(photo source)

Y’all know I’m a nerd, right? Good. And ’tis the giving season, right? So prepared to be dazzled by science news about our giving nature! Whoohoo!

So there’s been a lot of news recently about research into the giving nature of people. Altruism has always been something of a puzzle to scientists because from a strictly “survival of the fittest” model, helping others doesn’t seem to have immediate survival benefits for the individual. In fact, helping others could put you in danger if you give away too many resources or are stuck in a situation you can’t handle.

One explanation that’s been around for a while is that by helping others now, you increase the chances that you’ll receive help when you need it in the future. In this way, altruism does help an individual’s survival, but in the long-run, not the short-term. Sort of like a you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours scenario, but stretched out over time.

Now there’s even more research shedding light on our giving nature.

One study observed the behavior of human babies and compared that to the behavior of chimp babies. The researchers found that the human babies were surprisingly sociable and helpful. The fact that they were observing babies is important because babies haven’t had a lot of time to learn social behavior from their environment. Anyway, in the study, when 18 month-old babies (1 and a half year-olds) saw an unrelated adult whose hands were full and needed help opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, the babies immediately helped. Cool, right? I mean, where does that instinct come from? Read the rest of the article to learn about more neat stuff, like how this all ties into parenting, social norms, our hunter-gatherer history, and more.

Another study digs more into the biology of kindness. You may have learned about social contract theory in school, and about philosophers like John Locke, Jean Jacques-Rousseau, and Thomas Hobbes. For example, Thomas Hobbes believed that people were naturally selfish, and that if it were up to us, we’d run around willy nilly doing everything we can to get ours and live la vida loca. And it’s because we’re such crazy hedonists that a social contract was necessary, to prevent people like me from hitting you over the head so I can steal your bacon.

Well, now there’s research showing that maybe people aren’t as naturally selfish as Hobbes thought. In fact, there’s evidence that some of us are innately kind and fair. In one study, researchers observed brain activity in people as they rated their preference for a series of money distributions between themselves and a hypothetical other person. What they found was that in “prosocial” people, the more uneven the money distribution was, the more activity there was in a part of their brain called the amygdala. The amygdala is generally thought to be linked to emotional reactions (like fear), and activity in this region is thought to be more automatic and reflexive. In other words, prosocial people seemed to have an innate biological aversion to unfairness. Neat, huh?

There’s also research showing that when we’re good to others, it’s good for our health. For example, one study of H.I.V. patients found that those who were altruistic had lower levels of stress hormones. Another study found that those who were more, I would say, self-involved had more heart disease. There’s even a name for the feel-good effect of altruism – it’s called “helper’s high.” So, it seems that doing good is not only good for others, but good for you as well.

Interestingly though, while giving may make the giver feel good, it may stress out the receiver because he or she may feel a sense of obligation or burden to the giver after receiving a gift. Fascinating, huh?

Anyway, I think this post is already too long, so I’ll leave you with that. But not before you tell me…does helping others make you feel good? And what about when others help you? Or give you gifts? How does that make you feel?

Here are the links to all of the articles in this post:

• We May Be Born with an Urge to Help
• Generosity is natural for kind-hearted people
• In Month of Giving, a Healthy Reward
• Beware humans bearing gifts