BERKELEY — Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.
In contrast to “every man for himself” interpretations of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of “Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life,” and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.
They call it “survival of the kindest.”
“Because of our very vulnerable offspring, the fundamental task for human survival and gene replication is to take care of others,” said Keltner, co-director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center. “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.”
Empathy in our genes
Keltner’s team is looking into how the human capacity to care and cooperate is wired into particular regions of the brain and nervous system. One recent study found compelling evidence that many of us are genetically predisposed to be empathetic.
The study, led by UC Berkeley graduate student Laura Saslow and Sarina Rodrigues of Oregon State University, found that people with a particular variation of the oxytocin gene receptor are more adept at reading the emotional state of others, and get less stressed out under tense circumstances.
Informally known as the “cuddle hormone,” oxytocin is secreted into the bloodstream and the brain, where it promotes social interaction, nurturing and romantic love, among other functions.
“The tendency to be more empathetic may be influenced by a single gene,” Rodrigues said.
The more you give, the more respect you get
While studies show that bonding and making social connections can make for a healthier, more meaningful life, the larger question some UC Read more…
When I was a senior in college, the infamous Ted Bundy was brutally murdering college students at the neighboring university. After they finally caught him, one of the major magazines — it may have been Time or Newsweek — ran a long article on the nature of psychopaths (sociopaths). I read that article with wide-eyed interest.
Since that time I’ve read a number of books and articles on sociopathic behavior. And, for the sake of clarity, the psychological profession considers the words psychopath and sociopath to be interchangeable. Anyway, I studied this aberrant mental state not due to any obsession with the macabre, but rather because I was dumbfounded at the thought that any human being could be devoid of empathy and “humanity.”
You’ve Met a Sociopath
Unless you spend your life in a broom closet, there’s a fairly good chance you will have met and interacted with at least one sociopath. This is because sociopaths, by some estimations including by Martha Stout, PhD (author of The Sociopath Next Door), constitute four percent of the population.
Rather than delving into the deep and dark discussion of what sociopaths do and how they destroy lives, let’s think about some major figures who act according to the sociopathic paradigm. Then it should become obvious how they leave a wake of destruction. And, by the way, sociopaths are not all axe murderers or serial killers. Many are businessmen, swindlers, con artists, chefs, accountants, politicians, salesmen and even law enforcement officials, to name a few.
What makes a person a sociopath?
The psychologist Robert Hare, PhD, has studied sociopathic behavior to the point wherein he developed a list that is used to recognize these buggers before they cause your peers to gang up against you, wipe out your bank account, make your mother hate you, break up your relationships, or steal your soul.
Hare, as well as other scientists, discovered that the brain of a sociopath is not normal.* The amygdala, a part of the brain that is responsible for certain “normal human feelings” does not function in these people. So it’s not a psychological problem that can be treated and improved with therapy. To the contrary, a sociopath will always be a sociopath. It’s not psychology that keeps a sociopath from normalcy, but rather physiology. Read more…
May 21st / Going Up to The Spirit in the Sky Creative Commons License photo credit: Tony the MisfitI
by Vic Shayne
It’s pretty safe to say that the world did not end on May 21, 2011. I can tell because I received a phone call from a friend in Australia who’s already experiencing tomorrow. Plus, I parked my car in the driveway and it’s exactly where I left it.
The world is still here, though it’s in sorry shape just the same. Not because of any rapture, but because of worldwide pollution, an island of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean, the Fox network, overpopulation and Lady Gaga, who works hard at pretending she’s not vapid.
Is there a lesson from all of this? Sure there is!
What are the lessons to be learned from this? And will the hooplah be repeated in 2012 as it was at the turn of the century? Most likely. That’s because people are basically the same knuckle-walkers as their distant relatives, if you believe in evolution.
By the way, if you don’t know about 2012, you should, so you can be sure to lock yourself in a closet that year and not come out until the din dies down. Apparently the “experts” say that the Mayans predicted that the world would end in 2012, according to the Mayan calendar. Also on the Mayan calendar, they say, is the final show of American Idol.
Of course, the Mayans, who are already extinct, won’t be able to partake in the end of the world, which is sad because if I were a Mayan I’d like to stick around to give everybody the big “I told you so” speech.
Back to the lessons. What did we learn?
Here’s my top 8 list:
We learned that the human mind is capable of creating a delusion, sharing the delusion, turning the delusion into an epidemic, and believing the delusion. People make up a thing in their head then believe it’s true. Remarkable.
Crazy people aren’t necessarily crazier than other crazy people. I was listening to NPR the other day and a professor from Notre Dame University was talking about how people weren’t quite right in the head to believe the world would end on May 21. I find this amusing, in the least. Here’s a guy who believes every unbelievable, unproven, intended-to-be-metaphorical story in the Bible, but thinks that the Rapture people are a little off. The pot calls the kettle black.
Money and time was wasted. Obviously, the media wasted time and money, but that’s no surprise because that’s what they specialize in. But I’m talking about regular people. People wasted resources blogging, talking, tweeting, repeating and debating the Big Event that never happened. Meanwhile there are still children starving in Africa.
People get aroused, upset and excited by something outrageous while they continue to ignore real, pressing problems. They don’t get upset about genetically engineered foods, though they are eating them every day without realizing it. Meanwhile, Monsanto laughs all the way to the bank and Whole Foods sells the stuff while it pretends to care about “natural” foods. It would be easy to create a list of a hundred terribly important events going on right now that affect us all, but apparently it’s even easier to ignore them all and sink your teeth into silliness.
It’s okay to say that the End of the World excitement, as applied to May 21, 2011, is nuts, but if you still believe in the Rapture, and it’s placed some time in the unforeseeable future, you are somehow more sane.
Rapture is a Christian belief. Raptor is a big bird.
People will believe absolutely any fricken thing and there’s nothing that can stop them!
Apocalypse Now is a movie, but Apocalypse right now isn’t right now, but possibly later.
Animal House's Niedermeyer, a movie version of the penultimate asshole.
by V.A. Chaiken
If you’ve been around long enough, you know he’s there, lurking in the audience. He’s the universal asshole. Not just obnoxious, and more of an asshole. He sits in the back of the classroom and calls people names. And he’s in the back of the movie theater shouting obscenities. He also hangs out in the common area of the fraternity house.
Who is this asshole? He’s the guy who ruins an otherwise nice evening, and the guy who has nothing nice to say about anything at an otherwise enjoyable occasion. He’s the guy who never learned from his mother that if you don’t have something nice to say, then just don’t say anything at all.
Some say the asshole crawled out from under a rock. Others say he’s not really human and maybe psychopathic. It’s hard to say, but not hard to recognize.
How can there be an asshole in every crowd and in every family? Why does the universe torture us in this way? Why is he on the highway tailgating you when you’re already driving ten miles over the speed limit?
Psychologists will readily tell you that there is no such thing as an asshole in their professional lexicon, and they are likely to refer you to a proctologist to answer your asshole questions.
Everybody seems to have a story about at least one asshole. A man comes home from the office and says, “I was driving home and some asshole cut me off then shot me the finger.” A woman says, “I was standing on line at the bank and some asshole makes an unkind comment about my new dress.” Or a kid is standing on line at the school cafeteria and some asshole comes along and shoves him into a girl who spills her milk container.
Who is creating all of these assholes?
The thing about assholes is that they prompt us to ask more questions than we have answers for.
Asshole Syndrome Spreading Like Wildfire?
In Psychology Today, Amy Alkon writes: “An aggressive lack of consideration for others is spreading across this country like a case of crabs through a sleepaway camp, and there isn’t a lot standing in the way. Although people are quick to blame rampant rudeness on advances in technology, the unfortunate truth is, rudeness is the human condition. We modern humans are a bunch of grabby, self-involved jerks, the same as generations of humans before us. It’s just that there are fewer constraints on our grabby, self-involved jerkhood than ever before. We’re guided by quaint Stone Age brains, suited to manage social interactions within a small tribe—yet we’re living in endlessly sprawling areas that would more accurately be called ‘stranger-hoods’ than neighborhoods.”
Other stuff assholes do
Assholes are more than inconsiderate — they are inconsiderate with an extra dose of selfishness and meanness. They:
hoot and holler when an unfortunate person slips on the sidewalk
cheer at a restaurant when somebody drops a dish
ignore you and cut you off when you’re trying to merge into traffic
write obscene, racist and demeaning comments on youtube with abandon
What is this guy showing off? That he can be a pretzel? There is nothing to be learned from this sort of thing, yet it's great for the teacher who can have his ego massaged by his sycophants. He does seem to have a mat, though, but I doubt he bought it at Bed, Bath & Beyond or The Yoga Store downtown.
by V.A. Chaiken
I don’t know about yoga. I’m not saying it has no redeeming value. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous. But my inclination is to say that yoga is made out to be much more than it actually is, on several levels.
Nothing really spiritual
First is what we’d call the “spiritual” level. Here’s where I’m the biggest skeptic. I’ve seen the scores of characters with white beards and the pretense of wisdom. I think they’re just about all a bunch of con artists, fakers and egoists. It’s pretty obvious by the way they talk — much like snide psychics who pretend they have a secret door to wisdom and an understanding of mystical words to which nobody else has access.
Yogis like to play mind games and have people fawn on them.
India is the birthplace of countless cults that tell people that their imagination is a different reality, that dreams are real (aside from their metaphoric value) and that inner masters guide them through worlds unknown. Nonsense. Anybody with a good understanding of psychology knows better.
If engaged in a proper dialog, these guru characters would quickly be proven to be the jokers that they are. They get away with their act because they are not challenged to prove anything. And the pretense of wisdom issuing from their mouths are lacking in any real depth.
I’ve seen videos of westerners actually kissing the feet of several so-called yogis. I’ve also seen these guys sitting on platforms so they can look down on their sycophants. This is all fine as long as the suckerer and the suckered are in agreement to be in a relationship. Just don’t tell me these guys are any more in tune or enlightened than your average house plant.
Does it do anything good for your body?
Next is the physical aspect of yoga. What does yoga have to offer the body?
There is no evidence, scientific or otherwise, that the postures of yoga do anything short of building strength, balance and flexibility. These are not necessarily bad things, but they aren’t what most yoga practitioners claim about their art. Read more…
I’ve watched a lot of Sam Harris debates and I’ve read his books, as well as Dawkins’ God Delusion. My conclusion is that if you have religious beliefs, enjoy your freedom to relish them. Just don’t claim that there’s proof to support what’s attributed to any god or bible story. Otherwise we’ll have nothing but unending conflict.
Did the world begin less than 6,000 years ago? The answer is a resounding yes, if you are the recent recipient of a labotomy or if your anatomy is such that your head has somehow become lodged in an unmentionable orifice. Otherwise, the answer is just plain “no.”
Some people sit awake in bed at night and think up great questions about life. They ask, “If the world is flat, then how did God make a man in the Garden of Eden without having to travel to Japan for some of the spare parts?” Questions like this fuel debates between modern-day scholars and a bunch of people who don’t know what they’re talking about. The latter subscribe to a theory that I like to call Godvolution. To restate the two sides of this debate, we have one side saying “Look at all the evidence. Let’s applaud our science. Here’s carbon dating proof. Here are a bunch of bones. Look at these ancient tools, etc.” and the other side that says no life existed on earth until it suddenly did.
Let’s look at some items that point to evolution:
In 1959, archaeologist Louis Leaky uncovered ancient bones at the site called Olduvai Gorge to prove that the Dark Continent was home to human beings two million years ago. A year later, Louis and his wife Mary discovered Homo habilis, or “handy man.” It was by far the earliest known human ancestor, and Louis Leakey believed it to be the first true toolmaker.
A collapsed cave in south central China has yielded evidence that human ancestors inhabited the far reaches of Asia as early as 1.9 million years ago, according to a report in the Nov. 16 Nature. Read more…
The word “myth” is (mis)used interchangeably with the word “lie” or “falsehood.” This erroneous application has been so fervent and long-standing that few understand what a myth really is, outside of the devotees of the works of Joseph Campbell, fans of anthropology, psychology scholars and philosophers.
What is a myth, anyway?
There’s no definitive definition for the word “myth,” but here’s a standard explanation: A myth is a traditional, typically ancient, story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society.
What this definition omits is the core of mythological function.
A myth is not merely a story, but rather a story with universal meaning that touches the core of one’s psyche to explain — or cope with — the unexplainable. The purpose is to connect one’s deeper meaning with one’s environment and other beings. But that’s not all. A myth also is a metaphor for life and the possibilities of experiences and outcomes that life may bring. If regarded literally, a myth is ridiculous and absurd. But if regarded metaphorically, a myth can serve as a lesson capable of transcending the hum-drum world and even altering one’s worldview.
Joseph Campbell’s world of mythology
Perhaps no single person is associated with teaching mythology more than Joseph Campbell, author, lecturer, professor and sage.
In an interview with writer Tom Collins in the mid-80s, Joseph Campbell said, “[A myth puts you in touch with a plane of reference that goes past your mind and into your very being, into your very gut. The ultimate mystery of being and nonbeing transcends all categories of knowledge and thought. Yet that which transcends all talk is the very essence of your own being, so you’re resting on it and you know it. The function of mythological symbols is to give you a sense of “Aha! Yes. I know what it is, it’s myself.” This is what it’s all about, and then you feel a kind of centering, centering, centering all the time. And whatever you do can be discussed in relationship to this ground of truth. Though to talk about it as truth is a little bit deceptive because when we think of truth we think of something that can be conceptualized. It goes past that.”
Now you can see why calling a myth “a lie” just doesn’t make any sense — it’s a description borne of ignorance. Read more…
BERKELEY — Why do some people fret over the most trivial matters while others remain calm in the face of calamity? Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified two different chinks in our brain circuitry that explain why some of us are more prone to anxiety.
Their findings, published Feb. 10 in the journal Neuron, may pave the way for more targeted treatment of chronic fear and anxiety disorders. Such conditions affect at least 25 million Americans and include panic attacks, social phobias, obsessive-compulsive behavior and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Two neural pathways discovered
In the brain imaging study, researchers from UC Berkeley and Cambridge University discovered two distinct neural pathways that play a role in whether we develop and overcome fears. The first involves an overactive amygdala, which is home to the brain’s primal fight-or-flight reflex and plays a role in developing specific phobias.
The second involves activity in the ventral prefrontal cortex, a neural region that helps us to overcome our fears and worries. Some participants were able to mobilize their ventral prefrontal cortex to reduce their fear responses even while negative events were still occurring, the study found.
“This finding is important because it suggests some people may be able to use this ventral frontal part of the brain to regulate their fear responses – even in situations where stressful or dangerous events are ongoing,” said UC Berkeley psychologist Sonia Bishop, lead author of the paper. Read more…
You’ve gotta love Sam Harris. This guy’s got some amazing stamina, not to mention superior intelligence and coolness that would make a cucumber jealous.Religious leaders and God-fearing people, for some stupid reason, debate with him as if they have a leg to stand on. They pick and choose from their own religious writings and pretend that their god is somehow all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful. They have to ignore all the bad stuff he does or nothing makes sense. So they argue. And Sam argues back.
On November 6th, 2010 a panel of scientists, philosophers, and public intellectuals gathered to discuss what impact evolutionary theory and advances in neuroscience might have on traditional concepts of morality.
The panelists were psychologist Steven Pinker, author Sam Harris, philosopher Patricia Churchland, physicist Lawrence Krauss, philosopher Simon Blackburn, bioethicist Peter Singer and The Science Network’s Roger Bingham. Recorded live at the Arizona State University Gammage auditorium.
By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations, Berkeley
by Vic Shayne
by Dave Rapture
by Vic Shayne
What this definition omits is the core of mythological function.
