Up to now we have presented altruism as a motivation, as the intention to act for the other’s welfare. In this chapter, we will present the research of Barbara Fredrickson and a few other psychologists on an approach to love, regarded here as a positive resonance between two or several people, an emotion that may be fleeting but that is infinitely renewable. This emotion tallies with the notion of altruism on some points yet differs from it on others.
Barbara Fredrickson, at the University of North Carolina, is, along with Martin Seligman, one of the founders of positive psychology. She was among the first psychologists to draw attention to the fact that positive emotions like joy, contentment, gratitude, wonder, enthusiasm, inspiration, and love are much more than a simple absence of negative emotions. Joy is not the simple absence of sadness; kindness is not a simple absence of malevolence. Positive emotions have an additional dimension that is not reducible to neutrality of mind: they are a source of profound satisfaction. This implies that in order to flourish in life, it is not enough to neutralize negative and disturbing emotions; one must also foster the blossoming of positive emotions.
Fredrickson’s research has shown that these positive emotions open our minds in that they allow us to view situations with a vaster perspective, to be more receptive to others, and to adopt flexible and creative attitudes and behavior.1 Unlike depression, which often provokes a downward spiral, positive emotions cause an upward spiral. They also make us more resilient, and allow us to manage adversity better.
From the point of view of contemporary psychology, an emotion is an often intense mental state that lasts only a few instants but that is apt to reoccur many times. Specialists in emotions, Paul Ekman and Richard Lazarus in particular, have identified a certain number of basic emotions, including joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and contempt—recognizable by facial expression and characteristic physiological reactions—to which are added love, compassion, curiosity, interest, affection, and feelings of elevation, shame, and guilt.2 As the days go by, the accumulation of these temporary emotions influences our moods, and the reiteration of moods little by little changes our mental dispositions—our personality traits. In light of recent studies, Barbara Fredrickson avers that, of all the positive emotions, love is the supreme emotion.
Dictionaries define love as “the inclination of one person for another” (Larousse), or as a “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties” (Merriam-Webster). Beyond this, the variety of definitions of love are not surprising, since, as the Canadian poet and novelist Margaret Atwood wrote, “The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them, there ought to be as many for love.”3
As for Barbara Fredrickson, she defines love as a positive resonance that manifests when three events occur simultaneously: the sharing of one or several positive emotions, a synchrony between the behavior and physiological reactions of two people, and the intention to contribute to the other’s well-being, an intention that engenders mutual care.4 This resonance of positive emotions can last for a certain amount of time, or be amplified like the reverberation of an echo, until, inevitably, as is the fate of all emotions, it vanishes.
According to this definition, love is both vaster and more open, and its duration shorter than we generally think: “Love is not lasting. It’s actually far more fleeting than most of us would care to acknowledge. On the upside, though, love is forever renewable.” The research of Fredrickson and her colleagues has in fact shown that although love is very sensitive to circumstances and requires certain preliminary conditions, once these conditions have been identified, one can reproduce this feeling of love an incalculable number of times each day.5
In order to grasp what this research can teach us, we must step back a little from what we usually call “love.” It is not a question here of filial love or romantic love, or of a wedding betrothal or any ritual of fidelity. “The bedrock for my approach to love is the science of emotions,” writes Fredrickson in Love 2.0, her recent book published in the United States for a mass audience, which is a synthesis of all her studies.6
Psychologists do not deny that one can regard love as a profound connection that can last years or even an entire lifetime; they have stressed the considerable benefits of these connections for physical and mental health.7 However, they think that the enduring state called “love” by most people is the result of the accumulation of many moments, much shorter, during which this positive emotional resonance is felt.
Similarly, it is the accumulation of affective dissonances, repeated moments of sharing negative emotions, that erodes and ends up destroying profound, long-lasting connections. In the case of possessive attachment, for example, this resonance disappears; in the case of jealousy, it becomes poisoned and is transformed into negative resonance.
Love allows us to see the other with caring, kindness, and compassion. Thus it is linked to altruism insofar as one becomes sincerely concerned for the fate of the other and for the other’s own welfare.8 That is far from being the case in other types of relationships related to attachment. Earlier on in her career, Fredrickson was interested in what she regards as being the polar opposite of love, namely the fact of regarding the woman (or the man) as a “sexual object,” which can have as many harmful effects as love has positive effects. Here there is an investment not in others’ well-being but in their physical appearance and their sexuality, not for the other, who is then regarded only as an instrument, but for oneself, for one’s own pleasure.9 To a lesser degree, possessive attachment stifles positive resonance. Feeding such attachments signifies that one is concerned above all with loving oneself through the love one claims to have for the other.
Love is altruistic when it manifests as the joy of sharing life with those around us—friends, companions, spouses—and contributing to their happiness, moment by moment. Instead of being obsessed by the other, one is concerned with the other’s happiness. Instead of wanting to possess others, one feels responsible for their well-being; instead of anxiously expecting gratification from them, one can give and receive with joy and kindness.
This positive resonance can be felt at any moment by two or more people. Such a love is not reserved only for a spouse or romantic partner; it is not reduced to feelings of tenderness that one feels for one’s children, parents, or relatives. It can occur at any time, with a person sitting next to us on a train, when our benevolent attention has given rise to a similar attitude, in mutual respect and appreciation.
This notion of love conceived as a mutual resonance still differs from extended altruism as we have previously defined it, which consists of an unconditional benevolence, not necessarily mutual, and which does not depend on the way the other treats us or behaves.
Love as positive resonance is profoundly inscribed in our biological makeup and results, on the physiological level, in the interaction of activity of certain areas of the brain (linked to empathy, maternal love, and feelings of reward and contentment) with oxytocin (a polypeptide created in the brain which influences social interactions), and the vagus nerve (which can have the effects of calming and facilitating connections with others).
The scientific data collected over the course of the last two decades have shown how love, or its absence, fundamentally changes our physiology and the regulation of a group of biochemical substances, substances that can even influence the way our genes are expressed in our cells. This ensemble of complex interactions profoundly affects our physical health, our vitality, and our well-being.
It often happens that two people who converse and spend time together feel perfectly in tune with each other. In other cases, communication does not get through, and one does not enjoy the time shared together at all.
This is precisely what Uri Hasson’s team studied at Princeton University. These neuroscientists were able to show how the brains of two people linked by a conversation adopt very similar neural configurations and enter into resonance. They noted that the simple fact of listening attentively to someone else’s words and talking to him activates similar brain areas in both brains in a remarkably synchronous way.10 Hasson speaks of “a single act, performed by two brains.” Colloquially, one could speak of a “meeting of minds.” Uri Hasson thinks that this “brain coupling” is essential to communication.11 He has also shown that it is very pronounced in the insula, a part of the brain that, as we have seen,12 is at the core of empathy and indicates emotional resonance.13 Synchronization is particularly elevated during the most emotional moments of the conversation.14
These results led Fredrickson to deduce that micro-moments of love, of positive resonance, are also a single act performed by two brains. Good mutual comprehension is, according to her, a source of mutual caring, starting from which benevolent intentions and deeds will organically manifest.15 Our subjective experience thus expands from an attention usually focused on “me,” on the self, to a more generous and open focus on “us.”16
But that’s not all. Uri Hasson’s team also showed that our brain went so far as to anticipate by a few seconds the expression of the other’s brain activity. In such a conversation a positive empathic resonance leads to an emotional anticipation of what the other person is about to say. It’s a fact that being very attentive to the other usually leads us to anticipate the unfurling of what the other is telling us and the feeling that will be expressed.
People often refer to “mirror neurons.” They are present in minute areas of the brain and are activated when one sees, for example, someone else making a gesture that interests us.17 These neurons were discovered by accident in the laboratory of Giacomo Rizzolatti, in Parma, Italy. The researchers were studying the activation of a particular type of neuron in a monkey picking up a banana. As they were eating their lunch in the laboratory, however, in the presence of the monkeys, they noticed that the recording device crackled every time a researcher carried food to his mouth: the monkeys’ neurons were being activated as well. This discovery revealed that the same cerebral zones are activated in a person who carries out a gesture and in the one observing him. Mirror neurons can thus provide an elementary basis for imitation and intersubjective resonance. Still, the phenomenon of empathy, which includes emotional and cognitive aspects, is much more complex, and involves many areas of the brain.
Research in the field of brain chemistry has also led to interesting discoveries in the realm of social interactions, after Sue Carter and her colleagues highlighted the effects of a peptide, oxytocin, which is created in the brain by the hypothalamus and also circulates throughout the body. These researchers studied prairie voles, which are monogamous, unlike their counterparts in the mountains. They noted that the level of oxytocin was higher in the brain of the prairie vole than in the mountain vole. They then demonstrated that if one artificially increases the level of oxytocin in the brain of prairie voles, their tendency to stay together and to huddle next to each other is even stronger than usual. On the other hand, if one inhibits the production of oxytocin in male prairie voles, they become as fickle as their mountain cousins.18
Oxytocin is also linked to maternal love. If one inhibits the production of oxytocin in ewes, they neglect their newborn lambs. On the other hand, when a mother rat licks her babies and pays a lot of attention to them, the number of oxytocin receptors within the amygdala (a small region of the brain essential for the expression of emotions) and in subcortical brain regions increases.19 The baby rats that were treated with affection turned out to be calmer, more curious, and less anxious than the others. Studies by Michael Meaney have also shown that in baby rats who are surrounded by their mothers’ care during the first ten days of life, the expression of genes that induce stress is blocked.20
In humans, the level of oxytocin increases markedly during sexual relations, but also during labor and just before lactation. Even though it is difficult to study the subtler fluctuations in humans with non-invasive techniques, research was greatly facilitated when it was perceived that oxytocin inhaled by a nasal spray reached the brain. This technique allowed researchers to demonstrate that people who breathe in a single blast of oxytocin perceive interpersonal signals better, look more often into others’ eyes, and pay more attention to their smiles and to subtle emotional nuances expressed by facial expressions. They thus show an increased ability to apprehend correctly others’ feelings.21
In the laboratory of Ernst Fehr in Zurich, Michael Kosfeld and Markus Heinrichs asked volunteers to take part in a “trust game” after having inhaled either oxytocin or a placebo.22 During the game, they had to decide what amount of money they would agree to lend to a partner, who might then either reimburse them or keep the loan. Despite the risk of disloyalty, the people who had inhaled the oxytocin trusted their partner twice as much as those who had inhaled a placebo.23 Other researchers have proven that, when sharing a piece of information that had to remain confidential, trust in the other increased by 44% after inhaling oxytocin.24 Other studies have now established that inhaling sprays of oxytocin made people more confident, more generous, more cooperative, more sensitive to others’ emotions, more constructive in communications, and more charitable in their judgments.
Neuroscientists have even demonstrated that a single inhalation of oxytocin was enough to inhibit the part of the amygdala that is activated when one feels anger or fear or when one feels threatened, and to stimulate the part of the amygdala that is usually activated during positive social interactions.25
More generally, researchers have demonstrated that oxytocin plays an important role in reactions that consist of “calming and connecting,” in contrast to the “fight or flight” reflex.26 In effect, it calms social phobia and stimulates our ability to connect to others.27 Since beings need enriching connections, not only to reproduce, but also to survive and prosper, oxytocin was described by neurobiologists as “the great facilitator of life.”28
Oxytocin is experiencing its hour of fame and is often referred to in the popular media as the “love hormone” or the “bonding hormone.” The situation is in fact more complex. Oxytocin has an unarguable effect on the nature of social interactions, but not solely in a positive way. It turns out that, although it encourages trust and generosity in certain situations and for certain people, in other circumstances and for individuals endowed with different character traits, it can also increase envy, a propensity to rejoice at others’ unhappiness, and favoritism for members of one’s own clan.29 One study has shown that after inhaling oxytocin, some volunteers were more cooperative with people they thought of as being “one of them,” but less cooperative with people who belonged to other groups.30
So it seems that, depending on the situation and the individual, oxytocin can in certain cases reinforce our prosocial behavior, and in others, our tendency to discriminate between those close to us and those who do not belong to our group. Observation of these seemingly contradictory effects led Sue Carter to advance the hypothesis that this cerebral peptide might participate in a system for regulating social behavior, and that its action could be superimposed on the backdrop of our personal history and our emotional traits. Oxytocin could also act by intensifying our attention to social signals, helping us to notice them. Under the effect of this neuropeptide, a sociable nature will fully manifest itself, whereas in an anxious or jealous temperament, oxytocin will only exacerbate those feelings of anxiety or jealousy. To date, no specific study has been done on the potential effects of oxytocin on our altruistic motivations, and so much remains to be explored concerning its role in human relations.
The vagus nerve links the brain to the heart and to various other organs. In situations involving fear, when our heart is pounding wildly and we’re ready to take flight or face an adversary, it’s the vagus nerve that restores calm to our organism and facilitates communication with the other.
Further, the vagus nerve stimulates the facial muscles, allowing us to adopt expressions in harmony with our interlocutor’s and to make frequent eye contact with him. It also adjusts the tiny muscles in the middle ear that allow us to concentrate on someone’s voice in the midst of ambient noise. Its activity thus favors social exchange and increases the possibilities of positive resonance.31
One’s vagal tone reflects the activity of the vagus nerve and can be evaluated by measuring the influence of one’s breathing rate on one’s heart rate. A high vagal tone is good for physical and mental health. It accelerates heartbeats when we breathe in (which allows freshly oxygenated blood to be quickly distributed) and slows them down when we breathe out (which occurs at a time when it is useless to make blood circulate quickly). Normally, our vagal tone is extremely stable from year to year, influencing our health as time goes by. It differs markedly, however, from one person to another.
It has been noted that people who have a high vagal tone adapt better physically and mentally to changing circumstances, are more apt to regulate their internal physiological processes (glucose levels, response to inflammation) as well as their emotions, their attention, and their behavior. They are less subject to heart attacks, and recuperate more quickly if they do have one.32 The vagal tone is also an indicator of the robustness of the immune system. Moreover, a high vagal tone is associated with a diminution of the chronic inflammation that increases the risks of a cerebral vascular accident, diabetes, and certain types of cancer.33
These somewhat technical data took on particular importance when Barbara Fredrickson and her team demonstrated that it was possible to improve the vagal tone considerably by meditating altruistic love.
Having noted the qualities of positive emotions in general and love in particular, Barbara Fredrickson wondered how to disclose the links of cause and effect (not merely simple correlations) between an increase of altruistic love and the increase of qualities we have described in this chapter: joy, serenity, and gratitude, for example. She decided to compare under rigorous conditions a group that was supposed to feel more love and other beneficial emotions every day with a control group that was not meditating, the division of the two groups having been decided by lot. It remained to be seen how to lead the subjects in one of the groups to feel more positive emotions.
That was when Fredrickson became interested in an ancient technique practiced for 2,500 years by Buddhist meditators: training in loving kindness, or altruistic love, often taught in the West under the name metta (the Pali term, the original language of Buddhism). Fredrickson realized that this practice, whose aim is precisely to produce a methodical and voluntary change over the course of time, corresponded precisely to what she was looking for.34
For the experiment, she enrolled 140 adults in good health (70 in each group), without any particular spiritual inclination or experience in meditation. The experiment lasted seven weeks. During this time, the subjects of the first group, divided into teams of twenty, received a teaching on meditating on altruistic love given by a qualified instructor, and then practiced, generally alone and for about twenty minutes a day, what they had learned. During the first week, emphasis was placed on loving kindness for oneself; during the second, on relatives, and during the last five weeks, the meditation took as its object not only people close to the participants, but also everyone they knew, then strangers, and, finally, all beings.
The results were very clear: this group, which was made up only of novices in meditation, had learned how to calm their minds and, even more, to develop remarkably their capacity for love and kindness. Compared to people in the control group (who were given a chance to take part in the same training once the experiment was over), the subjects who had practiced meditation felt more love, involvement in their daily activities, serenity, joy, and other beneficial emotions.35 In the course of the training, Fredrickson also noticed that the positive effects of meditation on altruistic love persisted throughout the day, outside of the meditation session, and that, day after day, a cumulative effect was observed.
Measurements of the participants’ physical condition also showed that their state of health had clearly improved. Even their vagal tone, which normally does not change much over time, had increased.36 This reminded me of something the psychologist Paul Ekman had suggested during one of our conversations, that we create “gyms for altruism and compassion”; he was thinking of those physical culture venues one finds pretty much everywhere in cities, because of the benefits on health—also amply demonstrated—of regular physical exercise.
At the close of this chapter, a few thoughts arise. The research studies we have just discussed are certainly fascinating, and the various practices that Barbara Fredrickson describes are likely to improve considerably the quality of life for each one of us. For Barbara, with whom I had the opportunity to discuss these matters, “first and foremost, love is an emotion, a momentary state that arises to infuse your mind and body alike.”37 It also requires, according to her, the presence of the other:
This means that when you’re alone, thinking about those you love, reflecting on past loving connections, yearning for more, or even when you’re practicing loving-kindness meditation or writing an impassioned love letter, you are not in that moment experiencing true love. It’s true that the strong feelings you experience when by yourself are important and absolutely vital to your health and well-being. But they are not (yet) shared, and so they lack the critical and undeniably physical ingredient of resonance. Physical presence is key to love, to positivity resonance.38
Without in any way denying the importance and special quality of physical interactions with another human being, we should still not lose sight of two additional and essential dimensions of altruism.
Although emotions do not last, their repetition does end up engendering more lasting dispositions. When a person who has an altruistic disposition enters into resonance with another person, this resonance will most of the time be imbued with kindness. When this disposition is weak, temporary positive resonances can be, in the ensuing instants, associated with selfish motivations that will limit their positive effects. Hence the importance, as in the Buddhist meditation studied by Barbara Fredrickson, of cultivating with perseverance not only positive moments of resonance, but also a lasting altruistic motivation.
That leads us to the second dimension: the cognitive aspect, even vaster than the emotional aspect and less vulnerable to mood changes. This cognitive dimension allows us to extend a limitless altruism to a great number of beings, including ones whom we have never even met. By integrating these different dimensions linked to temporary and renewable emotions with cognitive processes and with lasting dispositions, altruistic love can fully flourish.