[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