The warm glow that many donors get from giving to charity involves the same brain mechanisms that evoke pleasurable sensations after sex, eating good food, and using heroin or other drugs, a new study has found.
To examine the interplay of self-interest and altruistic behavior, researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, in Bethesda, Md., studied the brain activity of 19 men and women, each of whom was given $128 and asked to make choices about whether to keep the money for themselves or to give some or all of it to charity anonymously.
Each participant was presented with 64 charitable organizations involved in issues such as abortion rights, gender equality, the death penalty, and children’s rights. The participants were asked to make one of five decisions about each charity: not to donate at all and receive a small monetary reward, to designate a gift at no cost to themselves, to give some of their money to the charity, to oppose the cause at no cost to themselves, or donate to oppose the group’s work.
All of the participants chose to give at least some of the money away, donating $21 to $80 apiece to support or oppose a cause.
Donating, even when it didn’t cost them any of the money they had been provided, activated two areas of participants’ brains.
The first was the mesolimbic network, which was also activated when participants chose the small monetary award instead of donating. This part of the brain has been found to play a role in reinforcing life-supporting behaviors such as eating and sexual activity by releasing dopamine, which causes pleasurable or euphoric sensations.
The second part of the brain involved in participants’ decision to donate was the subgenual area, which was activated primarily by giving; this neural area plays a key role in helping people form beneficial social attachments to others.
Donors who opposed causes, whether or not they spent some of their money to do so, activated a different part of the brain: the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, which is correlated with aversive feelings such as anger and disgust. The more times that participants decided to oppose a cause, the more active this part of the brain became, the study found.
Jorge Moll, a Brazilian neurologist and the lead researcher of the study, says that he wants to expand research into the neural, as well as psychological, causes of altruism and pro-social behavior.
“We can promote social welfare through a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying altruistic behaviors,” says Dr. Moll. “Many people think they should not do anything for others unless it has a material benefit for themselves. But our brains show that you profit emotionally from doing so. Something in our brains shaped by evolution allows us to feel joy when we do good things. It is a biological force and we should not ignore it in promoting social welfare.”
For a free copy of the study, send an e-mail message to Dr. Moll at mollj@ninds.nih.gov.