Being kind pays off

面白い記事。

“We’re kind because under the right circumstances we all benefit from kindness,” Oxford’s Curry said.

When it comes to a species’ survival “kindness pays, friendliness pays,” said Duke University evolutionary anthropologist Brian Hare, author of the new book “Survival of the Friendliest.”

Kindness and cooperation work for many species, whether it’s bacteria, flowers or our fellow primate bonobos. The more friends you have, the more individuals you help, the more successful you are, Hare said.


McCullough sees bonobos as more the exceptions. Most animals aren’t kind or helpful to strangers, just close relatives so in that way it is one of the traits that separate us from other species, he said. And that, he said, is because of the human ability to reason.

Humans realize that there’s not much difference between our close relatives and strangers and that someday strangers can help us if we are kind to them, McCullough said.


He said studies point to certain areas of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex, temporal parietal junction and other spots as either activated or dampened by emotional activity. The same places give us the ability to nurture and love, but also dehumanize and exclude, he said.

When mother bears are feeding and nurturing their cubs, these areas in the brain are activated and it allows them to be generous and loving, Hare said. But if someone comes near the mother bear at that time, it sets of the brain’s threat mechanisms in the same places. The same bear becomes its most aggressive and dangerous.

Hare said he sees this in humans. Some of the same people who are generous to family and close friends, when they feel threatened by outsiders become angrier. He points to the current polarization of the world.


Being kind makes people feel better emotionally.

But it’s not just emotional. It’s physical.

人間は親切であることを高く評価するし、親切であることは種が生き残るのにも役立つ。

親切にすると、気持ちがいいものだし、健康にもいい、と。

ところで、動物の親切の範囲は近親者に限られるが、人間の場合、理性があるから、近親者を超えて親切にする。

もっとも、愛することを担当する脳の部位が同時に他者に攻撃的になることにも注意。子育てしている母熊は自分らに接近するものを脅威ととらえ、その”侵犯者”に対して攻撃的になる。人間も、家族や近親者に親切、寛大でも、部外者から脅威を感じると部外者に攻撃的になることがあるが、同じメカニズムであろう、と。