For years, I’ve been talking about what I call the Treacherous Dichotomy: the deeply ingrained idea that operating in our own interests and operating in others’ interests are mutually exclusive. That is, looking out for yourself is selfish, looking out for others is altruistic, and you’re either one or the other.
Bob and I have argued that this is an artificial distinction, that these two perspectives are not mutually exclusive—and in The Go-Giver, we let Nicole Martin make that argument for us.
So . . . are you ready for some fascinating research? Turns out, that Treacherous Dichotomy may not be purely a matter of upbringing and societal values — it may have a neurological basis.
In the captivating book Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, author-brothers Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman report results of a series of studies that suggest there are two distinct centers in the brain, a “pleasure” center and “altruism” center. And get this:
”Unlike, say, the parts of our brain that control movement and speech, the pleasure center and the altruism center cannot both function at the same time: either one or the other is on control. . . . It’s as if we have two ‘engines’ running in our brains that can’t operate simultaneously. We can approach a task either altruistically or from a self-interested perspective [emphasis added].” (Sway, pp. 1412)
What implications does the research have for being a go-giver?
Seems to me, it underlines the importance of something I’ve heard Bob say: just as we willingly suspend our disbelief when entering a movie theater so that we can enjoy the film, in life we can elect to willingly suspend our self-interest (read: temporarily switch off the brain’s pleasure center) while interacting with others, so that we can more effectively make choices and decisions that serve others (that is, switch on the brain’s altruism center).
When we’re watching a movie, we “know” the events we’re observing aren’t really happening, yet we still react to them emotionally as if they were. (As the saying goes, “You laugh, you cry, you kiss nine bucks goodbye.”)
Likewise, when you temporarily suspend your self-interest (pleasure center) and act from your altruism center, you know that you’re still looking out for yourself: you can’t not do that, it’s the survival impulse hard-wired into the organism. Yet you put that awareness to the side (just like your awareness that you’re sitting in a theater seat), and engage fully in the altruistic impulse—and the feeling you have is as real as your Hitchcock chills or Marx Brothers laughter.
OK, let me make another book connection–assuming that my previous comment on this section of Brafmans’ book was the impetus for your post. 🙂
I’m currently reading “The Anatomy of Peace.” As in their previous book, “Leadership and Self Deception,” the Arbinger authors discuss the psychological change that takes place when we make a choice to *not* help someone. It’s a fascinating study in how, when we don’t do something of good for someone else, we have to construct a vision of reality to justify our (in)action–a vision that creates a form of blame toward the other person, and that then invites the very negative behavior that we unreasonably ascribed to them.
That’s a mouth- and mind-ful, but it’s a fascinating way to look at how un-generous behavior then creates its own self-fulfilling negative consequence.
I’m dying to read “The Answer” now to see if all of these threads come together. I’m on vacation with my family, so hoping in our next trip to town I’ll have a chance to stop by the local Borders Books and pick up a copy.
BTW, would love it if your blog had a feed to track the comments. It makes it much more likely that discussions will continue.
Hi, John. I read your post and enjoyed it. I also wanted to recommend that you read Jeff Schwartz’s book THE MIND AND THE BRAIN for a different point of view.
To say that we are doing what our brain tells us is a materialist/reductionist point of view. The goal for acting with free will is to rise above the brain and make choices with our mind. One way of thinking and acting is reactive, the other reflective.
If you are making choices about which part of your brain to follow, you are no longer in your brain but in your self-aware and self-observing mind. The mind is now in control, not the brain. That self-aware mind is capable of a much deeper and truer altruism than is any place in your brain. One is animal; one relies on the best of our human spirit.
To quote Jeff, “The brain puts out the call, the mind decides whether to listen.”
Hope you don’t mind me sending you my two cents but I get a little concerned when people believe they are at the mercy of their brains. As human beings, we are much better, bigger, and freer.
So, regarding the title of your post, I don’t think there is a go-giver part of your brain. I think there is a go-giver part of your mind—and heart. At least as I read your fine book.
Steve: Thanks, I’ll have to check that out; Leadership and Self-Deception was an excellent read. And yes, your post WAS the impetus. I’d read Sway when it came out, because Ori is a friend and I’d loved The Starfish and the Spider — and then your post reminded me to go back and blog about that passage.
About the comments feed: we actually do have a feed to track comments, at the bottom of the sidebar to the right — is that what you’re referring to? Or something else?
Stephanie: Great comment! Hmm. I don’t think the Brothers Brafman were pushing a reductionist argument, though I might have made it look that way. The title of my post was meant as a (admittedly weak) play on “Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain.” But you’re quite right: it isn’t that there’s “a go-giver part” of the brain, only that there seems to be a part of the brain that lights up (becomes electrically activated) when that kind of thinking predominates.
To my way of thinking, the brain isn’t the source of our thoughts so much as it is a switching station that receives, processes and redistriutes our thoughts — and the thoughts themselves actually originate in the mind, which is not only different and distinct from the brain but, as Bruce Lipton suggests in The Biology of Belief, may dwell literally “out there” in the atmosphere, with our brain receiving them much the way TV sets receive their programming from afar. (Though I do not think our thoughts originate at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.)
The brain/mind distinction is huge, yet there is one huger: I agree with Eckart Tolle, that just as we are not our brains, we also are not our minds — that the actual “me” that is aware of my thoughts is not my thoughts, but something beyond the mind.
And that, I would think, is where the impulse at the heart of the go-giver mindset comes from!
Bruce Lipton also says in Biology of Belief that the nucleus of the cell is not the brain of the cell. That is completely alarming to me.
Yes, you do have a comments feed! And I had missed it. Glad you have it, and thanks!
I really liked Leadership and Self Deception. I found The Anatomy of Peace both more challenging and less easily “organized” in my own mind–I’m still trying to fully gather my thoughts about AoP. I did leave the book with a really defined sense of the correlation between where our hearts are and the behaviors we thereby “invite” in others, and how we “box” others in when we have to rationalize or justify our own lack of giving. If you end up reading AoP, will be very interested in your thoughts.
Love the good discussions here.