Generosity can be contagious, according to a study The " Blood Challenge"

              <img src = "https://abrilveja.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/saude-doacao-de-sangue-20161227-001.jpg" clbad = "abril-image optimized lazyload" abril-data-id = "2637071" sizes = "(min-width: 991px) 680px, (max-width: 420px) 420px, (max-width: 360px) 360px," srcset = "https://abrilveja.files.wordpress.com/2017 /10/saude-doacao-de-sangue-20161227-001.jpg?quality=70&strip=info&resize=680,453 680w, https://abrilveja.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/saude-doacao-de-sangue- 20161227-001.jpg? Quality = 70 & strip = all & resize = 420,280 420w, https://abrilveja.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/saude-doacao-of-sanguage-20161227-001.jpg?quality=70&strip=all&resize = 360,240 360w, "alt =" Blood donation is an act of empathy that must be exercised more frequently.Ice Bucket ", which was presented in 2014, is an example of generosity can be contagious .The campaign, which brought together celebrities and anonymous people around the world, sought to encourage donations for research on As a result, the wave of good deeds has contributed to important scientific discoveries.

Researcher Jamil Zaki, a professor at Stanford University in the United States, tried to answer, through good deeds are spreading throughout society. "Basically, we are a social species, people are very motivated to be part of a group and to share a sense of identity. "

According to him, the best way to understand this question is to evaluate them from the point of view of the conformity explained by the tendency to align attitudes and beliefs with those of people who do not.

Compliance

The concept of compliance may be considered negative for many people Previous studies have shown that social pressure is able to induce individuals to adopt Zakir preferred to approach compliance from another angle by badyzing positive behaviors.

During the experiments, the researcher realized that generous donations Encouraged more participants than small contributions.The results, published by the journal Personality and Social Psychology also revealed that the generosi t was not just a replica of the good deeds of others; in fact, they influenced participants to be more sympathetic and empathic to adverse situations.

Another study, published in 2010 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), has charted the path in which acts of cooperation can multiply throughout society. Researchers at Harvard University and the University of California, United States, have pointed out that people who benefited from donations during a game offered generosity to other participants who , in turn, favored a third group. The discovery shows that an initial benevolence can reach up to three degrees of separation from the first benefactor

All is not about generosity

According to Martin Nowak, a Harvard professor, this cooperation is not totally disinterested: it is of an evolutionary strategy. The cooperation – be it between humans, insects or cells – almost always happens in the expectation of getting something in return, even in the future. For him, there are five mechanisms that explain why an individual decides to collaborate with another:

1. Direct reciprocity: I help you and you help me;
2. Indirect reciprocity: Generous earn a good reputation and receive help from a third
3. Spatial reciprocity: Help people to increase the chances of being helped;
4. Selection of group: groups of "cooperators" improve
5. "Cooperation – in addition to the competition" –
6. "I cooperate – in addition to the competition – is involved every time that evolution is building something new, something different, so I called the cooperation of the "master architect" of the evolutionary process, "says Nowak

   Communicating

   Despite the Evolving Benefits from the adoption of a cooperative attitude, in many real-life situations, people are not ready to help others.According to circumstances, selfish attitudes may spread in society, indicating that, like generosity, acts of indifference are also contagious, Martin Nowak, only when there are strong enough mechanisms, kindness can spread.

   He further states that the c ommunication is one of the essential ingredients for ensuring the multiplication of good deeds . Therefore, the disclosure of acts of generosity may be fundamental to spreading generosity, as is the case of the "Ice Bucket Challenge". "The idea is that the reputation of the individual who has collaborated is known.It is important to disseminate information about the decisions that individuals have made in terms of cooperation," he commented.

   Empathy Exercise

   According to Francisco C. Santos, professor at the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon in Portugal. If you are willing to pay a cost to benefit someone, you can use this data to build equations that can predict the dynamics that can occur in different scenarios.

   "If we can understand the underlying mechanisms of cooperation, this knowledge is useful for promoting cooperation where it does not exist" who studies conflicts of interest. , said Santos to BBC . For him, the human being is prone to cooperation, but this happens more often in smaller communities.

   Jamil Zaki believes that humans have evolved to be socially connected and inclined to empathize. But this evolution occurred when we lived in small communities, around people like us and where everyone depended on each other. However, these evolutionary rules have changed now that we live in a time when it is difficult to show empathy. "Today, we live in a giant world, we are connected to thousands of people, whom we will see only once in life, and maybe around groups that we threatening. "

   However, he guarantees that it is possible to reverse this reality if we train the "empathic muscle" by reading literary works or the use of dramatization techniques, interventions that were able to increase the degree of empathy many studies dealing with the subject. But to get positive results, you need to be empathic every day.