The Expanded Self: Society as Self 273“9x6” b2726 Self and the Phenomenon of Life: A Biologist Examines Life from Molecules to Humanityanother monkey ripping paper. Different mirror neurons respond to dif-
ferent tasks, including such acts as putting peanuts into the mouth of
the experimenter. Using single cell recording in monkeys, such neurons
have been detected in the inferior premotor cortex and the inferior pari-
etal cortex. Similar neurons have been detected in the human brain.^28
Although mirror neurons may not represent the whole story of empathy,
there is little doubt that they are involved in social interaction.
Emotional contagion is the mimicking of the emotional state of one
person by another, frequently occurring in a closely-knit group. When
one person yawns, others also yawn. When one baby cries, all babies cry.
It has been demonstrated that mice become “upset” when cage-mates
are in pain. Mice show enhanced pain sensitivity when they see a familiar
mouse in distress but not when the other mouse is a stranger.^29 Empathy
also occurs in birds. In the highly monogamous zebra finches, females
show signs of distress (as measured by their blood glucocorticoid level, a
stress hormone) when they hear their male mates putting out a distress
call, but not when they listen to calls from unknown males.^30
There is evidence that rats are able to help one another in dis-
tress out of pure empathy. When a free rat was placed in an arena along
with another rat (a cage-mate) trapped in a restrainer, the free rat would
intentionally open the door of the restrainer to release the trapped
rat. Rats would not open the door if there was no rat inside, or if the
restrainer contained other objects. This happened in the absence of an
apparent reward.^31
12.6.9 Altruism
Altruism is the sacrifice of self for the benefit of a group (a mega-self).
On the surface, altruism appears counter to natural selection, because it
gives the selfish individuals a better chance to pass on their selfish genes
to the offspring. But in practice, only a fraction of the altruistic individ-
uals actually sacrifice their lives, leaving the surviving altruists a chance
to pass on the gene. Take martyrdom (the extreme case of altruism) for