Extraordinary Altruists Exhibit Enhanced Self–Other Overlap in Neural Responses to Distress

Abstract

Shared neural representations during experienced and observed distress are hypothesized to reflect empathic neural simulation, which may support altruism. But the correspondence between real-world altruism and shared neural representations has not been directly tested, and empathy's role in promoting altruism toward strangers has been questioned. Here, we show that individuals who have performed costly altruism (donating a kidney to a stranger; n = 25) exhibit greater self-other overlap than matched control participants ( n = 27) in neural representations of pain and threat (fearful anticipation) in anterior insula (AI) during an empathic-pain paradigm. Altruists exhibited greater self-other correspondence in pain-related activation in left AI, highlighting that group-level overlap was supported by individual-level associations between empathic pain and firsthand pain. Altruists exhibited enhanced functional coupling of left AI with left midinsula during empathic pain and threat. Results show that heightened neural instantiations of empathy correspond to real-world altruism and highlight limitations of self-report.

Empathic emotion regulation in prosocial behavior and altruism

“…The finding that negative empathic affect was positively associated with donation behavior within each condition in almost all cases is consistent with heightened affective resonance with distress in extraordinary altruists observed in prior work (Marsh et al, 2014;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2017;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2018), and also with theories of altruism emphasizing the role for concern in promoting prosociality (e.g., Nichols, 2001;Batson, 1991). Though participants were not instructed to increase positive emotions, this was a byproduct of hopeful reappraisal.…”

“…All participants completed the same battery of behavioral tasks and questionnaires. Twenty-nine altruists and 26 controls in this study also completed a neuroimaging component prior to the procedures of this study, which is partially reported elsewhere (Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2018). Electrodermal activity data were missing from 6 controls and 3 altruists due to equipment malfunction or experimenter error, yielding a subsample of 22 controls and 27 altruists.…”

“…Altruistic kidney donors are known to have a heightened sensitivity to distress in others, as demonstrated by heightened amygdala activation in response to distress cues in the form of fearful faces in a passive viewing task (Marsh et al, 2014), and increased amygdala activation and functional connectivity with the periaqueductal gray in response to combined cues of distress and vulnerability (Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2017). This highlights a potential paradox, in which highly altruistic individuals are particularly sensitive to distress cues across several paradigms, and demonstrate heightened neural responses to the distress of a stranger (Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2018), yet they have volunteered to undergo a major medical procedure to donate one of their own internal organs to a total stranger, with all of the associated risks and inconveniences. How such altruists regulate their emotional response to individuals in distress may explain how they can at once be extraordinarily in tune with distress yet engage in risky helping behavior that many would find to be distressing in itself.…”

“…Prior research has highlighted that emotional processes can be automatically evoked in response to distressed and vulnerable others, particularly in highly altruistic individuals (Marsh et al, 2014;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2017;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2018). As reviewed by Vaish (2016), it is thought that our concerned responses to others are a result of not only these seemingly bottom-up emotional responses, but also top-down cognitive processes that can modulate the behavioral effect of such emotional responses, resulting in a "multidetermined concern."…”

“…While instructed reappraisal was found to affect donation behavior in the community sample, in which a hopeful reappraisal resulted in higher donations than a distancing reappraisal, effects of reappraisal in altruists and controls were limited with regard to donation outcomes, suggesting that altruists and controls may instead differ in interacting effects of negative and positive affect on donation behavior across conditions. Keywords: empathy, altruism, emotion regulationPrior research has highlighted that emotional processes can be automatically evoked in response to distressed and vulnerable others, particularly in highly altruistic individuals (Marsh et al, 2014;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2017;Brethel-Haurwitz et al, 2018). As reviewed by Vaish (2016), it is thought that our concerned responses to others are a result of not only these seemingly bottom-up emotional responses, but also top-down cognitive processes that can modulate the behavioral effect of such emotional responses, resulting in a "multidetermined concern."…”