How Empathy Can Save the Economy

Neuroscientists have only recently begun to understand the roots of trust in the brain. Kurzban collaborated with Zak on a study that looked at the relationship between trusting behavior and a brain chemical called oxytocin. Best known as the “cuddle chemical” or “love hormone” that bonds parents to children and lovers to each other—oxytocin is the stuff that makes us empathize and care. But what it physically seems to do in the brain is create a connection between a particular person and a sense of safety and trust.

In the experiment, a person was given money, some of which would be “invested” with a stranger. In one scenario, the investor could decide how much to invest. In a second scenario, the amount was set randomly by computer. In both cases, the investment was assumed to triple in value and the recipient of the funds got to choose how much of that gain to return to the investor.

Researchers found that the people who received an amount chosen by the investor—a transaction that implies trust—had higher levels of oxytocin than those who received an amount dictated by computer. And the people with higher levels of oxytocin were more generous in the amounts they chose to return to the original investor.

Other experiments have shown that giving people oxytocin as a nasal spray makes them more generous—and more likely to forgive if a person takes money but does not give back.

Research on how trust grows from childhood, is encoded in the brain, and then affects society is only just beginning. Studies have found, for example, that children reared in orphanages without much individual attention have disturbances in their oxytocin system. They also tend to have difficulty empathizing and trusting—with some alternating between indiscriminate affection and complete mistrust. Beyond that, there are few human studies, but animal research has demonstrated that when mother rats are more nurturing, their babies have higher oxytocin levels and, in turn, are more nurturing to their own offspring. (To rule out a genetic explanation for this, researchers have “cross fostered” baby rats to either more- or less-nurturing mothers.)

Levels of trust also vary with cultural conditions faced by adults. Recent research led by Angelo Antoci, professor of mathematical economics at the University of Sassari in Sardinia, Italy, has been exploring a fascinating and highly relevant aspect of this relationship: Markets rely on trust to work efficiently, but a thriving economy produces consumer goods that can undermine the trust needed to sustain it.

Television is a classic example. As Harvard public-policy professor Robert Putnam argued in his 2000 bestseller Bowling Alone, the introduction of television coincided with a huge drop in virtually every measure of social connectedness, from voter participation to, yes, bowling leagues, family dinners, and the number of confidants people report having. Antoci describes a “social poverty trap” in which alternatives to social activity become more popular, which results in friendships being less satisfying and people feeling less empathetic toward each other, which makes the alternatives more attractive—and on it goes.

Of course, the social nature of Internet interactions could theoretically put some brakes on this trend. Says Antoci: “The effect of this ‘electronic’ social interaction on the quality of the social environment requires further studies. However, we think that electronic social interaction is an imperfect substitute for face-to-face real-life interactions and is relatively less productive in generating long-lasting social ties.”