Many studies have painted human nature as self-serving, but new research says that we may not be such jerks after all. One recent study suggests that evolution has actually favored the altruistic, according to Huffington Post.
University College London and Oxford University psychologists set up an experiment to see how much pain a person would be willing to inflict upon themselves or strangers for money. For the most part, the subjects did not choose money over the well-being of others, according to study results.
Eighty pairs of people were randomly assigned a partner, with one being the "receiver" and the other functioning as the "decider." None of the participants were aware of the identity of their partner. The subjects were each subjected to "mildly painful electric shocks, matched to their individual pain thresholds," according to Huffington Post.
After phase one, the deciders were each taken into a private room and given the option of receiving various intensities of shocks for various amounts of money (example, seven shocks for $15). There were about 150 to 160 trials, about which half required the "decider" to get shocked while the other half required the shock to be delivered to the "receiver," according to Huffington Post. Participants were told their choices would remain confidential.
"In two studies, we show that most people valued others' pain more than their own pain," the study states. "This was evident in a willingness to pay more to reduce others' pain than their own and a requirement for more compensation to increase others' pain relative to their own. This 'hyperaltruistic' valuation of others' pain was linked to slower responding when making decisions that affected others, consistent with an engagement of deliberative processes in moral decision making."
"These results contradict not just classical assumptions of human self-interest, but also more modern views of altruism," Oxford neuroscientist and lead author Molly Crockett, said in a statement, according to Huffington Post. "Recent theories claim people value others' interests to some extent, but never more than their own. We have shown that when it comes to harm, most people put others before themselves. People would rather profit from their own pain than from someone else's."
At the conclusion of the trial, subjects were given the option of donating some of their winnings to charity, according to Huffington Post - about 20 percent participated in the donation.
OK, so we can't all be perfect.
The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
