Giving to charity affects the brain, study finds
02/19/07 -- Robert Franklin - MINNEAPOLIS - It's not just helping the poor,
the arts or the church that makes giving to charity feel good. Giving affects
the same part of the brain stimulated by sex, drugs and money, according to
researchers at the National Institutes of Health.
Fundraisers have long invoked religion, volunteerism, family and cultural
traditions, tax breaks, peer pressure and the desire to make a difference or
leave a legacy as being big factors in charitable giving.
But NIH researchers used MRIs to monitor brain activity as 19 people made
decisions to give - or not give - to a variety of causes. For charitable giving,
their imaging study "strongly supports the existence of `warm glow' at a
biological level," said Dr. Jorge Moll, the lead researcher. "It helps convince
people that doing good can make them feel good; altruism therefore doesn't need
to be ONLY sacrifice."
Charitable giving is big business. It totaled $4.9 billion in Minnesota in 2004,
according to the latest available figures, the Minnesota Council on Foundations
estimated last week. And fundraisers and researchers have long sought to analyze
giving patterns.
Some Minnesota fundraisers and donors were told of the connection to other
pleasures.
"That's fabulous," said Lauren Segal, president and chief executive of the
Greater Twin Cities United Way, which raises more than $80 million a year in
cash and pledges.
She wasn't aware of the research, but said donors have told her that giving "can
make you feel better than you ever imagined."
Tom Lowe, who has given millions to charity personally and through his Lyman
Lumber companies, called the research "pretty humorous."
However, in writing a $10,000 check to charity, "you'd get a good feeling, (but)
it doesn't give me a big sex drive," said Lowe, a co-founder of the One Percent
Club, which encourages increased giving by well-off Minnesotans.
"I think people have to have some sort of an altruistic streak in there
someplace that prompts them to give something back," he said.
Moll said he wanted to "tease apart" selfish and altruistic motivations, to
explore economic and moral values.
His research team gave $128 each to the 19 people - a large enough sample for
valid conclusions, he said. They were confronted with choices about whether to
give money - or to oppose giving - to controversial charities linked to
abortion, children's rights, the death penalty, euthanasia, gender equality,
nuclear power and war. They gave an average of $51 from their $128 and pocketed
the rest.
In a paper published last fall, researchers said they found that giving
activated two areas of the brain: the part that is activated by reward
reinforcement, which also is activated by sex, drugs and money, and the part
that influences social attachments, trust and economic interactions.
The two areas work not in competition but together, which "enables us to make
altruistic decisions," Moll said.
Opposition to a cause sets off the part of the brain that's linked to anger and
moral disgust, the researchers found.
Sometimes donors despair about their money going elsewhere, perhaps to taxes.
For instance, William McKnight, the 3M executive who started the McKnight
Foundation, the state's largest, "would do whatever he could not to pay taxes,"
his daughter, the late Virginia Binger, once said.
Jud Dayton, the new chairman of the One Percent Club, said he's not so sure
about a "sex, drugs, rock `n' roll" connection to giving. But he added, "You're
helping people, and that's got to feel good."
GIVING AND THE BRAIN
Researchers led by Dr. Jorge Moll at the National Institutes of Health used
functional MRI to examine brain activity of 19 people confronted with decisions
about charitable giving.
Researchers found that donating affects two brain "reward" systems working
together:
The midbrain ventral tegmental area (VTA)-striatum mesolimbic network,
which also is stimulated by food, sex, drugs and money.
The subgenual area, which are related to humans viewing their babies and
romantic partners and to other social attachments.
Researchers also found that:
Rejecting certain causes stimulates the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (IOFC),
which is linked to anger, moral disgust and other aversive traits.
