Born and brought up in a social context, most of us have immense opportunity to interact, collaborate, and transact with multiple other people, in the course of our life time. Most of these interpersonal transactions are based on what evolutionary psychologists term – “Reciprocal Altruism”. It is being good to others, with the un-conscious understanding that the goodness will be reciprocated when needed. Sometimes such payoffs are engrained into the fabric of an institution. For example, colleagues in a corporate environment generally are good to each other. These being good to others is something which is evolutionary hard wired in humans – as this appears most optimal in the perspective of natural selection.
Reciprocal Altruism is visible in human societies since thousands of years, from when humans started living in big groups – who are not related to each other through family ties. Most of these “likings” were un-consciously guided for the long term wellbeing of the self and her immediate kin. This included helping each other in the times of draught, natural calamity, wars, disease outbreak etc. Similar reciprocal altruism is prevalent even today, in our daily affairs.
There are instances of other form of likings that are also prevalent in human society. I term that say, “ardent affection”. Such bonds are manifested in familial bonds, bonds between very close friends, etc. The uniqueness of this form of interpersonal attraction is its sheer depth. These bonds are not only guided by mutual economic and other benefits, but also it is nourished and strengthened by deeper physiological, genetic and psychological factors.
Most of our arduous likings are guided by our psyche much deeper than our conscious self. These are more guided by our genetic makeup, up-bringing and social conditioning. These un-consciously control our behavior towards others. We do not logically “think” and decide on these likings and attractions. For explain our likings for a particular cuisine is NOT calculated by our conscious minds. But it is by our genetic pre-disposition and social conditioning, we are inclined towards a particular cuisine – by design. Same is the case with our appreciation for general design and aesthetics. For example I have observed, I like a specific type of formal shoes. Since childhood, I have observed that leather shoes with conspicuous soles were always my liking. Such a pre-disposition for a specific style might be an outcome of various cognitive, social factors and other personal value system. Same pattern is observed not only in our likes and dislikes of in-animate objects, but also other human beings. In my life experience, I have observed, I have always been attracted to particular type of personality. Such personalities keep coming again and again in the close ring of people I ardently love. I get amazed by the similarity in their likings, attitude, the nature of the familial bonds they share with their respective families, sometimes geographies they belong to, their preferences of food, their personal value systems, etc. The most interesting point is that it is not true that these personalities have always been compatible to me, on cognitive levels. Most of the times these personalities have caused more psychological disturbances in my internal psyche, than others! But still I have always considered them as those few special people I love and care the most! It looks totally illogical, and irrational – on surface.
Sometimes there is an interesting twist to the tail. Interpersonal interactions often crop up between individuals, where one party exercises “reciprocal altruism”, but the other party exercises “ardent affection”. Such an interpersonal interaction breaks down. The party A has an un-easy stand on the extra, un-wanted care demonstrated by the party B, and the party B always keeps expecting one glance of that pure authentic affection from the other. This situation has a potential failure mode in the transactions carried between the parties.
The issue gets intensified when the party B keeps going out of her way, trying to be “nice” to the party A, to win over her affection. There is an in-grained superstition involved in such a move. The superstition is that likes and dislikes are rational and logical – love and care will be returned by same authentic love and care. One has to be aware that the knobs to likes & dislikes are much deeper and are affected by many aspects of human psyche much deeper than conscious brain. No matter how good the person tries to become, she will never be able to convert the superficial “Reciprocal Altruism” to “ardent affection”. Such an understanding helps to better deal the situation.
With this state of affairs, evolutionarily humans have adapted to this predicament pretty ingenuously. Most of the relationships which are based on “ardent affection” are thus formed only with members belonging to the same family. And if such a new relationship is sought out of the family tree, the parties get into an social treaty (like marriage) to extend the familial ties. Such institutions have multiple significances. One major is the economic and utilitarian interdependence. Complemented with such worldly accountabilities, the relationship becomes stronger, by increasing the incentives involved.
Humans very tactfully maintain the “reciprocal altruism” in place, and do not mistake it with “ardent affection”. The latter is reserved for people within the family and those few very close friends. Humans intrinsically become aware of the nature of a transaction and immediately drift apart when there is a discrepancy in the stream of affection.
Strangely most of the major religions have preached that one should unconditionally shower selfless affection and love to her fellow humans. This sounds phony – at least on surface. It is like someone forcing me to say I like every cuisine in the world. Or say, I love all the models of the cars. To say that, would be a big lie.
But when dealing with humans, it certainly has atleast some grounding. One major reason is humans are not inanimate objects. They are rather a bundle of dynamic psychological propensities. It certainly makes sense to relate all fellow humans with unconditional love and care – without any expectation of a direct or indirect pay off. Following are four dimensions that I describe in details, which try to support this point of view.
The first aspect is, at any point of time in life, it is very difficult to judge whether there is an inherent payoff in a given transaction or not. Humans by evolution are short sighted, and unidirectional. We never have a big perspective of the entire life taking into consideration myriad of possibilities and factors affecting those possibilities. Hence, it would be utter naiveté to not love and care someone for no apparent vested interest. It certainly builds of psychological capital to unconditionally love others.
The second aspect is that most of the times perception of a person is nothing but the projection of her internal self. If a person is in the state of compassion, love, and care, she would end up seeing nice and lovable people around. On the other hand if the person is herself deep drowned in the poison of suspicion, hatred, and selfishness, she will end up seeing only such people around. Hence for one’s personal wellbeing, it makes a sound psychological case of well being, to be in the state of un-conditional love towards one and all.
The third aspect is that humans have an extremely malleable consciousness. Based on the feedback one receives from her surrounding, one keeps re-assessing her internal psychological framework. A consistent way of relating to someone with love and care, might in long run, transform a “Reciprocal Altruism” to “Arduous affection”. But yes, this transformation will occur only when there it goes well with the genetic compatibility and other various factors taken together.
The fourth aspect is that it certainly increases the depth and wellbeing of a person, when she has more “arduous affection” manifested in most of her relationships. The level of Serotonin and other hormones related to wellbeing increases in her physiology. Her immune system enhances. The general happiness index is certainly enhanced.
The aspect of un-conditionality is wise to have. This is because it helps the person to prepare for a possible failure mode. It is a matter of fact that after being all good, the mutation from the “reciprocal altruism” to “ardent affection” might not happen. This happens not due to a deficiency in any of the party involved. But rather deeper aspects of the wring of brain cells, social conditioning, genetics, etc. It is more physiologically centered. The aspect of un-conditionality keeps the person having a responsible and pragmatic perspective.
Hence going deep into the religious prescription of practicing unconditional love for all, one might come to terms with the sound psychological case supporting the stance.
It is very interesting how the likes and dislikes are governed in the psyche of humans, and a society.
Reciprocal Altruism is visible in human societies since thousands of years, from when humans started living in big groups – who are not related to each other through family ties. Most of these “likings” were un-consciously guided for the long term wellbeing of the self and her immediate kin. This included helping each other in the times of draught, natural calamity, wars, disease outbreak etc. Similar reciprocal altruism is prevalent even today, in our daily affairs.
There are instances of other form of likings that are also prevalent in human society. I term that say, “ardent affection”. Such bonds are manifested in familial bonds, bonds between very close friends, etc. The uniqueness of this form of interpersonal attraction is its sheer depth. These bonds are not only guided by mutual economic and other benefits, but also it is nourished and strengthened by deeper physiological, genetic and psychological factors.
Most of our arduous likings are guided by our psyche much deeper than our conscious self. These are more guided by our genetic makeup, up-bringing and social conditioning. These un-consciously control our behavior towards others. We do not logically “think” and decide on these likings and attractions. For explain our likings for a particular cuisine is NOT calculated by our conscious minds. But it is by our genetic pre-disposition and social conditioning, we are inclined towards a particular cuisine – by design. Same is the case with our appreciation for general design and aesthetics. For example I have observed, I like a specific type of formal shoes. Since childhood, I have observed that leather shoes with conspicuous soles were always my liking. Such a pre-disposition for a specific style might be an outcome of various cognitive, social factors and other personal value system. Same pattern is observed not only in our likes and dislikes of in-animate objects, but also other human beings. In my life experience, I have observed, I have always been attracted to particular type of personality. Such personalities keep coming again and again in the close ring of people I ardently love. I get amazed by the similarity in their likings, attitude, the nature of the familial bonds they share with their respective families, sometimes geographies they belong to, their preferences of food, their personal value systems, etc. The most interesting point is that it is not true that these personalities have always been compatible to me, on cognitive levels. Most of the times these personalities have caused more psychological disturbances in my internal psyche, than others! But still I have always considered them as those few special people I love and care the most! It looks totally illogical, and irrational – on surface.
Sometimes there is an interesting twist to the tail. Interpersonal interactions often crop up between individuals, where one party exercises “reciprocal altruism”, but the other party exercises “ardent affection”. Such an interpersonal interaction breaks down. The party A has an un-easy stand on the extra, un-wanted care demonstrated by the party B, and the party B always keeps expecting one glance of that pure authentic affection from the other. This situation has a potential failure mode in the transactions carried between the parties.
The issue gets intensified when the party B keeps going out of her way, trying to be “nice” to the party A, to win over her affection. There is an in-grained superstition involved in such a move. The superstition is that likes and dislikes are rational and logical – love and care will be returned by same authentic love and care. One has to be aware that the knobs to likes & dislikes are much deeper and are affected by many aspects of human psyche much deeper than conscious brain. No matter how good the person tries to become, she will never be able to convert the superficial “Reciprocal Altruism” to “ardent affection”. Such an understanding helps to better deal the situation.
With this state of affairs, evolutionarily humans have adapted to this predicament pretty ingenuously. Most of the relationships which are based on “ardent affection” are thus formed only with members belonging to the same family. And if such a new relationship is sought out of the family tree, the parties get into an social treaty (like marriage) to extend the familial ties. Such institutions have multiple significances. One major is the economic and utilitarian interdependence. Complemented with such worldly accountabilities, the relationship becomes stronger, by increasing the incentives involved.
Humans very tactfully maintain the “reciprocal altruism” in place, and do not mistake it with “ardent affection”. The latter is reserved for people within the family and those few very close friends. Humans intrinsically become aware of the nature of a transaction and immediately drift apart when there is a discrepancy in the stream of affection.
Strangely most of the major religions have preached that one should unconditionally shower selfless affection and love to her fellow humans. This sounds phony – at least on surface. It is like someone forcing me to say I like every cuisine in the world. Or say, I love all the models of the cars. To say that, would be a big lie.
But when dealing with humans, it certainly has atleast some grounding. One major reason is humans are not inanimate objects. They are rather a bundle of dynamic psychological propensities. It certainly makes sense to relate all fellow humans with unconditional love and care – without any expectation of a direct or indirect pay off. Following are four dimensions that I describe in details, which try to support this point of view.
The first aspect is, at any point of time in life, it is very difficult to judge whether there is an inherent payoff in a given transaction or not. Humans by evolution are short sighted, and unidirectional. We never have a big perspective of the entire life taking into consideration myriad of possibilities and factors affecting those possibilities. Hence, it would be utter naiveté to not love and care someone for no apparent vested interest. It certainly builds of psychological capital to unconditionally love others.
The second aspect is that most of the times perception of a person is nothing but the projection of her internal self. If a person is in the state of compassion, love, and care, she would end up seeing nice and lovable people around. On the other hand if the person is herself deep drowned in the poison of suspicion, hatred, and selfishness, she will end up seeing only such people around. Hence for one’s personal wellbeing, it makes a sound psychological case of well being, to be in the state of un-conditional love towards one and all.
The third aspect is that humans have an extremely malleable consciousness. Based on the feedback one receives from her surrounding, one keeps re-assessing her internal psychological framework. A consistent way of relating to someone with love and care, might in long run, transform a “Reciprocal Altruism” to “Arduous affection”. But yes, this transformation will occur only when there it goes well with the genetic compatibility and other various factors taken together.
The fourth aspect is that it certainly increases the depth and wellbeing of a person, when she has more “arduous affection” manifested in most of her relationships. The level of Serotonin and other hormones related to wellbeing increases in her physiology. Her immune system enhances. The general happiness index is certainly enhanced.
The aspect of un-conditionality is wise to have. This is because it helps the person to prepare for a possible failure mode. It is a matter of fact that after being all good, the mutation from the “reciprocal altruism” to “ardent affection” might not happen. This happens not due to a deficiency in any of the party involved. But rather deeper aspects of the wring of brain cells, social conditioning, genetics, etc. It is more physiologically centered. The aspect of un-conditionality keeps the person having a responsible and pragmatic perspective.
Hence going deep into the religious prescription of practicing unconditional love for all, one might come to terms with the sound psychological case supporting the stance.
It is very interesting how the likes and dislikes are governed in the psyche of humans, and a society.
[To refer to the first part of this article please refer to - http://criativ-mind.blogspot.com/2011/02/illusion-of-understanding.html although I have tried my best to keep this article not dependent on any information presented in the first part.]
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