Turn “me” off: selfishness switch in human brain discovered
Posted by: Diane Levin in Mind and Cognition
As the saying goes, there is no “I” in “team”. But that may be more the result of our cerebral hardwiring than formative years spent playing Little League.
According to a study published in the journal Science, scientists have discovered a region of the brain that overrides selfishness and helps humans behave more collaboratively.
Experiments involving a “fairness” game show that the right side of this region — called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — helps people suppress selfish urges in obviously unjust situations, even at their own expense.
When researchers used a mild electric current to temporarily short-circuit this area, the law of the jungle quickly reasserted itself…
The Swiss and American team behind this research noted that, despite a long history of crime, wars and rapaciousness, human beings are innately cooperative. In fact, Homo sapiens is the only species to exhibit “reciprocal fairness” — the punishment of others’ unfair behaviors, even in situations where doing so hurts the punisher…
Why might this be so? Humans are highly socially evolved, and punishing unfairness “helps sustain cooperation in groups,” said study lead researcher Ernst Fehr, director of the Institute for Empirical Research in Economics at the University of
Zurich.Because more cohesive groups tend to have better survival prospects, humans who suppress their immediate urges end up on the “winning team,” evolutionarily speaking.
If you can’t get enough about studies on human behavior, you may like to check out the following posts:
- Decisions, decisions: study shows unconscious mind handles tough decisions better.
- Tunnel vision: studies show there’s plenty we don’t see.
- Accentuate the positive: studies reveal human propensity for reframing to see good in outcomes.
- Caught napping: the benefits of napping include enhanced ability to problem solve.
(Via Boing Boing.)
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