Dr. Dacher Keltner is of the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center, whose recent book "Born to Be Good", is a profound study of how emotion is the key to living the good life and how the path to happiness goes through human emotions that connect people to one another. As it turns out, humans are not hardwired to lead lives that are "nasty, brutish, and short". We are in fact born to be good. This session will give us a glimpse into sociology and new science around an old mystery of human evolution and psychology: why we have evolved positive emotions like gratitude, amusement, awe, empathy, altruism, kindness, and compassion that promote ethical action and are the fabric of cooperative societies, and by association, sheds light on the power behind brands that connect to the greater good. Special topics include the power of touching, facial expressions, oxytocin, and the vagus nerve.
3. Beyond Happiness:
Jen Science and the Good Life
Dacher Keltner
University of California, Berkeley
keltner@berkeley.edu
www.greatergoodscience.org
4. The Bad is Stronger than
The Good?
• Negative
Contamination
• Self-Interest as
Default?
• Altruism = selfish
genes or Freudian
Fantasy
• Attachment and
Anxiety
5. Well Placed Cynics
“ The very emphasis of the commandment:
Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are
descended from an endlessly long chain of
generations of murderers, whose love of murder
was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours.”
— Sigmund Freud
“ If any civilization is to survive, it is the
morality of altruism that men have to reject. ”
— Ayn Rand
6. Well Placed Cynics
“ Of mankind we may say in general they are
fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.”
— Machiavelli
“ The natural world is “grossly immoral”.
Natural selection “can honestly be described as a
process for maximizing short sighted selfishness”
— George Williams
“ Sympathy as a good natured emotion is
always blind and weak. ”
— Immanuel Kant
7. Positive Emotions as
Second Class Citizens
• Negative more
numerous
• Negative greater
hedonic impact
• Positive byproduct of
negative
• Negative biological,
evolved
8. Darwin’s Joys
Admiration eyes opened, eyebrows raised, eyes bright, smile,
Affirmation nod head, open eyes widely
Astonishment eyes open, mouth open, eyebrows raised, hands placed over mouth
Contemplation frown, wrinkle skin under lower eyelids, eyes divergent, head
droops, hands to forehead, mouth, or chin, thumb/index finger to lip
Determination firmly closed mouth, arms folded across breast, shoulders raised
Devotion face upwards, eyelids upturned, fainting, pupils upwards and
inwards, humbling kneeling posture, hands upturned
Happiness eyes sparkle, skin under eyes wrinkled, mouth drawn back at corners
High Spirits zygomatic, body erect, head upright, eyes open, frontal muscles,
Cheerfulness (AU 1 + 2), eyelids raised, nostrils raised, eating gestures (rubbing
belly), air suck, lip smacks,
Laughter tears, deep inspiration, contraction of chest, shaking of body, head
nods to and fro, lower jaw quivers up/down, lip corners drawn
backwards, head thrown backward, shakes, head face red,
orbicularis, lip press/bite
9. Darwin’s Joys
Love beaming eyes, smiling cheeks (when seeing old friend), touch,
gentle smile, protruding lips (in chimps), kissing, nose rubs,
Maternal Love touch, gentle smile, tender eyes
Romantic Love breathing hurried, faces flush
Joy muscle tremble, purposeless movements, laughter, clapping hands,
jumping, dancing about, stamping, chuckle/giggle, zygomatic,
orbicularis, upper lip raised, naso labial fold formed
Pride head, body erect, look down on others,
Tender (sympathy) tears
10. The Distal Evolution
of Pro-Sociality
Care-taking
Vulnerable offspring
Flattened Hierarchies
Affordance rather than coercion
Conflict and Reconciliation
Reconciliation rather than territory
Fragile Monogamy
Pairbonding, paternal care
12. The Positive Emotions
Resources
Enthusiasm Approach Goal
Contentment Satiation
Social Relations
Love Attachment
Desire Reproduction
Compassion Nurturance
Pride Elevated Status
Gratitude Reciprocity/Friendship
Awe Leaders
Distress Reduction
Relief
Knowledge
Interest Learning
Amusement Transformation/Insight
13. Oxytocin and Trust
• Functions of Oxytocin
• Faithful and
frisky voles
• The Neuroeconomics
of Trust
40. Epoch change in RSA
Self-reported compassion .33*
Self reported pride -.30*
Self-other similarity .29*
41. Resting Vagal Tone:
Time 5: 6 months later
Time 1
Extraversion .40**
Agreeableness .32*
PANAS Positive Affect .40**
PANAS Negative Affect .05
Optimism .30*
Pessimism -.21*
Health -.21*
Spiritual Transformation .26*
42. Wired For Good
Care to survive ENS
Coordination Ethical Nervous
System
Flattened OFC
Hierarchies
Vagus Nerve
Reconciled Conflict Oxytocin
Fragile Monogamy Touch, voice, face
44. “ A Person of Humanity, wishing to establish his own
character, also establishes the character of others.”
— Confucius
“ The great secret of morals is love, or a going out of our
own nature, and an identification of ourselves with the
beautiful which exists in thought, action or person, not our
own. A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely
and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of
another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of
his species must become his own. The great instrument
of moral good is the imagination.”
— Shelley
45. Designed to be Kind
“ At the most fundamental level our nature is compassionate,
and that cooperation, not conflict, lies at the heart of the
basic principles that govern our human existence.”
— His Holiness, the Dalai Lama
“ …the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the
society of his fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy
with them, and to perform various services for them… the
greater strength of the social or maternal instincts than that
of any other instinct or motive; for they are performed too
instantaneously for reflection, or for pleasure or even misery
might be felt. In a timid man, on the other hand, the
instinct of self-preservation might be so strong…”
— Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man