Abigail Marsh is an associate professor of psychology at Georgetown University, where she directs the Laboratory on Social and Affective Neuroscience. She received her PhD in social psychology from Harvard University. Her work has been covered on NPR and in the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Slate, Huffington Post, and New York Magazine; she also writes a blog for Psychology Today and presented her research on altruism in a 2016 TED Talk. Her lab’s work on extraordinary altruism was awarded the Cozzarelli Prize by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She lives in Washington, DC.
http://www.abigailmarsh.com
Photography by Phoebe Taubman
NOTES
Prologue
the French entomologist Antoine: Antoine Magnan, Le Vol des insectes (Paris: Hermann, 1934).
“I applied the laws of air resistance”: Antoine Magnan, La Locomotion Chez les Animaux, vol. 1 (Paris: Hermann, 1934).
Insects, bees included: Douglas L. Altshuler, William B. Dickson, Jason T. Vance, Stephen P. Roberts, and Michael H. Dickinson, “Short-Amplitude High-Frequency Wing Strokes Determine the Aerodynamics of Honeybee Flight,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 102, no. 50 (2005): 18213–18218.
But as Charles Darwin: Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (London: John Murray Publishers, 1871).
some altruism toward kin: W. D. Hamilton, “The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour: I,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 7, no. 1 (1964): 1–16; W. D. Hamilton, “The Genetical Evolution of Social Behaviour: II,” Journal of Theoretical Biology 7, no. 1 (1964): 17–52.
It explains why colony-dwelling creatures: Paul W. Sherman, “Nepotism and the Evolution of Alarm Calls,” Science 197, no. 4310 (1977): 1246–1253.
Inclusive fitness may also explain: Arthur J. Matas, Jodi M. Smith, Melissa A. Skeans, Kenneth E. Lamb, S. K. Gustafson, Ciara J. Samana, Darren E. Stewart, Jon J. Snyder, Ajay K. Israni, and Bertram L. Kasiske, “OPTN/SRTR 2011 Annual Data Report: Kidney,” American Journal of Transplantation 13, suppl. 1 (2013): 11–46.
reciprocal altruism, which relies: Robert L. Trivers, “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism,” Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1971): 35–57.
Bats are more likely to receive blood buffets: Gerald G. Carter and Gerald S. Wilkinson, “Food Sharing in Vampire Bats: Reciprocal Help Predicts Donations More Than Relatedness or Harassment,” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280, no. 1753 (2013): 20122573.
Some declare all altruism an illusion: Robert B. Cialdini, Stephanie L. Brown, Brian P. Lewis, Carol Luce, et al., “Reinterpreting the Empathy-Altruism Relationship: When One into One Equals Oneness.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 73, no. 3 (1997): 481–494.
Others cite supernatural forces: Antonia J. Z. Henderson, Monica A. Landolt, Michael F. McDonald, William M. Barrable, John G. Soos, William Gourlay, Colleen J. Allison, and David N. Landsberg, “The Living Anonymous Kidney Donor: Lunatic or Saint?” American Journal of Transplantation 3, no. 2 (2003): 203–213.
Chapter 1: The Rescue
The subjects in these studies: Alston Chase, “Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber,” The Atlantic, June 2000.
they called “moral typecasting”: Kurt Gray and Daniel M. Wegner, “Moral Typecasting: Divergent Perceptions of Moral Agents and Moral Patients,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96, no. 3 (2009): 505–520.
recognized as far back as Aristotle: Cynthia A. Freeland, “Aristotelian Actions,” Noûs 19, no. 3 (1985): 397–414.
Social media exploded with admiration: “Cory Booker Hashtag Explodes on Twitter After Mayor’s Dramatic Fire Rescue,” NJ.com, April 13, 2012, http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/04/cory_booker_hashtag_explodes_o.html; Stephanie Haberman, “Super-Mayor Cory Booker Gets Memed,” CNN.com, April 13, 2012, http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/13/tech/web/mayor-cory-booker-memed/.
Booker was blunt: “Mayor Cory Booker Answers Questions About Fire Rescue,” uploaded April 13, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm1SKTyVZf8; “Newark Mayor Cory Booker: Race into Home Fire Was “a Come to Jesus Moment,” CBS News, April 13, 2012, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/newark-mayor-cory-booker-race-into-home-fire-was-a-come-to-jesus-moment/; Alyssa Newcomb, “Newark Mayor Cory Booker Rescues Neighbor from Fire,” ABC News, April 13, 2012, http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/04/newark-mayor-cory-booker-rescues-neighbor-from-fire/; James Barron, “After Rescuing Woman from Fire, a Mayor Recalls His Fear and Focus,” New York Times, April 13, 2012.
Chapter 2: Heroes and Antiheroes
he’d landed on his head: “Ex-Stanford Wrestler Surmon Dies in Fall,” Washington Post, January 3, 2000.
More than one serial killer: “Suspected or Convicted Serial Killers in Washington,” Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 19, 2003; “Adhahn Pleads Guilty to Murder of Tacoma Girl, 12,” Seattle Times, April 8, 2008.
John Keats was correct in observing: John Keats, letter to George and Georgiana Keats, February 14–May 3, 1819, http://www.john-keats.com/briefe/140219.htm.
the infamous case of Kitty Genovese: Rachel Manning, Mark Levine, and Alan Collins, “The Kitty Genovese Murder and the Social Psychology of Helping: The Parable of the 38 Witnesses,” American Psychologist 62, no. 6 (2007): 555–562.
follow-up psychology studies: John M. Darley and Bibb Latané, “Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8, no. 4 (1968): 377–383.
Zimbardo’s infamous Stanford Prison Experiment: Craig Haney, Curtis Banks, and Philip Zimbardo, “Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison,” International Journal of Criminology and Penology 1 (1973): 69–97.
Stanley Milgram’s research was so controversial: Daniel Raver, “Stanley Milgram,” Psyography, http://faculty.frostburg.edu/mbradley/psyography/stanleymilgram.html.
most influential psychologists of the last century: Ibid.
“six degrees of separation” is a real thing: Jeffrey Travers and Stanley Milgram, “An Experimental Study of the Small World Problem,” Sociometry (1969): 425–443.
the most notorious use ever of electric shocks: For original documentation of the studies, see Stanley Milgram, “Behavioral Study of Obedience,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 67 (1963): 371–378; Stanley Milgram, “Obedience” (film) (New York: New York University Film Library, 1965).
he anxiously monitored the local obituaries: Sandi Kahn Shelton, “Clinton Man Hears Dad’s Taped Screams in 1960s Shock Study at Yale” (video), New Haven Register, October 20, 2012.
“There is a need to draw a line”: Isabel Kershner, “Pardon Plea by Adolf Eichmann, Nazi War Criminal, Is Made Public,” New York Times, January 27, 2016.
more recent evidence has suggested: S. Alexander Haslam and Stephen D. Reicher, “Contesting the ‘Nature’ of Conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo’s Studies Really Show,” PLoS Biology 10, no. 11 (2012): e1001426.
“I would say, on the basis”: Gina Perry, Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psychology Experiments (New York: New Press, 2013).
Versions of the study have been run: Thomas Blass, “The Milgram Paradigm After 35 Years: Some Things We Now Know About Obedience to Authority,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 29, no. 5 (1999): 955–978; Thomas Blass, “A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Studies of Obedience Using the Milgram Paradigm: A Review,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass 6, no. 2 (2012): 196–205; Jerry M. Burger, “Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?” American Psychologist 64, no. 1 (2009): 1–11.
the volunteers’ responses weren’t uniform: Haslam and Reicher, “Contesting the ‘Nature’ of Conformity.”
Batson’s study used electrical shocks: C. Daniel Batson, Bruce D. Duncan, Paula Ackerman, Terese Buckley, and Kimberly Birch, “Is Empathic Emotion a Source of Altruistic Motivation?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40, no. 2 (1981): 290–302.
a discipline that has historically focu
sed: Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross, The Person and the Situation: Perspectives of Social Psychology (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991). For a historical discussion of this perspective, see Harry T. Reis, “Reinvigorating the Concept of Situation in Social Psychology,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 12, no. 4 (2008): 311–329.
So another possibility—one of many: Catherine Tuvblad and Laura A. Baker, “Human Aggression Across the Lifespan: Genetic Propensities and Environmental Moderators,” Advances in Genetics 75 (2011): 171–214.
Many of these studies aren’t designed: For a review, see Robert Plomin, “Genetics and Developmental Psychology,” Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 50, no. 3 (2004): 341–352. For one example of a study that examines the genetic influences of an effect that is often described as purely environmental—the influence of parents’ language use on children’s language development—see Laura S. DeThorne, Stephen A. Petrill, Sara A. Hart, Ron W. Channell, Rebecca J. Campbell, Kirby Deater-Deckard, Lee Anne Thompson, and David J. Vandenbergh, “Genetic Effects on Children’s Conversational Language Use,” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 51, no. 2 (2008): 423–435.
A study like this provides compelling evidence: Thomas J. Bouchard Jr., David T. Lykken, Matthew McGue, Nancy L. Segal, and Auke Tellegen, “Sources of Human Psychological Differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart,” Science 250, no. 4978 (1990): 223–228; Robert Plomin, Michael J. Owen, and Peter McGuffin, “The Genetic Basis of Complex Human Behaviors,” Science 264, no. 5166 (1994): 1733–1739. Some aspects of genetic contributions to human traits remain topics of debate; for a discussion, see Eric Turkheimer, “Three Laws of Behavior Genetics and What They Mean,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 9, no. 5 (2000): 160–164.
This is how researchers could determine: Turi E. King, Gloria Gonzalez Fortes, Patricia Balaresque, Mark G. Thomas, David Balding, Pierpaolo Maisano Delser, Rita Neumann, Walther Parson, Michael Knapp, and Susan Walsh, “Identification of the Remains of King Richard III,” Nature Communications 5 (2014): 5631.
A caveat is that the heritability: For a review of heritability and misconceptions about it, see Peter M. Visscher, William G. Hill, and Naomi R. Wray, “Heritability in the Genomics Era: Concepts and Misconceptions,” Nature Reviews Genetics 9, no. 4 (2008): 255–266. For important findings relevant to gene-environment interactions, see Eric Turkheimer, Andreana Haley, Mary Waldron, Brian D’Onofrio, and Irving I. Gottesman, “Socioeconomic Status Modifies Heritability of IQ in Young Children,” Psychological Science 14, no. 6 (2003): 623–628; Elliot M. Tucker-Drob and Timothy C. Bates, “Large Cross-National Differences in Gene × Socioeconomic Status Interaction on Intelligence,” Psychological Science 27, no. 2 (2015): 138–149. For an examination of how genetic and environmental processes shape human height variation, see Gert Stulp and Louise Barrett, “Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Height Variation,” Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 91, no. 1 (2016): 206–234.
For body weight, heritability hovers: Hermine H. M. Maes, Michael C. Neale, and Lindon J. Eaves, “Genetic and Environmental Factors in Relative Body Weight and Human Adiposity,” Behavior Genetics 27, no. 4 (1997): 325–351.
the famed behavioral geneticist Eric Turkheimer: Turkheimer, “Three Laws of Behavior Genetics.”
A massive study reported in the journal: Tinca J. C. Polderman, Beben Benyamin, Christiaan A. de Leeuw, Patrick F. Sullivan, Arjen van Bochoven, Peter M. Visscher, and Danielle Posthuma, “Meta-Analysis of the Heritability of Human Traits Based on Fifty Years of Twin Studies,” Nature Genetics 47, no. 7 (2015): 702–709.
In Milgram’s era, most psychologists: Plomin, “Genetics and Developmental Psychology.” For an in-depth review of this topic, see the outstanding book by Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Penguin, 2003).
The behaviorists’ views were very influential: Steven J. Haggbloom, Renee Warnick, Jason E. Warnick, Vinessa K. Jones, Gary L. Yarbrough, Tenea M. Russell, Chris M. Borecky, Reagan McGahhey, John L. Powell III, and Jamie Beavers, “The 100 Most Eminent Psychologists of the 20th Century,” Review of General Psychology 6, no. 2 (2002): 139.
“What is love except”: Burrhus Frederic Skinner, Walden Two (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1974) 282.
if we could perfectly control: Burrhus Frederic Skinner, Science and Human Behavior (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1953).
The heritability of aggression is: Tuvblad and Baker, “Human Aggression Across the Lifespan”; Marina A. Bornovalova, Brian M. Hicks, William G. Iacono, and Matt McGue, “Familial Transmission and Heritability of Childhood Disruptive Disorders,” American Journal of Psychiatry 167, no. 9 (2010): 1066–1074; S. Alexandra Burt, “Are There Meaningful Etiological Differences Within Antisocial Behavior? Results of a Meta-Analysis,” Clinical Psychology Review 29 (2009): 163–178; Laura A. Baker, Adrian Raine, Jianghong Liu, and Kristen C. Jacobson, “Differential Genetic and Environmental Influences on Reactive and Proactive Aggression in Children,” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 36, no. 8 (2008): 1265–1278; Dehryl A. Mason and Paul J. Frick, “The Heritability of Antisocial Behavior: A Meta-Analysis of Twin and Adoption Studies,” Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment 16, no. 4 (1994): 301–323.
but among violent criminals: Robert D. Hare, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (New York: Guilford, 1993).
Psychopathy is also highly influenced: Catherine Tuvblad, Serena Bezdjian, Adrian Raine, and Laura A. Baker, “The Heritability of Psychopathic Personality in 14-to 15-Year-Old Twins: A Multirater, Multimeasure Approach,” Psychological Assessment 26 (2014): 704–716; Essi Viding, Robert James R. Blair, Terrie E. Moffitt, and Robert Plomin, “Evidence for Substantial Genetic Risk for Psychopathy in 7-Year-Olds,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 46, no. 6 (2005): 592–597.
Not so for Gary, who grew up: Ann Rule, Green River, Running Red: The Real Story of the Green River Killer—America’s Deadliest Serial Murderer (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004); Terry McCarthy, “River of Death,” Time 159, no. 22 (2002): 56–61; Mary Ellen O’Toole and Alisa Bowman, Dangerous Instincts: How Gut Feelings Betray Us (New York: Hudson Street Press, 2011).
Tony Savage emphasized this: “Inside the Mind of Serial Killer Gary Ridgway,” Larry King Live, CNN, February 18, 2004, http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0402/18/lkl.00.html.
Most people who are psychotic: Sherry Glied and Richard G. Frank, “Mental Illness and Violence: Lessons from the Evidence,” American Journal of Public Health 104, no. 2 (2014): e5–e6.
Children who are abused or neglected: David D. Vachon, Robert F. Krueger, Fred A. Rogosch, and Dante Cicchetti, “Assessment of the Harmful Psychiatric and Behavioral Effects of Different Forms of Child Maltreatment,” JAMA Psychiatry (2015): 1135–1142; Gayla Margolin and Elana B. Gordis, “The Effects of Family and Community Violence on Children,” Annual Review of Psychology 51 (2000): 445–479.
what really sets them apart is proactive aggression: Robert James R. Blair, “Neurocognitive Models of Aggression, the Antisocial Personality Disorders, and Psychopathy,” Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 71, no. 6 (2001): 727–731.
It’s not like people haven’t looked: K. A. Dodge, John E. Lochman, Jennifer D. Harnish, John E. Bates, and G. S. Pettit, “Reactive and Proactive Aggression in School Children and Psychiatrically Impaired Chronically Assaultive Youth,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 106, no. 1 (1997): 37; Julian D. Ford, Lisa A. Fraleigh, and Daniel F. Connor, “Child Abuse and Aggression Among Seriously Emotionally Disturbed Children,” Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology 39, no. 1 (2010): 25–34.
one large study conducted by Adrian Raine: Catherine Tuvblad, Adrian Raine, Mo Zheng, and Laura A. Baker, “Genetic and Environmental Stability Differs in Reactive and Proactive Aggression,” Aggressive Behavior 35, no. 6 (2009): 437–452.
one of my dissertation studies: Abigail A. Marsh, Megan N. Kozak, and Nalini Ambady, “A
ccurate Identification of Fear Facial Expressions Predicts Prosocial Behavior,” Emotion 7, no. 1 (2007): 239–251; Jay S. Coke, C. Daniel Batson, and Katherine McDavis, “Empathic Mediation of Helping: A Two-Stage Model,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 (1978): 752–766.
one of the “most unintuitive” psychology findings: Simon A. Moss and Samuel Wilson, “Integrating the Most Unintuitive Empirical Observations of 2007 in the Domain of Personality and Social Psychology into a Unified Framework,” New Ideas in Psychology 28, no. 1 (2010): 1–27.
Subsequent research has also linked: Abigail A. Marsh and R. J. Blair, “Deficits in Facial Affect Recognition Among Antisocial Populations: A Meta-Analysis,” Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 32 (2008): 454–465; Purva Rajhans, Nicole Altvater-Mackensen, Amrisha Vaish, and Tobias Grossmann, “Children’s Altruistic Behavior in Context: The Role of Emotional Responsiveness and Culture,” Scientific Reports 6 (2016): 24089; Abigail A. Marsh, Sarah A. Stoycos, Kristin M. Brethel-Haurwitz, Paul Robinson, and Elise M. Cardinale, “Neural and Cognitive Characteristics of Extraordinary Altruists,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 42 (2014): 15036–15041; Stuart F. White, Margaret J. Briggs-Gowan, Joel L. Voss, Amelie Petitclerc, Kimberly McCarthy, R. J. R. Blair, and Laurie S. Wakschlag, “Can the Fear Recognition Deficits Associated with Callous-Unemotional Traits Be Identified in Early Childhood?” Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 38, no. 6 (2016): 672–684.
The Fear Factor Page 29
