The boy who proved that altruism exists

November 18, 2009 by matthewtaylor
Filed under: Social brain, The RSA 

Judging by the absence of comment on yesterday’s post (not even from my dear, sweet, remarkably young looking mum), my reader isn’t as interested in my crowded speaking itinerary as I fondly hoped. In the face of such indifference it’s no good expecting you to be impressed by the fact that I am writing this after a speech on pensions and another speech on personalised public services and before a speech in non-formal learning. Nor will you be moved by the knowledge that I have so far today taken twelve different overground, underground and light rail journeys (including a most distracting detour as a result of the closure of the Waterloo to Windsor line).

Churlish lot, you will probably be left cold too by my realisation that all speeches to all audiences can with equal validity contain the following three points:

• We face a time of unprecedented change.
• The choice is whether is go back or go forward although (da da!) it isn’t really a choice is it?
• We must find better ways of making our case to outsiders but also recognise that we must commit to improving our own performance and accountability.

But perhaps you will allow some neural activity in response to my day’s high point (I should say high point ‘so far’; after all, I arrive in Slough in 15 minutes). At London Bridge, a boy aged about 7 or 8 ran onto the tube train but, before his mum could join him, the doors closed. Clever mum didn’t panic but as the train started to move shouted through the window for the boy to get off at the next stop where she would join him. Nevertheless, and hardly surprisingly, as the train picked up speed, the poor boy cried out ‘mummy, mummy’ and started to sob.

At this moment, there was almost a crush as about ten passengers – including someone who I think was Portuguese and didn’t appear to speak English – leapt forward to offer comfort,. The closest by passengers were a middle aged man and woman who looked like they were between business meetings. The woman knelt down and promised the boy that everything would be OK and that she would get off at the next station and wait with him until his mum arrived on the next train. Before we could even get to Bank, the boy had stopped crying and was smiling sheepishly at all these adults looking at him with a mixture of concern, admiration and delight.

Last week I asked whether altruism is natural. I am happy to report that it is. As the boy left the train hand in hand with the woman, the carriage silently cheered, everyone now with a more positive outlook on the world. I wished the brilliant, but ever so slightly smug, duo of Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubnar (of Freakonomics fame) who last week at the RSA cast serious doubt on the existence of instinctive altruism had been there to see the living proof. Of course, it was a rare and lovely moment. Children evoke special feelings in us. What was being asked of us wasn’t difficult and didn’t require us to give up much. Still, it was a moment of spontaneous collective empathy and generosity and that surely tells us something good about how human beings tick.

As for the boy, I have a hunch that this experience will be great for his development. Surviving being temporarily removed from his mum will strengthen his sense of independence while the reaction his plight provoked in strangers will instil a more positive outlook to the rest of the world and maybe even lead to the internalising of benign social norms for him to exemplify in later life. In ancient times tribes used to leave their young in the wild to make their way home seeing this as a way of cultivating strength and independence (actually, I have no idea whether that’s true but stick with me on this). Perhaps today’s equivalent would be to separate small children from their mums for a single stop of the Northern Line. It’s not quite so bold as being abandoned in a forest full of wild animals, I know. But let’s not forget we do live in times of unprecedented change in which we must choose whether to go forward or back.

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22 Comments on The boy who proved that altruism exists

  1. Richard on Wed, 18th Nov 2009 4:48 pm

    2. I agree with you about the smugness of the Freakonomics duo. I watched their RSA discussion online and – though I don’t know the details of the experiments – thought the flaw they identified in the early research which did find altruism also applied to the later research they cited which did not find it… namely that all it tested was the circumstances in the lab, not life in general.

    I assume there was no real ‘Person B’ in the experiments who actually had money given or taken by Person A, but if there had been and she had then been asked to come back the next day and take on the role previously played by Person A, would she be selfish because she was treated selfishly the previous day? Or would she be kind because she now knows how horrible it feels to be treated badly?

    And similarly, if the original Person A was told at the start of the experiment that the next day he would have to come to play the other ‘recipient’ role and would receive or lose whatever the ‘new Person A’ decided, would that affect his initial judgement?

    Basically, altruism is about a continual relationship with the world around you, being kind and expecting it back… so a one-off experiment fails to model that ongoing negotiation with the real world which is what life is all about.

  2. Steve on Wed, 18th Nov 2009 5:04 pm

    3. Hi Matthew

    I was listening to a psychiatrist (I believe he was) on the radio in the last couple of days who reported that his research showed that people who ‘did good things’ were happier in themselves, be it helping an individual or simply giving to charity. Sadly I can’t remember his name but it put me in mind of the ‘random acts of kindness’ idea that became a sort of trend/cult a few years ago, as having tried it myself I felt my sense of well being lift, perhaps it is time I did it again.

  3. lynn broadbent on Wed, 18th Nov 2009 5:22 pm

    4. A nice story – I once lost my (then) five year old son on an escalator at Heathrow. A couple of people grabbed his hand when they realized what was happening, and they also gave me dirty looks which said I was a lousy mum. He’s 25 now and none the worse for it as far as I can tell.

    It’s hard to believe anyone would turn a blind eye to someone in obvious distress, especially a child. But there are times when you have to wonder. In a recent case in California a high school girl was gang-raped for over an hour while her peers took pictures with their cell phones. In DC there have been cases of hit and run victims dying in the street while people quickly walked by, perhaps afraid the guy was a drunk or a gang member, “not my problem”. These same passers-by probably put their five bucks in the collection plate on Sundays whether the Steves are watching or not. Are we seeing not simply a lack of altruism but something more sinister emerging?

  4. Livy on Wed, 18th Nov 2009 5:23 pm

    5. It’s a nice story, but its hardly surprising that a stranger would help a lost child. I mean… obviously, no?

    Matthew, your train story reminded me about a slightly different topic. I always wondered… when the barrier came down at Vauxhall tube station, did you stay in the queue and take part in the murmur that broke out, or did you duck under the barrier and leave?

  5. Julian Dobson on Wed, 18th Nov 2009 5:55 pm

    6. I hate to be a spoilsport, but isn’t this a case of generalising from the particular? As I think you may have mentioned yourself on previous occasions, altruism may be innate, but possibly only an innate as selfishness.

    Would the people on the tube have reacted in the same way if an elderly dementia sufferer had got separated from his or her carer? Or the person with mental health problems I often see on the bus who insists on engaging everyone in conversation?

    Human beings have huge capacities for kindness, and huge capacities for cruelty. That’s stating the obvious (though the Freakonomics guys seem to have done very nicely out of it). ‘Twas ever thus. And the ways of turning people from cruel to kind are probably as varied as people themselves, though most seem to involve some kind of epiphany of self-awareness.

    Meanwhile I should point out that while my failure to comment on your previous posts might appear churlish to you, it was actually an altruistic gesture designed to free up debating space for other people.

  6. carl allen on Wed, 18th Nov 2009 10:42 pm

    7. Making sure the species survive i.e. the welfare of the young specifically, is spontaneous and not altruism.

    Even the evil tend to have this spontaneous reaction, most of the times.

  7. Tessy Britton on Thu, 19th Nov 2009 7:10 am

    8. I love the work of Frans de Waal who always champions innate, evolutionary human goodness. Having studied primates for decades I think he is uniquely qualified to have an expert opinion.

    He writes:

    “Like other primates, humans can be described either as highly cooperative animals that need to work hard to keep selfish and aggressive urges under control, or as highly competitive animals that nevertheless have the ability to get along and engage in give-and-take. I rank humans among the most aggressive of primates, but I also believe that we’re masters at connecting, and that social ties constrain competition.

    Many economists and politicians model human society on the perpetual struggle they believe exists in nature. But in fact many animals survive through cooperation, so there is a long evolutionary history to compromise, peaceful coexistence, and caring for others. Empathy is part of the survival package, and human society depends on it as much as many other animal societies do.”

    http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/features/251555/sept

  8. Will Davies on Thu, 19th Nov 2009 7:25 am

    9. Weirdly I had a parallel experience on the Northern line when approaching London Bridge a few weeks back. As the train was in Bank Station, I (altruistically) pointed out to someone that they had forgotten their very large wheely suitcase. They reported that it wasn’t their’s… So I (less altruistically) asked the next nearest person, then (even less altruistically) the next, until I was shouting down the carriage “DOES ANYONE OWN THIS SUITCASE?!”

    At this point, the doors closed, and there was a brief lull, before people one by one began to move away from the suitcase. Within a few seconds, this had turned to mild panic and herd behaviour, until there was a scrum to get down the opposite end of the carriage. ‘Mass egoism’, or some such?

    I got off in London Bridge, reported it to a member of staff, by which point the train and suitcase were heading off towards Borough. Fortunately there were no suitcases on the news that night.

  9. mas on Thu, 19th Nov 2009 12:14 pm

    10. it’s a nice story – sadly I have lots of stories similar to Lynns – times where one or the other of my young children has fallen over some distance away from us and rather than help adults have stood and stared before continuing to stare at me as though I should never allow them to run free. Somebody else gave a story recently of seeking to help a lost child by taking her hand and walking with her – his thanks was to be confronted by an angry man accused of being a paedophile and physically threatened.

    All things I despise, and yet I also understand – did anyone else have the fleeting thought of ‘I hope that lady did return the child to his mother and not run off and harm him’? I think it is natural to help children but the culture in this country has become one of ’stranger danger’ and suspicion of those who like the company of children who are not directly related to them. I think a very interesting discussion would be to consider how challenging that culture could actually result in a safer society for children – I for one am absolutely certain that the ever increasing checks required to have contact children will make them less unsafe, not more so – not least because of the wider culture it creates.

    As a subnote to try and balance how that may sound I do want to stress that I remember well when we had our first child how surprising it was at just how much positive attention we had from strangers towards our child and I do still think overall that the image we sometimes give ourselves of Britain not being a child friendly culture is not true – I think in the main many people are just afraid and really that’s very sad.

  10. mas on Thu, 19th Nov 2009 12:15 pm

    11. oops – that was of course meant to be less ’safe’ not unsafe!!

  11. Noel on Thu, 19th Nov 2009 5:11 pm

    12. Really insightful story and reflecting on this and Julian and Will’s comments, I wonder if there’s something about the impact the consumer driven society has on us as individuals. We want to experience the feeling of acting altruistically and collectively, but on our terms.

    Having been influenced by the need to rationalise our behaviour in terms of cost-benefit, we think we need to justify to ourselves “what’s in it for me” if we act altruistically – feeling good about ourselves, being seen to act for a common cause, etc.

    Which may explain why we may not engage the people Julian describes or why we don’t act collectively to negotiate what we do about the suitcase in Will’s scenario.

    Both of these involve having to negotiate tensions and contradictions – in Julian’s case helping out someone with mental health problems in the face of public disapproval from the rest of the bus, or in Will’s case, negotating collectively what you do with the suitcase in the face of the carriage either treating you with suspicion or ridicule.

    And there are tensions between the mother’s responsibility to protect with smothering her child and give him or her the autonomy to be empowered without being careless!

  12. Jenny on Thu, 19th Nov 2009 5:14 pm

    13. Very clever – no comments on your last post so you pull out a lovely story about a lost little boy. Et voila: comments aplenty.

    Good story though

    *sniff*

  13. Livy on Thu, 19th Nov 2009 5:30 pm

    14. Tessy – Very interesting take, I’m a big fan of socio-biology and people like Dawkins too. The more I see and learn about people the more convinced I am that we can understand and interpret all human behaviour as being driven by two primal urges; survival and replication. Anyone interested in male / female relationships in that context should check out Matt Ridley’s book, “The Red Queen”.

    Will – I have a similar but not nearly as scary story so I see where you’re coming from. Does anybody ever find when the tube is completely packed in rush hour, its only packed in the standing areas in front of the double and side doors, never between the seats? And when angry people late for work standing on the platform shout, “Can you please move down a bit?”, nobody does and peole reply, “Where the hell to??”

    Well one morning a nasty, viscous and rather bloody fight broke out between 2 standing passengers in the crammed section. You should have seen how quickly people managed to make space available, and plenty of it, while they collectively scrummed away in the opposite direction.

  14. Tessy Britton on Fri, 20th Nov 2009 11:24 am

    15. @Livy I like particularly admire Dawkin’s struggles with this too.

    He writes:

    “We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and , if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss deliberated cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism – something that has no place in nature (de Waal would disagree), something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.”

    The dualism Dawkins is criticised for in these statements seems unavoidable…. as every day we witness individual examples which confirm or deny our thinking around altruism/selfishness (as Matthew’s story, and comments above demonstrate). In his own defence Dawkins writes ‘ We, that is our brains, are separate and independent enough from our genes to rebel against them’.

    I suspect (hope) we will still be talking about this in another thousand years….

  15. Ian Leslie on Fri, 20th Nov 2009 9:36 pm

    16. The anecdote is inherently ambiguous. We don’t know for sure if the mother actually turned up at the next station. She may have deliberately trying to lose the child. Which would suggest some different reflections on the nature of altruism…

  16. Livy on Fri, 20th Nov 2009 10:04 pm

    17. ..Someone had to say it didn’t they!

    :)

  17. DaveGorman on Mon, 23rd Nov 2009 7:57 pm

    18. Good post as usual Matthew- I ofen don’t comment as I don’t have much to add.

    If I re-call though, when some tribes left children in the woods to fend for themselves, large numbers surrounded the child at all times, and often would make their presence known as soon as the child had made a breakthrough gesture of independence- to make the point that they were never alone etc.

  18. Livy on Wed, 25th Nov 2009 12:23 pm

    19. In Spartan times military training began at the age of seven. Boys lived in what were essentially communal packs and deliberately underfed, to encourage them to master the skill of stealing food. By the age of twelve they were obliged to take an older male mentor, typically an unmarried young man, to act as a substitute father figure and role model. When they reached 18 they were sent in to the countryside with only a knife and forced to survive on their skill and cunning. The object of the exercise was not only self reliance but to to seek out and kill those from an enemy tribe known as the Helots, as part of a larger program of terrorising that population (The ritual was called Krypteia, and is mentioned in Plato’s Laws and Plutarch’s Lives).

    These boys grew up to be the most feared soldiers in what was then the known world.

    Socially? Really not that different to what sociologists have observed in modern day gang culture. Even in London young boys growing up in areas with high levels of crime and gang activity (a modern day Sparta / Athens) have their “Older”, a wiser more experienced guy to take the place of an absent father. And that protégée is known as the “Younger”. Only in Spartan times the reason for it was that the boy’s father was likely killed in battle or disallowed by law to return to live with his family until he had completed 10 years of military service in the field.

  19. matthewtaylor on Wed, 25th Nov 2009 4:55 pm

    20. Thaks Livy – great comment

  20. matthewtaylor on Wed, 25th Nov 2009 4:56 pm

    21. Nice to hear from you again Dave. Livy’s comment on this is interesting.

  21. matthewtaylor on Wed, 25th Nov 2009 5:03 pm

    22. Oh dear Ian – what a terrible thought!

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