Paul Zak of Claremont Graduate University is a neuroeconomist who studies the biology of good and evil. Here are a few exchanges from the Ask Me Anything he just did on Reddit.

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Question:

What’s the most interesting fact about the brain you can tell us?

Paul Zak:

Your brain is an economic system: it has goals to achieve and limited resources with which to reach them. As a result, you build up habits to save brain resources. This is why even though your roommate repeatedly asks you to not put your dirty laundry on the floor, you can’t break this habit easily. Because your brain is so expensive metabolically to run, it tries to run on low power most of the time. Your brain is lazy!

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Question:

Does your research compliment/strengthen the concepts of secular morality? If moral behavior isn’t mediated through God or religion…

Paul Zak:

My research shows we don’t need God or gov’t to be moral. Oxytocin is an evolutionary old mechanism that motivates social interactions and empathy. These are the ingredients for morality (we’ve test this in around 10K people over 10+ years a variety of ways). We are watching each other and penalize those who behave badly. But, a little God or gov’t might be good. These are “crowd sourced” guidelines for appropriate moral behavior–just in case you decided you didn’t like your spouse anymore, these sources say killing him/her is wrong almost always. These are useful because our moral intuitions (and oxytocin release) are affected by lots of factors that result in immoral behaviors. Like everything we do, they more we practice connecting to others, the easier and more likely it becomes.

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Question:

What are some influences someone’s cultural background have you noticed to affect their level of generosity/empathy?

Paul Zak:

Great question! Our brains prefer to do what we’re used to doing (to save energy). So, high trust countries like Norway tend to trust others more than when the same experiment is run in a low trust country like Bolivia. We have studied people who had severely traumatic childhoods and about 50% of them don’t have an intact oxytocin/empathy system. Lastly, those with “bad genes”, e.g. psychopaths, lack empathy and have inhibited oxytocin release. So: to release oxytocin and show empathy you need, roughly, good genes, good parents, and a safe environment to live in.

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Question:

What major behavior differences have you found between women and men and how they function in the work place based on their biochemistry?

Paul Zak:

This surprised me until I had tons of data to support it: in EVERY experiment we’ve run, on average women release more oxytocin than do men. Full stop. I think this is way women are generally nicer than men and better at connecting to others than men. Of course some men are supernice and great connectors. Except…sometimes in women the oxytocin/connection system is inhibited, e.g. by progesterone, and accentuated by estrogen. So, women typically nicer than men, but also more complicated than men. For workplace: I think key is diversity, have equal numbers of men and women throughout an organization (esp. at the top). I gave a TED talk in the biological diffs between men and women that you might enjoy.

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Question:

What ideas can I, as a super villain, extrapolate from your work to further my own efforts? Please note: I’m hoping for an answer other than ‘hug people’.

Paul Zak:

Super Villian ahoy! My book The Moral Molecule has a chapter called “Bad Boys”. Man, it’s fun to be a bad boy but it has costs, too (like early death!). Great super villians are full of testosterone, take risks, are aggressive, and seek to dominate others. I got new bad boy stripes recently by starting to skydive. All super villains need to fly. Some pics here. Or, take up some other extreme sport, I’ve heard that Krav Maga is pretty awesome. But, after you dominate someone you can still give them a hug….•