The Berkeley Science Review: Articles

Book Review
by Paul Crider (view PDF)

Born to Be Good, by Dacher Keltner
WW Norton & Co.
352 Pages, $25.95

How can we be good? How can we be happy? Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology, offers a fresh take on these old questions in his recent book, Born to Be Good: the Science of a Meaningful Life. His effort centers around the Confucian concept of jen, the act of bringing out the good in others. We can be good, and become happy, by maximizing what might be thought of as positive, social emotions (compassion, mirth, awe) and minimizing the negative (anger, resentment, loneliness).

Keltner contends that Western philosophers, who tend to view human nature as fundamentally negative, have marginalized positive emotions. He claims that caring for our resource-hungry, helpless offspring in the hostile environment of early hominid life selected for pro-social emotions through the need to cooperate to survive. Actions of high jen, like touching and smiling, reinforce positive interactions with others. Born to Be Good explores the subtle expressions of these positive emotions and tells their evolutionary tale. In so doing, Keltner purports to light the path to a meaningful life.

Pro-social emotions are often communicated by subtle, difficult-to-fake facial movements and vocalizations, so others are sure when our intentions are good. Much of Keltner's research on emotion employs the Facial Action Coding System, or FACS, which Keltner's advisor, Paul Ekman, pioneered. Ekman indexed how the individual activation of each muscle changes the appearance of the face. Any facial expression can be described as a combination of these "facial action units." A smile, for instance, consists of the movement of muscles that pull the lips back and is recognized by the new wrinkle and dimples formed. Different smiles can be distinguished from one another and mean different things; for instance, a smile that reaches the eyes is more sincere than a smile that doesn't.

Though uncomfortable, embarrassment is a key high-jen emotion according to Keltner. He asks test subjects to make a funny face and hold it for ten seconds. A participant's eyes shooting downward is a typical response, followed by a turn of the head to the side and down. A nearly restrained two-second smile combined with furtive glances up and a hand touch to the face fills out the rest of the embarrassment reaction. In other species, these are signs of appeasement, aimed at avoiding violent confrontation. In humans, Keltner surmises that embarrassment following a social gaffe is a way of reaffirming our commitment to the moral order.

Corroborating this hypothesis, Keltner describes patients with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex, an area in the frontal lobes of the brain. These patients retain full reasoning and language skills but become immodest and offensive: they lose the ability to feel embarrassment. Some of the muscle movements involved in embarrassment, as in other emotions, are involuntary and difficult to willfully reproduce. The involuntariness makes the emotion a more reliable signal, easily recognized by others. Tellingly, orbitofrontal patients can recognize emotions such as happiness or surprise in photographs, but are incapable of recognizing embarrassment.

Keltner embraces embarrassment as a high jen emotion because it allows us to avoid costly conflict pregnant in social slights and instead engage in reconciliation. When we see embarassment, after all, our first impulse is to playfully downplay the significance of the slip-up and join in laughing it off.

In addition to jen emotions, there are jen actions, like teasing and touching. Teasing may be much maligned in middle school, but Keltner says it is an important, non-violent way to manage social hierarchies and explore romantic interest. With touch, Keltner delves into the physiology of jen. Touch activates the orbitofrontal cortex (it's not just for embarrassment), reduces stress, and increases the concentration of oxytocin in the bloodstream, a chemical associated with trust. By facilitating trust, touch exemplifies the jen concept of "bringing the good things in others to completion": it has a viral quality, spreading jen to others. It's no accident that greetings across cultures tend to involve touch, like a handshake or a kiss on the cheek.

Speaking of cultures, however, one wonders while reading this book why there is such friction within and between groups of people. Keltner allows that group cooperation can be sabotaged by individuals, but fails to mention the characteristics that have evolved in opposition to cooperation. The easy recognition of in-groups and out-groups often leads to violent, decidedly low-jen behavior. Yet Keltner gives no discussion of more anti-social emotions. That's disappointing, since the same process of evolution that gave us high jen emotions also gave us anger and fear. Should they always be suppressed? Is anger at injustice appropriate?

Nevertheless, Keltner presents a fascinating study of frequently neglected emotions. Ultimately, he succeeds with his case that evolution has given us the tools to be good, as well as happy. Fittingly, his tone throughout is playful and engaging, high jen all the way. His warmth for people, such as his former advisor, Paul Ekman, and his young daughters--whose future suitors will no doubt squirm under his FACS abilities--radiates from the pages, quite likely bringing the good in his readers at least part way to completion.

Paul Crider is a graduate student in chemistry.

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