From ScienceDaily:
After exploring the areas of the brain that fuel our empathetic impulses — and temporarily disabling other regions that oppose those impulses — two UCLA neuroscientists are coming down on the optimistic side of human nature.
“Our altruism may be more hard-wired than previously thought,” said Leonardo Christov-Moore, a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA’s Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
The findings, reported in two recent studies, also point to a possible way to make people behave in less selfish and more altruistic ways, said senior author Marco Iacoboni, a UCLA psychiatry professor.
“This is potentially groundbreaking,” he said. (Abstract, paywall) More.
Presumably, citizens would be force-fed AltrientsTM instead of nutrients.
Otherwise, it’s hard to think of a thesis more generally disproven by normally functioning human nature. Only a few people need bother with efforts to be more selfish.
The main question is why are people compassionate when they in fact are?
By the way, whatever happened to Marc Hauser and Evilicious?
See also: Neuroscience News: Are humans hardwired for transgressions?
Betrayals helped humans spread
An evolutionary challenge: explaining away compassion, philanthropy, and self-sacrifice
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