Expansion of Tomasello’s Views on Altruism: The Role of the Altruistic Reward System

Altruism, which is defined as the act of helping others at a personal cost, is a central topic in the discussion of human cooperation. There has been much debate over whether altruistic behaviors are culturally learned or innate within humans. In Tomasello’s book Why We Cooperate he discusses the emergence of human cooperation and altruistic behaviors. Tomasello argues that humans are born into this world with a predisposition for altruistic behavior. He also argues that both altruism and human cooperation as a whole emerged from a mutualistic environment. While Tomasello provides a strong foundation for the emergence of human cooperation, I argue that his explanation of Altruism does not fully account for the underlying mechanisms that drive and reinforce such behavior. Throughout this paper I argue that biologically evolved systems play a crucial role in shaping human altruism. Using Tomasello’s work as a foundation I will explore how these innate mechanisms may have contributed to the persistence and evolution of altruism.

Tomasello argues that over the course of human evolution, the species has faced a variety of selection pressures which have favored cooperation, leading to a series of prosocial adaptations. One of these adaptations being altruistic behavior. Tomasello argues that individuals will display different levels of altruism in different domains, and that the characteristics of altruism in these different domains will look different. He categorizes three distinct types of altruism: Services (helping), Goods (sharing), and Information (informing).

One key part of Tomasello’s argument is that Altruism is innate within humans. In each of his three domains of Altruism he provides different examples of infants having seemingly innate tendencies to help, share, and provide information to others, sometimes even at a cost to themselves. Tomasello especially highlights this when he addresses the services (helping) domain of Altruism. He provides five reasons to believe that this form of altruism is indeed innate within humans and not purely a result of socialization. These reasons include an early onset of the behavior (14-18 months old), its intrinsic motivation rather than dependence on external rewards, its presence in other Hominids like Chimpanzees, its universal appearance, and its foundation in sympathetic emotion.

Through various studies on human infants and chimpanzees, Tomasello is able to provide strong evidence that humans come into this world with innate cooperative and altruistic tendencies. However, while he demonstrates that these behaviors emerge early in development, he does not explain in detail the key underlying mechanisms which drive these altruistic behaviors in infants. In the proceeding section I will attempt to better explain the underlying mechanisms which drive altruistic behavior in infants (innate altruistic motivators). Through explaining these mechanisms, I will then attempt to argue that such mechanisms played a substantial role in the evolution of altruistic behavior.

Tomasello’s only explanation as to what drives innate altruistic tendencies in infancy is their empathetic or sympathetic concern. He presents a study in which infants observed an adult in distress after their drawing was torn up by another adult. Researchers found that infants who showed more concerned facial expressions were also more likely to help the adult (victim) by offering assistance. Tomasello uses this to suggest that their altruistic behavior was motivated by naturally occurring empathetic or sympathetic concern, rather than external rewards or social pressure. He concludes from this that it is this empathetic or sympathetic concern that drives their altruistic behavior. I would agree that the infant’s empathetic or sympathetic concern is indeed a key driver in altruistic responses although I do not believe it to be the only driver.

I argue that, in addition to this empathetic/sympathetic concern there is a neurological reward system which I will refer to as the Altruistic Reward System (ARS) which is innate within humans and reinforces altruistic behavior. I believe that this ARS works hand in hand with the empathetic/sympathetic concern which Tomasello speaks of to drive and reinforce Altruistic behavior among humans. A meta-analysis on altruistic behavior done by Cutler and Campbell-Meiklejohn (2019) revealed multiple findings which support my claim. In the analysis one consistency we see across studies on altruistic behaviors with seemingly no external motivation is the activation of brain regions such as the NuAcc and vmPFC which are both linked to reward processing pathways in the brain. This suggests that simply performing altruistic acts is intrinsically rewarding, which reinforces future altruistic behaviors.

While this study was conducted on adults, not children, there are multiple lines of reasoning which I believe provide sufficient evidence to conclude that ARS exists in children and is not exclusively the result of socialization. The first reason is that there is a difference in neurological activation between strategic giving and altruistic giving. In the study strategic giving is defined as giving with the expectation of reciprocity, reputational enhancement, or some long-term gain. Altruistic giving was giving with no expectations of any gain (such as anonymous donations). In both cases there was activation of various reward pathways in the brain, although two distinctly different reward pathways could be seen between the two acts. This implies that there is indeed an intrinsic reward pathway in the brain for altruistic acts. The study also showed that those who participated more in strategic giving were then less likely to perform in altruistic giving as the result of “crowding out” the intrinsic reward system triggered in altruistic giving. We see this exact phenomenon in a study Tomasello presents where one group of infants is given a toy each time they helped, the other group is given nothing. On the second round both groups were given nothing and the infants who received toys in the first round helped less in the second round then the group who was originally given nothing. The fact that this same phenomenon occurs in infants strongly suggests that the ARS is present from birth.

This brings me to my next line of reasoning which is that ARS has been directly linked to empathetic and sympathetic concern. One commonality we find over multiple studies on altruism is that the sdACC and TPJ regions of the brain are activated. These brain regions are commonly associated with understanding the feelings of others, and concern for the wellbeing of others. The implication of this is that when one has an empathetic or sympathetic concern, they have an immense desire to perform the act of altruism to relieve that concern. Upon performing that act and relieving that concern the brain experiences an intrinsic reward (as we see in the activation of NuAcc and vmPFC regions) which reinforces the behavior. This process can be seen as a linear progression which is as follows: sympathetic/empathetic concern -> Altruistic behavior -> ARS enactment. For purposes of simplicity, I will call this linear progression the Concern Altruism Reward Progression (CARP). Tomasello demonstrates that 18–24-month-old infants already display empathetic and sympathetic concern which again is a sufficient reason to assume that ARS is also present in these infants at this time.

So, through the Cutler and Campbell-Meiklejohn (2019) Meta-analysis on altruistic behavior we see that adult humans performing genuinely altruistic acts first experience sympathetic/empathetic concern (indicated by activation of sdACC and TPJ), then they perform the altruistic action which relieves this concern activating ARS (indicated by NuAcc and vmPFC) which reinforces similar altruistic acts in the future. We also see that strategic giving activates a different neural reward system then does altruistic giving, which shows there is indeed an intrinsic reward pathway for altruistic acts. Tomasello’s works with infants show us that infants who are rewarded for helping behavior help less when there is no reward then those who were never rewarded at all. This demonstrates infants experience the same crowding out of intrinsic rewards which Cutler and Campbell-Meiklejohn’s (2019) study demonstrates in human adults, suggesting that infants too have ARS. Tomasello himself also suggests that infants helping behaviors are driven by sympathetic and empathetic concern, which I have shown is strongly tied to ARS in a linear fashion (CARP). Infants’ display of this sympathetic and empathic concern also suggests the presence of ARS. Thus, through these lines of reasoning and evidence I believe it is reasonable to conclude that in addition to empathetic and sympathetic concern, innate altruistic reward systems work to motivate and reinforce helping behaviors in infants.

Thus far I have discussed Tomasello’s first argument which is that altruism is innate within humans and is not strictly the result of socialization. I have established that a key internal driver of innate altruism in infants is sympathetic and empathetic concern leading to altruistic behavior which then triggers the ARS, an intrinsic reward system reinforcing and motivating similar behavior in the future (CARP). Now I will analyze the second portion of Tomasello’s argument, in which he claims that mutualism and the social mechanisms derived from it are the key factors that allowed altruism to extend beyond mutualistic settings and enabled humans to function in institutions and cultural groups through cooperation. Within this analysis I will argue for CARP as a key mechanism which allowed altruism to extend beyond mutualism, although first I will give background on Tomasello’s argument.

Tomasello argues that cooperation in humans began with mutualistic activities, fostering a “we” intentionality where individuals internalized their roles in joint efforts. As societies grew, these shared expectations turned into social norms enforced by extrinsic and intrinsic punishment. The extrinsic punishment being negative judgements of others when norms are not adhered to. The intrinsic being emotions like guilt and shame which Tomasello argues evolved overtime as internal regulators, ensuring adherence to norms even in the absence of external enforcement. Tomasello posits these intrinsic and extrinsic punishments remain deeply tied to human cooperation, reinforcing prosocial behavior by punishing any norm violations.

We see that at a certain point children begin to become aware of social judgements based on the social norms of their culture. This awareness leads to “impression management” which is where an individual purposely tries to influence how others view them, ultimately leading to what Tomasello refers to as the “public self”. The Public self is how an individual believes others view them based on their ability to live up to these norms. He argues that upon this development of the public self, children begin to internalize social norms and act in accordance with them not only due to the threat of punishment but rather because they view themselves as part of the larger group identity (we intentionality).

In addition to the internalization of social norms, Tomasello believes that emotions like guilt and shame developed through a co-evolutionary process with human biology and culture, gradually emerged as intrinsic regulatory mechanisms which serve as a form of self-inflicted punishment towards individuals who do not follow group expectations. Tomasello asserts that the internalization of social norms, mixed with regulatory emotions such as shame and guilt, not only enforce social cohesion but also provide the foundations of cooperative behavior in everyday society.

Tomasello is mainly arguing that these intrinsic and extrinsic punishments, and enforcers which arose from mutualism are what largely promote cooperation as a whole in today’s society. I have no problems with this assertion; however, he also posits that altruism emerged in a mutualistic environment and to explain how altruism expanded outside of mutualism he says we must look at reciprocity, reputation, punishment, and social norms. I would argue that Tomasello gives these social mechanisms too much weight when defining the evolutionary history of altruism in itself. While reciprocity, reputation, punishment, and social norms likely played roles in the expansion of altruism, I also believe that CARP was a key step in evolutionary history which allowed altruism to expand beyond mutualism.

In the first section of this study, I demonstrated the role of CARP in humans, mainly how it is a driver and reinforcer of altruistic behavior. I also argued that it is innate within humans and can be seen in infants. As such, at some point in the evolution of humans CARP must have developed, presumably to help foster cooperation among humans. As I have discussed, Tomasello believes selection pressures began opting for cooperation in our hunter gatherer ancestors as a result of the environmental circumstances they faced. He argues that from these selective pressures many cooperative adaptations emerged. I posit that one of the cooperative adaptations that emerged was CARP, and its emergence fostered altruism which then helped promote cooperation.

If CARP is an evolutionary adaptation which emerged for the promotion of cooperation, it stands to reason that its emergence would have played a significant role in the development of altruism outside of mutualistic activities. Tomasello argues, altruistic acts would only have any benefit to the individual within a mutualistic setting, because when one helps another, they help themselves, due to the joint goals in place. However, I believe the evolution of CARP would allow altruism to extent outside of mutualism based on multiple lines of reasoning.

The first is that after the evolution of CARP, performing altruistic acts become intrinsically rewarding, and thus those who possess CARP are going to perform more altruistic acts. As Tomasello has stated, by this point in human evolution, humans are likely somewhat cooperative. Research has shown that over the course of human evolution, human females in difficult local environments (which demanded bipedal care) developed long term mate selection strategies which placed more weight on a male’s likelihood of investing in the offspring (Gangestad and Simpson 2000, p. 586). It is reasonable to assume that a Male who possessed CARP and therefore displayed altruistic behaviors would be much more likely to invest in offspring then one who did not. Therefore, it is a possibility that those who possessed CARP would be more likely to reproduce their genetics through offspring thus making altruistic behaviors beneficial outside of a mutualistic environment.

A somewhat similar phenomena to the one I postulate in humans can be seen in Bonobos as discussed in Brain Hares Survival of the friendliest. In Bonobos we see that unrelated females form coalitions in order to combat male aggression. As a result, Female Bonobos are able to be selective in their mates, and mate with less aggressive males, which ultimately resulted in the evolution of more prosocial males. While this example has some key differences to the one I present in humans, it serves to represent that the extension of altruism outside of mutualism through selective reproduction is a very real possibility.

Throughout this paper I have analyzed the first two chapters of Tomasello’s book Why We Cooperate. Tomasello provides a solid foundation for the emergence of cooperation in humans, and upon that foundation I addressed altruism specifically and the mechanisms which lead to its emergence, and continuation in humans. I emphasized the role of an altruistic reward system (ARS) in motivating altruism, specifically a combination of sympathetic/empathetic concern which leads to the enactment of an altruistic behavior to relieve that concern which then increases well-being through triggering the ARS. This I call the Concern Altruism Reward Progression (CARP). I then argue that the evolution of CARP, in addition to the social mechanisms Tomasello posits, helped expand altruism beyond a mutualistic environment. I believe that these biological mechanisms which underlie altruism are crucial in altruistic behaviors seen in humans today. Generating a better understanding of the evolution of these mechanisms could lead us one step closer to solving the evolutionary problem of altruism.

Gangestad, S. W., & Simpson, J. A. (2000). The evolution of human mating: Trade-offs and strategic pluralism. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23(4), 573–644.

Cutler, J., & Campbell-Meiklejohn, D. (2019). A comparative fMRI meta-analysis of altruistic and strategic decisions to give. NeuroImage, 184, 227–241.

Hare, B. (2017). Survival of the friendliest: Homo sapiens evolved via selection for prosociality. Annual Review of Psychology, 68(1), 155–186.

Tomasello, M. (2009). Why we cooperate. MIT Press.