J. Social BioL Struct.

1980 3, 87 -94

'Altruism and the internal reward system

or
The opium of the people'
James F. Danielli
Department of Life Sciences, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, t¢orcester,
MA 01609, USA
The Center for Theoretical Biology, School o f Advanced Technology, State
University o f New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NIT 13901, USA
and
The Institute for Higher Studies, Post Office Box 704, Carpinteria, CA 93013,
USA

A set of hypotheses is advanced to explain altruistic behavior in human societies. It

is postulated (1) that all human beings have an internal reward system, which is
activated by prior social conditioning, especially by conditioning in y o u t h ; and (2)
that, where there has been prior conditioning or evolutionary preparation, the
performance of altruistic acts activates the internal reward system, so that the
performer is in fact rewarded. It is suggested that the mechanisms of the internal
reward system include the release of mood-controlling substances in the brain, and
perhaps elsewhere in the body, such as the opioid peptides.

Introduction
Apparent altruism can be seen in the behavior o f a wide variety o f animal
species. Over a period o f some years, sociobiologists have proposed that this
appearance of altruism arises primarily from the attitudes of the observer.
Thus, in a case where an adult organism risks its life to protect its young, the
act can be said to be altruistic only if the primary concern o f an individual
is thought to be personal survival. But if the primary concern o f the individual
is preservation and propagation of its genes, then the act is not altruistic
(in the colloquial sense), for by the protection o f its young the individual is
pursuing its primary (selfish) interest. Since, if other things are equal, species
in which the young are protected are more likely to survive than those where
there is no protective behavior, in the time scale o f evolution such apparently
altruistic behavior results in survival, not of the individual, but o f the
individual's genes, which survive in its descendants (see, e.g., Hamilton, 1964;
Wilson, 1975;Dawkins, 1976).
Attempts have also been made to account for altruism in ttomo sapiens in
the same manner. These attempts are unconvincing. The problem arises from
the fact tha.t, in describing the behaviors o f most species, the term altruism can
be limited to a set o f behaviors which are primarily or largely o f genetic origin,
whereas with humans the term has a much more diffuse usage, extending even
0140-1750/020087+08 $02.00/0 01980 Academic Press Inc. (London) Limited
88 ,l. F. Daniefli

to behaviors which are counterproductive from the point of view of protection

of the life or the genes of the altruistic individual. Let us list some forms o f
human behavior which are commonly considered altruistic.
(1) Risking, or giving, one's own life to attempt to secure the lives o f others,
or o f a social group, or of a clan or state.
(2) Donation of resources (e.g. land, money) to institutions such as churches,
art galleries, museums, or cats' homes.
(3) Enrollment o f children in celibate monastic orders.
(4) Gifts to the poor, the sick, widows and the elderly.
(5) Payment of taxes for use as charity, foreign aid, and social welfare
systems.
(6) Caring for and bringing up children, who may be genetically related or
unrelated adopted children.
(7) Donation of assets, or of one's life, to promote an ideology or religion.
Very few of these items directly affect preservation and propagation of the
altruist's life or genes, and some are ~early counter-productive. For example,
in some cultures to adhere steadfastly to a doctrine or ideology held to be
heretical not only leads to a diminished probability of personal survival, but
may even lead to a massacre of one's family and all closely related persons.
Anthropological data indicate that the range of altruistic actions actually
perfomed in a culture depends upon the mores o f that culture, and varies
widely between cultures. Preservation of one's in-group (or group selfishness)
seems frequently to have replaced genetic selfishness. From the genetic point
of view, to die for an ideology or religion or nation-state is incredibly foolish,
whereas from the point of view of the in-group it may be wise. It thus appears
that in an individual there must frequently be a direct conflict between the
requirements of the genetic program and the group or social program. How
then does the social program become established in an individual and for what
reasons does it become effective?

The internal reward system

Three hypotheses are now relevant: The first is familiar to all of us, and the
second and third are new.
Ilypothesis I. Children, at a relatively early age, learn from their social environ-
ment which behaviors are acceptable or encouraged.
llypothesis 2. All individuals contain an internal reward system, which in
children is activated and conditioned by the social environment, but which in
later life may be activated when the individual acts in accordance with the early
conditioning. Thus, altruistic acts of the individual when performed result in an
internal reward, provided early conditioning (indoctrination, programming) has
established the mechanisms for activating the reward system.
IIypothesis 3. The activation of the internal reward system releases substances
in appropriate centers of the brain which produce some degree of euphoria. As
a model of such substances we may take the opioid peptides which have
recently been discovered in {he brain. These have many actions in the brain
including the induction of euphoria and the reduction of pain (analgesia).
 Altruism: the opium of the people 89

In commentary on these notes, it must first be said that Hypothesis 1,

though very widely accepted, perhaps in all societies, has not been the subject
of rigorous studies which firmly establish its truth. In particular it has not been
established how much of the individual's social program arises from genetic
sources, and how much from environmental sources. It must, therefore, be
considered as hypothesis, not fact, and it is reasonable to think that this
hypothesis will eventually be seen to have genetic constraints. For example, it
may well be that genetics provides the possibility of a finite number o f modes
o f behavior, and that the social environment does no more than activate a set
of behaviors drawn from that finite number. We must ask such questions as:
can a human being behave in a mode for which there is no genetic foundation
or preparation in the evolution of the species?
Hypothesis 2 postulates an internal reward system. I was initially driven to
this hypothesis by my curiosity (and dismay) about my own attempts to be
altruistic. From time to time a situation has arisen in which I have a choice
between helping or not helping an individual. There often appears to be no
possible advantage to me in giving the help, and there may be perceptible
disadvantages. I have thought to myself, why not for once do something for
which the only motive l can perceive is that it is a 'good action' for another
individual's benefit, not for mine. And then, the decision taken, I find there is,
as a minimum, not just the 'purely' intellectual satisfaction of the decision but
also a warm glow of satisfaction, a very physical feeling. Generalizing on this,
and on the similar experiences of others, it becomes evident that there is an
internal reward system, and that many o f our apparently altruistic acts are not
neutral, but are rewarded by this system. Once this hypothesis is stated one
sees immediately that, in a human society, composed of individuals with
capacities for learning, memorization, judgement and choice, the viability o f
the social system will be increased by the existence of a conditionable internal
reward system, and indeed may be critically dependent upon it. Alienation,
which now threatens to destroy our civilization, probably in part arises from
failure in our society to establish, early in life, activating processes for this
reward system which will be valid in adolescence and maturity (Danielli &
Danielli, 1974).
Hypothesis 2 becomes much more plausible, and its nature much more
approachable, in the light of Hypothesis 3, which arises from work on the brain
which began to gather m o m e n t u m about ten years ago, but only became clearly
relevant to the purposes of this paper in 1974, when Terenius & Wahlstrom
showed that the brain contained at least one substance which activated opiate
receptors. Subsequently Hughes, Smith, Kosterlitz et al. (1975) showed that
two substances Of this nature, which they called enkephalins, were quite
simple, consisting of a chain of five aminoacids. Hughes & Kosterlitz
subsequently pointed out that the aminoacid sequence of one of these
enkephalins occurs in a hormone, lipotropin, derived from the pituitary gland.
Guillemin and his colleagues found additional substances consisting o f
aminoacid chains, which they call endorphins, which contain the enkephalin
sequence and have opioid action. These discoveries open up fascinating fields
of study of the function of such compounds in normal and aberrant activities
of the brain (see e.g. Snyder, 1975, 1979; Schally, 1978; Guillemin, 1978).
This work is at too early a stage to warrant further comment here. The
90 J.F. Danielli

discoveries outlined above are important in providing a basic model for the
generation of euphoria (and the relief o f pain), and so establish the outline of
an internal reward system (IRS).
It may well be that many other substances will ultimately be discovered,
possibly a considerable variety of families o f substances, which contribute to
the functioning of the IRS. But for present purposes it is sufficient to note
that the brain naturally contains these substances which act as opiates.
The existence in the brain of 'pleasure centers' was discovered by Olds &
Milner (1954), by using electrical stimulation of very specific locations in the
brain. Subsequent research showed that when rats are placed in an apparatus
which gives them a choice between either delivering an electrical impulse direct
to a pleasure center, or obtaining food, the rats will ignore food procurement,
and continue to stimulate the pleasure center until exhaustion intervenes (Olds,
1977). Thus, the presence of pleasure centers is not of trivial significance. One
of the actions of the internal opiates is likely to be, directly or indirectly, the
activation of pleasure centers. Thus, we now have some understanding of two
physiological components of an IRS; namely, internal opiates and the pleasure
centers, thereby seeing the rudiments of a physiological basis for some aspects
of motivation and attention. A major component of which we have at present
no knowledge is the mechanism of social conditioning of the IRS, so that
rewards are provided which relate to the necessary or desirable roles of an
individual in a specific society.

The evolution o f an internal reward system

We need to consider two questions: What was the origin of the IRS? And how
did the functional IRS become dependent on a social conditioning process?
Let us now list some of the euphoria-producing activities which are not
produced by exogenous drugs:
(1) mountain climbing;
(2) long-distance running;
(3) heavy physical work;
(4) appeasement of hunger;
(5) sexual activity,
(6) grooming of one individual by another;
(7) play in small groups, e.g., of a litter of offpsring;
(8) dancing for prolonged periods;
(9) religious rituals;
(10) exposure to some forms of oratory and poetry;
(11) sensitivity group activities;
(12) spectator participation in such mob activities as football matches,
athletic meetings and horse race meetings;
(13) successful public performance, e.g. by politicians, actors, singers;
(14) altruistic actions, as illustrated by examples given in the second page of
this article;
(15) experience of pain, as in religious flagellation and perhaps other
sadomasochistic experiences.
This list is by no means exhaustive, but is sufficient for us to see that
euphoria-producing activities can be divided into at least three categories. The
 Altruism: the opium of the people 91

first category includes items (1) to (4), which have the c o m m o n feature that
the euphoria can be experienced as a result of the activity of the indivdual; it
does not require a social component. This category I believe is the most
primitive, in that one can see that, if the survival of an animal depends upon
such activities, the production of euphoria as a consequence o f the activity is
likely to raise the motivation level and aid survival. Similarly, prokinged and
arduous activity tends to result in pain which is inhibitory to continuation o f
the activity, so that the release of endogenous opiates, by reducing pain, will
favor continuing an activity to its success point. The presence of the IRS, the
operation of which is a consequence of the performance of vital activities,
increases the chances of survival.
The second category contains (6) and (7). These are activities which involve
a small group of animals. They are activities which can be considered to favor
the formation of small social groups. Consider grooming of one individual by
another: this binds together individuals in small groups: continuity is assured
because young animals learn to groom from the adults of the group,
particularly through the mother. If such an activity activates the IRS, such
learned behavior is reinforced. We know, from studies of primates brought up
without contact with their mothers or other members of their species, that
such deprivation produces animals which are behavioral cripples (see, e.g.,
H. Harlow, 1959; Harlow, Harlow, Dodsworth & Arling, 1966). We can infer
that, somewhere in the evolutionary pathway which produced the primates,
two developments occurred involving non-solitary activation of the IRS. One of
these involved linking activation of the IRS to group behavior; the other
linked the development of normal adult behavior to early learning, probably to
early conditioning for activation of the IRS.
The third category, items (9) to (13), involves substantially larger social
groups. These euphorias tend to bind together larger groups of individuals
into a social unit, and create the situation in which group priorities and group
survival can override individual priorities and individual survival. In so far as
conditioning the activation of the IRS, so that activation of the IRS follows
from these experiences, behavior of the individual in the group becomes more
social and less individual. For a social species such as Itomo sapiens, the value
of an IRS activated by behavior favoring the group is a concept of compulsive
quality. As was indicated by the hypotheses advanced earlier in this paper,
item (14) i.e. altruistic behavior, becomes understandable in terms of social
dynamics, and no longer finds its sole justification in terms of genetics.
An interesting example of the effects o f the IRS occurs in connection with
behavior related to religion and ideologies. There are potent reasons for
thinking that the validity of a religion depends upon the success with which
religious practices activate the IRS, and so procure euphoria. The use of these
practices is archaic in origin, and may well have been of major importance in
producing group cohesion in the transition from small food-gathering
communities, to tribal communities. Indeed, human happiness may well arise
primarily from social and other experiences which activate the IRS. When Marx
said that 'religion is the opium of the people', he spoke with greater accuracy
than he realized! The propagation of his ideas and the decline of religion have
tended to transform society so that we could now say that 'Ideology is the
opium of the people'.What none of us has known, until the last few years, is
92 J. E Danielli

that the people need their opium; that, unless society provides mechanisms for
the release of endogenous opiates and the like, i.e. for activating the IRS, the
individual is deprived, social cohesion is lost and collapse of the social system
may be imminent.
It is interesting from a technical viewpoint, and probably also from a social
viewpoint, to consider item (15). It is implicit in what has been said above that
human beings will seek euphoria. We now believe that pain releases endogenous
opiates, and that these substances not only diminish pain but also produce
euphoria. In consequence, by seeking pain, euphoria may be procured We may
then speculate that this is the basis for such behaviors as religious flagellation,
and. for physical masochistic behavior.

The IRS and the stability of social altruism

Where the requirement for survival of the social group is dominant, the
importance of survival of the specific gene set o f an individual is bypassed. This
is a successful strategy if altruistic behavior occurs as a result of a learning
process, i.e. if the behavior arises, riot from the inheritance of genes for
altruism, but from inheritance of memes (as Dawkins, 1976, puts it). If
altruism directed at group survival is based upon gene-determined behavior,
then it will die out, or at least be minimized, by the fact that selection will
tend to act against survival of those individuals who most strongly exhibit
group altruistic behavior. But if group altruism is based upon learning, its
continuity can be secured by the learning process. Elimination of altruistic
behavior would then only occur if the individuals concerned are not only
indoctrinated for altruism, but are a segment of the population which is not
protected by the group. Protection against this latter possibility is provided if
the social group has a set of memes which give high status to altruistic
individuals, and hence, gives group protection to those individuals. If the whole
population possesses the IRS, and if all individuals have a general competence
to be conditioned for activation of the IRS by learning, all individuals will
provide group protection which compensates for what would otherwise be
self-destructive behavior on the part o f the altruists.
The possibility still exists that some individuals may become genetically
defective, either with respect to having a fully functional IRS, or with respect
to the capacity for channeling the activation of the IRS by conditioning.
However, individuals with these defects are likely to be eliminated by group
action, and so do not normally become part of the group breeding pool. The
conclusion is clear: the development o f an IRS which can be channeled by
social experience can be the primary mechanism by which group altruism
becomes a dominant chacacteristic, and is, therefore, a primary mechanism by
which the social group is protected.
Conversely, it follows that if social evolution o f the group occurs in such a
manner that the I R S becomes ineffective, alienation results and the stability o f
the group (or social system) may be destroyed.

Reservations
This paper is a statement outlining three hypotheses concerning altruism in
human beings. It claims to be no more than an outline. It is intended
 Altruism: the opium of the people 93

particularly to present a process whereby behavior which is altruistic from the

point of view of a social group can be stabilized by an internal reward system.
This IRS, since it depends upon biochemical and neurological factors, arises
from the evolutionary process, but is activated by a social process. Since there
is a risk that what is said here may be interpreted incorrectly, and beyond my
intention, I shall make some reservations, as follows.
1. It is not my intention to say that, under no circumstances, can altruistic
behavior occur which does not have either a genetic function or activate
the internal reward system. It is my intention to say that altruistic
actions which are rewarded by the IRS are likely to be easier to perform,
and to result in more reliable and stable altruistic behavior, than are
actions which are not so rewarded.
2. The neurological mechanisms which are concerned in, relate to, or can
activate the IRS, are certainly much more complex, and may be vastly
more complex than is described here. To emphasize this point, let me
refer to the extraordinary phenomenon of religious or political
conversion. In such conversions there may be a dramatic reversal o f
morality and ethics. After conversion, an individual who was gentle, kind
and tolerant, may rob, murder, persecute and torture. In this new
behavior the converted individual will not only adduce intellectual
justifications for horrific behavior, but appears to be in a state of
euphoria. In such individuals the behavior appears to involve a massive
reversal of the previously established conditioning for activation of the
IRS. It is not difficult to suggest possible mechanisms for this, but I
refrain from doing so, for we need a more rigorous study of the
hypotheses advanced here, before further speculation would be justified.
3. Albert Somit has asked me, 'How would you account for those situations
in which altruistic acts (i.e. acts taken in dictates with social conditioning)
leave the individual quite unhappy?' If we pursue the line of argument o f
this paper, the unhappiness would arise from lack of release of opiates,
or the like. Such lack may arise from such factors as, e.g., the altruistic
act is imposed by social pressure in a situation which does not activate
'the IRS; o r may arise from a clash between genetic programming and
social programming.
4. Peter Mitchell questioned whether all the phenomena classifed as
euphorias really have the same neurological and pharmacological basis. It
is, of course, by no means certain that all euphorias involve release of
endogenous opiates: a necessary reservation at this stage is that we may
discover other families of substances which act upon other (or identical)
pleasure centers. The assumption that all the euphorias listed above are
similar in nature was made for simplicity, i.e. it arose from the principle
of Ocams' razor. However, even if euphorias prove to be diverse in nature,
the principle of the above argument will remain valid, but will now
involve the co-evolution of a group of neurological mechanisms affecting
mood. This is analogous to the way in which many mechanisms affecting
the rate of flow of blood through a tissue have co-evolved as a group of
homeostatic processes.
94 J. F. Danielli

. John Maynard Smith has c o m m e n t e d that 'it is quite possible (indeed

likely) that a particular act be rewarded b y the IRS, and also that the act
occurs because genes making its performance more likely have been
favored b y natural selection.' A reservation we must make is that different
altruistic behaviors will depend, to different degrees, on genetic predis-
position on the one hand, and on social conditioning on the other hand:
and we must note that social conditioning itself can only occur if the
foundation (i.e. necessary neurological mechanisms) have been
established b y the evolution o f the human genome.

Acknowledgements
My warmest thanks for advice are due to Mary Danielli, Joan I. Lorch, Peter
Mitchell, Sharona Nelson, Carolyn and Douglas Pike, Candace B. Pert, Robert
Rosen, J. Maynard Smith, Solomon H. Snyder, Albert Somit and Harvey
Wheeler.

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