So Sara, empathy, pro-social behaviors are purely related? Many pro-social behaviors have some motivations behind them. Do these motives matter, Sara? Yes. Obviously, when you look at a person and you see their resume or you see them do a nice activists, maybe the resume says they volunteered, or you're walking down the street and someone gave some money to somebody who doesn't have a home, and you just go, oh, wow, that's a really good person. That person is so kind. I don't mean to be cynical or anything, but it's more complicated than that. Actually just by the action, you really can't tell why a person is giving. There are so many reasons for volunteering, donating to charity, or just even helping people. Some of them are more about how do you benefit. You can look good when you're walking down the street giving them money, your friends sees you, makes you look good. Sometimes you can give for that reason. We all have a mixture of these motivations. Then feeling good. Sometimes you're just feeling not great and you want to boost your mood so most of us are aware that if we just give a little bit, then it can make us feel better so sometimes we give for that reason. Sometimes we give because it looks good on a resume, it's going to help us get into college or get a job, or to meet new people. There are so many reasons why we might want to give that have to do with what we can get. Sometimes when you make a charitable donation, you literally get something back, you actually get a little gift or maybe you are at an event and you get a nice meal or something. There's many reasons that are not necessarily about other people, but of course, people do give because they care, because they want to help their community, they want to help people in need, and because it's important to those they love. You might have a child who really cares, who maybe has a friend who's sick and so you make a donation together to that cause to help your child because that's important to her. Or maybe you volunteer at a shelter and feed people because that's really important to someone you love. There's all these caring reasons than giving help and then there's more reasons that are more about the self. Do they matter? Yes, I think they do. They matter. Some research, not my own, but some research shows that they matter for well-being. That the people who are giving, saying that they give because they care, actually end up happier, they feel good in general. Well, so it's interesting because if you're giving for some other reason, like you're giving just to get something, people don't actually feel as good for doing that. Then again, we get to this point where the motivation for giving also correlate with health outcomes. People who are giving or who in research I've done people who are volunteering because they care about other people, those older adults actually are less likely to die when we follow them up over time, whereas people who are volunteering because they're getting some benefit. They probably get that benefit, they probably learn something new or meet new people or feel good to get out of the house, but in the long-term, it doesn't seem to be correlated with better health. I think that's interesting, especially amongst the older people where we see more of their health benefits and well-being benefits. Because gerontologists now, seeing this research often tell a lot to people, it's good for you, go out and volunteer because it fills a role, it fills multiple other things in their lives. I always wonder whether it's good to tell them, go and volunteer because it's good for you or say something like, you have a good life, is it a brag giving back? Maybe people should be telling older people to go do something for the community because it's your turn. It's your opportunity that you have the opportunity to do something else and not telling them to go out and volunteer because it's good for them because it clearly defeats the purpose. It's clearly motives matter. Yeah, I agree that if you're going to try to encourage people to volunteer or to help in some way, that telling them to do it because they're going to benefit, even if it's saying what the research shows that their health will benefit, just hearing that, can change their motivation. So that now they're doing it to get something else, now they are not doing it to help others. The motivation to help others that seems to actually help our health. I think people who research this area on empathy and well-being, think that's what's going on is we have these neurochemicals that help us to calm down, help us to deal with stress much better. When we're focused on others that releases these neurochemicals, oxytocin, progesterone, that can help us to feel calmer. If we're doing this over and over again, it's just going to regulate our bodies so this pro-social regulation happens. If we're helping for some other reason, it might just feel like bit of a burden. That we are too busy or actually someone volunteering is difficult, stressful so we don't have the regulation to deal with it and I think that ultimately we are not getting washed in those hormones that keep us calm. I think you really got into my next question, it was, exactly what happens to the brain during acts of giving pro-social behaviors. You suggested that there are some hormones that are released or some chemicals that are released that are actually beneficial. That's the best guess that we have as researchers knowing what we know about this hormones. Other research sometime make me guess that's what's happening, in terms of why people should feel better and be healthier when they're giving. There's also some research that actually directly looks at active brains when people are giving. It scans the brain using fMRI, which is just going into a tube and you get pictures of your brain as the blood is flowing. What they find is that the areas of our brain that are associated with reward and pleasure actually are activated when we are giving more than when we receive. They actually compare, people are receiving some money versus giving money, and the areas of the brain are showing more reward when you're giving away money. Now, I don't know that many people know this. I think sometimes we feel that we give and we feel like ''Oh, that felt really good.'' I don't think that we intuitively understand that it feels better to give than to receive. No? I think a lot of time we are like, "Yeah, I want something." We're just fine but then, we don't understand how much potential joy there is in just thinking about others and giving, especially I think when there's difficult times and you see other people around you who are even in more need than you are. You said earlier we can have multiple motives. When I go out and do something because I know somebody needs it, but because I know that research, I know I'm going to feel good and then I'm going a bit of a conundrum. [LAUGHTER]. No, I think I honestly, I do this research, we do this research together and I don't think we're ruined. I think that what I tried to do when I'm giving, I try to practice this and when I'm giving, I try to just be mindful, like just take a moment and reflect on not myself. But it's truly like what's going on here with this person? How can I make a difference for this person? I think it is a mindset. There is research that shows you can switch your mindset, focus on others. It has an immediate effect on stress hormones. When you're thinking about yourself you feel more stress. It's a strange thing maybe if we're in an individualist society where we think of ourselves as so unique and great. But if you're thinking about how we're actually all connected together in some way. It's not that strange that social creatures like us would actually have physiology that's linked to each other so that when you're feeling good then I'm feeling good and if I can make you feel good, I feel good. This fine balance between knowing the benefits like students often as you said volunteer to put it on their resumes because they need to get into universities. But along the way, they find they really enjoyed giving back to community and so motives can change over time. You may start it for very instrumental reasons and then when you see the impact of you're giving, it may change the reasons why you continue so I'm hoping you will tell me that it motives that dynamic. I did one study where we send people text message reminders to think about others compared to a control group. Two weeks later, we did find a shift in their motivation. They were saying that the reason they're helping others was more about the other person and what the other person needed. That's a shift in the motivation from more self to more other-focused, but very little research on that. But I think subjectively, experientially we've certainly seen how as you get to know people and like you're volunteering and you start to see the same person over and over again. You can't help but developed care and relationship with that person. I believe that over time that people will shift their motivations. I also think it's not having self-focus motivations or thinking about benefits. It's not like it's bad. It's part of who we are as humans. We're complicated, we make these calculations. It's just our physiology responds to focusing on others in a different way. I think that's a really good thing to know because there's a life cycle for most people are volunteering as well, that you may start as children, students, adults and continue as you get older and over time these motives can change as well. Not even as you've seen in two weeks but I think when I volunteered when I was very young as to why I volunteer today I'm completely different person. Yeah, despite the research. I agree. You just think about what you said about the life cycle like so a student who's volunteering is going to have concerns like getting high-school student wants to get into college, a college student wants to get to grad school or get a job. Those are the concerns that are natural, at that life stage. But then, when you're their parent, now you think about how can I volunteer related to my children maybe go to the kid's school and help out or find another children and type of non-profit that you want to help at. Then as you get older, you're retired, you have time to actually devote yourself to volunteering. Maybe you're now going to volunteer the thing that it's your passion, the thing you've been waiting for and that you really have been wanting to get more deeply involved with, but you're working or even kids before. I think that your volunteers are probably going to shift for the motivations are going to shift through the life cycle but I think they do respond to what you're actually dealing with. Well, thank you. This heartening news for all of us in this recent that we are complicated, our motives change. But most importantly that we need to think about others when we're doing our good deeds. Thank you, Sara.
