Welcome Sarah. I'm looking forward to our conversation and learning more on the science of giving. Thanks for Meda. I'm happy to be here. Can we start with the question that's always puzzled me. Are we hard-wired to be generous? That's a good question. Empathy is not a fixed trait and that's true. But it's also more complicated. Actually there's research showing that about 50 percent of empathy is based on genetics. If you have more than one kid, you know this. Some kids are born with a little more social sensitivity, a little more empathy. It's easier for them to think about other people's feelings and to act and care for them. Then other people struggle a bit. To me I think of it a little bit like being an athlete. Some people have more of a natural tendency to be an athlete, but all of us have muscles. We can all grow and we can all develop an empathy. For those of us who find it a little more difficult, it might take a little more time, but all of us have the capability so yes, it's hard-wired. All of us have the capability. Some of us have more of a natural tendency than others. Sarah that's interesting because then, I wonder if there's an evolutionary explanations for this. For some of us to be born with great empathy skills and somebody, some less, is there some evolutionary explanation for this. What do we know from the science of this generosity and empathy? Well, one of the things we do know is we often hear people say, empathy is the human characteristic. It's what makes us human. But actually, when you think about it from a biological or evolutionary standpoint, actually animals, various animals can have various empathy. This is a type of feature that has evolved and no one knows exactly why, but we think especially with mammals that it's about caregiving of infants because they take so long to develop. A more empathetic tuned in responsive parent is going to, the likelihood of their infants surviving is much higher. A lot of researchers, people who study this, whether they're primatologists or psychologists or biologists, believe that the reason we have empathy and that some animals have empathy is that it starts off with just infant care. But then it's this piece of our brain that has evolved maybe for infant care. But we can then switch it and we can broaden it. We can apply the same type of care to people who are related to us or people who are friends. Then the real puzzle is, we can apply that kind of care to strangers. That's the evolutionary puzzle. Yes, because puzzles maybe because whenever there's little children around adults tend to be kinder and more social around little children and we make a lot about friends because of our children's schoolmates. Cuteness, cuteness has a really big factor in promoting empathy. There is some research that shows that one thing is similarity. We see people who are like us. We tend to feel more empathy, but there's research that shows that the thing that matters even more than similarity is basically a feeling of nurturance. Seeing somebody who's cute or vulnerable, like puppies, like we feel so much empathy for puppies. I don't know why that would be evolved except for that. Really the evolutionary design is about taking care of infants. Naturally, anyone who's helpless or vulnerable or cute is going to catch our attention and make this one help in some way. Well, it's just Sarah, this is very interesting because I feel that way about kittens not necessarily cats. Even my allergy to cats, still am very attracted by. Sure, I'd like to go to explore the next point with you. Because your research and other research has showed that there's a link between generosity and well-being. Well being comes in multiple ways. Could you talk about some of those links between generosity and well-being, especially the health benefits? Yeah. When I think about well-being, I think about both mental health and physical health. The research shows that people who are more empathetic, more compassionate are also people who tend to be less prone to depression, anxiety, or other mental health problems. At the same time, this spills over into physical health. So doctors visits, having long term health problems, how the severity of the health problem, and then ultimately into how long they live. To me, that's a shocking thing because you can say yes, I'm an empathetic person and yes, I feel happy. I'm great. But there's the issue of like, oh, we're just listening to what they're saying about themselves. We don't know if they're self awareness or if maybe they're fibbing a bit. But you can't really fib about whether you're alive. When we see that people who are tuned into others are living longer lives, that's pretty shocking. That's quite a black and white outcome. Very clear. Yes. Yeah, that's interesting. What are some other benefits to individuals? We recently did a paper together where we found that people who are doing good things, so pro-social, so they're volunteering or they're helping, or they're even people who are, I think it was like more physically affectionate, the warm kind of people. Those people are rated by outside observers as more attractive. This link seems to happen even if you look at a yearbook picture of somebody and then rate that picture for attractiveness and then follow them for 40 years. I think it was 40 years, wasn't it? This very long time that we still see that there's that link that the people who are more attractive are more pro-social and people who are more pro-social are more attractive. The next step on that. There's other research showing that the number one thing that people are attracted to in romantic partners is, no, it's not beauty actually, it's not money. It's not, it's actually kindness. People are looking for compassion and care in their partners. There are also people who are empathetic, a better relationship, people like them more or they're more trusted. Generally, a really important human trait, even though it's not only for humans, it's something that people would value. I want to end this section unless we need to wrap up, what are the benefits to society at large, we saw in a trend of visuals what might be the benefits? I mean, we should have started with that question. I think it's obvious because that means to say like, oh, you should be empathetic. It makes you feel more attractive. I mean, that's not what we're trying to do here obviously. But really, the reason why empathy is so important in my compassion and kindness is so important is because if we're all living in a way where we do our best to think about what other people need and help when people are in need, we have a really good society. You think about just start with yourself and your family and how you're caring for people around you and your neighbors. You can extend it to your community, volunteering, caring for people in need around you, and even extended further into other issues that maybe you're not personally affected by or don't see when you're walking down the street. But actually are happening anyway that are more global outside of your regular day-to-day life. When you think about a bunch of people, all of a sudden, they want to do that. We have a very good society. Yeah. I think this is a prayer really that we all could be empathic and kind and have a generous society. Especially when the major crises surround us, this is so important. Your findings on the benefits to society at large. Thank you, Sarah. Thanks.
