ZAKI Jamil Social Prosociality Sources  Compassion Jan 24 2012

Jamil was just hired at Stanford... new asst prof in Psych starting in July 2012.
I chat with him before... just flew in for this talk...
has not moved yet.
I heard his job talk a year ago... also see that file.

Jim Dody.   Center for Compassion, Altruism  ... etc.  Jim is the direc and founder.

title today is  cognitive and neural sources of prosociality...
now at Harvard.

did bach sci at BU...
post doc here for a long while...

22 pubs in peer-rev journals...

his work aligns  with our interest at CCARE...

he switches title slides from harvard to stanford...

jason mitchelll  was his collab at harvard...  pic of jason yelling...
funded by Templeton  fnd for  positive neurosci...

why r we nice to people who cannot poss repay us?
eg  Haiti  earthquake...

he contrasts 2 tweets...  Nathan (random guy) says send 10 bucks to red cross in Haiti

contrasted with Aaron who says  donate money to ME.. I'll meet u to either pick up cash or check...

what is it...  prosociality ... is it "grafted on?"

Don Rumsfield ... asked abt  Iraq  looting of museums and trashing of same...
Rummy clip ... he says  that's just human nature  (wild, untamed view)

spitzer  2007... is social pressure what makes us kind...

if we can be punished, we give more

but Jamil's interest is why do we give voluntarily  anything at all (not the diff. btwn punished and not) but rather
that we give at all with no poss of gain.

is prosociality "woven in"

Felix  Warneken  and Tomasello,  2006

Felix drops a close pin and a 3 year old  crawls over grabs it
and stands and hands it back to him... with no prompting nor reward...

mesolimbic  meosprefrontal  cortex...

VS = ventral straitum  and NAcc  nuc accumbens...
respond to many types of rewards...
also respond to pure prosocial...

OFC  orbitofrontal  cortex
anteroventral striatum...

prosocial  might be piggybacking  on  reward system... early view.
reciprocity  (Rilling 2002)

vicarious reward  Mobbs 2009;******

ROADMAP for today

*  procial dcision making is imbued with intrinsic value

sourcw of procial motivation
*  vicarious enjyment  etc.

****
EQUITY as reward...  (people  and monkeys like fairness)that

David Attenborough:
Brosnan and de Waal  2003
one monkey gets  a dry bisquit
other monkey gets  a juicy grape

monkey is pissed off  with his dry biscuit...  he hands if back in disgust...
he reallyw  ant s the grape...
get this  clip:  virgil is one monkey;
***

Eliz Tricomi  2010

engaged OFC  indicated to Eliz  Tricomi 2010

that fairness was activ  OFC.

****

EQUITY AS REWARD  (one of his expts)

Pp = participant  (n = 19)  meet a confederate...

modified dictator game...  dictator can be really unfair...
participants cud gain up to 20 bucks more by being unfair...
told that confederate did not even know that they were being a jerk (by being unfair);

Brian Knutson:  1 buck for me  or  1.33 for  confederate.

is he inter in maximizing the dyad  (greater good)...

first example:  he takes a buck for himself, even tho he coud give 1.33 to conferderate.

****

if particip  can give away MORE to the confed on a given trial then they themselves get,
then a signif fx of the time, they did give the money to the confederate.

***

Haber and Knutson  20120  intrinsic  reward of charity  vs

other (missed it)

Zaki and Mitchell in press in PNAS
OFC activation...  (usu involved  in  valuation)
people may override the valuation  when it flies in the face of fairness..
ie  may prefer to be fair rather than maxing out their self reward...

pure self gains  OFC

****
what happens in brain when people r UNFAIR...
get R anterior INSULA  activation

Knutson 2007
Sanfey  2003

engaged when  disutility is present... either to self or to others..
negative affect feeling...
do see a pretty strong negative correlation  r= -0.64
corelating with unfairness and insula activaiton...

*****

sources of social preferences

shared affective resposne  (he calls it the bill clinton effect... i feel ur pain)
perhaps feeds into  intrinsic preferences for prosociality...
vicarious experienc eof others peoples affect.

source 1:  person-invariant value

"common value currency"
how do u decide when outcomes are really denominated quite differently...
incommensurate/ qualitatively difft outcomes...
do we reduce both to a common value  scale...

where does the common value currency live in the brain...

monkey expt  by padoa schioppa and assad  2006  pron  pad-oh  ski oh pah
say monkey is selecting  OJ  vs  grapfruit juice...
loooks at saccades  ;  reac times...
say OJ  is worht 4X  grapefruit...  where is that seen in the brain...
he found those neurons in OFC  (that reflect that preference)

****

eg  choc chip  cookie...
vicarious to friend  vs  ur personal reward to eat it urself...

perhaps that common value currency determines whether u share the cookie with a friend vs eating it urself.

in Brain Knutson trials... fixed ratios
eg  I get  2.50  vs other guy getting 2.00 =   5 to 4.

so,  where is the cut point btwn  altruistic  vs self giving

ir = indiff ratio ....

only OFC  demonstartes this pattern...  computing  the indiff ratio and using it to decide
whether to give to self or to other...

******
next topic...
mentalizing  (other peoples minds)
with Adam Weights  (spel?)

perhaps we use a colder way...
mentalizing  TOM;  perspective taking...
this is source 2:  mentalizing...

mentalizing  involvesw  TPJ  and Temp pole  and
PCC and Precuneus  and MPFC  = med pfc
PCC  poster  cingulate cort.
Keysers 2007 in TICS  etc.

show a face  wud this guy enjoy living in Calif  1  = not at all vw 5 = v much.

use this data to try to infer  altruism level...Waytz, Zaki, and Mitchell  udner review...

but we help  people in other ways...  give them advice,  etc.

***
in his expt... after guy got out of scanner.. he's asked
u know ur free to go whenever u want but  u can help  this other
guy  do the LSAT questions...

huge spread of  time helping the guy doing  the lsat q's...
corr with medial PFC...  
and medial PFC also support  theory of mind = TOM;

so perhaps  3 separ sources of prosocial behavior

shared affective response (i feel ur pain)
understnading other minds  and
intrinsic preferences for prosciality

future direcitons:
does prosociality support social well=being?  how?

is altruism a fixed quantity?  can they be increased?

sylvia morreli  will be his post-doc...

dali lama..if u want others to be happy, pracgtice compassion.
if u want to be happy , practice compassion.
sylvia...  combine  fmri and field studies... fill out dialy diaries...

he's collected number of videos of  vicarious nonmonetary rewards  (eg getting a job in calif)

3 week daily diary of prosocial behavior... morelli  et al in review
corrob by firend sreports  (r they really doing it)

****

is empathy a fixed quantity;  onelevel that u r born iwht and die with?
some evidnece that level can change

stevepinker... the better angels of our nature...

pinker shows the waning of war...  torture/ blood sport  (common in 1500s)  now  usu disdained...

compassion training  may  incr  prosoical behavior...

Q  does IR = indiffer ratio  change with level  eg
is it difft btwn  1.50  vs one buck  vs   1.5 million dolalrs  vs  1 million dollars...

conference in july (mentioned by dody)  on measures of compassion...

Q  how does ur work map onto work on normative behavior  and reciprocity...
why is it broadly adaptive for an indiv to be prosocial...

(people might say... if it helps u, then is it really altruism  (even if only to give u a squirt of dopamine))

people  r more  prosocial  whe reputation is at stake  or in a prosocial environment...

we have innate motivation  +  culturally bounded  motivation  (expectations of others).

people r more prosocial if they have a lot of info about the recipient
.