Speech Introduction from TED
Why do some people do selfless things, helping other people even at risk to their own well-being? Psychology researcher Abigail Marsh studies the motivations of people who do extremely altruistic acts, like donating a kidney to a complete stranger. Are their brains just different?
How do we understand what others think and feel? An associate professor in the department of psychology and the interdisciplinary neuroscience program at Georgetown University, Abigail Marsh focuses on social and affective neuroscience. She addresses questions using multiple approaches that include functional and structural brain imaging in adolescents and adults from both typical and non-typical populations, as well as behavioral, cognitive, genetic and pharmacological techniques. Among her ongoing research projects are brain imaging and behavioral studies of altruistic kidney donors and brain imaging studies of children/adolescents with severe conduct problems and limited empathy.
Marsh's 2017 book The Fear Factor: How One Emotion Connects Altruists, Psychopaths, and Everyone In-Between explores the extremes of human generosity and cruelty. In 2018, The Fear Factor was awarded the Book Prize for The Promotion of Social and Personality Science from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
There’s a man out there, somewhere, who looks a little bit like the actor Idris Elba, or at least he did 20 years ago. I don’t know anything else about him, except that he once saved my life by putting his own life in danger. This man ran across four lanes of freeway traffic in the middle of the night to bring me back to safety after a car accident that could have killed me. And the whole thing left me really shaken up, obviously, but it also left me with this kind of burning, gnawing need to understand why he did it, what forces within him caused him to make the choice that I owe my life to, to risk his own life to save the life of a stranger? In other words, what are the causes of his or anybody else’s capacity for altruism?
某個地方，有這樣一個人，長得有點兒像演員伊德瑞斯·艾爾巴，好吧，至少20年前很像。我對這個人一無所知，除了他曾經冒著生命危險，救過我一命。午夜時分，這個人在高速車道上橫穿了四個車道，將我從致命車禍現場帶回了安全地帶。這一切顯然把我嚇壞了，但這件事也給我留下了一個強烈的念頭：我想知道他為什麼這麼做，是什麼驅使了他做出這樣的決定，為了救一個陌生人不惜以生命為代價，足以讓我欠他一條命？換而言之，是什麼鑄就了他和其他人的強烈利他心理？
But first let me tell you what happened. That night, I was 19 years old and driving back to my home in Tacoma, Washington, down the Interstate 5 freeway, when a little dog darted out in front of my car. And I did exactly what you’re not supposed to do, which is swerve to avoid it. And I discovered why you’re not supposed to do that. I hit the dog anyways, and that sent the car into a fishtail, and then a spin across the freeway, until finally it wound up in the fast lane of the freeway faced backwards into oncoming traffic and then the engine died.
但首先讓我告訴你們具體發生了什麼。在事故發生的那個晚上，我當時19歲，當時我正開車，行駛在5號州際公路上，準備回華盛頓州塔科馬市的家。一隻小狗衝到了我的車前。然後我做了絕不該在高速上做的一件事情，就是急轉方向去躲避這隻狗。然而我很快就明白了為什麼這樣做是錯誤的。我還是不可避免地撞上了那隻狗，導致車輛開始甩尾，在高速公路上急速旋轉，直到最後停在了高速上最內側的快車道上，車頭朝後面對著來車的方向，而且發動機也壞了。
And I was sure in that moment that I was about to die too, but I didn’t because of the actions of that one brave man who must have made the decision within a fraction of a second of seeing my stranded car to pull over and run across four lanes of freeway traffic in the dark to save my life. And then after he got my car working again and got me back to safety and made sure I was going to be all right, he drove off again. He never even told me his name, and I’m pretty sure I forgot to say thank you.
我當時以為自己死定了，但結果我沒有，就是因為那個勇敢的陌生人，在看見我和車處於困境中的瞬間，做出的一個決定，那就是靠邊停車，在黑暗中跑著穿過了四個高速車道只為救我的命。在他幫助我修復我的車，將我送至安全位置，並確保我會沒事後，就默默地開車走了。他甚至沒告訴我他叫什麼，而且我確信，我甚至忘記了說一句謝謝。
So before I go any further, I really want to take a moment to stop and say thank you to that stranger.
所以在我繼續說下去之前，我想利用這個機會向那位陌生人說一句謝謝。
I tell you all of this because the events of that night changed the course of my life to some degree. I became a psychology researcher, and I』ve devoted my work to understanding the human capacity to care for others. Where does it come from, and how does it develop, and what are the extreme forms that it can take? These questions are really important to understanding basic aspects of human social nature.
我告訴你們這些是因為那晚發生的事改變了我人生的軌跡。我成為了一名心理學研究者，我致力於了解人類關心他人的能力，這種能力從哪裡來，又是怎樣形成與發展的？它最極端的形態會是怎樣的？這些問題是理解人類的社會屬性的關鍵。
A lot of people, and this includes everybody from philosophers and economists to ordinary people believe that human nature is fundamentally selfish, that we’re only ever really motivated by our own welfare. But if that’s true, why do some people, like the stranger who rescued me, do selfless things, like helping other people at enormous risk and cost to themselves? Answering this question requires exploring the roots of extraordinary acts of altruism, and what might make people who engage in such acts different than other people. But until recently, very little work on this topic had been done.
很多人，包括哲學家，經濟學家，還有普通人，都認為人的天性是自私的，我們永遠只會被利己的事所激勵。但如果那是真的，為什麼總有 一些人會像救我的那個陌生人一樣，做著如此無私且利他的事情，比如冒著極大的代價和風險去幫助別人？要回答這個問題，我們要挖掘這些極端利他行為的本質，以及是什麼導致了這些人做出與他人不同的行為。但直到現在，有關課題的研究仍然十分有限。
The actions of the man who rescued me meet the most stringent definition of altruism, which is a voluntary, costly behavior motivated by the desire to help another individual. So it’s a selfless act intended to benefit only the other. What could possibly explain an action like that? One answer is compassion, obviously, which is a key driver of altruism. But then the question becomes, why do some people seem to have more of it than others? And the answer may be that the brains of highly altruistic people are different in fundamental ways.
我的救命恩人的行為已經能夠達到「無私」中最狹隘且苛刻的定義了，也就是必須要是完全自願的、有代價的行為，並且是被想幫助他人的心理所驅動的。即這是一個完全利他行為。用什麼能夠解釋這種行為呢？一種解釋是憐憫之心，顯然，這是無私的幾個關鍵來源之一。接著這個問題轉變為：為什麼有些人會比其他人的憐憫之心更強呢？答案也許是，那些有高度憐憫心的人的大腦構造可能與普通人有根本性區別。
But to figure out how, I actually started from the opposite end, with psychopaths. A common approach to understanding basic aspects of human nature, like the desire to help other people, is to study people in whom that desire is missing, and psychopaths are exactly such a group. Psychopathy is a developmental disorder with strongly genetic origins, and it results in a personality that’s cold and uncaring and a tendency to engage in antisocial and sometimes very violent behavior.
想知道到底如何不同，我實際上從精神病患者開始，來逆向思考這個問題。想要了解人類本性的某一方面時，例如想要了解人們幫助他人的欲望時，一個普遍的方式就是從缺失這種欲望的人入手進行研究。精神病患者正是這樣的群體之一。精神病是一種高級別的神經錯亂，並且與基因有著很強的關聯性，由此帶來冷漠無情的性格特徵，並且有著反社會傾向，甚至暴力傾向。
Once my colleagues and I at the National Institute of Mental Health conducted some of the first ever brain imaging research of psychopathic adolescents, and our findings, and the findings of other researchers now, have shown that people who are psychopathic pretty reliably exhibit three characteristics. First, although they’re not generally insensitive to other people’s emotions, they are insensitive to signs that other people are in distress. And in particular, they have difficulty recognizing fearful facial expressions like this one. And fearful expressions convey urgent need and emotional distress, and they usually elicit compassion and a desire to help in people who see them, so it makes sense that people who tend to lack compassion also tend to be insensitive to these cues.
我和我的同事們曾在國家心理健康研究中心，進行了首次針對青少年精神病患者的腦成像研究， 我們，以及後來其他研究者們的發現都一致表明，精神病患者的大腦會呈現出三種特性。首先，他們並不是普遍不能識別所有的人類情感，但是他們的確不能感知到他人正處於悲傷或痛苦中。尤其是，他們對於害怕這種面部神情存在理解障礙，比如這個。害怕的神情同時會傳達出迫切需要幫助和情感上的悲痛，而這些會引誘出目擊者的憐憫之心和想去幫助的欲望，所以那些趨於缺少憐憫之心的人，同時也趨向於對這些神情表現出不敏感。
The part of the brain that’s the most important for recognizing fearful expressions is called the amygdala. There are very rare cases of people who lack amygdalas completely, and they’re profoundly impaired in recognizing fearful expressions. And whereas healthy adults and children usually show big spikes in amygdala activity when they look at fearful expressions, psychopaths』 amygdalas are underreactive to these expressions. Sometimes they don’t react at all, which may be why they have trouble detecting these cues. Finally, psychopaths』 amygdalas are smaller than average by about 18 or 20 percent.
杏仁核是人類大腦中負責識別痛苦的面部表情的最重要的部分。只有極少的人完全缺失杏仁核，他們對識別痛苦的神情存在嚴重障礙。當看到害怕的神情時，健康成年人與兒童的杏仁核會反應活躍，精神病患者的杏仁核則處於非活躍狀態，有時候它們根本毫無反應。這也許解釋了為什麼他們無法識別那些表情。最後，精神病患者的杏仁核的大小比平均水平小18%-20%。
So all of these findings are reliable and robust, and they’re very interesting. But remember that my main interest is not understanding why people don’t care about others. It’s understanding why they do. So the real question is, could extraordinary altruism, which is the opposite of psychopathy in terms of compassion and the desire to help other people, emerge from a brain that is also the opposite of psychopathy? A sort of antipsychopathic brain, better able to recognize other people’s fear, an amygdala that’s more reactive to this expression and maybe larger than average as well?
所有的這些發現都是可靠而確鑿的，也是十分有趣的。但要記得我主要的興趣不是想弄明白為什麼有的人不關心他人，而是為什麼有的人會關心。所以真正的問題是，擁有非凡的利他主義的人，也就是在同情心和幫助他人的想法上與精神病患者完全相反的一群人，他們是否在大腦構造中也與精神病患者的大腦完全相反？是否擁有一種「反精神錯亂型大腦」，能夠更加易於識別他人的恐懼，並且有著更活躍且體積更大的杏仁核？
As my research has now shown, all three things are true. And we discovered this by testing a population of truly extraordinary altruists. These are people who have given one of their own kidneys to a complete stranger. So these are people who have volunteered to undergo major surgery so that one of their own healthy kidneys can be removed and transplanted into a very ill stranger that they』ve never met and may never meet. 「Why would anybody do this?」 is a very common question. And the answer may be that the brains of these extraordinary altruists have certain special characteristics.
我的研究已經證實了我們的猜想，上述三點都是存在的。我們的發現基於對一批真正的極端利他主義者的測試。他們會將自己的腎臟捐贈給一個完全陌生的人，也就是說他們完全自願地承受一個大型外科手術來移除自己身上一個健康的腎臟，捐給一個從未見過，甚至也永遠不會相見的陌生人。也許許多人都想問「誰會想做這樣的事啊？」。而答案很可能是那些極端利他主義者的大腦有他們的獨特之處。
They are better at recognizing other people’s fear. They’re literally better at detecting when somebody else is in distress. This may be in part because their amygdala is more reactive to these expressions. And remember, this is the same part of the brain that we found was underreactive in people who are psychopathic. And finally, their amygdalas are larger than average as well, by about eight percent. So together, what these data suggest is the existence of something like a caring continuum in the world that’s anchored at the one end by people who are highly psychopathic, and at the other by people who are very compassionate and driven to acts of extreme altruism.
他們擅長識別他人的恐懼。他們確確實實更能察覺處在悲痛中的人。這種行為部分源於他們的杏仁核會對這些表情做出更活躍的反應。但要記得，我們發現神經病患者的大腦在同一區域，是處於非活動狀態的。最後，利他者的杏仁核也要比平均水平大，大百分之八左右。總的來說，最終這些實驗數據都表明了，這世界上有一種關愛衡量軸，一個極端就是精神高度錯亂，處於另一個極端的人則非常具有同情心，總是被極度利他的精神驅使著。
But I should add that what makes extraordinary altruists so different is not just that they’re more compassionate than average. They are, but what’s even more unusual about them is that they’re compassionate and altruistic not just towards people who are in their own innermost circle of friends and family. Right? Because to have compassion for people that you love and identify with is not extraordinary. Truly extraordinary altruists』 compassion extends way beyond that circle, even beyond their wider circle of acquaintances to people who are outside their social circle altogether, total strangers, just like the man who rescued me.
但我應該繼續補充的是，極端利他主義者之所以如此，並非僅僅因為他們的同情心高於平均水平。他們確實是有很強的同情心，但令他們更不同尋常的是他們的同情和無私並不只是針對他熟知的核心圈子裡人，對嗎？因為對自己愛的人無私並不能使你與眾不同。真正非凡的利他主義者的惻隱之心遠遠超過那個圓圈，甚至超出他們的社交圈和任何認識的人，甚至完全是陌生人，就像救我的那個人一樣。
And I』ve had the opportunity now to ask a lot of altruistic kidney donors how it is that they manage to generate such a wide circle of compassion that they were willing to give a complete stranger their kidney. And I found it’s a really difficult question for them to answer.
如今我有機會去詢問很多無私的腎臟捐贈者，問他們是如何建立一個如此廣闊的憐憫圈，以至於願意給完全陌生的人捐贈腎臟。然而我發現，他們不知道怎麼回答這個問題。
I say, 「How is it that you’re willing to do this thing when so many other people don’t? You’re one of fewer than 2,000 Americans who has ever given a kidney to a stranger. What is it that makes you so special?」
我說，「為什麼你願意去做大多數人都不願意做的事情呢？你屬於美國不到兩千人的腎臟捐贈者之一，是什麼讓你如此特別？」
And what do they say?
你知道他們說了什麼嗎？
They say, 「Nothing. There’s nothing special about me. I’m just the same as everybody else.」
他們說，「沒什麼，我沒有什麼不同，我跟所有人都一樣。」
And I think that’s actually a really telling answer, because it suggests that the circles of these altruists don’t look like this, they look more like this. They have no center. These altruists literally don’t think of themselves as being at the center of anything, as being better or more inherently important than anybody else. When I asked one altruist why donating her kidney made sense to her, she said, 「Because it’s not about me.」 Another said, 「I’m not different. I’m not unique. Your study here is going to find out that I’m just the same as you.」
其實我覺得這恰恰是個很說明問題的回答，因為這說明利他主義者的圓不是這樣畫的，而是這樣的。它們是沒有圓心的。這些無私的人從來就不以自己為中心來思考問題，不覺得自己比其他人更重要。當我問利他主義者為什麼捐贈腎臟時，她說，「因為這對他們更重要。」另一個人說，「我沒有什麼不同。我並不特別。你的研究最終只能發現我跟你完全一樣」。
I think the best description for this amazing lack of self-centeredness is humility, which is that quality that in the words of St. Augustine makes men as angels. And why is that? It’s because if there’s no center of your circle, there can be no inner rings or outer rings, nobody who is more or less worthy of your care and compassion than anybody else. And I think that this is what really distinguishes extraordinary altruists from the average person.
我覺得對這些神奇的缺乏自我中心意識的行為，最好的解釋是謙虛。正如奧古斯丁所說的，謙虛讓人如同天使。這是為什麼？因為如果你的圓圈沒有中心，那就沒有內圓和外圓的區別，所有人在你眼中都是同等的，都值得憐憫和關心。我相信這一點是真正將非凡的利他主義者與大眾區分開來的地方。
But I also think that this is a view of the world that’s attainable by many and maybe even most people. And I think this because at the societal level, expansions of altruism and compassion are already happening everywhere. The psychologist Steven Pinker and others have shown that all around the world people are becoming less and less accepting of suffering in ever-widening circles of others, which has led to declines of all kinds of cruelty and violence, from animal abuse to domestic violence to capital punishment. And it’s led to increases in all kinds of altruism.
其實我認為這樣一種世界觀是絕大多數人能夠接受和擁有的。而且由於社會發展的程度，無私與憐憫之心已經在各處擴張。心理學家史迪芬·平克以及很多研究者都表明，全世界範圍內的人都越來越不能接受其他人承受痛苦，而這個圈子還在不斷擴大。這也就導致人們拒絕任何方式的殘迫與暴力，從虐待動物到家庭暴力，再到死刑。各種無私心都在增長。
A hundred years ago, people would have thought it was ludicrous how normal and ordinary it is for people to donate their blood and bone marrow to complete strangers today. Is it possible that a hundred years from now people will think that donating a kidney to a stranger is just as normal and ordinary as we think donating blood and bone marrow is today? Maybe.
一百年前，人們會認為把對陌生人的無償獻血和骨髓捐獻視為一種平常事，是絕不可能的。但一百年後，人們是否會將捐贈腎臟，視為再也正常不過的事呢？就像今天的無償獻血與捐獻骨髓一樣。也許會的。
So what’s at the root of all these amazing changes? In part it seems to be increases in wealth and standards of living. As societies become wealthier and better off, people seem to turn their focus of attention outward, and as a result, all kinds of altruism towards strangers increases, from volunteering to charitable donations and even altruistic kidney donations.
所以到底是為什麼會發生這些改變呢？其中部分原因是，生活水平與富裕水平的提升。因為社會變得更富裕且更好，看起來人們關切的焦點會向外部轉移，由此，針對陌生人的無私之心也會增加，從自願幫助到慷慨捐贈，甚至到腎臟捐贈。
But all of these changes also yield a strange and paradoxical result, which is that even as the world is becoming a better and more humane place, which it is, there’s a very common perception that it’s becoming worse and more cruel, which it’s not. And I don’t know exactly why this is, but I think it may be that we now just know so much more about the suffering of strangers in distant places, and so we now care a lot more about the suffering of those distant strangers.
但這些改變同樣得出一個矛盾的結果，儘管這世界變得越來越有愛心，的確是這樣，同時有一種聲音說這個世界在變得更糟糕，更殘忍，但這不是事實。我並不確切地知道這種聲音的由來，但我想這也許是由於現在人們能夠了解到更多遠距離的新聞，而且我們更在意受難的人，儘管這些事並未發生在我們身邊。
But what’s clear is the kinds of changes we’re seeing show that the roots of altruism and compassion are just as much a part of human nature as cruelty and violence, maybe even more so, and while some people do seem to be inherently more sensitive to the suffering of distant others, I really believe that the ability to remove oneself from the center of the circle and expand the circle of compassion outward to include even strangers is within reach for almost everyone.
但我們可以確定的是，我們看到這些變化表明了利他主義和憐憫之心的根源都是人性，如同殘忍和暴戾的人性一樣，甚至程度更深，同時部分群體對在遙遠的地方受難的人生來敏感，我確信擺脫以自我為中心的思考方式，擴充自己的憐憫之心，關心更多的陌生人，對於大部分的人來說都是觸手可及的。
Thank you.
謝謝。