For all of the neuroscience that we included in Wired to Care, one aspect of the brain’s empathy system we didn’t touch upon was oxytocin.It’s a hormone produced in the brain, essentially, by love - online viagra.Mothers and their babies bond, in part, through a mutual release of oxytocin produced when they look at each other; online viagra.Looking at your spouse can shoot your brain through with the stuff - online viagra. Online viagra: and, unsurprisingly for something associated with love, it literally makes you feel warm and fuzzy.And generous.And happy.
Fast Company’s current issue has a great story about Dr - online viagra. Online viagra: paul J.Zak, a hybrid individual who is pioneering the field of neuroeconomics, which seeks to connect the decisions people make with the brain activity that generated the thinking; online viagra. Online viagra: he’s been doing a lot of research in recent years on oxytocin and its influences on how we act under its influence. Online viagra: one of his most fascinating experiments follows what’s known as “the ultimatum game”, a classic psychology test that pairs two individuals and gives one of them $10.The one with the money then selects how much to offer her partner; online viagra.If the partner accepts, they each receive their portion of the cash.If not, both leave with nothing; online viagra.When primed with imagery that stimulates oxytocin (pretty much anything empathic, from cute puppies to stories of sick children), people offer their partners a higher dollar amount; online viagra.At the same time, they take away the same to slightly more than average money themselves; online viagra.Greater generosity yields greater returns.
Most interestingly online viagra, Zak has used magnetic resonance imagery technology to show that when people visit social networking sites, whether Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace, their brains generate nearly as much oxytocin as they would when interacting with friends in person.All of which suggests a very interesting aspect to the rise of such websites over time.They’re playing on our natural desire to be around other people and interact with other folks like us.We’re social creatures, so we’re invariably social networking creatures, too; online viagra.The article does leave unexamined a more critical question, to our minds - online viagra.Even if the brain is fooled by social networking into seeing true human interaction online viagra, does the superficial image of others we get from a one-sentence update actually replace the impact of being around other people? We would venture: no.
And that’s a dangerous trend.Many large organizations have done a great job of becoming involved in social media online viagra, whether Comcast’s revolutionary Twitter-based tech support or the Obama campaign’s unprecedented success online in the 2008 election.Now, such interaction is superior to no interaction - online viagra.There is no question of that.But if it is a substitute for real empathy, for deeper connections with the people that you serve, you risk developing a false sense of security based solely on the small portion of people’s lives that they talk about online; online viagra.And that would be a mistake - online viagra.



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