It was originally the message of scriptures. Religious and philosophical discourse over the millennia has pointed to a fundamental goodness that lies at the heart of each of us. Whether referred to in terms of divinity – as in the conventional religions – or terms of core attributes – as in Buddhism – human kindness has been described as an irreducible part of who we are. Many a self help course has said the same thing.
In the least hundred years, however, with the birth and growth of evolutionary biology and Freudian psychology, a different school of thought propagated; namely that, at our basest level, we are all in fact selfish genes, fighting a battle for survival of the fittest. War, famine, intolerance and crime lead all of us to wonder, from time to time, whether this alternative view of human nature is perhaps a more accurate one.
In the last decade or so, however, research by some clever academics in psychology departments around the world has begun to piece together a picture that seems to combine both realities and throw up some interesting conclusions. A study at the University of Chicago looked into the brains of children aged 7 to 12 with functional MRI scans. fMRIs enable objective determination of what feelings are being experienced at different times, given the areas of the brain that are lighting up. The Chicago academics discovered that children of this age do, in fact, have a natural inclination to experience empathy for the plight of others.
Dacher Keltner, a University of California psychologist, is one of several pioneering professors to have written about the way in which human altruism does appear to have given us an evolutionary advantage. By sticking together as a community, we have effectively succeeded over our predators as a species. The result of this process is that kindness is now actually hard wired into us, hence the findings of the University of Chicago researchers.
No one is saying that selfish and destructive action is absent from the spectrum of human behaviours, but what the latest research and thinking tells us is that kindness toward others does, in fact, represent a core aspect of who we are on a fundamental level. Sounds like, at least to some extent, the ancient sages and so many self help courses were right after all.
Dr Russell Razzaque is a practicing psychiatrist based in London, England. He earned his medical degree from the University of London, he is a member of the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists and in 2009, after several years of clinical development, he launched SILEOTHERAPY - an innovative online self help program...
www.meditation-therapy.net
Sileotherapy is a unique synthesis of meditation techniques and Internet therapy, and this new approach to personal development is the basis of an ongoing series of articles in this blog.
