The Fear Factor

by Abigail Marsh

  The 2016 World Giving Index estimates: Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), “CAF World Giving Index 2016,” https://www.cafonline.org/about-us/publications/2016-publications/world-giving-index-2016.

  The amount of money that Americans give: Charity Navigator, “Giving Statistics,” http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&cpid=42#.VxVGaZMrIkg.

  one of Daniel Batson’s studies of altruism: C. Daniel Batson, Bruce D. Duncan, Paul 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.

  Two forces that biologists: Abigail A. Marsh, “Neural, Cognitive, and Evolutionary Foundations of Human Altruism,” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 7, no. 1 (2016): 59–71.

  one frigid January afternoon in 1982: Sue Anne Pressley Montes, “In a Moment of Horror, Rousing Acts of Courage,” Washington Post, January 13, 2007; Blaine Harden, “Instant Hero,” Washington Post, January 15, 1982; “Hero of Plane Crash Had Little Experience in the Hero Business,” Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Service, January 16, 1982.

  the moral equivalent of saving a drowning stranger: D. Z. Levine, “When a Stranger Offers a Kidney: Ethical Issues in Living Organ Donation,” American Journal of Kidney Disease 32, no. 4 (1998): 676–691.

  Before the 1990s, donating a kidney: Reginald Y. Gohh, Paul E. Morrissey, Peter N. Madras, and Anthony P. Monaco, “Controversies in Organ Donation: The Altruistic Living Donor,” Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation 16, no. 3 (2001): 619–621, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/16.3.619.

  These issues are rare, thankfully: Anders Hartmann, Per Fauchald, Lars Westlie, Inge B. Brekke, and Hallvard Holdaas, “The Risks of Living Kidney Donation,” Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation 18, no. 5 (2003): 871–873, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ndt/gfg069.

  The odds of dying after tumbling out of a plane: Jeremy Hus, “The Truth About Skydiving Risks,” March 26, 2009, LiveScience, http://www.livescience.com/5350-truth-skydiving-risks.html.

  if people who start out with above-average health: Geir Mjøen, Stein Hallan, Anders Hartmann, Aksel Foss, Karsten Midtvedt, Ole Øyen, Anna Reisæter, Per Pfeffer, Trond Jenssen, Torbjørn Leivestad, Pål-Dag Line, Magnus Øvrehus, Dag Olav Dale, Hege Pihlstrøm, Ingar Holme, Friedo W. Dekker, and Hallvard Holdaas, “Long-Term Risks for Kidney Donors,” Kidney International 86, no. 1 (2014): 162–167.

  “the first time in the history of medicine”: Francis D. Moore, “New Problems for Surgery,” Science 144, no. 3617 (1964): 388–392, DOI: 10.1126/science.144.3617.388.

  “have the Self primarily for their object”: The misperception of human nature as uniform, and the problems this causes when it comes to transplantation decisions, was reinforced by David Levine, who wrote: “Despite the wide range of individual values, transplant centers often act as if there is a value consensus.” Levine, “When a Stranger Offers a Kidney,” 683.

  Graef was not the first person: H. Harrison Sadler, Leslie Davison, Charles Carroll, and Samuel L. Kountz, “The Living, Genetically Unrelated, Kidney Donor,” Seminars in Psychiatry 3, no. 1 (1971): 86–101; Levine, “When a Stranger Offers a Kidney.”

  This requirement, by the way: Levine, “When a Stranger Offers a Kidney.”

  So in early 2000, Dr. Gohh wrote up: Gohh et al., “Controversies in Organ Donation.”

  Nearly all transplant centers will now consent: Sadler et al., “The Living, Genetically Unrelated, Kidney Donor”; Aaron Spital, “Evolution of Attitudes at US Transplant Centers Toward Kidney Donation by Friends and Altruistic Strangers,” Transplantation 69, no. 8 (2000): 1728–1731.

  In 2009, I read “The Kindest Cut”: Larissa MacFarquhar, “The Kindest Cut,” The New Yorker, July 27, 2009.

  My colleague David Rand: David G. Rand and Ziv G. Epstein, “Risking Your Life Without a Second Thought: Intuitive Decision-Making and Extreme Altruism,” PLoS One 9, no. 10 (2014): e109687.

  Altruistic kidney donors like Graef: Sadler et al., “The Living, Genetically Unrelated, Kidney Donor”; Lynn Stothers, William A. Gourlay, and Li Liu, “Attitudes and Predictive Factors for Live Kidney Donation: A Comparison of Live Kidney Donors Versus Nondonors,” Kidney International 67, no. 3 (2005): 1105–1111. See also the TEDx Talk by altruistic kidney donor Ned Brooks, “What Makes a Person Decide to Donate His Kidney to a Stranger?” uploaded March 8, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhht9kslq04. The unhesitating speed with which altruistic donors often make their decision is one source of the qualms of bioethicists regarding these donations, many of whom believe that truly informed consent must follow a period of careful deliberation (Levine, “When a Stranger Offers a Kidney”).

  Chapter 5: What Makes an Altruist?

  Although most people believe that they are good: Aldert Vrij, Par Anders Granhag, and Stephen Porter, “Pitfalls and Opportunities in Nonverbal and Verbal Lie Detection,” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 11, no. 3 (2010): 89–121.

  Clues about others’ emotions: Wen Zhou and Denise Chen, “Fear-Related Chemosignals Modulate Recognition of Fear in Ambiguous Facial Expressions,” Psychological Science 20, no. 2 (2009): 177–183; Lilianne R. Mujica-Parodi, Helmut H. Strey, Blaise de B. Frederick, R. L. Savoy, David Cox, Yevgeny Botanov, Denis Tolkunov, Denis Rubin, and Jochen Weber, “Chemosensory Cues to Conspecific Emotional Stress Activate Amygdala in Humans,” PLoS One 4, no. 7 (2009): e6415.

  In 1978, Ekman and Friesen created: Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen, Pictures of Facial Affect (Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists, 1976).

  Ekman and Friesen determined that for a face: Paul Ekman, Wallace V. Friesen, and Joseph C. Hager, Facial Action Coding System: A Technique for the Measurement of Facial Movement” (Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists, 1978).

  Human eyes are ideally designed: Hiromi Kobayashi and Shiro Kohshima, “Unique Morphology of the Human Eye,” Nature 387 (1997): 767–768.

  Ekman has observed that the expressive muscles: David Matsumoto and Paul Ekman, “Facial Expression Analysis,” Scholarpedia 3, no. 5 (2008): 4237, http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Facial_expression_analysis.

  Our speed has slowed but is still blisteringly fast: Jitendra Malik, “Human Visual System” (lecture), University of California at Berkeley, January 27, 2004, https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~malik/cs294/lecture2-RW.pdf.

  Findings presented in a 2016 article: Constantino Méndez-Bértolo, Stephan Moratti, Rafael Toledano, Fernando Lopez-Sosa, Roberto Martínez-Alvarez, Yee H. Mah, Patrik Vuilleumier, Antonio Gil-Nagel, and Bryan A. Strange, “A Fast Pathway for Fear in Human Amygdala,” Nature Neuroscience 19, no. 8 (2016): 1041–1049, DOI: 10.1038/nn.4324.

  They found that the amygdala: Paul J. Whalen, Jerome Kagan, Robert G. Cook, F. Caroline Davis, Hackjin Kim, Sara Polis, Donald G. McLaren, Leah H. Somerville, Ashly A. McLean, Jeffrey S. Maxwell, and Tom Johnstone, “Human Amygdala Responsivity to Masked Fearful Eye Whites,” Science 306, no. 5704 (2004): 2061.

  Birds can recognize the alarm calls: Hugo J. Rainey, Klaus Zuberbühler, and Peter J. Slater, “Hornbills Can Distinguish Between Primate Alarm Calls,” Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences 271, no. 1540 (2004): 755–759.

  Many have argued or assumed: Marsh, “Understanding Amygdala Responsiveness to Fearful Expressions.”

  the fearlike facial expressions of other primates: A. Parr and Bridget M. Waller, “Understanding Chimpanzee Facial Expression: Insights into the Evolution of Communication,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 1, no. 3 (2006): 221–228, DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsl031.

  Angry faces actually generate even less: This is true in both humans and monkeys; see Fusar-Poli et al., “Functional Atlas of Emotional Faces Processing”; Ning Liu, Fadila Hadj-Bouziane, Katherine B. Jones, Janita N. Turchi, Bruno B. Averbeck, and Leslie G. Ungerleider, “Oxytocin Modulates fMRI Responses to Facial Expression in Macaques,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112,
no. 24 (2015): E3123–E3130.

  It’s this simulation that causes faint whispers: Yvonne Rothemund, Silvio Ziegler, Christiane Hermann, Sabine M. Gruesser, Jens Foell, Christopher J. Patrick, and Herta Flor, “Fear Conditioning in Psychopaths: Event-Related Potentials and Peripheral Measures,” Biological Psychology 90 (2012): 50–59; Antoine Bechara, Hanna Damasio, Antonio R. Damasio, and Gregory P. Lee, “Different Contributions of the Human Amygdala and Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex to Decision-Making,” Journal of Neuroscience 19, no. 13 (1999): 5473–5481.

  The uncanny overlap in the regions: Claus Lamm, Jean Decety, and Tania Singer, “Meta-Analytic Evidence for Common and Distinct Neural Networks Associated with Directly Experienced Pain and Empathy for Pain,” Neuroimage 54, no. 3 (2011): 2492–2502. Perhaps the most compelling evidence for the insula response to others’ pain representing an empathic phenomenon comes from a study that found that participants who were given a placebo experienced both reductions in pain and reduced insula responses to others’ pain—and that both of these effects could be eliminated by administering a drug called naltrexone, which blocks brain receptors to opioids, the neurotransmitters involved in pain responding; see Markus Rütgen, Eva-Maria Seidel, Giorgia Silani, Igor Riečanský, Allan Hummer, Christian Windischberger, Predrag Petrovic, and Claus Lamm, “Placebo Analgesia and Its Opioidergic Regulation Suggest That Empathy for Pain Is Grounded in Self Pain,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2015): E5638–E5646.

  a clever brain imaging study: Grit Hein, Giorgia Silani, Kerstin Preuschoff, C. Daniel Batson, and Tania Singer, “Neural Responses to Ingroup and Outgroup Members’ Suffering Predict Individual Differences in Costly Helping,” Neuron 68, no. 1 (2010): 149–160.

  One recent study investigating the acoustic properties: Luc H. Arnal, Adeen Flinker, Andreas Kleinschmidt, Anne-Lise Giraud, and David Poeppel, “Human Screams Occupy a Privileged Niche in the Communication Soundscape,” Current Biology 25, no. 15 (2015): 2051–2056.

  Studies of patients with amygdala lesions: Reiner Sprengelmeyer, Andrew W. Young, Ulrike Schroeder, Peter G. Grossenbacher, Jens Federlein, Thomas Buttner, and Horst Przuntek, “Knowing No Fear,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 266, no. 1437 (1999): 2451–2456; Nathalie Gosselin, Isabelle Peretz, Erica Johnsen, and Ralph Adolphs, “Amygdala Damage Impairs Emotion Recognition from Music,” Neuropsychologia 45, no. 2 (2007): 236–244.

  the amygdala is also important for identifying behaviors: Abigail A. Marsh and Elise M. Cardinale, “Psychopathy and Fear: Specific Impairments in Judging Behaviors That Frighten Others,” Emotion 12, no. 5 (2012): 892–898; Abigail A. Marsh and Elise M. Cardinale, “When Psychopathy Impairs Moral Judgments: Neural Responses During Judgments About Causing Fear,” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 9 (2014): 3–11.

  one study of adult psychopaths: Patricia L. Lockwood, Catherine L. Sebastian, Eamon J. McCrory, Zoe H. Hyde, Xiaosi Gu, Stéphane A. De Brito, and Essi Viding, “Association of Callous Traits with Reduced Neural Response to Others’ Pain in Children with Conduct Problems,” Current Biology 23, no. 10 (2013): 901–905; Abigail A. Marsh, Elizabeth C. Finger, Katherine A. Fowler, Christopher J. Adalio, Ilana T. N. Jurkowitz, Julia C. Schechter, Daniel S. Pine, Jean Decety, and Robert James R. Blair, “Empathic Responsiveness in Amygdala and Anterior Cingulate Cortex in Youths with Psychopathic Traits,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 54, no. 8 (2013): 900–910; Jean Decety, Laurie R. Skelly, and Kent A. Kiehl, “Brain Response to Empathy-Eliciting Scenarios Involving Pain in Incarcerated Individuals with Psychopathy,” JAMA Psychiatry 70, no. 6 (2013): 638–645.

  Belay recalled that her doctor: “1-800-Give-Us-Your-Kidney,” Conscious Good, 2016, https://www.consciousgood.com/1-800-give-us-your-kidney/.

  Half a cubic centimeter or so of flesh: Abigail A. Marsh, Sarah A. Stoycos, Kristin M. Brethel-Haurwitz, Paul Robinson, John W. VanMeter, and Elise M. Cardinale, “Neural and Cognitive Characteristics of Extraordinary Altruists,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111, no. 42 (2014): 15036–15041.

  they show heightened amygdala responses: Murray B. Stein, Alan N. Simmons, Justin S. Feinstein, B. S. Martin P. Paulus, “Increased Amygdala and Insula Activation During Emotion Processing in Anxiety-Prone Subjects,” American Journal of Psychiatry 164, no. 2 (2007): 318–327; K. Luan Phan, Daniel A. Fitzgerald, Pradeep J. Nathan, and Manuel E. Tancer, “Association Between Amygdala Hyperactivity to Harsh Faces and Severity of Social Anxiety in Generalized Social Phobia,” Biological Psychiatry 59, no. 5 (2006): 424–429; Murray B. Stein, Philippe R. Goldin, Jitender Sareen, Lisa T. Eyler, and Gregory G. Brown, “Increased Amygdala Activation to Angry and Contemptuous Faces in Generalized Social Phobia,” Archives of General Psychiatry 59, no. 11 (2002): 1027–1034.

  during an interview with Ted Koppel: Blaine Harden, “Instant Hero,” Washington Post, January 15, 1982.

  “Writers of sketches, in a friendly desire”: Clara Barton, The Story of My Childhood (New York: Baker & Taylor Co., 1907), 15.

  echo the words of Lenny Skutnik: Marlyn Schwartz, “Has Fame Spoiled Lenny Skutnik?” New York Times News Service, March 24, 1982, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1734&dat=19820324&id=ZVQcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=elIEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5381,8431318&hl=en.

  Chapter 6: The Milk of Human Kindness

  only one of every 1,000 loggerhead babies: Nat B. Frazer, “Survival from Egg to Adulthood in a Declining Population of Loggerhead Turtles, Caretta Caretta,” Herpetologica (1986): 47–55.

  “absurd in the highest possible degree”: Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (New York: Collier & Son, 1909), 190.

  turtles predate even the dinosaurs: Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, “Sea Turtle History,” http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/outreach/explore-and-discover/sea-turtles/history/; “Turtles: History and Fossil Record,” http://science.jrank.org/pages/7044/Turtles-History-fossil-record.html.

  hamsterlike creatures called cynodonts: Olav T. Oftedal, “The Mammary Gland and Its Origin During Synapsid Evolution,” Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia 7, no. 3 (2002): 225–252.

  This elixir is directly responsible: Caroline M. Pond, “The Significance of Lactation in the Evolution of Mammals,” Evolution (1977): 177–199.

  the capacity for love and caring of all kinds: C. Daniel Batson, “The Naked Emperor: Seeking a More Plausible Genetic Basis for Psychological Altruism,” Economics and Philosophy 26, no. 2 (2010): 149–164.

  “a turning point in the evolution”: Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Love and Hate: The Natural History of Behavior Patterns (Chicago: Aldine, 1996), xi.

  this bundling is in perfect accordance: Peter H. Klopfer, “Origins of Parental Care,” in Parental Care in Mammals, edited by David J. Gubernick and Peter H. Klopfer (New York: Plenum, 1981) 1–12.

  the ewe will reserve all of her nurturing and milk: Keith M. Kendrick, Ana P. C. Da Costa, Kevin D. Broad, Satoshi Ohkura, Rosalinda Guevara, Frederic Lévy, and E. Barry Keverne, “Neural Control of Maternal Behaviour and Olfactory Recognition of Offspring,” Brain Research Bulletin 44, no. 4 (1997): 383–395; E. Barry Keverne and Keith M. Kendrick, “Oxytocin Facilitation of Maternal Behavior in Sheep,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 652 (1992): 83–101; Larry J. Young and Thomas R. Insel, “Hormones and Parental Behavior,” in Behavioral Endocrinology, 2nd ed., edited by Jill B. Becker, S. Marc Breedlove, David Crews, and Margaret M. McCarthy (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 331–366.

  unearthed a long-forgotten 1968 study: William E. Wilsoncroft, “Babies by Bar-Press: Maternal Behavior in the Rat,” Behavior Research Methods and Instrumentation 1 (1968): 229–230; Stephanie D. Preston, “The Origins of Altruism in Offspring Care,” Psychological Bulletin 139, no. 6 (2013): 1305–1341.

  It’s a behavior that is at least three times more likely: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (Cam
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).

  Among the many other mammals: Marianne L. Riedman, “The Evolution of Alloparental Care and Adoption in Mammals and Birds,” Quarterly Review of Biology 57 (1982): 405–435.

  One spectacular demonstration: Marc Lacey, “5 Little Oryxes and the Big Bad Lioness of Kenya,” New York Times, October 12, 2002; Anthony Yap, “Kamunyak, the Blessed One: The Lioness Who Adopts Oryx Calves,” Phantom Maelstrom, November 29, 2011, http://phantommaelstrom.blogspot.com/2011/11/kamunyak-blessed-one-lioness-who-adopts.html; “The Lioness and the Oryx,” BBC News, January 7, 2002, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1746828.stm.

  Yet still she cared for the little calf: “The Lioness and the Oryx,” Nat Geo Wild, http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/unlikely-animal-friends/videos/the-lioness-and-the-oryx/.

  Another lioness in Uganda: Emma Reynolds, “Extraordinary Moment Wounded Lioness Shows Softer Side by Adopting Baby Antelope (Perhaps She Was Feeling Guilty After Killing Its Mother),” The Daily Mail, October 8, 2012.

  images of the baby trying to suckle: Paul Steyn, “Cat Watch: Baby Baboon’s Frightening Encounter with Lions Ends with a Heroic Twist,” National Geographic, April 3, 2014, http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2014/04/03/baby-baboons-dramatic-encounter-with-lions-ends-with-a-heroic-twist.

  a grizzled ten-year-old female chihuahua: “Ai Chihuahua! Dog Adopts 4 Baby Squirrels,” CowboysZone, September 8, 2007, http://cowboyszone.com/threads/ai-chihuahua-dog-adopts-4-baby-squirrels.94635/; “Chihuahua Mothers Abandoned Baby Squirrels,” For the Love of the Dog Blog, September 8, 2007, http://fortheloveofthedogblog.com/news-updates/chihuahua-mothers-abandoned-baby-squirrels.