Foreword
My brief answer to the question - Are human beings innately good or innately bad - is this:
(1) I think humans have innate tendencies towards both selfishness and altruism; towards antisocial and prosocial behaviours; both of which interact with parental and other influences; are implicated in the formation of personality orientations at the level of the individual ego; and are modulated by lifelong environmental factors. There also seems to be: (a) a link between empathy and altruism; (b) variation across individuals over space and time; (c) a tendency for women and more sensitive individuals to be more empathic/altruistic; (d) a tendency for individuals to be more caring about their relatives and friends than about strangers; and (e) a tendency for altruistic behaviour to be suppressed under certain types of social circumstances. Furthermore:
(2): I think there is some evidence to support this view, though it is not easy to collect because of the complexity of human functioning in this area.
Introduction
This question calls for a review of the statement in Cognitive Humanistic Therapy (CHT) that: “Innate goodness refers to the positive core of a person’s being, which encompasses biological tendencies towards affirming life, co-operation, and human sympathy…” (Nelson-Jones, 2001, page 415). The CHT viewpoint on this subject seems to reflect the humanistic assumptions of Maslow and Rogers, especially Rogers’s take on the “actualizing tendency” – Nelson-Jones, 2001, page 104 – and the Buddhist concept of the “unselfish self”, which “…fosters the interests and ideals of self, others and humankind..” (Nelson-Jones, 2001, page 392). This view recognizes that humans can be “cooperative and caring as well as hostile and uncaring”, and rejects the more common Western conception of humans as ‘bad animals’. I am in broad agreement with this view, and have considered it in some detail in Byrne (2003).
Plotting the Inborn Propensities of Humans
In Byrne (2003), I was working on the problem that, if you start from the notion that humans are mainly driven by the “inborn rational and irrational beliefs” – Ellis, 1976 – then you cannot account for the full range of “elements of the ego”, as defined in Transactional Analysis – Stuart, 1992. In particular, it is difficult to account for the “giving qualities” of the Nurturing Parent ego state. I had also developed a model of human emotion, which showed the connection between the cognitive-emotive processing, on the one hand, and physiological arousal, on the other; in which “calm, serene, detachment” appeared to be a natural “mid point” in the scale of physiological arousal, as discussed in Byrne (in press). This is clarified to some degree in the three illustrations which follow:
All the illustrations that clarified elements of this paper have been omitted from this Blogger version, as Blogger does not automatically facilitate the pasting in of embedded illustrations. If you are particularly keen to see these illustrations, then please email Jim Byrne for a copy of the original paper, at ABC Coaching.
Figure 1: The complex ABC Model
Item 3 in Figure 1 shows the attitudinal response (or cognitive-emotive processing) of an incoming stimulus. The overlapping ellipses, in the B circle, represent the overlapping of the innate, biological urges (id) and the internalized, or introjected social values (superego). C2 is the emotional-behavioural response, and it follows that this response is affected both by the inborn and the socially conditioned, as well as the self-constructed processing tendencies at B.
Figure 2 then looks at what goes on in the body, in terms of physiological arousal when a particular type of emotional response is triggered. (This is not the complete model, which has four axes and several strands to the lower portion of the model, representing not only depression, but also guilt, shame and hurt).
Figure 2: A Simplified Version of Jim Byrne’s Y-Model
Furthermore, each of the states of emotion arousal in Figure 2 is assumed to be caused by the interaction of (1) a particular ‘A2’ (perception/interpretation/inference – which I normally abbreviate to “the inference”); plus (2) a particular overlapping cognitive-emotive “belief/attitude”, classified as rational belief (rB) or irrational belief (iB), (and other types of ‘B’, which account for calmness and happiness, etc., which will not be pursued here). We can graphically represent the full emotion arousal as shown in Figure 3, below:
Figure 3: The relationship of Belief, Attitude and Physiological Arousal
Somehow, it seemed to me, an innate tendency to love and give is probably related to the calm, serene detachment at the mid-point of physiological arousal. So I began to speculate about what the structure of the inborn propensities might be, and came up with the following ideas. First let us look at the inborn, biological propensities. There are essentially two aspects to this inheritance. First: the inborn Attitudes (or Beliefs, in REBT terminology). And second: the inborn biological motivations, which relate to our “primary needs” of food, drink, warmth, shelter, safety, and after some maturational time, sex, exploration and feedback. Firstly I will deal with the inborn Attitudes (or Beliefs). I suggest that there are four crucial elements to this system: The rational and irrational Beliefs (rB’s and iB’s) of Ellis fame, plus detached Beliefs (dB’s) (of Buddha fame); and “giving Beliefs/Attitudes” (gB’s) (which are my contribution to making the basis of human personality reasonably complete, as will be shown soon. But of course, Nelson-Jones’s CHT takes a similar view; and Nelson-Jones, 2001, cites three sources: Argyle, 1991; Beck, 1999; and Dali Lama and Cutler, 1998; in support of some such idea). These four assumed inborn Beliefs, or Attitudes, or Urges, will be explored schematically over the next couple of illustrations:
First, the inborn Beliefs (Bs), (or attitudes):
Figure 4: The inborn belief (or attitude) system
This inborn belief/attitude system is conceived of as a network of neurons within what Freud called the id (the ‘it’: or central nervous system of the neonate; and probably especially the emotional centres of the brain). It is not the whole of the ‘it’, which is assumed to contain many other elements of inborn propensities and urges, including the motivations mentioned above.
Immediately after birth, the neonate encounters a similar system, which was inborn in its mother, and which has been socialized in its mother by her developmental experiences. Over time, the mother’s belief system is introjected by the growing infant, and produces something like this:
Figure 5: The Belief system which drives goals at the ego level
Next, I want to incorporate the motivations:
Figure 6: The influence of the motivators
At every level in the human organism – the inborn, the introjected and the self-constructed – the relevant-level motivators interact with the relevant- level belief system. In the well integrated individual adult, the ego-level (B3, in Figure 5) is dominant most of the time, whether consciously or unconsciously. However, the primary needs have greater attention-getting power than the ego-directed motivations. Hence, I may want to sit in my garden and draw a picture (which is probably a tertiary level “need”), but the more urgent desire for food may overtake this. I may then want food (which is a desire, or rational belief: rB); demand food (which is “demandingness”, or irrational belief: iB); be indifferent to food (if I can keep my focus on my drawing task), (which is a “detached belief”: dB); or want to feed my wife and/or step-daughter as an adjunct goal (which is a “giving belief”: gB). (The dB is the detached attitude or detached-Belief, advocated by the Buddha, which is inborn, and achievable, but normally only when the external stimulus is very weak. However, the Buddha’s project was to teach individuals that, even when the external stimulus is very strong and noxious, they could still choose to teach themselves to remain detached, or indifferent. [REBT sensibly points out that, most of the time, there is little to stop us aiming higher than this; as long as we don’t start demanding!] The gB – or giving Belief – is an expression of the fact that humans are not only wanting/needing/demanding beings. From the very beginning we are also social beings, with a desire to cooperate with our social environments, and a desire to give (sometimes called love!). We even know some of the parts of the brain where this is built in, and which, when damaged, results in anti-social behaviour. (See Damasio, 1994).
So, in brief then, my model of the human psyche includes conflicting urges, attitudes and orientations at the level of the biological organism, as originally posited by Freud. I think I probably emphasize positive urges more than Freud did, and especially urges to be social and pro-social, as suggested by Kitzinger (1997) and others. However, as I shall show later, these innate tendencies to behave well and badly are strongly influenced by social shaping, which produces either a strong, weak or benign conscience. The tension between the conscience and the inborn urges create the space in which the self-constructed self (or ego) constructs itself; and thus the self is even more fragmented than the id or the superego. And, finally, the resulting “urge to be good” (at the ego level) can break down very badly under certain types of circumstances, especially strong situations, like Zimbardo’s simulated prison experiment; and Milgram’s electrocution experiments.
Selfishness and Altruism in Mainstream Psychology
There is a popular theory of “universal egoism” – (Dovidio, 1995, in Gross, 2001) – which claims that humans are fundamentally selfish and Altruism “is an impossibility”. This appears to be the dominant view in mainstream psychology. And any act of “apparent altruism” is seen as “selfishness in disguise” by the sociobiologists. (This is not quite the position of Richard Dawkins who, in The Selfish Gene, had this to say: “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have a chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do”. [Chapter 1]. So for Dawkins, there can at least be “learned altruism”, whereas for me there is an innate tendency towards altruism, and an innate tendency towards selfishness, both of which can have survival value, and both of which can be enhanced or inhibited by the social environment of the individual. [Beings which were purely selfish would most likely not have been ‘selected’ for survival, as they probably could not have competed in any niche which was competed for by a socially cohesive group. And it makes no sense to assume, as is implicit in Dawkins, that non-human primates were “trained” to be sociable, against their “selfish” natures. It makes a lot more sense to assume that their social troops arose naturally, based upon biological drives]. Of course Dawkins could then move the goalposts and claim that they coalesced to serve their selfish genes, since they are just “disposable gene machines”. However interesting this may be as philosophical speculation, there is no way that Dawkins [or Wilson] could ever validate that assertion. In what way can it be investigated? I can think of no suitable experiment that could be undertaken).
History and philosophy also mainly seem to point towards the bad behaviour of humans. For example, from ancient Greece to this very day, the lives of the majority of humans have been deformed by the insistence of the most powerful property-owning groups to run society as a class-based hierarchy of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’. (This is the critique of Marx and Engels, the anarchists and Christian Socialists; while the Christian Conservatives supported the bad behaviour of various ruling classes, while castigating the significantly less bad behaviour of powerless individuals). However, it is important to distinguish between what is innate and what is developed, or induced, in humans. And amidst all the exploitation and greed of modern societies, we see also examples of altruism and self-sacrifice; mainly amongst the “lower orders” – although wealthy benefactors have been spotted from time to time. These altruistic acts are said by some to result from “sympathetic instincts”. (See McDougal, 1908, in Gross, 2001, page 434. And Piaget supported the view that “…both innate and environmental factors shape the development of moral reasoning”.)
However, the conscience of the United States was badly shaken when, in 1964, a young woman, living in Queens, New York, was attacked, raped and stabbed to death, over a period of more than 45 minutes, in the sight of 38 witnesses, all of whom failed to intervene to protect her, rescue her, or even report the assault to the police. (They all witnessed the rape and murder by looking out of their apartment windows at various times, in the middle of the night, [around 3.00am], in response to the screams of Kitty Genovese, who called out ‘Please help me. Please help me’. And: ‘Oh my God, he’s stabbed me’; and ‘I’m dying’, at different times over the duration of the protracted attack. One man called out something like: ‘Leave that poor girl alone’. One person called the police after the point at which Kitty died, and her attacker had driven off in a white car. As a result of this traumatic incident, the burning question became: “Does altruism exist?”
And if so, “How do we explain such bystander apathy”. (Bath, 2003; and Gale, 2003).
In 1968, Latané and Darley presented their research on how group influences inhibit bystander intervention, by allowing individuals to ‘delegate’ responsibility, or to ‘deny’ responsibility. However, it is important to note that, in another paper in 1968, Darley and Latané did establish that “people do behave altruistically”, even though their actions tend to be constrained by the presence of other witnesses, potential ridicule or danger. When the bystander thought they were the only witness, they tended to intervene in 85% of cases of emergency. Then in 1970, Latané and Darley presented their ‘decision model’ of bystander intervention, as follows:
Figure 7: The Intervention Model of Latané (1970) – (From Gale, 2003).
These authors argued that, before a bystander would intervene, the following steps would have to be considered, and answered in the affirmative:
1. Notice that something is wrong;
2. Define it as a situation requiring help;
3. Decide whether to take personal responsibility;
4. Decide what kind of help to give; and:
5. Implement the decision to intervene. (Gross, 2001, page 435).
However, this model does not help us to understand the behaviour of the 38 witnesses to Kitty Genovese’s murder, most of whom claimed they were “afraid to intervene”, even though they could see she needed help. We could say the model broke down at step 3, because they were afraid to take responsibility for helping.
According to Schroeder, et al, (1995), Latané and Darley probably went too far in attributing apathy to the 38 witnesses, each of whom may have been truly concerned, but inhibited from taking action by the presence of others who might be more competent to intervene; might already have called the police; and so on. (From Gross, 2001, page 436).
One of the main limitations of Latané and Darley’s decision model is that it does not look at the question of why people do help others in distress. This limitation gave rise to the ‘arousal: cost-reward’ model of Piliavin, et al, 1969, 1981, and Dovidio, et al, 1991. According to Dovidio et al (1991), in Gross (2001):
“People are aroused by the distress of others and exhibit emotionally empathic reactions to the problems and crises of others… also … the severity and clarity of another person’s emergency and the relationship to the victim systematically influence arousal…”
Again according to Dovidio et al (1991), the arousal causes the helping behaviour, which is chosen to reduce the arousal at the lowest cost to the bystander. Emotional arousal thus provides the motivation to intervene, and cognitive appraisal of the situation determines what to do.
The second element of this model deals with the cost and reward. The cost-reward analysis has been summarized by Gross (2001) as follows:
“The cost-reward analysis
“Research has concentrated on this part of the model and, specifically, on the relative costs of helping and not helping.
The costs of helping include lost time, effort, possible physical danger, embarrassment, disruption of ongoing activities and psychological aversion (as in the case of a victim who is bleeding, or drunk).
The rewards of helping include fame, gratitude from the victim and relatives, the intrinsic pleasure and self-satisfaction derived from the act of helping, the avoidance of guilt (for not helping), and even money.
The costs of not helping include guilt, blame from others and cognitive and/or emotional discomfort associated with knowing that another person is suffering”. (Page 437).
In evaluating the arousal: cost-reward model, Dovidio et al (1991) concluded that this is essentially an economic model of human behaviour, which is about cost-benefit from a narrow egoistic frame of reference. By contrast, the empathy-altruism hypothesis – (Gross, 2001, page 440) – while accepting the reality of egoistic motivations, also insists that, under certain circumstances we may respond to benefit the other person, without counting the cost to ourselves. (Dovidio, 1995, and Kitzinger, 1997).
Empathic concern includes sympathy, tenderness, compassion and similar emotions. These are quite distinct from the emotions of fear, anxiety, guilt and so on which motivates the self-centred arousal described by Piliavin et al, (1969), (1981), etc; which is directed towards reducing personal distress. Empathic concern generates a selfless, altruistic desire to help the other person to reduce their distress. This view, of altruistic concern, contradicts the dominant bourgeois view of human nature, which posits individualistic self-interest as the sole source of human motivation. The problem for the advocates of the empathy-altruism hypothesis is that it is very difficult to test this hypothesis, since the same situation (i.e. someone else in distress) and the same response (helping behaviour by an intervening bystander) can be explained by either the selfish or selfless hypothesis, since the actual cause is in an internal, invisible, processing phenomenon. However, Batson (2000) has reported on several experiments which have helped to tease these two explanations apart. This paradigm shift, from the exclusively-selfish explanation to the sometimes/somewhat-altruistic understanding of human behaviour suggests that:
“…it is not true that everything we do is directed towards the ultimate goal of benefiting ourselves. It seems that we are capable of being altruistic as well as egoistic”. (Batson, 2000, in Gross, 2001, page 441. Bold and underlining emphases added – JWB).
Contrary to the views of the sociobiologists, and others, it seems humans are capable of both biological altruism and psychological altruism. According to Gross (2001), “…both sophisticated reasoning (as in psychological altruism) and more primitive, non-cognitive, biological mechanisms may permit humans to perform a range of altruistic behaviours well beyond those of other species. According to Schroeder et al (1995):
‘We may well indeed be a uniquely compassionate and altruistic beast … altruism may be both a behaviour that has evolved because it is vital to the survival of humanity and a behaviour that is learned and reinforced by most societies because it is vital to the survival of their culture’.” Page 442.
Key Data from Research Results
This question has been concerned with two points. The first concerns whether humans are innately good or bad: and I have considered that to some extent above, in considering the mainstream psychological models of altruism and prosocial behaviour; and also in reviewing my own model of the structures of human mind and personality. The second point concerns whether or not I can find evidence to support my own views on this subject, and this is what I shall attempt to firm up in this section on research results. I will then discuss this evidence in the next section, below. The following research results are considered to be highly relevant to my quest for evidence:
1. According to Farsides (2003): Rushton et al. (1984) talks about the heritability of altruistic personality. While drawing attention to individual differences over space and time, Rushton emphasizes the genetic basis to these individual differences. Rushton presented research results which showed that, in terms of “behavioural tendencies” and “helping-related emotions and reactions (such as empathy)”, monozygotic (or genetically identical) twins are more similar to each other than are dizygotic (or fraternal) twins. This seems to support my view that there is “innate goodness” (as well as innate selfishness – although there are questions about the validity of the research instrument – child self-reports!). Another suggestion that I may be right comes from research which has demonstrated that empathic responses are shown in infancy. “Infants respond to the crying of other babies. Research shows that infants will help parents from an early age. (Rheingold, 1982; Bar-Tal, Raviv and Goldberg, 1982)”. (See footnote 23 below).
2. “People who are characteristically more sensitive to the needs of others might experience greater arousal in response to another’s plight, or experience this arousal more negatively, or perceive greater costs for not helping”. (Gross, 2001, page 440). This reference to “characteristic sensitivity” may be taken to include both innate and socially shaped sensitivity; and this is certainly how I would choose to interpret it.
3. “People are aroused by the distress of others and exhibit emotionally empathic reactions to the problems and crises of others… (Dovidio et al, 1991). This seems to be innate, and to develop alongside the cognitive development of the infant. (See Radke-Yarrow and Zahn-Waxler, 1984; based on mothers’ diary observations of children’s responses to others’ distress – Cited in Footnote 42 below). Innate empathy and altruism may be more pronounced in women than in men: “Women may experience more empathy for the feelings of others than men, which would point towards a greater propensity to be helpful”. (Gross, 2001, page 440).
4. However, when there are many witnesses to an event, there is a diffusion of responsibility whereby each bystander’s sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases. And individuals inevitably take costs and benefits into account before acting, unless the arousal level is very high in a high emergency, when unthinking, automatic altruism may take over. We also experience pure, conscious altruism (according to Batson, 2000), when we feel empathy for the person in need. When empathy is absent, we revert to “social exchange theory”, and weigh up the costs and benefits to ourselves of intervening.
5. The problem for the advocates of the empathy-altruism hypothesis, as stated above, is that it is very difficult to test this hypothesis, since the same situation (i.e. someone else in distress) and the same response (helping behaviour by an intervening bystander) can be explained by either the selfish or selfless hypothesis, since the actual cause is an internal, invisible, processing phenomenon. However, Batson (2000) has reported on several experiments which have helped to tease these two explanations apart. This paradigm shift, from the exclusively-selfish explanation to the both/and rather than either/or approach, shows that we are sometimes/somewhat-altruistic. Or as Batson (2000) said
“…it is not true that everything we do is directed towards the ultimate goal of benefiting ourselves. It seems that we are capable of being altruistic as well as egoistic”. (Batson, 2000, in Gross, 2001, page 441. Bold and underlining emphases added – JWB).
6. According to Gross (2001), “…both sophisticated reasoning (as in psychological altruism) and more primitive, non-cognitive, biological mechanisms may permit humans to perform a range of altruistic behaviours well beyond those of other species. According to Schroeder et al (1995):
‘We may well indeed be a uniquely compassionate and altruistic beast … altruism may be both a behaviour that has evolved because it is vital to the survival of humanity and a behaviour that is learned and reinforced by most societies because it is vital to the survival of their culture’.” Page 442.
7. However, individual humans also have a capacity for shocking conformity and obedience to authority, as a result of which they may engage in unbelievable cruelty, all the time wishing they could avoid acting so badly! This was the lesson of the Milgram experiments where volunteers were ordered to administer electric shocks to subjects who failed to answer test questions correctly. These volunteers sincerely believed they were inflicting great pain and suffering on their “victims”, up to and including the possibility of heart attack; and yet they kept going under the direction of the experimenter, who told them: “The experiment demands that you continue!” And so they continued, like robots, conforming to external authority rather than their innate or socialized urges towards empathy and altruism!
Discussion
In the results section above, I presented at least thirteen studies, in seven sections, most of which seem to offer some support to my hypothesis that we are born with tendencies towards both selfishness and altruism. As a consequence, I want to present the following conclusions:
1. Humans are not only wanting/needing/demanding beings. From the very beginning we are also social beings, with a desire to cooperate with our social environments, and a desire to give (sometimes called love!). We even know some of the parts of the brain where this is built in, and which, when damaged, result in anti-social behaviour. (See Damasio, 1994). And as Gross (2001) points out: “The general level of helpfulness is higher than some pessimists might have assumed”. (Page 438). And “…people are more inclined to help rather than just stand by…”
2. Empathic concern seems to be inborn as well as socially shaped. It includes sympathy, tenderness, compassion and similar emotions, and humans are often motivated by such emotions. These are quite distinct from the emotions of fear, anxiety, guilt and so on which motivates the self-centred arousal described by Piliavin et al, (1969), (1981), etc; which is directed towards reducing personal distress. Empathic concern generates a selfless, altruistic desire to help the other person to reduce their distress. In emergencies, individuals may unthinkingly go to the rescue of someone in distress, without any regard for the cost or benefits to themselves. This appears to be an altruistic instinct.
3. I believe that empathic concern is both innate, and socially induced by moral education during childhood. It seems to vary from individual to individual, and from group to group, to some extent. It also seems to be stronger between members of in-groups, such as families and tribes, and less strong with out-groups, or with individuals judged undeserving of our help (such as drunks). It can be damped down by fear of ridicule, fear of danger, uncertainty about how to proceed, a sense of lack of competence, the presence of more competent others, and on and on.
4. Humans seem to be prosocial by instinct and by conditioning (as well as antisocial to some degree in some contexts and on some occasions). Human empathy and altruism, innate as they may be, and as reinforced as they may be by years of education within a family and a moral school system, can be overridden by subsequent social pressures, especially those involving invitations to conform by authority figures, such as Stanley Milgram, extreme politicians, gang leaders, war mongers, racist thugs, and so on.
5. However, no matter how much evidence we collect regarding the innate nature of human empathy and altruism, we can never say that humans are “good people”, since a good person would always and only do good things; and that is an impossibility for fallible, error-prone humans. Not that Richard Nelson-Jones would want to insist that humans are “good people” after reading about the rape and murder of Kitty Genovese, which was a most shocking reminder of how easily “human goodness” can be cowed in the darkness of an urban night in a large metropolis. I am moved to great sadness at the thought of her ordeal, and the failure of the witnesses to save her life. But humans are fallible and error-prone, says Albert Ellis.
Conclusion
Humans seem to be both innately good and bad, in that they have tendencies to behave well and badly. They are not good or bad people, since good or bad people would always and only do good or bad things, respectively. There seems to be some evidence to support the view that we have both good and bad innate tendencies, though it is far from conclusive, and is difficult to establish clearly.
~~~
ABC Coaching and Counselling Services.
Face-to-face coaching, counselling and therapy.
Online and telephone coaching, counselling and therapy.
Email coaching and counselling service.
The Academy for Integrative Therapeutic Studies (AITS).
Couples Therapy Service: (Relationship skills; marriage counselling).
Albert Ellis Discussion Forum.
Training in REBT/CBT for counsellors/therapists.
The REBT Network, for information about Albert Ellis and REBT.
