Talks

The Social Contagion of Virtue

Thursday June 23, 16:30, Alternative Stage GNO

Nicholas Christakis, Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science, Yale University

Social inequality negatively affects society only when it is obvious. This neither does us credit as a species, nor is cause for optimism for those who believe in equality. However, the fact remains that good is transmitted through social networks and that altruism depends on them.

At a time when, for years, many people have made the mistake of talking about “social networks” when referring to social media (and perhaps them alone), Professor Nicholas Christakis took to the specially designed immersive Alternative Stage at the Greek National Opera and spoke to the public about the transmission of virtue through the primordial social networks, human bonds and contacts.
“People are in networks—contact networks with biological, psychological and mathematical characteristics and rules. If we see exactly how we connect, we can better understand our behavior, intervene in networks and enhance the social spread of altruism,” Christakis said at the beginning of his speech, clarifying that throughout history the structure of networks has been extremely similar.

Christakis presented to the public a series of experiments he has developed over a period of 20 years with his research team in order to explore interaction between people and their reaction to the stimulus of good and evil, especially in the context of the human network.

Among other things, he talked about the research they did on the Hadza tribe in Tanzania, but also about the experiment of creating artificial societies with severe social inequality—sometimes obvious and sometimes not. The aim of the research and experiments was, respectively, to measure altruism (for example, whether members of the Hadza tribe would offer to others honey that was given to them as a gift, so that the gift is shared with a larger part of the group) and to investigate the human decision to either serve the common good or to side with the selfish, those who do not want to sacrifice anything for the group—but perhaps hope that others will do, so that, ultimately, the common prosperity is multiplied.

According to Christakis's experiments and long research, "The way we connect with each other can also affect how good we are towards each other.” Referring to the experiment of the artificial societies with severe inequality, he said, “When we changed things and built societies where individuals could not see each other's wealth, it turned out that the invisibility of wealth reduced inequalities and increased cooperation. For me, who believes in equality, my heart was broken, because what the experiment showed was that inequality is bad only when you see it."

Building on the concept of 'theodicy', Christakis suggested that we can focus on “sociodicy;” stressed that most of the human virtues are social, that is, they have to do with our interaction with others; and concluded: “There was a trend towards good that took place with the spread of the Enlightenment in Europe. We do not need to rely on recent historical developments to make the world a better place. We have an innate tendency towards good and this condition spreads through social networks, and acts as a bonding agent.”