Roots and Benefits of Costly Giving

Abstract

Altruism, although costly, may promote well-being for those who give. Costly giving by adults has received considerable attention, but less is known about the possible benefits, as well as biological and environmental correlates, of altruism in early childhood. In the current study, we present evidence that children who forgo self-gain to help others show greater vagal flexibility and higher subsequent vagal tone than those who do not, and children from less wealthy families behave more altruistically than those from wealthier families. These results suggest that altruism should be viewed through a biopsychosocial lens; that privileged contexts have an early-emerging influence on children's willingness to make personal sacrifices for others; and that altruism and healthy vagal functioning may share reciprocal relations in childhood. When children help others at a cost to themselves, they could be playing an active role in promoting their own well-being as well as the well-being of others.

Helping from the heart: Voluntary upregulation of heart rate variability predicts altruistic behavior

“…Self-Reports of socio-emotional dispositions were also uncorrelated to vuLP R and only weakly related to Altruistically Motivated Behavior (also see Böckler et al, 2016). Our findings are in line with previous studies that have demonstrated associations between incidental HF-HRV upregulation and altruistically motivated behavior (Miller et al, 2015;Barrazza et al, 2015), whereas no such association has been reported for trait measures of socio-emotional dispositions based on self-report. Taken together, our data indicate that the propensity to upregulate HF-HRV is primarily related to social behaviors which are oriented towards the well-being of others (i.e., altruistic acts, cf., Batson, 2014), not other types of prosocial behavior which are not based in altruistic motivation.…”

“…More specifically, we corroborate earlier findings on a relationship between increases in HF-HRV and altruistic behavior (Barraza et al, 2015;Miller et al, 2015). Unlike earlier studies which employed a single task to index altruism, our measure relies on a validated multimethod factor score of altruistic behavior across a variety of tasks (Böckler et al, 2016).…”

“…Secondly, based on the theorized role of the vagus in social engagement (Bazhenova et al, 2001;Hastings et al, 2008;Miller et al, 2013;Porges, 2003) and the motivational systems of care and affiliation (Depue & Morrone-Strupinsky, 2005;Feldman & Eidelman, 2003;Kemp et al, 2012;Norman et al, 2011;Panksepp, 2011;Tribollet et al, 1989;Uvnäs-Moberg, 1994, 1998, as well as earlier studies which had linked incidental upregulation of HF-HRV to altruistic feelings and behaviors (Barraza et al, 2015;Miller et al, 2015;Stellar et al, 2015) we hypothesized that individual differences in the ability to deliberately up-regulate LP would be linked to individual differences in altruistic behavior. We operationalized altruistic behavior through a multi-method approach that identified a latent construct called Altruistically Motivated Behavior (AMB) which includes several commonly-used behavioral measures of altruistic behavior (Böckler et al, 2016).…”

“…The role of vagal upregulation in positive social engagement led researchers to pursue the hypothesis that it is also involved in altruistic feelings and behaviors (e.g., Barraza, Alexander, Beavin, Terris, & Zak, 2015;Miller, Kahle, & Hastings, 2015). Following Batson, (2014, p.6), we define behaviors as altruistically motivated if they follow from a -motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another's welfare‖.…”

“…Intraindividual increases in HF-HRV accompany the experience of compassion, induced by videos on human suffering (Oveis, 2002;Stellar, Cohen, Oveis, & Keltner, 2015), and HF-HRV is elevated when people witness the altruistic actions of others (Hutchinson, 2012). Children who show less HF-HRV reduction when exposed to a toddler in distress display more empathetic concern (Gill & Calkins, 2003), and those who maintain higher HF-HRV when hearing about sick and incapacitated children are more willing to share their own resources with them (Miller et al, 2015). Similarly, in adults, the degree of HF-HRV upsurge when viewing a video depicting human suffering positively predicts their readiness to donate money to a related charity (Barraza et al, 2015).…”