People volunteering at food drive

Each year, people in the United States give billions of dollars to charity. Every day, people volunteer their time to help complete strangers. Routinely, we hear of selfless acts where people put their own lives in danger to help someone else.

Economists and evolutionary psychologists have struggled to explain why people act in such altruistic ways. Typical explanations suggest that these behaviors involve suppressing our true, selfish nature and must instead be motivated by external factors, such as the possibility of future rewards or to avoid negative consequences, like appearing selfish to a potential love interest.

But what if helping others is an innate part of being human? What if it just makes us feel good to give?

Those questions have inspired a series of ground-breaking neuroscience studies conducted over the past several years by researchers Jamil Zaki, an assistant professor of psychology at Stanford University, and Jason Mitchell, an associate professor of the social sciences at Harvard University.

Their results have shed light on the relationship between empathy and altruism, and they have offered unique insights into […]