Abstract
The fact that humans cooperate with nonkin is something we take for granted, but this is an anomaly in the animal kingdom. Our species’ ability to behave prosocially may be based on human-unique psychological mechanisms. We argue here that these mechanisms include the ability to care about the welfare of others (other-regarding concerns), to “feel into” others (empathy), and to understand, adhere to, and enforce social norms (normativity). We consider how these motivational, emotional, and normative substrates of prosociality develop in childhood and emerged in our evolutionary history. Moreover, we suggest that these three mechanisms all serve the critical function of aligning individuals with others: Empathy and other-regarding concerns align individuals with one another, and norms align individuals with their group. Such alignment allows us to engage in the kind of large-scale cooperation seen uniquely in humans.
Highlights
The fact that people are kind to each other is something that most of us take for granted
We argue here that these mechanisms include the ability to care about the welfare of others, to “feel into” others, and to understand, adhere to, and enforce social norms
Once children have aligned with their group and internalized the group’s norms, they may apply personal emotional appraisal such that they may even judge their own transgressions negatively and punish themselves through guilt and shame, and may reward themselves for having lived up to a social norm via pride (e.g., Zahn-Waxler and Kochanska, 1990; Barrett et al, 1993; Tangney et al, 2007). Such emotions are important for self-regulation, serve as motivations to act normatively in the future (Kochanska and Aksan, 2006), and help children follow the norms of the group more generally. (It remains to be seen whether other animals, great apes in particular, experience self-conscious emotions; dogs will show an anticipation of punishment that can be confused with – but is not – guilt; Horowitz, 2009.) Beyond experiencing self-conscious emotions such as guilt, young children show a preference for and distribute more resources to transgressors who display guilt than those who display no guilt, suggesting they understand the important appeasement functions that guilt serves after norm violations (Keltner and Anderson, 2000; Vaish et al, 2011)
Summary
The fact that people are kind to each other is something that most of us take for granted. We will suggest that positive other-regarding concerns motivate behavior that is intended for the improvement of the welfare of others, and discuss the importance of empathy in aligning emotional states.
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