Prepartum mothers who show higher baseline levels of oxytocin later showed increased attachment-related behavior: R. Feldman et al., “Evidence for a Neuroendocrinological Foundation of Human Affiliation: Plasma Oxytocin Levels Across Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period Predict Mother-Infant Bonding,” Psychological Science 18, no. 11 (2007): 965–70.
Gian Gonzaga and I undertook a Darwinian study of sexual desire and romantic love: Gonzaga et al., “Love and the Commitment Problem in Romantic Relations and Friendship.”
We next turned to a query of our chemical quarry, oxytocin: G. C. Gonzaga et al., “Romantic Love and Sexual Desire in Close Bonds,” Emotion 6 (2006): 163–79.
In her cultural history: Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (New York: Holt, 2006).
Zak proposes that oxytocin is a biological underpinning of trust: M. Kosfeld et al., “Oxytocin Increases Trust in Humans,” Nature 435 (2005): 673–76.
the love of humanity: B. Campos, M. A. Logli, and D. Keltner, “Love of Humanity,” unpublished manuscript.
the health of communities depends on trust and the love of humanity: Robert Sampson, “The Neighborhood Context of Well-Being,” Perspective in Biology and Medicine 46 (2003): S53-S64.
children prove to be much more resilient in the wake of their parents’ divorce when they feel a sense of connection: For several essays on more peaceful divorce, see Jason Marsh and Dacher Keltner, ed., “The 21st Century Family,” Greater Good 4, no. 2 (2007).
loving relations get more important, and love all the sweeter: L. L. Carstensen and S. T. Charles, “Emotion in the Second Half of Life,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 5 (1998): 144–49.
romantic love dips: Helen Fischer, Why We Love (New York: Owl, 2004).
I would ask them to read: Stephanie Coontz, Marriage, a History (New York: Viking, 2005).
to arrive at that magic ratio of five positive feelings for every toxic negative one that enables marriages: Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail.
It is a kelson of creation: Song of Myself, in Walt Whitman, The Portable Walt Whitman, ed. M. Van Doren (New York: Penguin, 1945), 36.
COMPASSION
historian Jonathan Glover documents many such “sympathy breakthroughs”: Jonathan Glover, Humanity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999).
As Charles Darwin developed his first account: Darwin, Descent.
Other influential thinkers in the Western canon: Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought. For Nussbaum’s comprehensive study of compassion in Western thought, see “Compassion: The Basic Social Emotion,” Social Philosophy and Policy 13 (1996): 27–58. For another assessment of Western thought’s approach to the emotions, see Oatley, Emotions: A Brief History.
“A feeling of sympathy is beautiful and amiable”: Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, trans. J. T. Goldthwait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960).
“If any civilization is to survive”: Ayn Rand, “Faith and Force: Destroyers of the Modern World,” Philosophy: Who Needs It? (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1982).
“A transvaluation of values”: F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (New York: NuVision Publications, 2007), 73.
“Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good”: N. Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. G. Bull (New York: Penguin, 2003), chap. XV, 42.
In a series of controversial papers, physiological psychologist Steve Porges has made the case that the vagus nerve is the nerve of compassion: Stephen P. Porges, “Orienting in a Defensive World: Mammalian Modifications of our Evolutionary Heritage: A Polyvagal Theory,” Psychophysiology 42 (1995): 301–17, and “Love: an Emergent Property of the Mammalian Autonomic Nervous System, Psychoendocrinology 23 (1998): 837–61.
people systematically sigh: June Gruber, Christopher Oveis, Jeffrey Newell, and Dacher Keltner, “Sighing and Compassion,” unpublished manuscript.
Historians of science have rated Charles Darwin as off-the-charts in terms of kindness and warmth: Frank J. Sulloway, Born to Rebeclass="underline" Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives (New York: Pantheon, 1996).
amid the noisy, loving spectacle of his ten children: Browne, Charles Darwin: Voyaging.
James was the progenitor: James, “What Is an Emotion?”
Walter Cannon, a student of William James’s, was not so convinced by his advisor’s provocative armchair musings: W. B. Cannon, “The James–Lange Theory of Emotion: A Critical Examination and an Alternative Theory,” American Journal of Psychology 39 (1927): 106–24.
The blush, for example, peaks at about fifteen seconds: D. Shearn et al., “Facial Coloration and Temperature Responses in Blushing,” Psychophysiology 27 (1990): 687–93.
when people are asked to guess whether their heart rate has increased or decreased: J. W. Pennebaker and T. A. Roberts, “Toward a His and Hers Theory of Emotion: Gender Differences in Visceral Perception,” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 11 (1992): 199–212.
One-day-old infants: G. G. Martin and R. D. I. Clark, “Distress Crying in Infants: Species and Peer Specificity,” Developmental Psychology 18 (1982): 3–9.
Many two-year-old children, upon seeing another cry: C. Zahn-Waxler, M. Radke-Yarrow, and R. A. King, “Child Rearing and Children’s Prosocial Initiations Towards Victims of Distress,” Child Development 50 (1979): 319–30; C. Zahn-Waxler et al., “Development of Concern for Others,” Developmental Psychology 28 (1992): 126–36.
Pictures of sad faces: P. J. Whalen et al., “Masked Presentations of Emotional Facial Expressions Modulate Amygdala Activity without Explicit Knowledge,” Journal of Neuroscience 18 (1998): 411–18.
So we asked first whether the exposure to harm would trigger activation in the vagus nerve: C. Oveis, E. J. Horberg, and D. Keltner, “Compassion and Pride as Moral Intuitions,” unpublished manuscript.
These measures yield an index called respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA): G. G. Berntson, J. T. Cacioppo, and K. S. Quigley, “Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia: Autonomic Origins, Physiological Mechanisms, and Psychophysiological Implications,” Psychophysiology 30 (1993): 183–96. Cacioppo et al., “The Psychophysiology of Emotion,” in Handbook of Emotions, 173–191.
In Singer’s words, evolution has “bequeath(ed) humans with a sense of empathy—an ability to treat other people’s interests”: Peter Singer, Expanding Circle (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1981).
Take Paul Rusesabagina’s remarkable heroism during the genocide of Rwanda: Philip Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families (New York: Picador, 1998).
Within the social sciences, these courageous actions are readily attributed to selfish genes, to the desire to save kin, or to self-interest, pure and simple: Daniel Batson has taken the debate over altruism to a new level in his theoretical and empirical work. Rather than being misguided by either/or propositions (is there such a thing as altruism or not?), Batson proposes that most kind, pro-social behaviors are likely motivated by selfish and other-oriented motives. Perhaps more importantly, Batson has established a set of empirical guidelines for the documentation of more other-oriented, even selfless motives of altruistic behavior. C. D. Batson and L. L. Shaw, “Evidence for Altruism: Toward a Pluralism of Prosocial Motives,” Psychological Inquiry 2 (1991): 107–22. Alfie Kohn has made a very similar point about the reluctance for people immersed in Western thought to attribute benevolent intentions to others, even when explaining the most altruistic kinds of action. Kohn, The Brighter Side of Human Nature.