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In times of crises and danger we may hide and flee as our natural instincts would guide us, or do something else: put ourselves at danger and help others.
Whenever there is a tragic event, there abound stories of individuals who have helped others, often at great risk to themselves. But why? I don’t mean that negatively, it is great, and I have helped others in critical situations myself, a number of times actually.
What I mean is that the brain would normally, we assume, prioritise ourselves and seek to save ourselves first rather than instinctively help others. But the opposite seems to happen.
We may assume this is empathy, or moral standards, but recent research just published has shown this doesn’t appear to be the case!
Joana Vieira and Andreas Olsson of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden have just published the intriguing results of a brain scanning study. They conducted a lab experiment in which 49 volunteers had their brains scanned while in a helping scenario.
Sorry, while in a brain scanner there is no running through fire to help others, ethical committees wouldn’t allow this anyway. But what they did do is give participants mild electrical shocks and they could avoid this and/or help others avoid this — virtually that is.
