Why we are built to be kind

Whether in political theory or popular culture, human nature is often portrayed as selfish and power hungry. UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner questions this idea and searched for the answer why we evolved pro-social emotions like empathy, compassion and gratitude.

These are the emotions that social marketers and fundraisers rely on daily.

Keltner:

You know 60 percent of what we do is really about maximizing an individual’s personal gratification and desire, just the classic survival of the most competitive – but 40 percent of the time, we’re really doing things for other people and we sacrifice and we risk exploitation and we still do it.

The video is part of the serie Fig. 1. Get inside the mind of a researcher with new ideas and research out of the University of California

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