75 percent of college males: R. D. Clark and E. Hatfield, “Gender Differences in Receptivity to Sexual Offers,” Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality 2 (1989): 39–55.
they’ll often go down in flames of hatred and litigation: David G. Myers, The American Paradox (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), chap. 3.
estimates of adultery: “Adultery Survey Finds ‘I do’ Means ‘I do,’” New York Times, October 19, 1993. Although this reference is a bit old, it cites some of the best survey data on the question of rates of adultery.
recent studies of abstinence programs provided to middle-and high-school students: www.siecus.org/media/press/press0141.html.
In the depths of romantic love, we idealize our partners: Murray and Holmes, “Seeing Virtues in Faults: Negativity and the Transformation of Interpersonal Narratives in Close Relationships,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65 (1993): 707–23; “A Leap of Faith? Positive Illusions in Romantic Relationships,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23 (1997): 586–604; “The (Mental) Ties That Bind: Cognitive Structures That Predict Relationship Resilience,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 77 (1999): 1228–44. Murray et al., “What the Motivated Mind Sees: Comparing Friends’ Perspectives to Married Partners’ Views of Each Other,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 36 (2000): 600–620; Murray, Holmes, and D. W. Griffin, “The Benefits of Positive Illusions: Idealization and the Construction of Satisfaction in Close Relationships,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70 (1996): 79–98.
More dramatically, romantic love deactivates threat detection: H. E. Fisher, A. Aron, and L. L. Brown, “Romantic Love: A Mammalian Brain System for Mate Choice,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Biological Sciences, 361, no. 1476 (2006): 2173–86.
We can pin our hopes on oxytocin: For summaries of what is known about oxytocin, see K. U. Morberg, The Oxytocin Factor (Cambridge, MA: De Capo, 2003); S. E. Taylor et al., “Biobehavioral Responses to Stress in Females: Tend-and-Befriend, Not Fight-or-Flight,” Psychological Review 107 (2000): 411–29; Jaak Panksepp, Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).
This remarkable discovery emerged: C. S. Carter, “Neuroendocrine Perspectives on Social Attachment and Love,” Psychoneuroendocrinology 23, no. 8 (1998): 779–818; J. R. Williams et al., “Oxytocin Administered Centrally Facilitates Formation of a Partner Preference in Female Prairie Voles (Microtus Ochrogaster),” Journal of Neuroendocrinology 6 (1998): 247–50.
oxytocin increases after sexual behavior: M. S. H. Carmichael et al., “Plasma Oxytocin Increases in the Human Sexual Response,” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 64, no. 1 (1987): 27–31.
injections of oxytocin increase social contact and pro-social behavior: D. M. Witt, C. Carter, and C. Walton, “Central and Peripheral Effects of Oxytocin Administration,” Physiology and Behavior 37 (1990): 63–9; Witt, J. T. Winslow, and Thomas Insel, “Enhanced Social Interaction in Rats Following Chronic, Centrally Infused Oxytocin,” Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior 43 (1992): 855–61.
decrease threatening facial displays: S. D. Holman, and R. W. Goy, “Experiential and Hormonal Correlates of Care-giving in Rhesus Macaques,” in Motherhood in Human and Nonhuman Primates: Biosocial Determinants, ed. C. R. Pryce and R. D. Martin (Basel: Karger, 1995), 87–93.
Little domestic chicks: J. Panksepp, E. Nelson, and M. Bekkedal, “Bain Systems for the Mediation of Social Separation-Distress and Social-Reward: Evolutionary Antecedents and Neuropeptide Intermediaries,” in The Integrative Neurobiology of Affiliation, ed. C. S. Carter, I. I. Lederhendler, and B. Kirpatrick (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1997), 78–100.
the physiological underpinnings of love, devotion, and trust: For an accessible review of the literature on oxytocin, see K. U. Morberg, The Oxytocin Factor (Cambridge, MA: De Capo, 2003), 105–32.
In studies of lactating women: E. B. Keverne, “Psychopharmacology of Maternal Behavior,” Journal of Psychopharmacology 10 (1996): 16–22; C. S. Carter and M. Altemus, “Integrative Functions of Lactational Hormones in Social Behavior and Stress Management,” in Annals of The New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 807, ed. Carter and Lederhendler (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1997), 164–74.
Prepartum mothers who show higher baseline levels of oxytocin later showed increased attachment-related behavior: R. Feldman et al., “Evidence for a Neuroendocrinological Foundation of Human Affiliation: Plasma Oxytocin Levels Across Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period Predict Mother-Infant Bonding,” Psychological Science 18, no. 11 (2007): 965–70.
Gian Gonzaga and I undertook a Darwinian study of sexual desire and romantic love: Gonzaga et al., “Love and the Commitment Problem in Romantic Relations and Friendship.”
We next turned to a query of our chemical quarry, oxytocin: G. C. Gonzaga et al., “Romantic Love and Sexual Desire in Close Bonds,” Emotion 6 (2006): 163–79.
In her cultural history: Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (New York: Holt, 2006).
Zak proposes that oxytocin is a biological underpinning of trust: M. Kosfeld et al., “Oxytocin Increases Trust in Humans,” Nature 435 (2005): 673–76.
the love of humanity: B. Campos, M. A. Logli, and D. Keltner, “Love of Humanity,” unpublished manuscript.
the health of communities depends on trust and the love of humanity: Robert Sampson, “The Neighborhood Context of Well-Being,” Perspective in Biology and Medicine 46 (2003): S53-S64.
children prove to be much more resilient in the wake of their parents’ divorce when they feel a sense of connection: For several essays on more peaceful divorce, see Jason Marsh and Dacher Keltner, ed., “The 21st Century Family,” Greater Good 4, no. 2 (2007).
loving relations get more important, and love all the sweeter: L. L. Carstensen and S. T. Charles, “Emotion in the Second Half of Life,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 5 (1998): 144–49.
romantic love dips: Helen Fischer, Why We Love (New York: Owl, 2004).
I would ask them to read: Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History (New York: Viking, 2005).
to arrive at that magic ratio of five positive feelings for every toxic negative one that enables marriages: Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail.
It is a kelson of creation: Song of Myself, in Walt Whitman, The Portable Walt Whitman, ed. M. Van Doren (New York: Penguin, 1945), 36.
COMPASSION
historian Jonathan Glover documents many such “sympathy breakthroughs”: Jonathan Glover, Humanity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999).
As Charles Darwin developed his first account: Darwin, Descent.
Other influential thinkers in the Western canon: Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought. For Nussbaum’s comprehensive study of compassion in Western thought, see “Compassion: The Basic Social Emotion,” Social Philosophy and Policy 13 (1996): 27–58. For another assessment of Western thought’s approach to the emotions, see Oatley, Emotions: A Brief History.
“A feeling of sympathy is beautiful and amiable”: Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, trans. J. T. Goldthwait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960).
“If any civilization is to survive”: Ayn Rand, “Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World,” Philosophy: Who Needs It? (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1982).
“A transvaluation of values”: F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (New York: NuVision Publications, 2007), 73.
“Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good”: N. Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. G. Bull (New York: Penguin, 2003), chap. XV, 42.
In a series of controversial papers, physiological psychologist Steve Porges has made the case that the vagus nerve is the nerve of compassion: Stephen P. Porges, “Orienting in a Defensive World: Mammalian Modifications of our Evolutionary Heritage: A Polyvagal Theory,” Psychophysiolog
y 42 (1995): 301–17, and “Love: an Emergent Property of the Mammalian Autonomic Nervous System, Psychoendocrinology 23 (1998): 837–61.
people systematically sigh: June Gruber, Christopher Oveis, Jeffrey Newell, and Dacher Keltner, “Sighing and Compassion,” unpublished manuscript.
Historians of science have rated Charles Darwin as off-the-charts in terms of kindness and warmth: Frank J. Sulloway, Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives (New York: Pantheon, 1996).
amid the noisy, loving spectacle of his ten children: Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging.
James was the progenitor: James, “What Is an Emotion?”
Walter Cannon, a student of William James’s, was not so convinced by his advisor’s provocative armchair musings: W. B. Cannon, “The James–Lange Theory of Emotion: A Critical Examination and an Alternative Theory,” American Journal of Psychology 39 (1927): 106–24.
The blush, for example, peaks at about fifteen seconds: D. Shearn et al., “Facial Coloration and Temperature Responses in Blushing,” Psychophysiology 27 (1990): 687–93.
when people are asked to guess whether their heart rate has increased or decreased: J. W. Pennebaker and T. A. Roberts, “Toward a His and Hers Theory of Emotion: Gender Differences in Visceral Perception,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 11 (1992): 199–212.
One-day-old infants: G. G. Martin and R. D. I. Clark, “Distress Crying in Infants: Species and Peer Specificity,” Developmental Psychology 18 (1982): 3–9.
Many two-year-old children, upon seeing another cry: C. Zahn-Waxler, M. Radke-Yarrow, and R. A. King, “Child Rearing and Children’s Prosocial Initiations Towards Victims of Distress,” Child Development 50 (1979): 319–30; C. Zahn-Waxler et al., “Development of Concern for Others,” Developmental Psychology 28 (1992): 126–36.
Pictures of sad faces: P. J. Whalen et al., “Masked Presentations of Emotional Facial Expressions Modulate Amygdala Activity without Explicit Knowledge,” Journal of Neuroscience 18 (1998): 411–18.
So we asked first whether the exposure to harm would trigger activation in the vagus nerve: C. Oveis, E. J. Horberg, and D. Keltner, “Compassion and Pride as Moral Intuitions,” unpublished manuscript.
These measures yield an index called respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA): G. G. Berntson, J. T. Cacioppo, and K. S. Quigley, “Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia: Autonomic Origins, Physiological Mechanisms, and Psychophysiological Implications,” Psychophysiology 30 (1993): 183–96. Cacioppo et al., “The Psychophysiology of Emotion,” in Handbook of Emotions, 173–191.
In Singer’s words, evolution has “bequeath(ed) humans with a sense of empathy—an ability to treat other people’s interests”: Peter Singer, Expanding Circle (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1981).
Take Paul Rusesabagina’s remarkable heroism during the genocide of Rwanda: Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families (New York: Picador, 1998).
Within the social sciences, these courageous actions are readily attributed to selfish genes, to the desire to save kin, or to self-interest, pure and simple: Daniel Batson has taken the debate over altruism to a new level in his theoretical and empirical work. Rather than being misguided by either/or propositions (is there such a thing as altruism or not?), Batson proposes that most kind, pro-social behaviors are likely motivated by selfish and other-oriented motives. Perhaps more importantly, Batson has established a set of empirical guidelines for the documentation of more other-oriented, even selfless motives of altruistic behavior. C. D. Batson and L. L. Shaw, “Evidence for Altruism: Toward a Pluralism of Prosocial Motives,” Psychological Inquiry 2 (1991): 107–22. Alfie Kohn has made a very similar point about the reluctance for people immersed in Western thought to attribute benevolent intentions to others, even when explaining the most altruistic kinds of action. Kohn, The Brighter Side of Human Nature.
altruistic action is a defense mechanism by which we ward off deeper, unflattering, anxiety-producing revelations about the self: G. Valiant, “Natural History of Male Psychological Health—V: The Relation of Choice of Ego Mechanisms of Defense to Adult Adjustment, Archives of General Psychiatry 42 (1976): 597–601.
In an essay on the sublime and the beautiful: Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime, 58.
To set the stage for his empirical studies: Batson and Shaw, “Evidence for Altruism.” Nancy Eisenberg et al., “Relation of Sympathy and Distress to Prosocial Behavior.”
In a first study: Batson et al., “Self-Reported Distress and Empathy and Egoistic versus Altruistic Motivation for Helping,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45 (1983): 706–18.
This age-old question motivated Batson’s next study: J. Fultz et al., “Social Evaluation and the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50 (1983): 761–69.
just this kind of data: Nancy Eisenberg et al., “Relation of Sympathy and Personal Distress to Prosocial Behavior,” and “Differentiation of Personal Distress and Sympathy in Children and Adults,” Developmental Psychology 24 (1988): 766–75.
Our tendencies to experience specific emotions: Carol Z. Malatesta, “The Role of Emotions in the Development and Organization of Personality,” in Socioemotional Development: Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, ed. Ross A. Thompson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 1–56.
the longitudinal studies of Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan: J. Kagan, J. S. Reznick, and N. Snidman, “Biological Bases of Childhood Shyness,” Science 240 (1988): 167–71; C. E. Schwartz et al., “Inhibited and Uninhibited Infants ‘Grown Up’: Adult Amygdalar Response to Novelty,” Science 300 (2003): 1952–53.
Avshalom Caspi studied the adult lives of shy individuals: A. Caspi, G. Elder, and D. J. Bem, “Moving Away from the World: Life-Course Patterns of Shy Children,” Developmental Psychology 24 (1988): 824–31.
In one study, Chris Oveis and I: C. Oveis et al., “Vagal Tone as a Biological Marker of Social Connection,” unpublished manuscript.
Nancy Eisenberg has found that: N. Eisenberg et al., “The Relations of Children’s Dispositional Empathy-Related Responding to their Emotionality, Regulation, and Social Functioning,” Developmental Psychology 32 (1996): 195–209, and “The Role of Emotionality and Regulation in Children’s Social Functioning: A Longitudinal Study,” Child Development 66 (1995): 1360–84.
College students with higher resting vagal tone: Eisenberg et al., “The Relations of Emotionality and Regulation to Dispositional and Situational Empathy-Related Responding,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 66 (1994): 776–97.
Following the loss of a married partner: M. F. O’Connor, J. J. B. Allen, and A. W. Waszniak, “Emotional Disclosure for Whom? A Study of Vagal Tone in Bereavement,” Biological Psychology 68 (2005): 135–46.
And on the other end of the continuum: T. Beauchaine, “Vagal Tone, Development, and Gray’s Motivational Theory: Toward an Integrated Model of Autonomic Nervous System Functioning in Psychopathology,” Development and Psychopathology 13 (2001): 183–214.
an inspiration to James: In several places James expresses admiration for the open-spirited character of Walt Whitman. W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, (New York: Collier, 1902/1961), 88–89.
The vulnerability of our offspring: Hrdy, Mother Nature.
an instinct to care: Taylor, The Tending Instinct.
When parents look at pictures of their new babies: J. B. Nitschke et al., “Orbitofrontal Cortex Tracks Positive Mood in Mothers Viewing Pictures of Their Newborn Infants,” Neuroimage 21, no. 2 (2004): 583–92.
the evocative power of the baby: Diane Berry and Leslie Zebrowtiz-McArthur have done terrific work on “neotony,” or baby-faced appearance, which relates to all kinds of trustworthy perceptions and forgiving behaviors in others. D. Berry, and L. Z. McArthur, “Perceiving Character in Faces: The Impact of Age-Related Craniofacial Changes on Social Perception,” Psychological Bulletin 100 (1986): 3–18.<
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the victory goes to the kind: Miller, The Mating Mind, chap. 9.
the largest study of mate preferences ever undertaken: D. M. Buss, “Sex Differences in Human Mate Preference: Evolutionary Hypothesis Tested in 37 Cultures,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (1989): 1–49.
Darwin long ago surmised: Darwin, Descent, 130.
groups fare better when comprised of kind individuals: In support of this claim we have found that groups tend to select outgoing individuals who advance the interests of other group members as leaders. Group members also systematically identify unkind, Machiavellian types in gossip, to keep track of who poses threats to the interests of other group members. D. Keltner et al., “A Reciprocal Influence Model of Social Power: Emerging Principles and Lines of Inquiry,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 40, ed. M. Zanna (New York: Academic Press, 2008), 151–92.
In a study that explored this reasoning: C. Oveis et al., “Vagal Tone, Trust, and Generosity,” unpublished manuscript.
what unites the ethics of the world’s religions: Armstrong, The Great Transformation, chap. 7.
evolutionists would converge on a similar answer: Robert Trivers, Robert Frank, and Elliot Sober and David Sloan-Wilson have all argued how moral emotions like gratitude, compassion, and love bind individuals into cooperative bonds. Trivers, “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism,” Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1971): 35–57. See also Frank, Passions Within Reason; E. Sober and D. S. Wilson, Unto Others.
“My pedagogy is hard”: Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: The Roots of Violence in Child-Rearing, trans. Hildegarde Hannum and Hunter Hannum (London: Virago, 1987).
When Richie and Jon Kabat-Zinn and colleagues: R. J. Davidson et al., “Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation,” Psychosomatic Medicine 65 (2003): 564–70.
the kinds of environments that cultivate compassion: Nancy Eisenberg has written an excellent summary of the kinds of environmental factors that cultivate compassion. N. Eisenberg, “Empathy-Related Emotional Responses, Altruism, and their Socialization,” in Visions of Compassion, 131–64.
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