Keyword: human nature

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Born to Be Good with Dacher Keltner April 8, 2009

Host: Armand DiMeleGuests: Dacher Keltner
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, Meaning, Spirituality & Philosophy

Is kindness wired into us? UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner draws on evolutionary science and Confucian philosophy to argue that compassion, laughter, and embarrassment are not soft virtues but core adaptive tools. His concept of the jen ratio offers a concrete way to measure how well we bring out the good in others.

Pleasure in Other People’s Misfortune March 7, 2006

Host: Armand DiMele
Category: Emotions & Inner Life, The Mind & Neuroscience

Why do we slow down at accidents, follow celebrity scandals, and buy newspapers with tragic headlines? Armand DiMele examines schadenfreude, the universal tendency to feel pleasure at others’ misfortune, drawing on neuroscience showing the brain’s reward centers light up in response to tragedy and arguing this impulse is far more widespread than most people admit.