[inaudible] im a member of the event staff here, and i would like to welcome you all this evening to politics prose. Tonight we are here to listen to abigail marsh talk about her new book, the fear factor how one emotion connects altruists, psychopaths and everyone in between. Just before we get started, now would be a great time to silence cell phones. Please feel to use them for social Media Purposes if you would like, just make sure theyre not going to make any noise. Secondly, when we get to the question and answer period after theyve talked together for roughly half an hour, we are recording both for our instore usage and for cspan booktv tonight, so if you have a question which we highly encourage please, a, step up to the mic that is over here and, b, make sure that it is, in fact, a question. [laughter] secondly or lastly, normally at the end of the night we would ask you to fold up your chairs after the event is finished, however, we have our nerds trivia night this evening, so please just leave your chairs where they are. Now for the fun stuff. In fear factor, abigail marsh records using an fmri to discover what happens in the brain to make some people respond empathetically to the fear of others while some remain indifferent. The answer published here for the first time lies in the emission da la e migd la. Combining her lab work with stories of both heros and sign patrick patients, marsh psychopathic patients. Katherine himself of Science Magazine said those who seek to comprehend the origin of fear, altruism and elements of human nature will find this book a key factor in their increased understanding. Marsh is an associate professor of psychology at georgetown, directs the universitys laboratory on social and effective neuroscience which won the prestigious [inaudible] prize for its groundbreaking work on extraordinary altruism. She will be joined in conversation tonight be Barbara Bradley haggerty, an awardwinning npr correspondent and the author of life reimagined. Please help me welcome them to politics prose. [applause] good evening. Can everyone hear me . Is it high enough . Okay, great. Wonderful. Well, i first met abby in 2013 when i was doing some research on altruism, and in the course of our interview, i realized that abby has a very wide range of interests in her research from kind of pollyanna to han belk elector han bell elector, right . From generosity to psychopath think. Whats wonderful about abby for me as a journalist is shes got this happy combination of being a deeply rigorous scientist and also someone who can really make the science accessible and interesting to all of us. And her book is very much the same way. It is smart, its insightful, its fascinating, its engaging, its all those things. And so weaver going to have a great conversation were going to have a great conversation tonight. Lets just start with how you dived into the research. What attracted you to the research that led you to both kind of the light and the dark . Well, the seeds of the research were planted a long time ago, 22 years ago, i think, at this point. With apologies to those of you who have already heard this story more than once. My interest in altruism and in what makes people care about the welfare of anybody else around them really spawned from a day when my life was saved by a stranger after a car accident in my hometown of tacoma, washington. Just in brief, that night i was driving home down the interstate 5 freeway in washington to my home when a little dog darted out in front of me, and those of us dog lovers here, i did what any of us would have done which you should not do. A Public Service announcement, dont do it, dont swerve to avoid hitting the dog, which is what i did. Which sent my car spinning out across the freeway, finally landing in the fast lane of the freeway facing backward into the oncoming traffic, and the force of the spinning out had caused the engine to die. And i was stranded with no exit, no cell phone. This was back in the 90s. And i was sure that i was going to die. The semis and cars streaming toward me were swerving barely in time to avoid me. And i dont know how long i sat there being sure i was going to die until a man appeared at the passenger side window of the car and said you look like you could use some help. [laughter] yes, i think i could. And he ran around the car, got it running again, it had been still in drive which is why it wouldnt go and got us back across the freeway the safety. And then pretty much disappeared. He said you going to be all right . You need me to follow you for a little bit . Are you going to be able to get home . I said, im okay, im okay, and i budget. He said, all right, you take care of yourself, and he drove away. I didnt know his name, im pretty sure i forgot to say thank you. And its all warranted that in theory people help other peopleing but theres nothing like having it happen to you to make it real and to bring the real mystery of humans caring for others alive. And so it really, that question rooted itself in my brain and i think has been the impetus for a lot of the research thats followed. Is we cant exactly know what was going on in that mans brain except for good thoughts, helpful thoughts. But how does altruism work in the brain . Whats the mechanism . Why are some people more altruistic than others . So were very much still our way to trying to answer that question. Its a question that people have been trying to answer for a while bedeviled by the problem of the fact that altruism is behavior that is intended to help someone else who is suffering or in distress. Causing somebody to be suffering or in distress which is deeply unethical, and theres no university r b that would approve of this. So what we did was take a clinical approach to the problem which is find people who do things that are altruistic out in the real world, bring them to the lab and try to see whats different about them using the tools we have available to us. And the root of what we found is that altruism seems to be motivated by partly things that are happening inside the amygdala, the structure of the brain that is involved in social and emotional processes. And just in brief, what we found in people who are very altruistic and in particular, we studied people who had donated a kidney to a stranger. I think there might be one or two of them here today. And in people who have donated a kidney to a stranger, the structure is larger than it is in the average perp, and its more active average person. And its more active in response to a person in distress which suggests they may have a stronger empathic response which may be what motivates them to help. What were those weve talked a little bit about the kidney donors. How did did they present differently . Were they more obviously generous as well . In sort of the general walks of life and other domains . Yes. Sure, absolutely. Whats interesting about people who have donated kidneys to strangers which, again, is the Altruistic Group i have worked with, is that theres no, theres nothing obviously different about them compared to anybody else. You wouldnt necessarily know it about somebody when you first meet them, although there is a sense of as my students and i have talked about a lot of being treated as a friend very quickly rather than having a protracted warmingup period or sort of a more closed experience at first. But it is true that people who donate kidneys to strangers are altruistic in other ways besides that. They tend to donate blood, they work for hospices or take in foster children, its really an amazing array of things. And i remember you saying the kidney donors didnt think of themselves as generous whereas the people you had to other people who might donate kidneys for their family, it was a harder lift for them. This is true. So among the many altruistic kidney donors ive worked with, many of them also know people who have donated to family members. And what has surprised them is people who donate kidneys to friends and family members which in some ways seems like the more obvious decision often report having to hem and haw, and it took a long time to decide whether or not to do this. Whereas people who donate kidneys to strangers often report the decision was instantaneous. Kidney disease is the ninth leading cause of death in the united states, an enormous number of people ultimately die on dialysis because it takes so long to get a kidney. And they hear this, and they hear it is possible to donate a kidney to a stranger, we can live fine with one kidney, and just like that, they decide, ill do it, ill donate. It really does suggest a neurological difference, right . Yeah, i think thats really compelling evidence that whatever is derived in the decision theyre making is really deepseeded in the brain. Its not a protracted, conscious weighing. Amygdala is helping make that decision. So are there differences why are there some are there differences in generosity, say, between gender, nations, you know, animals . I mean, are women better than men, are some countries better than other countries, are some animals better than other animals . But the the proportions are like 5545 its not a huge difference. We do see all truism in their 40s and a 50s and 60s. Why do you think that is . It may have something to do with the sort of increase oh, i dont know sense of satisfaction that arises as one has accomplished they thinks youve listen to accomplish as life progresses. It may have been deep seated in the brain its a great question. If you look across geographic areas you see a correlation e between but to people youve never met and available like prosperity and well being and flourishing where it seems to be a case within states in the u. S. , and also within nations arpgd the world as people become better off healthier, more educated, more literal, et cetera, towards strangers go up and up sort of an interesting i think really optimistic finding because we know that wealth and education and prosperity are continuing to rise. So thank goodness thats not inevitably associated with a huge in caring. So animals. So ive looked, i love Animal Research. With happily written an entire book about just animal behavior but as i dont do Animal Research so i include in my own as well. So theres big differences in animals many many the extent to which they will care for anybody who is not directly related to them. Mothering so theres a cool phenomenon called owl mothering that means taking care of babies that are not your own and animals have a capacity to care because they have to care for their babies and this is century requirement for mammals to survive a species but in some species there seems to have been this kind of unlocking of the potential to care so that mothers of some species rats are among them and they are a species like that believe it or not. Lions are an incredibly species they can be extremely aggressive i suppose cool you could call it. But they also do this amaze thing taking care of babies that are not their own within the pride that seems to be case if you look across species that those species were adults take care of babies that are not their own most and all sort of e mecialg from ability to care for their children and when that capacity sort of explodes upward with and outwards it can flourish. Wrncht do humans rank . We rank really high. Were some of the best sorry some of the best owl mothers among primates most owling mother species. Other great apes dont do a lot of owl mother some that do are tavern and monosets if they can cross primate species are the most towards strangers and humanses are the top of those lists. Around the world is actually really unnatural for babies to be taken care of by their own mother i find this very is strange and certainly incorrect belief in the modern world that baby must spaned maximum amount of time because thats not a way a culture does it. Especially if you look at hundred gather culture babies are taken care of by dozens of people over the course of a week or day and nursed by people who are not hair own mother and handled bloits of poem and it allows babieses to learn that you can trust people. You can form loving bonds with people who are not just one simgs source of attachment. So you kind of alluded to this a little bit earlier. But are we as a nation getting more altruistic so whats going on . Were getting more tribal theres no doubt about it. Whats interesting we know that tribalism is not helpful when it comes to altruism we treat people as that much worse than members of the group. But at least when were talking about altruism just ano, maam mouse stranger somewhere in the world were getting more and more altruistic without a doubts every year if you look at trends of charitable giving, volunteering, blood donation, bone mar roar kidney donation it is going up and up and pretty amazing. And of course its not really ever cover masters degree media because thats not sensational or fascinating but it really is. Doing the research for more than i thought in a long time. Well lets just shift from opt o opt o mism which is really, really interesting. Tells how sigh cop thy is in the brain. It is through human endowed with capacity for care as a result of having these needy babies we have to take care of. You know, any Human Capacity can go awry during development and that is a developmental disorder that seems to be at least in partly relate ared to genetic problems not completely but in part that seems to result in people having no capacity to care for anybody of themselves. And it is something that occurs in severe form in about one or 2 of the population and what we discovered that people who are psychopathic have brains that look through opposite and they have for example larger and more active than average people who are psychopathic have the opposite they are smaller than average and also less active. So you in the title of your book is about fear factor, what role does fear or the ability to capacity to recognize fear in others. What role does that have in for 60 or 70 years now is people of a psychopathic have a bold personality. U theyre not susceptible to punishment and not threatening very strongly and this is one of the reason ares why they offend and reoffend over and over again because the way that punishment is supposed to work is if you fear getting punished you wont do the thing that will result in the punishment and it doesnt seem the case people who are are psychopathic have that response and for a long time suspected that something must be wrong with in their amel la because we know it is a source of it is essential for ability to develop a normal fear response. I think you and i have had had this discussion too theres also inability to recognize fear in others how does that play at . Why does someone who cant really spot fear in someone else tend them towards psychopathic acts . So this is i think some of the most Interesting Research that my students and i have been doing over last couple of years. Its what we i think of discovered is that when you see or hear or think about somebody else who is experiencing fear in order to understand the emotion that theyre feeling, you have to sort of recreate or sill late that emotional state within your with own brain. And we know it is essential for being able to experience fear yourselves and so if you dont have a strong response when you sou or hear somebody else who is afraid you cant recreate what that emotion is like. And you fund mentally cant understand what other people is feeling you cant sort of empathize at the lowest level. Sole judge that, the breaks that would stop a normal person from hurt hadding that other person, those arent there . Thats exactly right and normally when if one of us saw somebody who was frightened by something say youre doing, our ability to simulate what that fear experience must be like must be enough to stop us from doing that same thing and if you dont have ability to do that you go on right ahead. So the second time we had a long kftion that was when i was writing a story for the atlantic on when your they call it when your child is a psychopath. And [laughter] which probably struck fear in hearts of many, many readers. But it turns out that you can see this seeds of emotional trades seeds fairly early. Three or younger sometimes. Can you can you just explain whats going on . What do you see youve worked with kids many your in your research. What have you seen when youve worked with kids how does it present . One of the most interesting thing bs the the children we worked with who have psychopathic kind of emotional traits is they dont really stand out. Always say if i were to bring in all of the kids that ive studied that have psychopathic traits and line them up mixed in with kids who are perfectly healthy you cannot pick who is who and nothing, obviously, different about them. Why is that brain qiezsome theyre specific and quite different than for example people who have serious cases of autism or schizophrenia brain wide disorders it is that it results from problems that are much more localized and leaves most of the brain and most functions intact. So youre bringing these kids and i dont know how old were you try to bring in kids who were 8 was bottom line and turns out that when kids are callus and uncaring meaning they dont care when you think or what you want and only eight years old which is too young to be strongly motivated by compensation and you need them to lie perfectly still without moving more than four mill meeters over kowrgs of 45 minutes it doesnt work well at all. And so gave up trying to bring eightyearolds so we bring wean 10 and 17. What did you see did you spot you said global and hard to spot but what did you see in these kids when you when child as callus emotional traits how does that present . Looking at the brain scan when youre scanning people who are healthy typically had thing when you present them with somebody who is fearful facial expression afraid while in brain imaging machine mri. On average they show a strong response to that which we think might be trying to simulate what Emotional Experience that person is having. And the children who have psychopathic response we didnt see a response on average their response is completely plat, in fact, a little bit negative. And we also found that the less response they showed to the fearful expression the worst their aggression was in particular, this instrumental aggression that people who are psychopathic known for which is gold direction you want something and trying to hurt somebody by doing it. Wow. Did you see any behavior that troubled you from any of these kids . Luckily not so much with us. During the scan still one child stole food to get a scan and another one of them flirting so much with one of my graduate students his mom joked to ask her to his prom so thats not [laughter] other than being a little surprising its not terribly troubling. What was more serious was thes stories athey told us about what they do in their daily lives. Like some of the worst things i heard about were a child who found a fake neighed and threw it into the library in his local town. Attempting to make perve believe that the library was being attacked by terrorists. That was a bad one. Another one ran a lone shark operation out of his bedroom and was charging he was i think 13, he wasnt any taller than me. I dont know five feet tall, and he was charging high school students. Like guy like a dollar a day interest. And if they didnt pay up he would threaten them with firework and paintball gun absolutely lack of the imperviousness and consequences what he was doing was really amazing. [laughter] so are all you know were talking about that here and you did think about henna but are are all psychopaths violent . Definitely not. Most was kids that we worked with were violent they abused animal aggressive at home and school and kicked out of multiple schools and families living in fear of them one parents take a sibling because they were afraid he was going to burn the house down overnight that said theres nothing about being psychopathic that makes you violent. Violence is used as a toll to get what it is that you want so violation a useful tool to get what you want then you might be violate but especially girls that we worked with if youre a smallish female, violation snot actually effective tool to get anything so they would use other methods to try to get what it was they wanted. And when they dwroa up to be adults theres this term that ive heard successful psychopath. Can you just tell, i mean, i think all of us would like to know maybe we already know [laughter] psychopather years yes. So what does that mean . What are successful psychopaths . First of all, i love that term because it is inply theyre successful at being a psychopath a contradiction in terms a successful psychopath makes their way in the world and seems to sort of skirt just under the radar of belay tangtly illegal behavior and might be a terrible person everyone may feel like theyre deceitful manipulative bernie said a name that comes up of somebody who may have been a psychopath even though can tell there was not a violence in his background what you are looking for to tell somebody is serious psychopath pick the core trait that even distinguish people who are psychopathic are from other o antisocial populations are this callus remorseless temperament where theres a persistent pattern of engaging in kinds of blair that cause people suffering even people normally close to you. And a failure to seemingly register that your behavior is causing other people to suffer. And a lack of any remorse after the fact. Theres a tendency to blame behavior on some external factor well i kont help it they drove it to me anybody would have done this in this situation. It is scary. Yeah. Now i mean fun fortunately it happens a lot. That people discover what it is i do. I get a email can i pick your brain and someone hurting people behind scenes it happens a lot. And the worst part when they say what can i do because theres nothing really you can do. I was going to ask you stay away so keep yourself from being vulnerable for average person, who feels things leak remorse and who really like the idea of actually hurting other person makes you feel terrible it is very hard to believe that there are people in the world who dont feel terrible about hurting other people like not deep down not anywhere. And its it makes us unfortunately too willing to give people another try sometimes. Pattern behavior shows they really dont care and a useful to know that one or 2 of the people in the world continue care and if you notice that persistent pattern behavior in somebody stay clear. Thats if you can. Hard to do if youre a parent for example and when i was looking at the phenomenon of children with callus and emotional traits, their parent were really hoping that they could do something to make their children better and the thought was if you get them early enough you can teach them empathy. Were in early days on this research but do you have a sense if they can change . I think so. Its not like, i mean, if you think again of a specific continually caring not going to move anybody from the bottom to the top end but these are properties that are flexibility and plastic they can change overt course of somebodys lives. And some of the most recent evidence was children suggest that children at high risk due to traits that they have been obvioused in their biological parents if theyre raised by mothers who are unusually warm and responsive not sort of pretty warm and responsive but at high end of the wants and responsiveness scales, theres children risk drop a lot. As they develop, and so i think theres every reason to believe these are traits that can be improved and influenced but we have to do a lot more research than weve done so far to figure out how. Switch side of it how do you if you want to be more generous and you dont have naturally that really large act aive can you become can we become more altruistic . We can become more because we see these trends happening all around the world where altruism is becoming more and more common over time soninlaw way thats possible is is if people can become more all u truistic. The best evidence about increasing altruism is actually regarding compassion and loving kindness meditation theres been a number of pretty good studies at this point showing that these meditation practices and not just any kind of meditation but many different kinds and they do things but in particular these kinds of meditations seem to make people more likely to care about and behave towards strangers as time goes on. Other ways that seem to improve altruism are reading, especially reading about literature. Simply appropriate for that, theres a really interesting theory are actually put out there by a number of other psychologists including Steven Linker that books are sort of this device for transporting us into conscienceness of strairntion and different from ourselves to think with them, and its really just a form of practice. Thats all compassion meditation is too, it is practicing experiencing tealings of compassion for peel progressively more distant from yourself and reading in some ways serve the same function which may be why as cultures get more prosperous and literate that ease go along with prosperity people seem more practiced in thinking about the internal world of people l theyve never met. Thats are also interesting. And appropriate. Flf [laughter] so finally my last question for you whats your vision youve studied psychopath and awe truetist has your research changed the way you view human nature or the world . And interestingly the research ive done that make it is most optimistic i know people ask a lot is it really depressing hard studying children who have these traits and it is. Especially because working with their parents is really difficult because their parent dont ask, dont dont have very good options or what to do so really what solidified for me that pact people who are psychopathic are selfish they dont care about other People Welfare things they do are for their own selfbenefit and that is unusual whole reason we bring them in and study them because thats not normal or the way the average l person is. And i think it is really solidified for me that average person really does have at capacity to care for if other people because theyre not psychopaths. Great. Great well im done with my questions which means that you get a chance to ask abby the questions that you have. I think just going up to the microphone i should have asked you a question does there we go. Good evening so my questions was does psych pat for others do altruists hurt themselves top help other os . Thats a great question. E i suppose objectively they do. Right volunteering to have your own kid nying taken out of you results in sol physical danger to person in order to help other people. But its not that they desire but the benefit for somebody else is so great they dont mind if they have to be hurt somewhat many the effort to help somebody else. But theyre not driven to hurt themselves thank goodness and that was one of the original fears, donating kidney to stranger has only been officially sort of legal for about 16 years. And psychiatrists were quoted as saying like it is morally repugnance and pathological to deepest degree in previous years. That anybody would want to give a stranger a kidney they couldnt fathom that somebody would be willing to do that but they must be psychotic but doesnt seem to be true. How does the distribution between male and female among psychopaths skew, and if the females do not use violence because theyre small, what are the skillsets that they bring to bear on their traits . I love the phrase skillsets . [laughter] a copy of that. So there are a lot of questions about the distributions of male and female psychopaths artily because of historical accidents that scale that is most often used is pclr the checklist that was developed many males and in a prison in canada, and so or there some questions about whether the items on that scale are kind of an artifact of the fact that it was developed in men. And if the personality traits in men and women might be same but that they express themselves differently in terms of behavior that you see. For example, you know one of the items on that scale is things like multiple marital relationships, and you know thats not sciek pathic but just something that tends to be down stream effect. And so it may be the case that when in general you see fewer women who are psychopathic man men although not as many fewer than you might think. Maybe it may be that were not picking up on them because they more social manipulation bullying in a social sense some of the children that i worked with adolescence also much more likely to use sexuality to get what they wanted. Whatever had tools you have at your disposal. I was wondering if you have worked with autistic children and if you have traits that are at least look similar . Thats a great question. Its one of the problems with a term empathy is that it encompassing somebody somethings that people confuse children who are autistic with ones who are psychopathic because we, you know, sometimes refer to children who are autistic as low in empathy but, in fact, autism associated with a very different kind of empathy deficit in what is called theory of mind difficulty understanding other o people intention and beliefs and thoughts sort of cold cognitive thoughts but people who are autistic with difficulty with that kind of process doapght have difficulty with caring about other people. Once they register what it is theyre feeling. And so a person can have psychopath and autistic traits. But isnt it actually the flip in the sense that the psychopathic person might have a clear sense of what the other person is thinking and feeling and thats why theyre so god at manipulating but they dpoangt care. Might be a key feature to a successful psychopath that they have really good ability to understand what other people want and drier, and thats why theyre so good at manipulating them and deceiving them. So i came in a little late i dont know if you touched on this but i was wondering how can you be certain like the fact of the psychology and no sense necessary. How can you be certain that altruists arent doing what they do for the sake of like the gratification that they might feel and theyre actually doing it out of wanting to help others . This is a really deep and incredibly important question why give a kidney to stranger is it because of the gratification they receive after and its a hard question. In part because people who are altruistic do feel imratification after they donating to somebody else and they successfully save their life if that is what ultimately happens, and the issue really is one of whether behavior was motivated by the desire to experience gratification or whether thats just a foreseeable down stream cons o consequence and the reality seems to be that thats mostly just a foreseeable down stream consequence any time you seek to do something and accomplish it you feel gratified by the fact that you accomplished what you wanted to do it doesnt necessarily mean whats what motivated you and having worked with people who are psychopathic that require only imratification reenforce people who drier imratification dont give away organs in general. There are many, many easier quicker ways to do that but many wrestled with this question they feel that because theyre they just feel like so gratified what they did they all say i ask every single one of them would you donate if you have another kidney to gi and what is in a heart beat of course i would do it. I would give away ten if i had ten more to give. Im so glad i did it and they feel conflicted like maybe i did it just because i wanted to feel this goods. And i try to reenforce for them just because you feel gods after the fact does not mean that feeling good was what motivated you. Thank you for this very valuable work. What about psychopath and say not just indifference but delight in someone elses suffering. Thats a great question so related to the fact people who are psychopathic are not cereal killers they have in their minds somebody like ted who came from my hometown three miles where i grew up, and he is not by any means a psychopath he was a psychopath no doubt about it but he was in a sense that he didnt care about people suffering and didnt care about their well pair in addition he was clearly meaning he actively took o pleasure in causing other people pain. And those two things are different phenomenon. The problem is when you get them both together you end up with somebody like ted. Hawaii abby. How selfaware are are altruists to their personals . Im glad you asked that. My sense is that it various a little bit. But probably not as not completely. And there are really interesting examples that people who are psychopathic and, in fact, ted is one, who have been quartered saying they believe they were the same as everybody else, that actually everybody else is just play acting when they acted like they cared about other people they were just pretend and people do it better than others. The altruist ive worked with we were stumped at first to start them asking start asking them questions like do you think that you are more compassionate person than average or more altruistic than average theyll usually say no. I would say well thats so interesting [laughter] because it feels on the outside like you were doing these extraordinarily altruistic things but it doesnt feel like that to me. But it feels like when you hear somebody will die without a kid mig and you have a kidney to give why wouldnt you it seems like oven thing to do and to them, note giving kidsny in that sort stance is thing that needs explaining they assume that almost anybody would give a kidney to stranger if only they have the right information. I think is amazing once we realized it that was true i was amazed by it but not successfully realizing the gap i think motion of us assume that everybody sells mostly like us. Which is why people who engage in really extreme behaviors are so surprising. My question is i dont know if you measured this but in what percentage of the population maintained a connection with the people who they were altruistic towards and also any big surprises in your research that you conducted what was most surprising thing to you . Other people who have donatinged a kidney to stranger most of the ones that we sited called nondirected donors they didnt know who it would go to before they donated meant they might never meet that person but up to recipient to decide whether or not they wanted to meet their toner and again we all think whatever had we would want to do is not true but some sipghts are really conflicted about the fact that somebody they never met before was willing to do this thing to save them. And so a number of it shall altruistic kidney donors never meet their recipients. Its clear that they all would like to just to sou the life and health that they restored this person to what ive heard is amazing is how quickly people who are at death door been on dialysis for a while restored to Perfect Health instangtly after kidney tongs it starts producing urine and that person you know has a beautiful color again and they feel good again right away. While donor feels terrible theyre great and now they feel awful for several days after the surgery and then among one who is actually do end up meeting their recipient it is a mix. I would say so many them form a close bond with them others meet them and are really happy that they met them but no real relationship afterward its an interesting mix. An i would say most surprising thing about them is what i was referring to a minute ago which is how they dont experience the decisions theyve made in anything particularly interesting. Invert, in fact, one of them in the middle of the interview when we asked him are you extraordinary unusual person, i mean, im sitting on this couch you flew me here in st. John where he was from. I guess i must be you flew me here to scan this brain. He didnt think anything was unusual with him up million that moment. So my question is about prefer lens is the word of altruism in different population categoryies such as if im a child of someone who has done a act am i able to get that democrat, republicans [laughter] a believer in god nonbelievers or even culture do you have any data across those category as many as we have a little indirect data interestingly the da it we have suggest not a superstrong orientation about political orientation you can care regardless of your political orientation something im really glad is true. I mean all thing we need is more polarization. It is clearly true there are relationships between compassion and altruism among those related. The estimate seem to converge around the idea that had about half of the variation in pretty much any trait you can peck is due to genetic factors. Not 100 . Half had. So when there are relationships between all u truism within a family is hard to know if that a shared genetic effect or way they were raised. I will say that theres no obvious anything that parents do to cause them to become more or extremely because we ask them we bring many, you know, with thereses, you know, are your siblings like you for example . And very few of them say that they are suggest that this wasnt simple that parents were doing that said i do come back to idea that the more you can practice thinking about the internal world that the people around you whether thats readingly theture, whether thats by doing compassion meditation or by going out and volunteering and engaging in various kinds of bhair in your community which i think helps you kind of build up to more and more altruism way to step up. Believers and nonbelievers . Nothing nothing that ive seen is a really strong correlation we have incredible mix of religious background everything from no religious faith at all to i think weve had at least a couple of, you know, every religious faith you can imagine among our population we havent found any relationship at all. Thanks. Then let me ask you one other question that i mountain to ask you anyway. Do psychopaths have higher i. Q. S . Probably not. So probably what they have is average i. Q. S. What is unusual about that is is what especially if youre looking at criminal populations on arch it you look at population of people who are in prison i. Q. Tengd to be lower than average. For a whole variety of Different Reasons and so that is a little bit unusual about people who are psychopathic that their sic no different than average in addition there seems to be a relationship between i. Q. And this severity of the behavior that you see especially in children. So children who have very high i. Q. S and are psychopathic have tools to get into huge amount of trouble because they are so cognitively capable. Wonderful. Would you go to the microphone. Thank you. Have you found nor psych paths in prison population or whats the prevalence of psychopath in prisons . Population yes, so theres been a lot of Research Done in this estimate is about 50 of all violent offenders are psychopathic meaning that they get a scoafer this 30 on this 40 scale. Among all prison population it is 25 to 20 but not a majority but higher in the general population. Wharnlg is the next frontier for research . It is really nice to have a better handle on how it is exactly like what are mechanisms by which the capacity for care expand outqard from when innermost circle to people her related i think thats the chamg of challenge of our time and my students and i are working on right now. Do you have any stories that you have to tell whether like the scottson story i should have done this any story ises that you just have to tell, that youve found one person said surprising or o something that explains the world to us a little bit . Well i suppose. I think this Scott Peterson example is an interesting one you bring up. I dont know you remember him he was are man who lived in california, an must have been 15 or 20 years ago now. He started having an affair and he ended up murdering a pregnant wife and tumping her body into San Francisco bay, an it was astonishing people leak a classic example of who knew him like such an ordinary guy, and i think its a really good example of u how, how difficult it is to really know people and how not everybody has the privilege to sit down with people you know interrogate them about their lives try to understand what theyre like and measure behavior in a lab and make them tick but a great sense of u humility when you have a little bit had of information how difficult it is to understand what it is and making them tick. And because ive done so Much Research now that suggest that average american is a caring person, i think it is made me a little bit more tolerant of most people behavior that you dont really know what is causing anybody to behave the way they are but probably not doing it all of malice. Can change and someone behaves better or what raised [inaudible conversations] yeah it is important that they are not suckers theyre not people who will sit will and take it if people are being cruel or unpair to them, in fact, we did one study in a lab that show miss face of inequity people are willing to retaliate thats a totally different trait of altruism they hate being called saints i flipped off somebody if in traffic im not a saint. And its true. What they really are is sensitive to when other people are suffering sensitive to when others are in depress as a result of some of the brain phenomenon that weve been studying and, you know, almost any other social o situation theyre probably just an ordinary person in any last takers . Do you mind, yes sir i can report it. Shemghts a little bit more on the Scott Peterson story. Just in brief he was an ordinary guy who is it wasnt a great biography and one day he up and murdered his wife and dumped her body in San Francisco bay. Initially nobody knew it was him who did it because he was outleading charge to find the killer he was having press conferences, and organizing neighborhood searches for her body all over the neighborhood in fact he knew where her body was and it wasnt in the neighborhood. And later the investigators piece together the reason he done this was because he had been having an affair and that suggest that he was probably good example of a sciek path with a callus personality all along and didnt bother him to do this terrible thing but he didnt go out of o his way to hurt had people. He hadnt been engaging in crime throughout his life, an he probably had pretty good regulation but because he seemed to have his callus temper the and thing he is did after he arrested he did a lot of classically psychopathic sufficient like you know try to develop a new identity and you know, across border to mexico and other things it. But it seemed like because he had this incredibly callus temperament inside, it didnt bother him to do this thing when opportunity arose. So if maybe if this i dont know if i want to say need but the desire to hurt had his wife had never arise aren because of this affair he was having he might have not done anything terrible to anybody but he wanted to for this other reason it didnt bother him to do terrible thing that he did. Wonderful. Thanks i wanted to ask if writing this book had had changed the way youre approaching your life in other ways besides optimism like have you started reading more novelses . Have you started thoughting donating a kidney how has it changed your daytoday life . i do think it had made me again appreciate other people more than i used to. I really just being having the enormous privilege of working with altruistic kidney donors it made me a expanded my horizon when i think about human nature in general. I had not decided i wanted to donate ad kidney i hate to say. I think its probably a good thing because i think it helps me stay objective. And a its also giving me a little sense of humility that im not at the end of the compassion spectrum i think im pretty much in the middle like i do some nice things for other people like everybody does. And i think that makes me a pretty ordinary person but maybe that make me appreciate extraordinary once even more. I wondered does the act of becoming parpght does becoming a parent does that change you neurologically or o chemically or in any way kind of to make you more altruistic. May. We dont have great data on this but there are great studies out there from just the last couple of years suggesting that parenting does change your brain and not just in ways that make you more forgetful and gathered we all knew that. [laughter] but there may be an extent to which the throed of hormone like oxytocin a study that had i study that occur after you have a child do result in semipermanent changes to your brain and we know this happens in rats a fascinating heartless and cruel before they have their own babies and then something about experience of becoming mothers for first time causes mother rats to experience a rapid transforms in way that they treat babies and kind of all u truism theyll show for them and lurtly walk with across an electrified grid to get babies out of dangerous once theyve become mothers it is a change and basically permanent so theres a possibility. I do male rats change when they become fathers . They do not. [laughter] i mean so i shouldnt actually male rats do their behavior does change but whats interesting is that other way that you can change mother rats one way is giving them oxytocin so into their brain become more caring very quickly or have them have their own babies that causes this cascade but other way is force them to be arranged babies just be like no you keact leave i know you have Better Things to do. I know theres foods other there you cant leave you have to stay arranged babyies dont eat them and sometimes they do. Flearn after a couple of days all of that maternal care process will start to kick in. So the act of care aing for others seals to rev up caring system in a way that causes more care to happen sort of this beautiful selfperpetuating cycle some evidence thats true in people as well and altruists say they started by donating blood and that was a good spurnes and so they moved up to marrow and now a kidney and thinking about donating piece of their liver like its okay. You dont have to keep donating organs. But i do think theres a sense that care gets more care in that way having babies may do Something Like that. I think theres a man right ahead you talked about reading and literature an news article on impact of screen time and social media. Ash im wondering if anyone or you have looked at what that is doing to altruism in our culture. Thats a great question. Question is how social media and use of social media screen time is affecting altruism this as you might imagine not only a new question but lottery debated. And theres some evidence on both sides. Its clear that social media twitter is a good example from twitter users that seals to do is polarize people. And then news most likely to correspond with people part of our network who agree with us unfortunately theres ed that the emotion that seems to propagate the best through social Media Networks is rage. When people are posting something about that makes them feel sad or makes them feel joyful or disgust or afraid none of that tends to burst through a network the way that something that makes you feel outrage ared and weve had had that example that is outrageous and its very easy to do. And unfortunately rage is emotion that can block the capacity for care even if people who are perfectly capable of caring. And this is really the much bigger problem for most people not are you capable of caring but are you engaging in care, when youre capable of it and also for example people experienced as a text are not humanized as fully as people whose voices we can hear when we can hear somebody talking, they we experience them being a human being with internal life and least on social media which is not literature. Usually we dont get that same sort of emotional richness that causes us to humanize another person and may be one of the reason we see effects that we do. That said social media user increasing so i dont think it is a purely negative phenomenon. I think that it is complex in ways we dont fully understand. This is going to be our last question. Speaking of eating baby rats made me think what is personality traits like us parents in particular psych s . So what are psychopaths like as parents . Oh, so actually some callers of mine and i we were with at the biannual conference for research rs this past summer all of us were there and how Little Research has been done on psychopathic traits in parents and how becoming a parent effect the psychopathic traits and how people live psychopathic traits respond to parents. E we have only the most sort of preliminary evidence. My guess is people who are psychopathic themselveses are not the motion responsive participants and no evidence that they would be. And so probably what this result in is children end up with a double whammy where they have inherent risk factor as a result of their environment. Which amplifies the effect of whatever their early risks were. But theres a surprisingly little amount of data on this. Lets give abby a generous psychopathic laws. Applause. [applause] thank you everyone books are purchase behind register and shell be signing up here. Youre watching book tv with nonfiction books every weekend. 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