the evolutionary process but merely transposes it up one level. Group selection can promote within-group niceness, but it also can promote between-group nastiness.

Lectures outline:
- What do we mean by altruism and prosocial behavior
- The evolution of altruism: distinguishing proximate vs. ultimate causes of behavior
- The dark side of altruism
- Approach vs. avoidance: two essential aspects of survival behavior
- Social engagement and the autonomic nervous system
- The role of two neuropetides, prolactin and oxytocin in social behavior
- The empathy-altruism hypothesis
- The anatomy of empathy and sympathy
- Attachment security and proscocial behavior
- Helping makes us feel good: behavioral and neurophysiological evidence
- What aspects of altruism and prosocial behavior are specific to humans

Readings
Batson, C.D., et al. (1991). Empathic joy and the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 413-426.
Carter, S.C., Harris, J., & Porges, S.W. (2009). Neural and Evolutionary Perspectives on Empathy. In: J. Decety and W. Ickes, The Social Neuroscience of Empathy. Cambridge: MIT press.
Decety, J., & Lamm, C. (2006). Human empathy through the lens of social neuroscience. The Scientific World Journal, 6, 1146–1163.
de Waal, F.B.M. (1996). Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hamilton, W.D. (1964). The genetical evolution of social behavior. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 7, 1-52.
Porges, S.W. (2001). The polyvagal theory: phylogenetic substrates of a social nervous system. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42, 123-146.
Trivers, R.L. (2002). Natural Selection and Social Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wilson, E.O. (2005). Kin selection as the key to altruism: Its rise and fall. Social Research, 72, 159-166.

Course syllabus available on Chalk