A belated Mother's Day thought

I'm reading a fascinating book called How We Decide, by Johah Lehrer (his blog about neuroscience is here). More than anything, it's been about why we consistently make bad decisions, and he offers example after example of experiments that demonstrate how we're wired and what that makes us do.

I just finished the chapter about making moral decisions. Though he explains it all from the perspective of synapses firing and chemical compounds, he describes what motivates us to act in what I would call a Christlike manner: in the results of a survey, scientists found that "people who showed more brain activity in their sympathetic regions were also much more likely to exhibit altruistic behavior. Because they intensely imagined the feelings of other people, they wanted to make other people feel better, even it came at personal expense" (183). That's why it feels good to help other people. Call it a chemical reaction, call it the Holy Ghost, call it whatever, we are wired to derive pleasure from helping others, even if we end up worse off ourselves.

Lehrer points out that this is a natural development, and even occurs in monkeys. He describes an experiment where six monkeys had the choice to pull on two chains, one that gave them a lot of their favorite food and one that gave them a smaller portion of less-desirable food. Once they had figured out the system, they always pulled the first chain. Then the researchers rigged it so that pulling the first chain caused a nearby monkey to receive a painful electric shock. It only took one time of seeing the other monkey get shocked and hearing its cries. After that, all six monkeys settled for a smaller portion of food they didn't like as much. Two of the monkeys refused to pull either chain for days, nearly starving themselves to avoid harming the other monkey.

Compassion, while innate, is something that must be developed. For example, a genetic disorder inhibits people with autism from feeling sympathy. Also (and I'm finally getting to the point), children who do not have a loving, nurturing environment fail to develop this part of the brain. Abused or neglected children literally get wired a different way, and don't know how to act when they see someone crying. Says Lehrer, "It's not that these kids wanted to be cruel or unsympathetic. They were simply missing the patterns of brain activity that normally guide our moral decisions" (194). So, is there any more important role in the world than nurturing a child? Mothers really are the glue that hold society together. And when I see Addison react to a smile or frown, or when he hugs his dad after work, or when he cuddles (especially when he's sleepy), I'm glad he has such a loving, caring mommy.