Beliefs about humanity, not higher power, predict extraordinary altruism

Amormino, Paige; O’Connell, Katherine; Vekaria, Kruti M.; Robertson, Emily; Meena, L.; Marsh, Abigail A.

doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2022.104313

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Of particular note are our findings showing that longtermists' personality profiles converge to some degree with those of real-world extraordinary altruists (Amormino et al, 2022). Namely, both longtermists and extraordinary altruists score higher on assessments of honesty-humility and lower on assessments of psychopathy (Law et al, 2024), though longtermists score higher on open-mindedness and conscientiousness as well.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Mapping the personality of (exceptional) intergenerational concern

Syropoulos,

Law,

Amormino

et al. 2024

Personality and Individual Differences

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Mapping the personality of (exceptional) intergenerational concern

Syropoulos,

Law,

Amormino

et al. 2024

Personality and Individual Differences

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“…The finding that altruists’ generosity reflects their true valuation of distant others’ welfare may explain why even a custom-designed 8-week LKM intervention was unable to reproduce their generous choices or neural activation profiles in a sample of typical adults. Genuinely valuing the welfare of strangers may reflect powerful life experiences and fundamental beliefs about other human beings that cannot be quickly or easily reproduced ( 74 , 75 ). Interventions that can alter how the subjective value of distant others’ welfare is encoded may be more successful.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural responses underlying extraordinary altruists’ generosity for socially distant others

et al. 2023

Self Cite

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Most people are much less generous toward strangers than close others, a bias termed social discounting. But people who engage in extraordinary real-world altruism, like altruistic kidney donors, show dramatically reduced social discounting. Why they do so is unclear. Some prior research suggests reduced social discounting requires effortfully overcoming selfishness via recruitment of temporoparietal junction. Alternatively, reduced social discounting may reflect genuinely valuing strangers’ welfare more due to how the subjective value of their outcomes is encoded in regions such as rostral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and amygdala. We tested both hypotheses in this pre-registered study. We also tested the hypothesis that a loving-kindness meditation (LKM) training intervention would cause typical adults’ neural and behavioral patterns to resemble altruists. Altruists and matched controls (N=77) completed a social discounting task during fMRI; 25 controls were randomized to complete LKM training. Neither behavioral nor imaging analyses supported the hypothesis that altruists’ reduced social discounting reflects effortfully overcoming selfishness. Instead, group differences emerged in social value encoding regions, including rostral ACC and amygdala. Activation in these regions corresponded to the subjective valuation of others’ welfare predicted by the social discounting model. LKM training did not result in more generous behavioral or neural patterns, but only greater perceived difficulty during social discounting. Our results indicate extraordinary altruists’ generosity results from the way regions involved in social decision-making encode the subjective value of others’ welfare. Interventions aimed at promoting generosity may thus succeed to the degree they can increase the subjective valuation of others’ welfare.

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“…Finally, another important open question concerns the origins of the identified perceptual biases and sensitivities. Future research should examine if differences in social perceptions stem from societal or religious values see 144 conveyed during individuals’ upbringing, genetic factors, or a combination of both.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A neurocomputational account of the link between social perception and social action

Bas,

Roberts,

Hutcherson

et al. 2023

Preprint

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People selectively help others based on perceptions of their merit or need. Here, we develop a neurocomputational account of how these social perceptions translate into social choice. Using a novel fMRI social perception task, we show that both merit and need perceptions recruited the brain’s social inference network. A behavioral computational model identified two non-exclusive mechanisms underlying variance in social perceptions: a consistent tendency to perceive others as meritorious/needy (bias) and a propensity to sample and integrate normative evidence distinguishing high from low merit/need in other people (sensitivity). Variance in people’s merit (but not need) bias and sensitivity independently predicted distinct aspects of altruism in a social choice task completed months later. An individual’s meritbiaspredictedcontext-independentvariance in people’s overall other-regard during altruistic choice, biasing people towards prosocial actions. An individual’s meritsensitivitypredictedcontext-sensitivediscrimination in generosity towards high and low merit recipients by influencing other-regard and self-regard during altruistic decision-making. This context-sensitive perception-action link was associated with activation in the right temporoparietal junction. Together, these findings point towards stable, biologically based individual differences in perceptual processes related to abstract social concepts like merit, and suggest that these differences may have important behavioral implications for an individual’s tendency toward favoritism or discrimination in social settings.

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Beliefs about humanity, not higher power, predict extraordinary altruism

Cited by 9 publications

References 15 publications

Mapping the personality of (exceptional) intergenerational concern

Mapping the personality of (exceptional) intergenerational concern

Neural responses underlying extraordinary altruists’ generosity for socially distant others

A neurocomputational account of the link between social perception and social action

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