Comments on: Be nice, and your brain will grow

By: Sammy

Sammy — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 02:52:42 +0000

Well, people tend to do nice things for others because it makes them feel good about themselves or because they just can’t stand to see somebody else in a bad situation.

Since quite a few people help others so they don’t feel guilty that they didn’t help when they could have, is it really altruism?

By: Fred

Fred — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:35:23 +0000

Altrusim in its purest sense is rare, there are degrees of “being nice” and there is always a pay off in the end either immediate or at some time in the future. Enter into the Promised Land?
And, humility is a strange duck, about the time you think you have achieved it you have lost all?

By: Sheldon Siegel

Sheldon Siegel — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 23:22:31 +0000

According to my sisters and my bf, the altruism part of my brain is connected to my ass because I’m donating a kidney to a stranger who found me on matchingdonors.com.

By: n2y2

n2y2 — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 22:56:35 +0000

A study came out last year that dealt with this material that I found fascinating. It compared physical cleanliness to moral cleanliness.

The study found that people who had just washed their hands were less likely to help out a random stranger. The conclusion was that if you feel dirty you are more likely to want to cleans your conscience by ‘doing a good deed,’

I found it interesting on two fronts:

1) Moral organizations (churches, BSA, etc) teach that when you are more morally clean, you should help others more often. This is counter to the conclusions of the study.

2) People can make themselves feel better morally by being more physically clean. Kinda makes me wonder about that VP who always insists on everything being spotless. What is he trying to nullify?

You can read an abstract of the study as it appeared in Science by putting the following link together:

wwwDOTsciencemagDOTorg
/cgi/content/abstract/313/5792/1451?siteid=sci&ijkey=Ui9snPoYRFnX6&keytype=ref

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:51:27 +0000

I suppose you want a comment now…OK, nice link!