Innate Altruism: Humans Are Born With Selfless Behavior, Studies Show

One of the most important virtues of humankind is altruism. Being selfless help other people's needs and is fulfilling to the one who displays this behavior. But is being selfless an innate quality of a person or not?

Two neuroscientists at the University of California in Los Angeles decided to find out the answer to that question, Medical Daily reports. The findings of their studies -- published in a journal called Human Brain Mapping --- suggest that humans might have been born with altruistic behavior.

Study co-author and UCLA Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior postdoctoral Leonardo Christov-Moore said in a press release that people's altruism could be "more hard-wired" than initially believed. "This is potentially groundbreaking," he noted.

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Christov-Moore and UCLA psychiatry professor and study co-author Marco Lacoboni studied 20 participants to undergo brain activity monitoring through functional magnetic resonance machine (FMRI). The participants were also shown a video of a hand getting poked with a pin and were then asked to imitate different emotions shown by facial expressions of people in photographs.

The experiment's last part involves giving each of the participants $10 to either share with strangers or keep for him or herself. The researchers, after 24 rounds, juxtaposed the participants' brain scans with regards to the decision they decided to take with the money.

"And those with the greater activity in the brain's prefrontal cortex- a region that controls decision-making, emotion, and working memory - gave the fewest dollars, between $1 and $3 per round," explained Medical Daily. As it turns out, these people also had the strongest reactions in the parts of the brain associated with pain and emotions. 

Of the 20 participants, one-third gave away an average of 75 percent of the $10 they received to strangers. "Researchers believe participants' brains allowed them to mirror the strangers in the game, which they now suspect is the driving force behind altruism," Medical Daily added.

The second study involved 58 participants who underwent a non-invasive procedure that weakens the activity in the prefrontal cortex of the brain temporarily. The findings show that the participants became 50 percent more generous after their prefrontal cortex was weakened.

"Normally, participants would have been expected to give according to need, but with that area of the brain dampened, they temporarily lost the ability for social judgments to affect their behavior," Christov-Moore explained. The study authors say that this shows how natural altruism is.

There are several benefits of being altruistic and selfless. A person who shows altruism and selflessness is more likely to be happy, peaceful and have a stronger self-esteem, Berkeley Wellness shared.