Chemical Responses and Shame Providing Positive and Negative Feedback to Promote Altruistic Behavior

[Steve81]

As has been well documented by now, our bodies respond positively to acts of kindness. As noted in the linked article, seratonin, dopamine, and endorphins are released when we are kind, giving us a pleasant feeling when we do something nice for another party. In other words, our bodies provide positive feedback for altruistic behavior. On the other side of the spectrum, we have shame. I will cite a brief excerpt from Building Self Esteem by Joseph Burgo, Ph.D , pg 14/15.

Quote

Darwin long ago observed that people from every culture around the world physically express shame with the same set of physiological signs: lowering of the eyes and gaze aversion, a slumping posture, and usually a blushing of the face or other body parts. A century later the painstaking observations of the neuropsychologist Silvan Tomkins confirmed the biological basis of shame, identifying it as one of nine primary affects encoded in our DNA; the others include enjoyment-joy, interest-excitement, fear-terror, and anger-rage.

As the book further goes on to explain, this provides negative feedback for bad deeds to promote better social behaviors.

Quote

Recent studies suggest that the capacity to experience shame evolved during the millennia when human beings lived primarily in small social units or tribes. Survival depended heavily upon cooperation among members of the tribe. Members who violated the norms of their tribe, or who behaved in ways that damaged the collective interest, would find themselves shunned or ostracized by others within a group. The tribe might withdraw protection, stop sharing food, and exclude the individual, thus lowering the odds of that person's survival.

Taken in aggregate, combined with our capacity to learn and develop new and better ideals, and restating the fact that these things are encoded in our DNA, the logical conclusion is that we are meant to be altruistic.

Any constructive comments and criticisms regarding my analysis are welcome. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy reading this tidbit.

 

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by Steve81

[studiot]

What do you make of this russian expermental treatment in the light of you 'all good and luvy duvy' claims for these hormones ?

 

https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/beating-addiction-out-of-you-literally/?comm_order=&c_page=3

[Steve81]

8 minutes ago, studiot said:

What do you make of this russian expermental treatment in the light of you 'all good and luvy duvy' claims for these hormones ?

 

https://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/beating-addiction-out-of-you-literally/?comm_order=&c_page=3

I would agree with the note in the article that more rigorous academic study is required, but if it works, and the patients are there of their own free will, who am I to judge?

PS: the claims are not mine. I’m merely reporting those claims. Of course, I can say that in my own personal experience, those claims appear to be true.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Steve81

[CharonY]

1 hour ago, Steve81 said:

Taken in aggregate, combined with our capacity to learn and develop new and better ideals, and restating the fact that these things are encoded in our DNA, the logical conclusion is that we are meant to be altruistic.

This does not follow. Not every behaviour, even common ones are hard-coded in DNA. Fundamentally DNA does not carry that level of information density. Rather the whole system is an interplay between the components, that are encoded (e.g. receptors, hormone synthesis pathways etc.) but other elements (e.g. nutrition, but also developmental experiences and learning) affect how the system ultimately works. 

I.e. it is an oversimplification of many overlapping systems and the conclusions are therefore an overinterpretation. There are many systems involved, which we only partially understand (and which are outside my expertise).

That being said, I am not even sure whether the existing framework are sufficiently specific. There are for example examples of altruistic behaviour in bacteria (essentially production of metabolites that are used like common goods or certain suicide pathways). But it is still under discussion whether these are good examples of altruism. 

Then in animals we got a whole discussion on reward systems in the brain, and how they affect individual behaviour and how they are connected to evolution of various traits. It gets complicated and messy very quickly. 

Perhaps the simplest criticism on OP could be fact that evolution nor DNA, does determine what things "ought" to be. Either they are or they are not. There is no driving force that determines what should be.

[Steve81]

16 minutes ago, CharonY said:

This does not follow. Not every behaviour, even common ones are hard-coded in DNA. Fundamentally DNA does not carry that level of information density. Rather the whole system is an interplay between the components, that are encoded (e.g. receptors, hormone synthesis pathways etc.) but other elements (e.g. nutrition, but also developmental experiences and learning) affect how the system ultimately works. 

....

Perhaps the simplest criticism on OP could be fact that evolution nor DNA, does determine what things "ought" to be. Either they are or they are not. There is no driving force that determines what should be.

My argument is that the *potential* is there for a more enlightened society, simply based off those innate feedback mechanisms. Results will vary depending on the circumstances of course. Surely, no one would expect a starving individual to be worried with moral behavior when he has other impulses driving him. In a more pessimistic view, we may also obliterate ourselves before we reach that potential.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Steve81

[Genady]

2 hours ago, Steve81 said:

find themselves shunned or ostracized by others within a group. The tribe might withdraw protection, stop sharing food, and exclude the individual, thus lowering the odds of that person's survival.

Sorry, but it is a typical "just so story." With a little imagination, one can come up with endless stories pointing in any desired direction. Could it happen so? Perhaps, why not. Did it in fact happen? No idea.

[Steve81]

6 minutes ago, Genady said:

Sorry, but it is a typical "just so story." With a little imagination, one can come up with endless stories pointing in any desired direction. Could it happen so? Perhaps, why not. Did it in fact happen? No idea.

Sadly, psychology is not a hard science, and no one was around to take notes in prehistory. The fact remains though, disregarding a few outliers, that humans feel shame.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Steve81

[Genady]

4 minutes ago, Steve81 said:

Sadly, psychology is not a hard science, and no one was around to take notes in prehistory. The fact remains though, disregarding a few outliers, that humans feel shame.

Right. Then, since the story is probably wrong, drop the story and start your idea from the fact.

[Steve81]

Just now, Genady said:

Right. Then, since the story is probably wrong, drop the story and start your idea from the fact.

I’m using a credible, but untestable hypothesis that appears to have at least some acceptance within the community of professional psychologists. That’s sufficient for me to warrant its inclusion.

[Genady]

3 minutes ago, Steve81 said:

I’m using a credible, but untestable hypothesis that appears to have at least some acceptance within the community of professional psychologists. That’s sufficient for me to warrant its inclusion.

If there are, say, twenty credible hypotheses that appear to have some acceptance within the community of professional psychologists, and one of them is correct, then chances that any one of them is wrong are 95%.

[Steve81]

9 minutes ago, Genady said:

If there are, say, twenty credible hypotheses that appear to have some acceptance within the community of professional psychologists, and one of them is correct, then chances that any one of them is wrong are 95%.

That ignores the plausibility of the hypothesis. We know from historical records that things like  exile or excommunication from the Church was a practice. Why wouldn’t the same hold true for prehistoric societies?

Edited August 13, 2023 by Steve81

[Genady]

5 minutes ago, Steve81 said:

That ignores the plausibility of the hypothesis.

Does it? They wouldn't be accepted within the community of professional psychologists otherwise.

5 minutes ago, Steve81 said:

Why wouldn’t the same hold true for prehistoric societies?

As I've said,

 

30 minutes ago, Genady said:

Could it happen so? Perhaps, why not. Did it in fact happen? No idea.

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by Genady

[Steve81]

14 minutes ago, Genady said:

Does it? They wouldn't be accepted withing the community of professional psychologists otherwise.

Perhaps some are not up to date on the latest studies.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Steve81

[Genady]

9 minutes ago, Steve81 said:

Perhaps you can provide the evidence of this plethora of alternative theories, and they can be included.

Here is an alternative, and it refers to some other alternatives: On the Origin of Shame: Does Shame Emerge From an Evolved Disease-Avoidance Architecture? - PMC (nih.gov)

Quote

Shame and disgust are believed to be evolved psychological solutions to different adaptive challenges. Shame is thought to promote the maintenance of social hierarchies (Gilbert, 1997; Fessler, 2004), whereas disgust is believed to encourage disease avoidance (Curtis et al., 2004; Oaten et al., 2009). Although shame and disgust are often treated as orthogonal emotions, they share some important similarities. Both involve bodily concerns, are described as moral emotions, and encourage avoidance of social interaction. The purpose of the current research was to examine whether shame is uniquely related to disgust and pathogen avoidance. 

 

[Steve81]

14 minutes ago, Genady said:

Here is an alternative, and it refers to some other alternatives: On the Origin of Shame: Does Shame Emerge From an Evolved Disease-Avoidance Architecture? - PMC (nih.gov)

 

Perfect. Now it’s included on the thread for anyone who wants to espouse that idea (not that it’s dramatically different from what I posted; it was still a matter of facilitating socialization.)

Edited August 13, 2023 by Steve81

[CharonY]

53 minutes ago, Steve81 said:

My argument is that the *potential* is there for a more enlightened society, simply based off those innate feedback mechanisms. Results will vary depending on the circumstances of course. Surely, no one would expect a starving individual to be worried with moral behavior when he has other impulses driving him. In a more pessimistic view, we may also obliterate ourselves before we reach that potential.

There have been a lot of similar approaches, trying to leverage biology to modify behaviour. Most of these have failed, as the psychological underpinning are poorly understood. I would also advise against conflating psychology and evolution, the field of evolutionary psychology is in a big crisis, as it has largely failed to reproduce many of their claims and there are too many "just so" story arounds in that area. 

For sake of OP, I would also suggest to focus on one aspect first and really figure out how much we know about it, rather than trying to have large bucket with concepts and try to extrapolate from them. 

I think, trying to define shame and their origins might be a good start. As shame as a concept is deeply rooted in psychology, but to my knowledge is not really explored biologically, we should avoid confusion with evolutionary or genetic concepts at this point. 

It also seems to be a high-level concept associated with moral behaviour, suggesting that it might be a learned response. 

[Sensei]

38 minutes ago, Genady said:

They wouldn't be accepted within the community of professional psychologists otherwise.

Psychology.. in my catalog of sciences is near to astrology, divination, homeopathy and reading from tea leaves..

Edited August 13, 2023 by Sensei

[iNow]

8 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Psychology.. in my catalog of sciences is near to astrology, divination, homeopathy and reading from tea leaves..

Then you’re reading/listening/reviewing the wrong ones 

[Steve81]

34 minutes ago, CharonY said:

There have been a lot of similar approaches, trying to leverage biology to modify behaviour. Most of these have failed, as the psychological underpinning are poorly understood. I would also advise against conflating psychology and evolution, the field of evolutionary psychology is in a big crisis, as it has largely failed to reproduce many of their claims and there are too many "just so" story arounds in that area. 

For sake of OP, I would also suggest to focus on one aspect first and really figure out how much we know about it, rather than trying to have large bucket with concepts and try to extrapolate from them. 

I think, trying to define shame and their origins might be a good start. As shame as a concept is deeply rooted in psychology, but to my knowledge is not really explored biologically, we should avoid confusion with evolutionary or genetic concepts at this point. 

It also seems to be a high-level concept associated with moral behaviour, suggesting that it might be a learned response. 

Thanks for the commentary. I’m planning on discussing this further with an actual Ph.D. on the subject next weekend, and that will presumably serve to refine and polish things.

Edited August 13, 2023 by Steve81

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, Steve81 said:

A century later the painstaking observations of the neuropsychologist Silvan Tomkins confirmed the biological basis of shame, identifying it as one of nine primary affects encoded in our DNA; the others include enjoyment-joy, interest-excitement, fear-terror, and anger-rage.

This is most likely factually incorrect. First of all Tomkins is a psychologist and has not worked on any genetic studies that I am aware of. In fact, he is mostly a theorist from what I can see, so there is likely little to any experimental work. As such he can't possibly have confirmed the biological basis of shame.

There is a much more appealing suggestion that these traits are part of cultural adaptation based on what some might call non-genetic evolution (i.e. learned behavior). See for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781880/

for a discussion on that subject. Again, note the use of "evolution" in a non-genetic context.

[Steve81]

29 minutes ago, CharonY said:

This is most likely factually incorrect. First of all Tomkins is a psychologist and has not worked on any genetic studies that I am aware of. In fact, he is mostly a theorist from what I can see, so there is likely little to any experimental work. As such he can't possibly have confirmed the biological basis of shame.

There is a much more appealing suggestion that these traits are part of cultural adaptation based on what some might call non-genetic evolution (i.e. learned behavior). See for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781880/

for a discussion on that subject. Again, note the use of "evolution" in a non-genetic context.

For what it’s worth, I did reach out to Dr. Burgo, so we’ll see if I get anywhere via that avenue. It’d be helpful to get clarification from the man himself.

[Steve81]

3 hours ago, CharonY said:

This is most likely factually incorrect. First of all Tomkins is a psychologist and has not worked on any genetic studies that I am aware of. In fact, he is mostly a theorist from what I can see, so there is likely little to any experimental work. As such he can't possibly have confirmed the biological basis of shame.

From what I can gather reading through on Fessler (2004) as linked by @Genady, it was a logical inference as opposed to direct genetic study. Also worth noting, the hierarchical structure mentioned as how shame developed isn't a denial of what Dr. Burgo had to say (though in further research, I have found some errors in his book already, specifically the primary affect list is a few short). They observed the similarities between the submissive behavior in a hierarchical relationship, but it's an antecedent to shame, not a direct explanation of how shame itself evolved to be. 

Quote

In contrast to the perspectives described above, often working independently of one another, a number of investigators have formulated overlapping evolutionary explanations of shame that take fuller account of the emotion’s antecedents, display behaviors, and action tendencies. Important initial insights are the recognitions that a) the shame display has an antithesis, namely the pride display, and b) the core components of these two displays (direction of gaze, erectness of posture, and gait) are components of displays employed by nonhuman primates (and other mammals) during the negotiation or affirmation of relative rank (Fessler, 1999; Gilbert, 1989, 1992; Keltner & Harker, 1998; Weisfeld, 1999; Weisfeld, 1997).

In fact, this paragraph appears to support Dr. Burgo's telling on the development of shame:

Quote

Keltner and colleagues (Keltner & Buswell, 1997; Keltner & Harker, 1998) argue that the utility of the appeasement function is preserved in shame since, in humans, those who are unable to appease others following transgressions of the moral code risk becoming the target of collective aggression or exclusion.18 In support of this thesis, Keltner and associates (Keltner & Harker, 1998; Keltner et al., 1997) review a variety of evidence indicating that displaying shame (and acting accordingly) can enhance reconciliation and social reincorporation following moral transgressions (see also De Jong, Peters, De Cremer & Vranken, 2002)

Fessler only reviews the evolutionary history though; it's not the direct topic of their study. Unfortunately, Gilbert's work appears to be behind a paywall, and while I appreciate knowledge, my funds aren't unlimited (already been buying physics books recommended by you folks).

Edited August 14, 2023 by Steve81

[Steve81]

4 hours ago, CharonY said:

There is a much more appealing suggestion that these traits are part of cultural adaptation based on what some might call non-genetic evolution (i.e. learned behavior). See for example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781880/

I believe you misinterpreted the article.

Quote

We hypothesize that this new social world, created by rapid cultural adaptation, led to the genetic evolution of new, derived social instincts. Cultural evolution created cooperative groups. Such environments favoured the evolution of a suite of new social instincts suited to life in such groups including a psychology which ‘expects’ life to be structured by moral norms, and that is designed to learn and internalize such norms. New emotions evolved, like shame and guilt, which increase the chance the norms are followed. 

Given that this is the second time I've read one of these linked articles and found it didn't say what you thought it said, it would help if you folks glossed over the material instead of making assumptions based on the wording of the abstract. If we're engaging in scientific discussion, I expect it to be properly researched on your end as well.

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

It also seems to be a high-level concept associated with moral behaviour, suggesting that it might be a learned response. 

Just to clarify, moral behavior is most certainly a learned response. The system that underpins it, according to the studies linked so far that I've read, is in all likelihood genetic.

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

There have been a lot of similar approaches, trying to leverage biology to modify behaviour.

Curiously, this is the converse. As it relates to this topic, we're trying to leverage behavior to affect biological responses. Be kind, feel good. There's literally nothing more to it. 

Edited August 14, 2023 by Steve81

[CharonY]

20 minutes ago, Steve81 said:

Given that this is the second time I've read one of these linked articles and found it didn't say what you thought it said, it would help if you folks glossed over the material instead of making assumptions based on the wording of the abstract. If we're engaging in scientific discussion, I expect it to be properly researched on your end as well.

I should have made it more clear what I thought about the paper, my bad. Similar to the others it does not offer any biological insights, but rather discusses the aspects on a conceptual level linking it to learned behaviour, which is still in the purview of psychological sciences. Towards the end it veers of quite a bit again into the just-so story region, which has become fairly common since the rise (and perhaps also through the fall) of evo-psych. 

But at least the first part is something that one could discuss about as it stays more within the purview of psychology (i.e. does not venture too far out into the bio realm.).

I will also note that the Terrizzi & Shook as well as the Fessler paper have similar issues. I.e. there is a large conceptual framework, or narrative, but data that can be used to test or invalidate hypotheses are lacking (or are very crude and often not robust). 

In human genetics (in the biological realm) there is increasing realization that our genes alone are much less defining than originally anticipated (to large part caused by the increase of sequencing data and GWAS). As such the field of evo psych is still behind the curve.

Again, there is good reason to believe that shame and other behaviour in a moral system can have important social functions. But introducing genetics without actual genetic data, is a big stretch that folks are increasingly skeptical about (and rightfully so).

41 minutes ago, Steve81 said:

The system that underpins it, according to the studies linked so far that I've read, is in all likelihood genetic.

That is basically the issue, the studies speculate about it, but as far as I can see, there is no evidence. Beyond that the basic brain functions are involved. But that is a bit like saying that the system for pottery is genetic as it involves hands and eyes which have a genetic basis. 

It is not entirely wrong, but also so broad as to be meaningless.

[Steve81]

8 minutes ago, CharonY said:

I should have made it more clear what I thought about the paper, my bad. Similar to the others it does not offer any biological insights, but rather discusses the aspects on a conceptual level linking it to learned behaviour, which is still in the purview of psychological sciences. Towards the end it veers of quite a bit again into the just-so story region, which has become fairly common since the rise (and perhaps also through the fall) of evo-psych. 

But at least the first part is something that one could discuss about as it stays more within the purview of psychology (i.e. does not venture too far out into the bio realm.).

I will also note that the Terrizzi & Shook as well as the Fessler paper have similar issues. I.e. there is a large conceptual framework, or narrative, but data that can be used to test or invalidate hypotheses are lacking (or are very crude and often not robust). 

In human genetics (in the biological realm) there is increasing realization that our genes alone are much less defining than originally anticipated (to large part caused by the increase of sequencing data and GWAS). As such the field of evo psych is still behind the curve.

Again, there is good reason to believe that shame and other behaviour in a moral system can have important social functions. But introducing genetics without actual genetic data, is a big stretch that folks are increasingly skeptical about (and rightfully so).

That is basically the issue, the studies speculate about it, but as far as I can see, there is no evidence. Beyond that the basic brain functions are involved. But that is a bit like saying that the system for pottery is genetic as it involves hands and eyes which have a genetic basis. 

It is not entirely wrong, but also so broad as to be meaningless.

I believe the "proof" that Dr. Burgo alluded to related to experiments with infants, ala the Still Face Experiment. Since these infants had little or no opportunity to learn behavior, and presuming an adequate sample size, it would certainly indicate genetics is at play.

Edited August 14, 2023 by Steve81