Imagine the warm feeling you get when helping a friend move or when you give $50 to a local community kitchen– these are both instances of prosocial behavior, actions that reveal the beautiful nature of our human connections. Scientists have been fascinated for decades by precisely what's responsible for "giving behavior" and its heartwarming effects. We've all heard that giving is its own reward, but University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers sought to uncover the biological truth behind this age-old wisdom.
Diving into the nuances of our emotional experiences during volunteering and financial contributions, it becomes evident that these two behaviors resonate differently within us. Divergent feelings suggest the two behaviors diverge at a deep psychological and even brain mechanistic level. But, unlike a large body of research on the human brain when donating money, the neuroscience behind donating time and the comparison between the two is largely unexplored.
In a groundbreaking study recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience, the UNC scientists delved deep into our brains' complex emotionally and reasoning areas during distinct donation conditions. Led by She-Joo Kwon, the team utilized a powerful tool – functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) – to uncover the neurobiological markers responsible for community-focused prosocial behavior.
Much to the chagrin of nonprofit charities, that usually prefer monetary support, donors have a penchant for contributing their time instead of cash. According to research conducted by Professors John Costello from Notre Dame and Selin A. Malkoc from Ohio State University this preference for time-based contributions is a scientific fact. Their work suggests that when asked to provide contact information, 15% of individuals will opt-in for volunteering opportunities while only 8% for monetary contributions.
These researchers uncovered a remarkable strategy that significantly tilts the balance toward financial contributions. The biggest factor behind donating behavior is not how much effort the volunteering will take or the heartwarming satisfaction stemming from altruistic acts. Rather, a pivotal factor appears to be the participants’ perceived level of control over their donated resources. Not only that but when presented with the opportunity to contribute altruistically, some simple changes to "the ask" can influence an individual's choice.
The novel techniques developed by these business school professors may soon be picked up by savvy nonprofits. One strategy that increases contributions is shifting the language from “giving” to “spending.” The theory is that framing the donation as “spending” money engenders a sense of control. Another winning strategy involves allowing the donor to decide the exact charitable activity their money will contribute to. The charity Heifer International employs this approach by letting supporters donate different farm animals to impoverished farm owners. Studies have shown that highlighting engagement, such as allowing someone to choose from donating fluffy chicks to milking cows, can increase interest from 51% to 74%.
While sitting inside an fMRI machine, experimenters asked forty undergraduate students to decide between donating a portion of the money they'd receive for participating in the study or volunteering to stuff envelopes. Dubbed the Charity Game by the UNC researchers, the participants weighed the value of their temporal and monetary resources before making altruistic choices between 10 local charities. All the while, magnetic waves were scanning to identify just what altruistic decisions look like in the brain.
Several brain regions were stimulated by both time and monetary donations. When making a difference for a cause that helps our community, social decision-making, and positive emotions likely originate in these regions of the brain:
- prefrontal cortex (vmPFC, dmPFC, dlPFC, vlPFC)
- Ventral striatum
- The precuneus
- The dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC)
While donating leaves you with less money in your wallet or time on your calendar, Kwon et al. found it also activates the ventral striatum (VS) and vmPFC. These regions play a crucial role in processing rewards, including assigning values to various behaviors and using those values during decision-making.
Brain activity differs significantly between monetary donations and volunteer work. Emotional reward centers and empathy regions display more activity when donating time than money. One area that shines when volunteering time is the temporal pole. This region is associated with socio-emotional processing, such as understanding another's behaviors based on their perceived internal mental state, called "mentalizing."
The findings imply that in its infinite complexity, the brain prefers to donate time rather than money, which could explain our preference for hands-on volunteering.
Surprisingly, despite the unique neural signatures of time and money donations, the undergraduate participants dedicated nearly equal proportions of their resources to both donation behaviors. This lack of preference contradicts previous research that found individuals favored volunteering. Authors suggest that unlike adults, their older adolescent participants might construe both time and financial resources as finite. But with no difference between the rate of the two prosocial behaviors to muddy the data, the results clearly display how the brain encodes donating time versus money differently.
A side analysis found that as the participants' self-reported family income rose, so did their propensity to give, whether in time or money. It's an intriguing reflection of how resources subtly shape our altruistic inclinations.
By measuring the interplay between our brain's social networks and reward systems, researchers have expanded on our knowledge of what brain events create altruism. Unlike animal studies that often point to the amygdala as the altruistic conductor, it was the prefrontal cortex, ventral striatum, and anterior cingulate cortex that took center stage. These regions help us weigh the emotional states of others, judge the effort of empathetic behavior, and allow us to feel satisfaction in good deeds.
What happens in the brain to instill a sense of "perceived control" remains a mystery. Any of the changes in activity described here, or a shift in how regions light up simultaneously, could contribute to the sense of control. As our technology improves, this aspect of altruistic behavior will be discovered.
These findings remind us that our brains are wired to find joy in giving. For the first time in human neurobiology scientists have verified that the gift of time sparks a unique and substantial type of brain activity. So, the next time you ponder whether to write a check or volunteer at your local community center, remember that your brain might be urging you toward a more rewarding path that lights up the neural circuits of connection and empathy.
Sources: Nature Neuroscience, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Current Biology, MBT TBM, Science, Journal of Consumer Research, Consumer Researcher
