So, Iacoboni and his colleagues did a follow-up brain simulation study where they “transiently knocked down brain areas for slow thinking, top-down control.” These areas had shown an inverse correlation between their activity while watching someone in pain and generosity, which is the behavior one would predict for areas of control or inhibition of mirroring, or emotional contagion.
Iacoboni states, “We predicted that if the correlations we had observed in the imaging study had a causal nature, we would make people more generous, by knocking down the control/inhibitory areas and releasing more mirroring. Our prediction was correct.”
What makes this research so important is that it can be applied to those experiencing psychopathy. Lockwood explained, “This insight into how vicarious rewards are processed in the brain and vary with empathy may be key for understanding disorders of social behavior, including psychopathy and autism.”
Lockwood notes that, “atypical function and structure [in the brain], including anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex, and prefrontal cortex, have been implicated in the pathophysiology of childhood conduct problems and adult psychopathy. Clinically, our data may have consequences for empathy training implementation, for example, in relation to victim empathy in children with high levels of callous traits.”
Iacoboni observes, “One way of benefiting individuals is by using brain stimulation as a form of treatment for people that lack empathy and more generally ‘social cognition.’ Many mental disorders seem to show that. There is reason to believe that improving empathy and social cognition in patients with mental health problems should have a tangible clinical effect. At societal level, while I am not advocating massive brain stimulation, I think our study shows that the control or inhibition of prosocial behavior is strongly tied to cognitive areas that are typically linked to acquired knowledge. Our nature is not selfish; we learn to become selfish. And if we learn to become selfish, that’s something we can unlearn.”
While competition and individualism have long been touted as the American way, research by Iacoboni and others suggest that it may be at the heart of political division and unhappiness today.
Iacoboni comments, “I can easily point to competitiveness and individualism as the main culprits. I should qualify that I don’t see anything wrong in competitiveness per se. I love to play tennis, and want to win every point. But I want to do it in a fair way, respecting my opponent and always keeping in mind that my opponent and I are friends that share a passion for the game. I like individualism too, but I like it in the sense of freeing individuals to express themselves in a creative, original, unique way.”
Iacoboni continues, “When competitiveness and individualism are at the service of creating a society that is strongly based on authority and ranking, then empath breaks down and selfishness thrives — and when selfishness thrives, unhappiness thrives.”
This ties in with research mapping a decrease in empathy among American college students over three decades. That research, carried out by Dr. Ed O’Brien, an assistant professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago, and Dr. Sara Konrath, an assistant professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University, show the decrease in empathy from 1979 to 2009.
And a large online study of 104,365 adults from 63 countries found the United States ranked seventh among the most empathetic countries in the world. Lead researcher, Dr. William Chopik, an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University, says, “People may portray the United States as this empathetic and generous giant, but that might be changing.”
The study ranked Ecuador top in empathy followed by Saudi Arabia, Peru, Denmark, the United Arab Emirates, Korea, the United States, Taiwan, Costa Rica, and Kuwait. Lithuania was ranked last, and before it was Venezuela, Estonia, Poland, and Bulgaria. Countries with high reported levels of empathy had higher levels of collectivism, where the group is considered more important than the individual; other strong traits included: agreeableness, conscientiousness, self-esteem, subjective well-being, and prosocial behavior.
Commenting on a belief by Archbishop Tutu and the Dalai Lama that self-medicating our way to happiness does not work — instead we need to try to work out issues and find personal solutions — Iacoboni says, “I couldn’t agree more. If you have values that lead you to anxiety and/or depression, the only long-term solution for our well-being is to analyze why our values led us to where we are and what we can do to change that.”
A Roman, Iacoboni points to the words of one of ancient Rome’s greatest thinkers, Marcus Aurelius who said, “ ‘If I think of myself as Marcus, my city is Rome. But if I think of myself as human, then my city is the whole world.’ I think we should establish practices in our society to reinforce this concept until it gets internalized.”
Iacoboni concludes, “We are doing a study on morality, and one thing I realized, is that modern morality has lost a crucial teaching of ancient virtue ethics, that reminds us that, ‘the good of other people enters the scene by being a part of one’s own good.’ We seem to thrive on others’ misfortunes. In the long run, that won’t be good for us. It’s not real thriving. It’s fake thriving.”
This article is updated from its initial publication in Brain World Magazine’s print edition.
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