a few months ago I read a story in the
local newspaper reporters had left
letters on the street all around the
city and they wanted to see how many
letters were returned to the mailbox so
they wanted to see how kind have people
in Helsinki really are towards each
other and there was a really cool
experiment a lot of the letters were put
into the mailbox so people were kind and
friendly towards each other but what
sort of struck me was the headline of
the story because it read something
along the lines of a surprising amount
of letters were returned to the mailbox
and this got me thinking why are we
surprised when people act kindly why is
it surprising that people helped each
other and why do we expect the worst
from each other so in light of this I
might have a slightly difficult task
ahead of me tonight because I’m going to
try to convince you that people are
actually inherently generous inherently
friendly and inherently kind towards
each other now we do have a very good
reason to kind of expect the worst from
each other on days like this and in
general on a day to day basis were faced
with evidence and stories about human
hatred human animosity and human greed
which maybe leads us to conclude that
humans are wolves to humans and accept
this as a fundamental truth about human
nature
but I suggest that this evening even
just for the next 10 minutes or so we
take a small vacation from this story
about human nature and visit another
story that is quite different but I
propose equally true
and why don’t we even start with the
wolves because wolves aren’t selfish who
aren’t mean first of all they’re super
cute and they’re pack animals wolves
work together they need to collaborate
in order to survive they hunt together
they share food they routinely make
decisions that benefit others instead of
only themselves and you know what humans
are pack animals too it has been
suggested that the only reason we still
exist as a species is because we are
able to collaborate because we’re able
to share because we like helping each
other and being kind and perhaps as a
result our brains hosts a wide array of
mechanisms that are devoted for
connecting to other people for
understanding other people on the level
of thoughts and on the level of feelings
for example we have brain mechanisms
that make emotions super contagious
they’ve done these studies where they
put a person in the brain scanner and
then they show them terrible pictures of
someone like cutting their finger with
scissors or stubbing their toe painfully
and what happens is that the pain areas
of the person viewing these pictures
light up which means that in some
situations in some contexts our brains
don’t understand that we are two
different people and that your pain is
exactly the same as my pain which to me
is a super beautiful thought we also
have several mechanisms in the brain
that have kind of rigged us for kindness
but I’ve rigged us to enjoy helping each
other and being kind and it’s these
mechanisms that I intend to speak about
at a greater length this evening because
I believe that understanding these
mechanisms might create more
opportunities for us to utilize them to
create opportunities for kindness to
emerge so I’m going to talk about three
studies that I find super interesting
the kind of shed light on what it is to
be kind or the neural basis of kindness
the first one explains what kind of
place kindness has in our minds what
kind of place it has in in basic human
nature the second study tells a story
about what happens in the brain when we
act kindly and the third study tells
about why answer to the question why
what what motivates people to act kindly
why do we choose to kind of work for the
good of others perhaps at a cost to
other to ourselves so onto the first
piece of evidence it’s this study
conducted by fantastically talented
researchers who were interested in what
happens to people when they’re not able
to control themselves so researchers
wanted to know like what types of animal
impulses arise when people aren’t able
to control themselves or inhibit these
impulses how do we behave towards each
other when there is no self-control
so in order to answer this question they
sort of shut down the parts of the brain
that are responsible for self-control
and they had the participants play a
game where they could distribute money
to others now what they found was that
the participants were no longer able to
inhibit themselves became more generous
towards others towards strangers now if
you stop to think about this result for
a moment it’s actually pretty beautiful
and the researchers stated that it might
mean that generosity the willingness to
share is the default state of the human
brain that this is how we’re wired in a
fundamental way and that if we want to
act selfishly this is what self-control
is needed for to stave off our natural
selfless impulses my second piece of
evidence is here in this study
researchers want to know what happens in
our brains when we decide to act kindly
so they had participants and they split
them into two groups
they gave both groups of both
participants because both groups of
participants a certain sum of money and
they were meant to spend the sum of
money
the next four weeks they had one group
act selfishly or promise to act
selfishly and spend all the money on
themselves
then they had the selfless group who
made a promise to spend the money only
on other human beings and after they
made this promise they took the
participants and put them in the brain
scanner where they could play a game
where they could either make selfish or
selfless decisions now what they found
was that immediately after deciding to
act either selfishly or selflessly there
were differences in how how people made
these decisions in the tax tasks that
they were doing in the brain scanner so
the people who had just made a promise
to help others to give all the money to
others to buy others things also made
more selfless decisions in the tasks
they did in the scanner they also
reported increased feelings of happiness
as a result of the decision and
furthermore when they made selfless
decisions in the brain scanner the parts
of the brain that are important for
feelings of reward and pleasure became
active so it means that by creating a
kind mindset you promote kind of
behavior instantly and and your brain
starts rewarding you for it so it’s like
this beautiful loop that you can create
just by by the assuming a kind of
mindset and acting kindly towards others
my last and final piece of evidence
about the selfless nature of human
beings is this one and here scientists
were interested in the question of why
do we act kindly towards others when it
often comes at a cost to ourselves why
do we choose to help others and
generates thought that there are two
main reasons why people help others
number one is fairness
so someone does something kind to me and
then I pay back I’m kind to you so I
reciprocate and number two is empathy so
when I see someone else in pain it
causes personal distress and I decide to
do something kind to kind of resolve the
situation
now in this study scientists were
interested in whether this is true
whether we have these two roots to kind
actions and whether the mechanisms that
create these motives are somehow
separate in the brain so in order to
investigate this scientists had to of
course cause or generate feelings of
either fairness or empathy in the
participants and they did this by
dividing the participants into two
groups they had the fairness group and
the empathy group and then they induced
feelings of either fairness or empathy
with the help of electric shocks it’s
very easy perhaps also speak something
about the kindness of the experimenters
allow me to explain so if you were in
them in the empathy group they took you
into a room or the participant into a
room with two other people who were in
on the plan
and the participant sat there and one of
the persons was shocked with terribly
painful electric shocks the participant
herself was shocked with moderately
painful electric shocks and the third
person wasn’t shocked at all
so the idea was that seeing someone in
pain and and knowing what that pain
feels like would cause me to experience
feelings of empathy towards the person
in pain very efficient now in the
fairness group the situation was similar
so there were two people alongside the
participant in a room but now the
participant was super unlucky because
they were the ones getting the most
painful electric shocks another person
was getting only moderately painful
electric shocks not third person no
shocks at all and the trick to induce
fairness here was that the person
getting the moderately painful shocks
could save the participant from getting
shocked by giving up some of their own
money so the thought was that when this
person keeps saving me from getting
those shocks I’ll see them as a really
fair fair person okay are you with me so
we have two groups you have the empathy
group and the fairness group in the
empathy group parties
and start feeling empathy towards
someone in pain in the fairness group
they’re being treated fairly but another
person okay then the participants were
put into a brain scanner and the task
was to divide a sum of money between the
three people so you could either keep
all the money to yourself or give some
to the other people who just you just
spend some excruciating minutes within
the room and the perhaps not
surprisingly in the empathy group the
participants decided to give more money
to the person they empathize with the
person they’d seen in pain and in the
fairness group the participants decided
to give more money to the person who had
treated them fairly and it seemed that
these two mechanisms mechanisms were
somehow separate in the brain that there
are several routes to kindness in our
brain but what if you’re just like a
like a selfish person what if you were
given the choice of like dividing a pot
of money between the three people and go
like well of course I’ll keep it all to
myself well in this study the scientists
identified highly selfish people and
they wanted to see is there any way that
we can get these people to act kindly
and it turns out that empathy still does
the trick so if you’re a super selfish
person being treated fairly doesn’t
really do anything you don’t feel the
need to pay back but empathy still works
so our brains have found a way to
circumvent these these obstacles to
kindness which to me speaks about how
surprisingly resilient and powerful
kindness is it finds a way to emerge in
interaction and perhaps the more
important take-home message from this
particular studies that these things
I’ve been speaking about like fairness
and kindness and empathy they are not
individual traits so they’re not
individual characteristics but they
emerge they exist in interaction
so the really cool thing then is that
kindness and fairness and empathy have
the chance to emerge in any interaction
it’s a matter of choice as participants
of any interaction you and I can choose
whether we wish to nurture these
characteristics or not so perhaps a if
summary faced with all the evidence of
human nature faced with all the news and
all the scientific evidence I don’t
think we’re left with one truth or
certainty about who we are what we are
like as a species but rather a choice a
choice to act we can either choose to
listen to only the stories that speak
about the selfish nature of human beings
or we can also listen to other types of
evidence we can also choose to see
evidence of how we are wired for
kindness and the very cool question is
what happens on the level of our actions
as a result of this choice what happens
on the level of our feelings as a result
of this choice and most importantly
could we create more opportunities for
kindness to emerge through rightful
recognition of its place in human nature
thank you
[Applause]
local newspaper reporters had left
letters on the street all around the
city and they wanted to see how many
letters were returned to the mailbox so
they wanted to see how kind have people
in Helsinki really are towards each
other and there was a really cool
experiment a lot of the letters were put
into the mailbox so people were kind and
friendly towards each other but what
sort of struck me was the headline of
the story because it read something
along the lines of a surprising amount
of letters were returned to the mailbox
and this got me thinking why are we
surprised when people act kindly why is
it surprising that people helped each
other and why do we expect the worst
from each other so in light of this I
might have a slightly difficult task
ahead of me tonight because I’m going to
try to convince you that people are
actually inherently generous inherently
friendly and inherently kind towards
each other now we do have a very good
reason to kind of expect the worst from
each other on days like this and in
general on a day to day basis were faced
with evidence and stories about human
hatred human animosity and human greed
which maybe leads us to conclude that
humans are wolves to humans and accept
this as a fundamental truth about human
nature
but I suggest that this evening even
just for the next 10 minutes or so we
take a small vacation from this story
about human nature and visit another
story that is quite different but I
propose equally true
and why don’t we even start with the
wolves because wolves aren’t selfish who
aren’t mean first of all they’re super
cute and they’re pack animals wolves
work together they need to collaborate
in order to survive they hunt together
they share food they routinely make
decisions that benefit others instead of
only themselves and you know what humans
are pack animals too it has been
suggested that the only reason we still
exist as a species is because we are
able to collaborate because we’re able
to share because we like helping each
other and being kind and perhaps as a
result our brains hosts a wide array of
mechanisms that are devoted for
connecting to other people for
understanding other people on the level
of thoughts and on the level of feelings
for example we have brain mechanisms
that make emotions super contagious
they’ve done these studies where they
put a person in the brain scanner and
then they show them terrible pictures of
someone like cutting their finger with
scissors or stubbing their toe painfully
and what happens is that the pain areas
of the person viewing these pictures
light up which means that in some
situations in some contexts our brains
don’t understand that we are two
different people and that your pain is
exactly the same as my pain which to me
is a super beautiful thought we also
have several mechanisms in the brain
that have kind of rigged us for kindness
but I’ve rigged us to enjoy helping each
other and being kind and it’s these
mechanisms that I intend to speak about
at a greater length this evening because
I believe that understanding these
mechanisms might create more
opportunities for us to utilize them to
create opportunities for kindness to
emerge so I’m going to talk about three
studies that I find super interesting
the kind of shed light on what it is to
be kind or the neural basis of kindness
the first one explains what kind of
place kindness has in our minds what
kind of place it has in in basic human
nature the second study tells a story
about what happens in the brain when we
act kindly and the third study tells
about why answer to the question why
what what motivates people to act kindly
why do we choose to kind of work for the
good of others perhaps at a cost to
other to ourselves so onto the first
piece of evidence it’s this study
conducted by fantastically talented
researchers who were interested in what
happens to people when they’re not able
to control themselves so researchers
wanted to know like what types of animal
impulses arise when people aren’t able
to control themselves or inhibit these
impulses how do we behave towards each
other when there is no self-control
so in order to answer this question they
sort of shut down the parts of the brain
that are responsible for self-control
and they had the participants play a
game where they could distribute money
to others now what they found was that
the participants were no longer able to
inhibit themselves became more generous
towards others towards strangers now if
you stop to think about this result for
a moment it’s actually pretty beautiful
and the researchers stated that it might
mean that generosity the willingness to
share is the default state of the human
brain that this is how we’re wired in a
fundamental way and that if we want to
act selfishly this is what self-control
is needed for to stave off our natural
selfless impulses my second piece of
evidence is here in this study
researchers want to know what happens in
our brains when we decide to act kindly
so they had participants and they split
them into two groups
they gave both groups of both
participants because both groups of
participants a certain sum of money and
they were meant to spend the sum of
money
the next four weeks they had one group
act selfishly or promise to act
selfishly and spend all the money on
themselves
then they had the selfless group who
made a promise to spend the money only
on other human beings and after they
made this promise they took the
participants and put them in the brain
scanner where they could play a game
where they could either make selfish or
selfless decisions now what they found
was that immediately after deciding to
act either selfishly or selflessly there
were differences in how how people made
these decisions in the tax tasks that
they were doing in the brain scanner so
the people who had just made a promise
to help others to give all the money to
others to buy others things also made
more selfless decisions in the tasks
they did in the scanner they also
reported increased feelings of happiness
as a result of the decision and
furthermore when they made selfless
decisions in the brain scanner the parts
of the brain that are important for
feelings of reward and pleasure became
active so it means that by creating a
kind mindset you promote kind of
behavior instantly and and your brain
starts rewarding you for it so it’s like
this beautiful loop that you can create
just by by the assuming a kind of
mindset and acting kindly towards others
my last and final piece of evidence
about the selfless nature of human
beings is this one and here scientists
were interested in the question of why
do we act kindly towards others when it
often comes at a cost to ourselves why
do we choose to help others and
generates thought that there are two
main reasons why people help others
number one is fairness
so someone does something kind to me and
then I pay back I’m kind to you so I
reciprocate and number two is empathy so
when I see someone else in pain it
causes personal distress and I decide to
do something kind to kind of resolve the
situation
now in this study scientists were
interested in whether this is true
whether we have these two roots to kind
actions and whether the mechanisms that
create these motives are somehow
separate in the brain so in order to
investigate this scientists had to of
course cause or generate feelings of
either fairness or empathy in the
participants and they did this by
dividing the participants into two
groups they had the fairness group and
the empathy group and then they induced
feelings of either fairness or empathy
with the help of electric shocks it’s
very easy perhaps also speak something
about the kindness of the experimenters
allow me to explain so if you were in
them in the empathy group they took you
into a room or the participant into a
room with two other people who were in
on the plan
and the participant sat there and one of
the persons was shocked with terribly
painful electric shocks the participant
herself was shocked with moderately
painful electric shocks and the third
person wasn’t shocked at all
so the idea was that seeing someone in
pain and and knowing what that pain
feels like would cause me to experience
feelings of empathy towards the person
in pain very efficient now in the
fairness group the situation was similar
so there were two people alongside the
participant in a room but now the
participant was super unlucky because
they were the ones getting the most
painful electric shocks another person
was getting only moderately painful
electric shocks not third person no
shocks at all and the trick to induce
fairness here was that the person
getting the moderately painful shocks
could save the participant from getting
shocked by giving up some of their own
money so the thought was that when this
person keeps saving me from getting
those shocks I’ll see them as a really
fair fair person okay are you with me so
we have two groups you have the empathy
group and the fairness group in the
empathy group parties
and start feeling empathy towards
someone in pain in the fairness group
they’re being treated fairly but another
person okay then the participants were
put into a brain scanner and the task
was to divide a sum of money between the
three people so you could either keep
all the money to yourself or give some
to the other people who just you just
spend some excruciating minutes within
the room and the perhaps not
surprisingly in the empathy group the
participants decided to give more money
to the person they empathize with the
person they’d seen in pain and in the
fairness group the participants decided
to give more money to the person who had
treated them fairly and it seemed that
these two mechanisms mechanisms were
somehow separate in the brain that there
are several routes to kindness in our
brain but what if you’re just like a
like a selfish person what if you were
given the choice of like dividing a pot
of money between the three people and go
like well of course I’ll keep it all to
myself well in this study the scientists
identified highly selfish people and
they wanted to see is there any way that
we can get these people to act kindly
and it turns out that empathy still does
the trick so if you’re a super selfish
person being treated fairly doesn’t
really do anything you don’t feel the
need to pay back but empathy still works
so our brains have found a way to
circumvent these these obstacles to
kindness which to me speaks about how
surprisingly resilient and powerful
kindness is it finds a way to emerge in
interaction and perhaps the more
important take-home message from this
particular studies that these things
I’ve been speaking about like fairness
and kindness and empathy they are not
individual traits so they’re not
individual characteristics but they
emerge they exist in interaction
so the really cool thing then is that
kindness and fairness and empathy have
the chance to emerge in any interaction
it’s a matter of choice as participants
of any interaction you and I can choose
whether we wish to nurture these
characteristics or not so perhaps a if
summary faced with all the evidence of
human nature faced with all the news and
all the scientific evidence I don’t
think we’re left with one truth or
certainty about who we are what we are
like as a species but rather a choice a
choice to act we can either choose to
listen to only the stories that speak
about the selfish nature of human beings
or we can also listen to other types of
evidence we can also choose to see
evidence of how we are wired for
kindness and the very cool question is
what happens on the level of our actions
as a result of this choice what happens
on the level of our feelings as a result
of this choice and most importantly
could we create more opportunities for
kindness to emerge through rightful
recognition of its place in human nature
thank you
[Applause]
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