“Nice guys finish last.” That’s what we believe in this country. Without that assumption, advertisers couldn’t sell their latest energy drink and “Turn Boys into Monsters” as Derrick Kikuchi told us yesterday. Because of this notion, boys are besieged with images from marketers and the media that they have to compete rather than cooperate, go for the selfish power play rather than take part in the team, and become a macho man rather than a pansy. It’s every man for himself, these commercials say. If you don’t look out for number one, you’ll lose.

Well, it turns out that we’ve got it all backwards in this patriarchal, heterosexist, individualistic, might-makes-right society. And I have to add, “Thank goodness!” Because as a woman, many people assume that I throw like a sissy before anyone even tosses me the ball.

Scientific evidence has been accumulating over the last twenty years that shows what should have been common sense before now — that instead of being hard-wired to be selfish, human beings have evolved to be compassionate and collaborative. The social scientists fostering this research call their new understanding “survival of the kindest” to distinguish it from the social Darwinism of the past. They’re showing that we’ve been successful as a species precisely because of our altruism, nurturance, and compassion.

I think many of us have known this or at least suspected it for years. We’re a social species. That means we live together, we work together, we play together, we eat together. Actually this last item differentiates us even from other social animals, since we’re the only species that eats with each other. Even the great apes eat separately. As social animals, we’ve got to get along.

Dacher Keltner, one of these new social scientists and co-director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center — a West Coast magnet for research on compassion, altruism, gratitude, awe, and positive parenting — tells us that

“Because of our very vulnerable offspring, the fundamental task for human survival and gene replication is to take care of others…Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate. As Darwin long ago surmised, sympathy is our strongest instinct.”

I think women knew that already. Until recently, it’s been women who’ve been socialized into the role of nurturer, of caring for others rather than for the self. We’ve been expected to be altruistic and compassionate, while men have been socialized to be independent, competitive, and to look out for number one. Women have known that the world needs cooperation in a very real sense, because we’ve been the ones caring for the children, the frail, the sick, and the elderly, all of whom need our help.

But Keltner’s team hasn’t just been theorizing about this topic. It’s been identifying the regions in the brain that help us with these tasks. One of their recent studies shows that many humans are genetically predisposed to be empathetic. The chemical most directly involved in this process is oxytocin. Some call this hormone the “cuddle hormone,” others the “love hormone.” Its job is to promote social interaction, nurturing, and romantic love, among other functions. It’s been known for quite a while that there are receptors in the brain for oxytocin. But recently, two women who are part of Keltner’s team — Laura Saslow, a graduate student at UC Berkeley and Sarina Rodrigues at Oregon State — discovered that people who have a particular variation of the gene for this receptor can read other people’s emotions better and tend to be more empathetic.

Another physiological component of the science of sympathy is the vagus nerve, which regulates the body’s heart rate and breathing. A series of experiments at UC Berkeley demonstrated that although people were separated by a barrier, they could communicate caring emotions solely by touching each other through a hole in that barrier. As soon as they felt a sympathetic touch, the vagus nerve was activated and oxytocin was released, calming them immediately. Keltner concluded:

Sympathy is indeed wired into our brains and bodies; and it spreads from one person to another through touch.

On the social side of this question, UC Berkeley social psychologist Robb Willer has discovered that the more generous we are, the greater the status and influence we gain. These findings suggest that those who act solely in their own self-interest tend to be shunned, disrepected, or even hated. He added,

Given how much is to be gained through generosity, social scientists increasingly wonder less why people are ever generous and more why they are ever selfish.

With all this evidence to demonstrate that true humanity is compassionate and cooperative, let’s stop socializing our boys to grow up dysfunctional — individualistic, greedy, hypercompetitive, and selfish. Raise your boy to become a Mensch instead!

P.S. Without my scientist husband Mark Shults, I wouldn’t have read the article that this post is based on. And more importantly, I wouldn’t have understood the science well enough to write about it.


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