Neural and cognitive characteristics of extraordinary altruists

Abstract

Altruistic behavior improves the welfare of another individual while reducing the altruist's welfare. Humans' tendency to engage in altruistic behaviors is unevenly distributed across the population, and individual variation in altruistic tendencies may be genetically mediated. Although neural endophenotypes of heightened or extreme antisocial behavior tendencies have been identified in, for example, studies of psychopaths, little is known about the neural mechanisms that support heightened or extreme prosocial or altruistic tendencies. In this study, we used structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess a population of extraordinary altruists: altruistic kidney donors who volunteered to donate a kidney to a stranger. Such donations meet the most stringent definitions of altruism in that they represent an intentional behavior that incurs significant costs to the donor to benefit an anonymous, nonkin other. Functional imaging and behavioral tasks included face-emotion processing paradigms that reliably distinguish psychopathic individuals from controls. Here we show that extraordinary altruists can be distinguished from controls by their enhanced volume in right amygdala and enhanced responsiveness of this structure to fearful facial expressions, an effect that predicts superior perceptual sensitivity to these expressions. These results mirror the reduced amygdala volume and reduced responsiveness to fearful facial expressions observed in psychopathic individuals. Our results support the possibility of a neural basis for extraordinary altruism. We anticipate that these findings will expand the scope of research on biological mechanisms that promote altruistic behaviors to include neural mechanisms that support affective and social responsiveness.psychopathy | organ donation | prosocial behavior

Empathic emotion regulation in prosocial behavior and altruism

“…The finding that negative empathic affect was positively associated with donation behavior within each condition in almost all cases is consistent with heightened affective resonance with distress in extraordinary altruists observed in prior work (Marsh et al, 2014;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2017;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2018), and also with theories of altruism emphasizing the role for concern in promoting prosociality (e.g., Nichols, 2001;Batson, 1991). Though participants were not instructed to increase positive emotions, this was a byproduct of hopeful reappraisal.…”

“…While instructed reappraisal was found to affect donation behavior in the community sample, in which a hopeful reappraisal resulted in higher donations than a distancing reappraisal, effects of reappraisal in altruists and controls were limited with regard to donation outcomes, suggesting that altruists and controls may instead differ in interacting effects of negative and positive affect on donation behavior across conditions. Keywords: empathy, altruism, emotion regulationPrior research has highlighted that emotional processes can be automatically evoked in response to distressed and vulnerable others, particularly in highly altruistic individuals (Marsh et al, 2014;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2017;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2018). As reviewed by Vaish (2016), it is thought that our concerned responses to others are a result of not only these seemingly bottom-up emotional responses, but also top-down cognitive processes that can modulate the behavioral effect of such emotional responses, resulting in a "multidetermined concern."…”

“…Prior research has highlighted that emotional processes can be automatically evoked in response to distressed and vulnerable others, particularly in highly altruistic individuals (Marsh et al, 2014;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2017;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2018). As reviewed by Vaish (2016), it is thought that our concerned responses to others are a result of not only these seemingly bottom-up emotional responses, but also top-down cognitive processes that can modulate the behavioral effect of such emotional responses, resulting in a "multidetermined concern."…”

“…Altruistic kidney donors are known to have a heightened sensitivity to distress in others, as demonstrated by heightened amygdala activation in response to distress cues in the form of fearful faces in a passive viewing task (Marsh et al, 2014), and increased amygdala activation and functional connectivity with the periaqueductal gray in response to combined cues of distress and vulnerability (Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2017). This highlights a potential paradox, in which highly altruistic individuals are particularly sensitive to distress cues across several paradigms, and demonstrate heightened neural responses to the distress of a stranger (Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2018), yet they have volunteered to undergo a major medical procedure to donate one of their own internal organs to a total stranger, with all of the associated risks and inconveniences.…”

The Hajnal Line and Gene-Culture Coevolution in Northwest Europe

“…Individuals with high cognitive empathy have denser gray matter in the midcingulate cortex and the adjacent dorsomedial prefontal cortex, whereas individuals with high affective empathy have denser gray matter in the insula cortex (Eres et al, 2015). A high capacity for empathy is also associated with enlargement of the amygdala, which controls responses to facial expressions of fear and to other signs of distress (Goerlich-Dobre et al, 2015;Marsh et al, 2014). The left amygdala seems to specialize more in the affective component of empathy and in the related construct of emotional self-awareness (Goerlich-Dobre et al, 2015).…”