…and We Might Not. Now I’m a psychiatrist, and sometimes I even call myself a neuropsychiatrist, but don’t waste my time with this pitifully reductionist take on an act of heroism:
When Mr. Autrey saw the stranger, Cameron Hollopeter, 20, tumble onto the tracks, his brain reacted just as anyone else’s would. His thalamus, which absorbs sensory information, registered the fall, and sent the information to other parts of the brain for processing, said Gregory L. Fricchione, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Mr. Autrey’s amygdala, the part of the brain that mediates fear responses, was activated and sent sensory information to the motor cortex, which sent it down for emotional processing. His anterior cingulate, a sort of brain within the brain that helps people make choices, kicked in, helping trigger his decision about how to act, Dr. Fricchione said.
And especially when you are going to end up with a conclusion acknowledging how little you’ve really ‘explained’:
No single factor explains heroism, said Samuel P. Oliner, a sociology professor at Humboldt State University in Arcata, Calif. Yet in interviewing Holocaust rescuers and 911 responders, he found that people who acted heroically often came from more nurturing families and were imbued with an ethic of caring, empathy and compassion.
“The other people, the bystanders, are not bad people,” Dr. Oliner said. “But they have been cut from a slightly different cloth.” (New York Times )
