Sleep loss leads to the withdrawal of human helping across individuals, groups, and large-scale societies

Abstract

Humans help each other. This fundamental feature of homo sapiens has been one of the most powerful forces sculpting the advent of modern civilizations. But what determines whether humans choose to help one another? Across 3 replicating studies, here, we demonstrate that sleep loss represents one previously unrecognized factor dictating whether humans choose to help each other, observed at 3 different scales (within individuals, across individuals, and across societies). First, at an individual level, 1 night of sleep loss triggers the withdrawal of help from one individual to another. Moreover, fMRI findings revealed that the withdrawal of human helping is associated with deactivation of key nodes within the social cognition brain network that facilitates prosociality. Second, at a group level, ecological night-to-night reductions in sleep across several nights predict corresponding next-day reductions in the choice to help others during day-to-day interactions. Third, at a large-scale national level, we demonstrate that 1 h of lost sleep opportunity, inflicted by the transition to Daylight Saving Time, reduces real-world altruistic helping through the act of donation giving, established through the analysis of over 3 million charitable donations. Therefore, inadequate sleep represents a significant influential force determining whether humans choose to help one another, observable across micro- and macroscopic levels of civilized interaction. The implications of this effect may be non-trivial when considering the essentiality of human helping in the maintenance of cooperative, civil society, combined with the reported decline in sufficient sleep in many first-world nations.

Distinct cognitive changes in male patients with obstructive sleep apnoea without co-morbidities

“…More recently, in a thought provoking set of studies, sleep loss and sleep's diminished quality and or quantity, which indeed present one of the important features of OSA, have also been linked to diminished altruism (Ben Simon et al, 2022). Specifically, the authors argued that sleep loss represents one previously unrecognized factor that may dictate whether humans choose to help each other, which they based on their observations at three different scales, within individuals, across individuals, and across societies (Ben Simon et al, 2022).…”

“…More recently, in a thought provoking set of studies, sleep loss and sleep's diminished quality and or quantity, which indeed present one of the important features of OSA, have also been linked to diminished altruism (Ben Simon et al, 2022). Specifically, the authors argued that sleep loss represents one previously unrecognized factor that may dictate whether humans choose to help each other, which they based on their observations at three different scales, within individuals, across individuals, and across societies (Ben Simon et al, 2022). For instance, in one of the studies, one night of sleep loss was shown to trigger the withdrawal of help from one individual to another, with the associated fMRI findings showing deactivation of key nodes within the social cognition brain network that facilitate prosociality (Ben Simon et al, 2022).…”

Modulating social learning-induced evaluation updating during human sleep

“…People often change their evaluations and opinions upon learning about their peers’ evaluations and choices, i.e., social learning (Berns et al, 2010; Campbell-Meiklejohn et al, 2010; Kendal et al, 2018). Moreover, sleep impacts social and non-social decision-making (Ben Simon et al, 2022; Dickinson & McElroy, 2017; Holbein et al, 2019; Venkatraman et al, 2011). Combining the social learning paradigm with sleep-based targeted memory reactivation (TMR), we investigated whether reactivating the daytime social learning experience during non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep could further promote social learning-induced evaluation changes.…”

The controversy over daylight saving time: evidence for and against

“…The transitions into and out of DST not only influence health and safety, but can also impact human behavior in general. People are less generous in the week after DST begins, as measured by charitable donations [34 ▪▪ ]. On the job procrastination is increased with poor sleep, particularly in later chronotypes, and this effect is amplified with the start of DST [35].…”