You guys might not remember from the first day of class, but though I am in this PPL class, I am an environmental chemistry major. Because of this, I do enjoy looking at things from a scientific perspective. We’ve talked a lot about altruism in this class, and every time we do I always think about ecology last semester. In ecology, we defined altruism as a social interaction that increases recipient fitness and decreases the fitness of the donor. Altruism does not lead to direct fitness, which is the fitness an individual gains by passing on copies of its genes to its offspring. As a result, we would think selfishness would be selected for over altruism, yet altruism has evolved in many species.
Altruism is believed to have evolved due to indirect fitness. Indirect fitness is what an individual gains by helping a relative (with which it shares genes) pass on copies of their genes. If the relatedness between two organisms exceeds the cost-benefit ratio of an action, then altruism will be selected for:
C/b>r altruism will not be selected for
C/b<r altruism will be selected for
I tried to apply this to the setting in which we talk about altruism. Of course, when we take part in philanthropy, we are usually not helping close relatives. But I have noticed that a lot of charities and foundations are created to help people that are similar to the founder, or people that are in an unfortunate situation that the founder was once in themselves. An example being the John Crimmins Foundation that we learned about last class. One could argue that John (and even his parents) benefit from helping others that are similar to John (experience seizures). In a way, it is like keeping his legacy (rather than genes) alive.
However, there are still plenty of other charities, foundations, and donors that aim to help those that they have little or no connection to. An example of this would be Kiva, which we also discussed in class. Kiva helps us loan money to underprivileged people living in worlds very different than ours that we will never meet. To me, from a scientific standpoint, this seems more like cooperation rather than altruism. Cooperation is simply a group of individuals helping each other out, related or not. Martin Nowak, Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University, has a popular proposal for the mechanisms that favor selection for cooperation. Direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, and spatial selection are three of his mechanisms. Direct reciprocity is essentially the idea, “If I help you, you help me” (i.e. I volunteer and it makes me feel good). Indirect reciprocity is “If I help you, someone else helps me” (i.e. I donate to a charity and others respect me). Spatial selection means that clusters of cooperators prevail (i.e. helping with or creating local charities as we are doing in this class).
So, in essence, I have written this post to try to bridge between the scientific and social approaches to what fuels helping others. My question to those reading this would be, do you think modern philanthropy is truly altruistic? Or is it more cooperative? Or is there a third category? Is there one that you think makes more sense over the other? Any further thoughts?
To learn more about altruism from an ecological standpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKtOXvA14X4
To learn more about Martin Nowak’s principle of cooperation, watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2-TUZ3zYgs
Thank you for the interesting scientific connection you brought through this post! I find the information you provided on how altruism exists in nature (with beehives, ant colonies, and not least humans), to implicate an interesting idea about the connection of fitness of the individual to fitness of a species. It seems that for species that reflect altruistic and selfless behavior, such as in ant colonies, their actions are dominated by a priority to help the species, or group, as a whole, moreso than to help itself.
ReplyDeletePerhaps this is the most efficient system for a species' survival, given that every individual is focused on prolonging the species instead of prolonging its own life. This relates to the Golden Rule reiterated by various great minds: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Perhaps the idea behind this rule and our altruistic behavior is this: understand one's role in the broad category of one's community, and see the work one does for his community as work for oneself, as both the individual and the community are one.
First, as a chemistry major as well, I would also like to express thanks for bringing a scientific perspective to the idea of philanthropy.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to philanthropy, I would like to believe that people donate money or time for the sole idea of making another person’s life better. In my mind, donors should desire giving exclusively for the aspect of giving someone an opportunity that the recipient would not have previously had instead of thinking about personal gain; a truly altruistic exchange. In your post, you have even defined altruism as something that decreases “the fitness of the donor.” With that in mind, I very much agree with Jerray’s comment on the idea that the most efficient societies are those in which individuals are concerned more about enhancing the well-being of the group as a whole than bettering themselves. One great example of this within the first video was exemplified by ant colonies, in that individuals work tirelessly for the betterment of current and future generations of ants despite the personal costs.
When it comes to humans, I am not sure if this idea of completely altruistic exchange is inherently possible. As we learned in A Path Appears: The Neuroscience of Giving, human brains are wired to feel pleasure after giving. While this is not the fault of people, I believe this makes it impossible for philanthropic giving to be completely altruistic. While you may have the recipients well-being in mind when donating time or money, there is always the factor of personal gain that encourages you to do so. Therefore, I would argue that philanthropic giving is a mixture between altruism and direct reciprocity, or the idea that you donate because “it makes you feel good.” While I believe that the altruistic aspect outweighs the personal gains, I find it hard to ignore personal incentive involved in giving.
Hi Andrea,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I found your post quite compelling. Last semester, as a part of my nursing major, I took a course on the history of nursing and on patient systems. To clarify, a patient system is an analyzation of a group of healthcare professionals that attend to a so-called patient. This can include his or her family, a custodian in the hospital, or even his or her primary doctor. The reason I refer to this patient system is due to the fact that when learning about it, a contradiction arose within the class. In fact, very similar to the one you bring here. The contradiction is as follows. Does a healthcare provider give complete care to his or her patient due the fact that it is their profession or rather due to their altruistic need to provide assistance to the person in need. After much debate and research, we concluded that it was a combination of both. In our brains, we have a very unique feature in which we are able to interpret one’s emotions without experiencing them ourselves. I am referring to something called "mirror neurons". Generally, they are referenced when speaking about monkeys, however for concept purposes, I will explain in regard to humanity. Researchers believe that humans have a lesser but still existent "mirror neuron" system. "Mirror neurons" affect the following: when we see someone who is upset, the same parts of the brain that the upset person is using can be seen activated within our own brains. However, is is important to understand that we do not express the specific emotion.
In my opinion, when you look at philanthropy as a response that is sparked when one receives a signal from an observation of the human condition/the human emotion, it is not surprising that the philanthropist is driven to respond. He or she is both being cooperative while also being altruistic. He or she receives the signal in the brain and feels that they need to compensate for it in order to eliminate it. This is the cooperative part of the process. Although, by acting and determining their method to affect the community, they are 100% altruistic. Furthermore, after providing the actual help, it Is not surprising that dopamine and serotonin (happy neurotransmitter) levels increase. Once one settles the signal of the other person's emotion, one feels more confident, more comfortable in his or her own skin. Then, finally, this comfort sparks that individuals ability to perceive a new signal and start all over. Philanthropy is a cycle of both cooperativeness and altruism— head vs. heart.
For more information on the biology of mirror neurons:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct05/mirror.aspx
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3898692/
For more information on the neuroscience of giving see:
https://mycourses.binghamton.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-451434-dt-content-rid-3301630_1/courses/ZU201820/A%20Path%20Appears%20The%20Neuroscience%20of%20Giving.pdf
Hi Andrea!
ReplyDeleteI must say that this is certainly an interesting blog post. Usually, I am not one for the ‘sciences’, but I found your post quite intriguing.
To answer the questions you brought up at the end of the end of your post: I would say that philanthropy is altruistic and cooperative - but more so altruistic. Even if the organization is cooperative, those partaking in it I would think have altruistic motives. I will use ‘heart versus head’ to try to explain my point.
In our heart versus head discussions and readings, some of us concluded that issue areas can be chosen with the heart, and charities operating in that area can be chosen with the head.The John Crimmins Foundation creators used their hearts to make the charity area, and their heads to decide which charities they would allocate donations to. Their hearts connected them to this issue, to help other people that faced similar situations, and was altruistic. As for Kiva, people may choose to use this organization to help others based on their head. The entrepreneurs they choose to help I suspect would be based on something their heart told them. So, while Kiva may be an example of cooperative philanthropy, the lenders (who essentially support Kiva’s operation and goals) are ultimately using altruism to make their final decision.