motivating power of the greater good

An inspiring example from the journals of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, leader of the failed Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914-1916:

"The thought of those fellows on Elephant Island kept us going all the time. It might have been different if we'd had only ourselves to think about. You can get so tired in the snow, particularly if you're hungry, that sleep seems the best thing life has to give. But if you're a leader, a fellow that other fellows look to, you've got to keep going. That was the thought which sailed us through the hurricane and tugged us up and down those mountains [of South Georgia Island]... and when we got to the whaling station, it was the thought of those comrades which made us so mad with joy that the reaction beats all effort to describe it. We didn't so much feel that we were safe as that they were saved."

Here's a link to the James Caird Society, named after the small lifeboat that carried Shackleton and five others 800 miles across Drakes Passage to South Georgia Island in the depths of an Antarctic winter.

Cooperation: Humans' Evolutionary Legacy

Sharon Begley wrote a fascinating story for Newsweek last week about recent discoveries in the science of human evolution. She explains how technological advances are giving researchers a more precise understanding of when, how, and why humans diverged from the evolutionary path of other species.

It seems that what truly set humans from other species may have been changes in the architecture of their brains, which made them more skilled at reasoning, learning, and memory. Begley considers this finding along with the fact that humans five to six million years ago were small and had teeth suitable for fruits and nuts, but not meat. These facts, Begley writes, suggest "that early humans were more often prey than predators," an argument made by Washington University anthropologist Robert Sussman. And this conclusion has some profound implications for our understanding of human nature.

The realization that early humans were the hunted and not hunters has upended traditional ideas about what it takes for a species to thrive. For decades the reigning view had been that hunting prowess and the ability to vanquish competitors was the key to our ancestors' evolutionary success (an idea fostered, critics now say, by the male domination of anthropology during most of the 20th century). But prey species do not owe their survival to anything of the sort, argues Sussman. Instead, they rely on their wits and, especially, social skills to survive. Being hunted brought evolutionary pressure on our ancestors to cooperate and live in cohesive groups. That, more than aggression and warfare, is our evolutionary legacy.

Both genetics and paleoneurology back that up. A hormone called oxytocin, best-known for inducing labor and lactation in women, also operates in the brain (of both sexes). There, it promotes trust during interactions with other people, and thus the cooperative behavior that lets groups of people live together for the common good. By comparing the chimp genome with the human, scientists infer that oxytocin existed in the ancestor of both. But it has undergone changes since then, perhaps in how strongly the brain responds to it and in how much is produced. The research is still underway, but one possibility is that the changes occurred around the time our ancestors settled into a system based on enduring bonds between men and women, about 1.7 million years ago.

Human Nature Redux, Redux

Following up on Jeremy Smith's post (below) about David Brooks's recent column in The New York Times, he and I, along with Greater Good co-editor Dacher Keltner, sent this letter to the Times:

To the Editor:

In his Feb. 18 column, “Human Nature Redux,” David Brooks would have us believe that there's no such thing as "natural human goodness"--that human genes condemn us to lives of evil and nastiness. Yet cutting edge research supports the opposite conclusion: that we are wired to be good.

Consider these empirical findings: When people perform altruistic acts, the same regions of their brain light up as when they receive rewards or experience pleasure; humans are equipped with specialized "mirror neurons" that enable us to empathize with others; we produce the hormone oxytocin, which promotes social bonding, trust, and generosity; and activation of our vagus nerve, a bundle of nerves near the spinal cord, increases compassion and cooperation.

Indeed, contrary to Mr. Brooks's ill-informed column, these scientific findings reveal the deep biological roots of human goodness—which promote the kindness and cooperation vital to human survival and progress.

Dacher Keltner, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley;
Co-editor, Greater Good magazine

Jason Marsh
Co-editor, Greater Good magazine

Jeremy Adam Smith
Managing Editor, Greater Good magazine