From Evolution to Neuroscience: Why True Altruism is Nonexistant

Does selflessness exist?

Do you think you or anyone else is naturally capable of behavior that is completely absent of any personal reward?

When you think you are being selfless and altruistic, do you really gain nothing from your actions?

If human nature can be good, and humans are thought to be capable of altruism… why do things like this happen?

Take the case of Kitty Genovese, a young woman who was stabbed to death for half an hour in the middle of an open apartment complex in Queens, NY.

According to the New York Times, there were 37 eyewitnesses and more who reported hearing the attack—and none helped, let alone call the police.

Or the viral case of Wang Yue, a 2 year old toddler involved in a hit and run incident in an open market in China.

A total of 18 people and one hour passed by before anyone helped– and by that time, it was too late.

(Read more here about “Indifference Kills: The Bystander Effect“)

Altruism is desired, respected, and admired in society.

True altruism is defined by the American Psychological Association as prosocial behavior that is absent of any apparent personal reward.

In my experience working in clinical and nonclinical areas, interacting with and observing patients and caregivers in various settings and cultures, I hold a strong conviction that true altruism, throughout the spectrum—from healthy, ill, etc. – is unnatural in humans, contrary to common belief, and does not exist.

According to Richard Dawkins, a renowned biologist and professor at Oxford University, what differentiates humans from everything else in the animal kingdom is the development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC).

The medial and dorsomedial parts of the PFC control controls cognitive functioning and rational thought—the argument is that empathy and the ability to mentalize can motivate unselfish behavior.

However, evolutionary biology says that throughout our history, humans have only acted out prosocial behaviors to benefit the self, or else you wouldn´t have lived.

This is what Charles Darwin defines as reproductive fitness, and through evolution, the individuals that varied would have died off.  Basically, survival of the fittest; true altruism is not adaptive.

This could be used to explain why people like these two individuals, having low reproductive fitness, did not pass on their lineage…

…whereas well-known villains such as Fidel Castro, Sadaam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, and Kim Il Sung, to name a few, all continued their infamous legacies, especially in the example of Kim Il Sung, whose grandson (Kim Jong Un) continues to manipulate North Korea to this day.

What you all might think is true altruism might actually be what is defined as… parochial altruism.

Parochial altruism is defined by Darwin as:

self-sacrifice to promote in-group welfare and it is temporary, being reciprocated in the long run.

This sacrifice is when altruism is necessary to increase chances of one’s gene pool being passed on. So.. there is an absence of the “absence of personal reward”.

If we look at it from a different perspective, taking more into account than just food, water, and the need to reproduce, humans now havemore needs than the basic ones our ancestors had thousands of years ago.

Abraham Maslow, a renowned humanistic psychologist, suggested this theory of needs, which some of you all may be familiar with.

This pyramid of needs includes other needs such as esteem and social needs, including respect, self-worth, self-esteem, generativity, etc.

This theory attempts to shed light on why people act the way they do, which could explain altruism: does helping others make you feel good or like a good person?

These actions could also potentially earn one respect and cause one to respect his or her self, which means inevitably one is gaining something from behaving altruistically.

To prove this scientifically, Waytz et al. conducted a meta-study in 2012 to observe chemical processes in the brain. 

A to E represent the brain while performing different acts, from least to most “altruistic”.

When E tasks, the most selfless acts with no perceived self-benefit were performed, the researchers found that simultaneously, the reward circuits in the frontal lobe were active and releasing large amounts of endorphins and dopamine, showing that even when there is no conscious perceived reward, chemically, we are being rewarded.

So to conclude, humans were evolutionarily inclined to behave selfishly for survival.

Even when we were altruistic, it was with the expectation that we will benefit long-term.

Chemically, humans are rewarded and feel pleasure for being altruistic, even when we are not consciously aware of this personal gain.

Lastly, being altruistic might satisfy our other needs.

So next time you see someone doing anything seemingly altruistic, ask yourself this question:
What is that person really gaining from it?

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http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/22/7646.full.pdf+html

Bartlett M.Y., DeSteno D. (2006). Gratitude and prosocial behavior. PsycholSci 17:319 –325.

Batson C.D. (1991). The altruism question: toward a social-psychological answer. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.