Abigail Marsh Summary
Abigail Marsh talks about how some people are more altruistic than others.
20 years ago, a man saved her life, by putting his own life in danger. He ran across 4 lanes of freeway traffic, to bring her to safety after being in a car accident that could have killed her. The man was a total stranger, who took off after making sure she was okay – she never even got his name. Marsh wonders why he did so and started questioning why some people have a different level of altruism than others.
Marsh became a psychologist, researching the human capacity of compassion and altruism. Other psychologists, as well as philosophers, believe that the human nature is selfish and self-centered. Nevertheless, some people are willing to help complete strangers even when there is no gain for themselves. Why is that? Why does some people have different, selfless motives than others? All …show more content…
By studying psychopaths Marsh got an overview of the total opposite of an altruistic person, and she found three important aspects: 1) psychopaths have poorer recognition-skills of other people’s fear. 2) The amygdala of a psychopath is under reactive to fear. 3) The amygdala of a psychopath is smaller than average. With this data, Marsh wanted to research whether or not it was different for highly altruistic people as well. Marsh tested people who showed a huge level of altruism: people who gave away their kidneys to complete strangers without any gain. What Marsh found was that these people are complete opposites of psychopaths: 1) they are better at detecting other people’s fear as well as detecting their distress. 2) The amygdala is hyperactive. 3) Their amygdala is larger than average by 8%. This led to the observation of the “Caring Continuum”, which is a scale showing that on one end psychopaths are and on the other, are extreme altruistic
20 years ago, a man saved her life, by putting his own life in danger. He ran across 4 lanes of freeway traffic, to bring her to safety after being in a car accident that could have killed her. The man was a total stranger, who took off after making sure she was okay – she never even got his name. Marsh wonders why he did so and started questioning why some people have a different level of altruism than others.
Marsh became a psychologist, researching the human capacity of compassion and altruism. Other psychologists, as well as philosophers, believe that the human nature is selfish and self-centered. Nevertheless, some people are willing to help complete strangers even when there is no gain for themselves. Why is that? Why does some people have different, selfless motives than others? All …show more content…
By studying psychopaths Marsh got an overview of the total opposite of an altruistic person, and she found three important aspects: 1) psychopaths have poorer recognition-skills of other people’s fear. 2) The amygdala of a psychopath is under reactive to fear. 3) The amygdala of a psychopath is smaller than average. With this data, Marsh wanted to research whether or not it was different for highly altruistic people as well. Marsh tested people who showed a huge level of altruism: people who gave away their kidneys to complete strangers without any gain. What Marsh found was that these people are complete opposites of psychopaths: 1) they are better at detecting other people’s fear as well as detecting their distress. 2) The amygdala is hyperactive. 3) Their amygdala is larger than average by 8%. This led to the observation of the “Caring Continuum”, which is a scale showing that on one end psychopaths are and on the other, are extreme altruistic