Mirror Neurons V: Altruism
In Mirror Neurons III: Empathy, I told the story of the child who inadvertently knocked over the younger child in music class. The mother spent several minutes attempting to get her daughter to have the “appropriate” emotional and social response. Words like: “Look – you hurt him! He’s crying!” were probably meant to spark, in the girl, a feeling of remorse - or sympathy for the hurt child - or a resolve to make things better.
But it didn’t work out that way. Why?
Empathy and Development. A four year-old child cannot respond to a situation with the same kind of emotional complexity that an adult can. As we work our way up the developmental ladder, we begin with the newborn’s perception of the world.Psychologist Robert Kegan calls this the Incorporative Stage; the world is not divided into “you” and “me.” At four to eight months, when an infant can hold two things in mind – both the object itself, and the memory of the object - the perception Jean Piaget calls Object Permanence come into play. Peekaboo, I see you!
At around the age of two, this concept of objects becomes extended to identity. This is why two year-olds are so peremptory. “NO!” becomes possible only when there is a “you” and a “me.” Resistance holds the beginning of the idea of a separate existence.
Between the ages of four and seven, that idea of a separate existence begins to develop. But it is not until the age of seven, as Piaget demonstrated in his experiments, that children begin to be able to perceive that the appearance of the water in the beaker is not necessarily the same as the amount of water in the beaker. Until that cognitive piece clicks in (Piaget calls the concept Conservation), all minds seem joined. To us, it is magical thinking. But for young children, it is developmentally appropriate.
Two-Way Mirror Neurons. Mirror neurons work both ways. Imagine how much we might learn if, instead of imposing our feelings on children, we allowed ourselves to empathetically participate in their emotions from their developmental point of view. In the spirit of that imagination, we can ask, what did the four year old girl experience at the music class?
Probably something like: I’m running, bump! Uh oh. Mom’s upset!(Mind goes blank).
The four year-old is not unfeeling. She just doesn’t feel separate enough from anyone else in the world to feel that she has “hurt” them. There is just, hurt. And then it turns into, trouble!
This may seem, to us, like a lack of empathy for the child who is crying. But for a young child, parental affect will almost always override any other information. Instead of the child who has been hurt, they empathize with the negative judgment of the parent. And this negative judgment is usually enough to create a traumatic response. Freeze.
Altruism Across Age Lines. Often, if we simply don’t judge, a child will do something appropriate on her own. Young children can be naturally altruistic. A baby drinks from her bottle; then she waves it towards me so I can have a drink, too. A three year-old smiles shyly and gives me a favorite pebble, warm and moist from his hand. What is mine is yours; we all share the same big mind, the same big soul.
In adults, we see this kind of attitude and behavior as the highest kind of altruism. Leaders like Gandhi, Einstein, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, the Dalai Lama, all speak to us from a cognitive stance similar, in some key ways, to the four year-old’s. They tell us that we are not separate, that every one of our actions affects all people, that this is our connection and our power as human beings. Robert Kegan, in his book The Evolving Self, describes this adult stage of cognitive development, characterized by a quality of “interpenetration,” as “a concern for the most fundamental connections that exist between persons.”
Cognitive and emotional development can be seen as a kind of spiral dance. As we define and redefine our sense of who we are, we differentiate and connect, over and over - at increasingly higher levels of awareness. So the point of view someone like the Dalai Lama expresses seems more like a four year-old’s than most company executives, or most college students – even most ten year-olds!
But someone like the Dalai Lama has the experience and understanding of how to bring this sense of connection into society. Young children do not. In the eternally present moment that is their normal habitat, any hurt is all hurt. When we tell young children that they are responsible for someone else’s hurt, it may seem to them that we are telling them that they are responsible for all the hurt in the whole wide world! It is a heavy load to bear.
As adults, when we can avoid our usual habits of jumping to conclusions – when we take in the information that our own mirror neurons are reading from the child – things go better. We may be able to use a child’s natural sense of connection to guide them in an appropriate social response.
And – if we open our awareness - they may be able to guide us.
Comments
You’re welcome, Julie! Your comment reminds me that
we adults are always expecting children to mirror US -
to see our points of view - and they actually do quite
a good job, sometimes too good!
I was reminded of this at a party recently - I was
talking to a mom about my own tendency to second-guess
myself, and said, jokingly, “Do you do that?” She
started telling me all the ways in which she did that -
and then her teenaged daughter broke in and said,
“Yeah, mom, I never used to do that, but I’m starting
to.”
The mother looked startled, and said, “Well, doesn’t my
example show you that you shouldn’t do it?”
“No, it makes me start to do it unconsciously!”
Out of the mouths of . . .
Julie N Goodro Murray Jan 07, 2012
Matching with your child through mirror neurons to learn his point of view is something I need to try. I’ve certainly become aware of mirror neurons over the years, but using them to see a child’s view is an interesting thought. I shared these ideas with my son who has a four year old (and a 6 and a 2 year old). He found it interesting too. I first learned about mirror neurons when this son invited me to a wholistic medicine class he was taking in college many years ago. (He had forgotten all about them.) Thanks!