Do or See: Why people want to be good
Disputes about what behavior to consider good, periodically arise in peacetime, but disagreements become especially acute after big tragedies - you can see this by scrolling through the tape in any social network. It’s not that truth is always born in such debates, because even the universal concept of good has not been invented by mankind. Nina Mashurova found out from experts why people still want to be good, how prosocial behavior affects health and how it relates to the meaning of life.
In order to understand why people want to be good, I think it’s worth thinking about social motivation: how it functions and how it has developed. Everyone has a set of moral and ideological attitudes, which helps to form an opinion, how society should be arranged and what behavior should be considered right or wrong. These beliefs can be based on religion, but not necessarily (atheists and agnostics also have a moral). Ideology and morality helps people find meaning in the world in which they live. From these beliefs, we draw a picture of society and our place in the world. Social psychology shows that people are highly motivated and want to belong to a group, to feel that they can make an “appreciable” contribution to her life. So staying good helps strengthen relationships and helps find meaning or purpose in life.
If cynicism is included, it is beneficial for people to be good, because there are a number of social punishments for those who behave badly or do not give enough to society. People who violate moral norms or expectations (for example, harming others or dishonestly behaving with them) may be ostracized by their families, friends, and other social groups. Recent studies in the field of psychology show that loneliness affects a person negatively, so I think we all have an incentive to be good not to lose our social status. But, importantly, it all applies to groups where good behavior is appreciated and where actions are generally evaluated. Therefore, people are less eager to behave well when they know that they are not caught or that something can be done anonymously. At the same time, if people unite in groups where bad behavior is valued, this measure of bad behavior is still becoming tougher over time: the “clips” of such a social circle are strengthened.
Perhaps the fact is that the desire to be good serves evolutionary goals, as well as hunger and lust. From our individual experience, we can conclude that we eat to satisfy hunger and have sex to satisfy our sexual desire, but from an evolutionary point of view these needs make us more sustainable and increase the chances of healthy offspring. The evolution of mammals (and humans as well) suggests that individuals that experience greater hunger leave more offspring.
If the desire to be good is an innate mechanism, then, presumably, it is all the more important for a person to be good. But from a Darwinian point of view, more selfish individuals get more resources and grow more successful offspring. This is a long-standing mystery of evolutionary biology, how to explain good, that is unselfish behavior? One theory goes back to Darwinian teaching itself, the idea that natural selection can occur at several levels. If in human evolution there was a tough competition between tribes and the tribes consisted mostly of unselfish participants (loyal to each other and ready to fight in the front ranks), then good behavior could be considered more advantageous at the group level.
There are two points that I must label. First, selfish people in predominantly unselfish tribes were loners and punished. From the point of view of multilevel selection, what emerged from this is a balance between intragroup selection (emphasis on unselfishness) and intergroup selection (emphasis on selfishness). From a psychological point of view, people have developed the skill of distinguishing liars and egoists, and a sense of justice that tells them to punish liars for the good of the whole group.
Second: very selfish or very good behavior in groups can be the result of strong competition between groups. I would say that people want to be good in relation to those whom they rank among their group - that is, to whom they may experience empathy. And, of course, we all belong to several groups with different levels of similarity between the participants. Some groups are very wide and can include not only all people (and, accordingly, to stand up for their rights), but also animals. Others are less extensive, an example is the family, sect, adherents of a particular denomination. Figures of the latest news, suicide bombers, may well have the goal to be good within the group with which they associate themselves, but, unfortunately, their behavior towards other groups, which they regard as strangers, is extremely cruel.
That is, I believe that there is a dark side in the desire to be good, especially when it comes to opposing groups (this desire may be part of human nature). On the other hand, it is impossible not to note the progress that we have made in the field of human rights and our ability to empathize with others.
There are many reasons why people want to be good. We are social animals. Since birth, we are part of one or another relationship. We may have evolved with the desire or need to help others and share with them, because such pro-social behavior helps build communication and strengthens the bond between group members, and the group is our means of survival. This desire to help others may include empathy, that is, the ability to feel the same as those close to you. Another theory of the emergence of this desire is associated with parental instinct, which is necessary so that babies can survive. As soon as the system of relations between the parent and the child was adjusted, it could spread to other relations.
Of course, life is more complicated. We do not help everyone we meet (and this may not be a very good idea in principle). Other terms like reciprocity and the quality of relationships affect our ability to behave prosocially. And any help can be motivated by different things. For example, people can donate money to charity, just to not refuse someone in response to a request or to get a tax break, or to feel better morally - and all these reasons can be present at the same time. All these motives follow from the importance of the social component in the life of everyone: we worry about others and about what they think about us. This makes us behave well.
From the point of view of Confucianism, a person is by nature a good person, so natural sympathy towards children and other families and societies is characteristic of him. Greed, prejudice and other passions created by people - this is what prevents good behavior. Taoists believe that all creatures, including man, are descended from Tao, and it was Tao that gave birth to Qi (vital energy and power of reproduction), therefore all beings should have the same good nature, which contributes to enrichment and growth - not only their own, but also group , for the welfare of all living beings.
Chan Buddhism suggests that everyone has a Buddha heart, a good heart, full of compassion and a desire to save others. “Others” are all forms of life. So the desire to be kind to people and to be a good person generally benefits everyone and is rooted in human nature. Therefore, to be good is to follow human nature and to be happy from it. If a person does not do well, he will feel bad, because he is going against his heart and nature. This can adversely affect both psychological and physical health.
Of course, we all grow old and die, including good young people. Bad things can happen to good people, especially if their understanding of the common good is perceived as a threat to individuals. Activists who understood both those — and others — Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Yitzhak Rabin, and Benazir Bhutto — were killed. But on the whole, being good is good, and science confirms this. Let me mark a few scientific studies confirming this (however, the list may be a hundred times longer).
Reflections and bitterness lead to depression and physical illness, but these effects can be mitigated by intentional kindness, which translates attention and emotional energy from self-deprecation. Doctors and lawyers who passed the Minnesota multidimensional personality questionnaire (a well-known psychological test) at the age of 25 years and scored maximum points for answering questions confirming their hostility, by the age of 50 had a mortality rate of 20% from heart disease. Those who scored the minimum, had an indicator of only 2%.
Alcoholics, who often help other members of the anonymous community, recover more often - in 40% of cases - after one year of sobriety (and less often suffer from depression), while those who don’t like to help, recover in only 22% of cases. People suffering from chronic pain have a decrease in pain intensity, as well as the frequency of depression, if they voluntarily help people with similar diseases.
Nineteen people were given a certain amount of money and a list of initiatives to donate to. Functional magnetic resonance imaging showed that the act of donation itself activates the mesolimbic pathway - the brain site responsible for producing dopamine. A group of students was asked to do five good deeds in six weeks. The students who completed the assignment felt much happier at the end of the experiment.
The frequency of heart attacks is closely related to the number of references to self ("I", "my", "me", etc.) in a structured interview. Teens who volunteer often have low rates of factors that affect the likelihood of heart disease or diabetes in their youth. Volunteering in adulthood significantly reduces the likelihood of depression and mortality, while resilience increases it. The US Corporation of State and Municipal Services concluded that in states where people volunteer more often, the rates of death and heart disease are much lower.
427 wives and mothers from New York State agreed to a 30-year study by Cornell University. The researchers concluded that regardless of the number of children, marital status, place of residence, education or social class, women who were involved in volunteering and helped others at least once a week, lived longer and were healthier. But Duke University researchers concluded that patients who recovered from heart disease, who regularly helped other patients, were less likely to experience despair and depressive moods that affect longevity.
Humans are social beings and therefore need norms of behavior that would protect the well-being of both individuals and their groups. At the same time, the rules of each group should be combined physically, socially and culturally with its environment. Natural selection has given us cognitive, emotional, and motivational mechanisms that, in intragroup relations, help us create appropriate rules and force us to follow them. Even babies are aware of the consequences of this or that behavior and are more inclined towards people who do not harm others. By the time they begin to walk and talk, the children are already showing a desire to help others and begin to understand that there are some rules of behavior.
These first signs of sensitivity to good develop over time into a developed system that allows separating bad behavior from good. It includes, for example, tools like shame and guilt, as well as anger, disgust and contempt. Despite the fact that people often behave selfishly and sometimes harm others, these emotions help to reduce selfish manifestations of nature through self-restraint and through the punishment of violators. In addition, emotions like pity, sympathy and gratitude encourage each other to help. We want to be good for many reasons: for our further benefit, for the benefit of our loved ones, and also to avoid being condemned and punished for bad deeds.
the photo: Gund