Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

Chris Oveis has found that the vagus nerve does indeed fire during the experience of elevation: C. Oveis, S. Sherman, J. Haidt, “Vagal Reactivity and Elevation,” unpublished manuscript.

In one study, Lani Shiota and I had participants recall transformative experiences in nature: M. N. Shiota, D. Keltner, and A. Mossman, “The Nature of Awe: Elicitors, Appraisals, and Effects on Self-Concept,” Cognition and Emotion (in press).

awe in the brain: E. Simon-Thomas, C. Oveis, and D. Keltner, “Positive Emotion in the Brain,” unpublished manuscript.

The images of sensory pleasure: B. Knutson, J. C. Cooper, “Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Reward Prediction,” Current Opinions in Neurology 18, no. 4 (2005): 411–17. R. A. Depue and P. F. Collins, “Neurobiology of the Structure of Personality: Dopamine, Facilitation of Incentive Motivation, and Extraversion,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (1999): 491–569; E. T. Rolls, “The Orbitofrontal Cortext and Reward,” Cerebral Cortex 10 (2000): 284–94, and The Brain and Emotion.

the amygdala: LeDoux, The Emotional Brain.

known as the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex: R. J. Davidson, “What Does the Prefrontal Cortex ‘Do’ in Affect: Perspectives on Frontal EEG Asymmetry Research,” Biol Psychol 67, nos. 1–2 (2004): 219–33; J. Mitchell, N. M. McCrae, and M. Banaji, “Dissociable Medial Prefrontal Contributions to Judgments of Similar and Dissimilar Others,” Neuron 50 (2006): 655–63; K. N. Ochsner et al., “The Neural Correlates of Direct and Reflected Self-Knowledge,” Neuroimage 28 (2005): 797–814.

This region lights up: Rolls, The Brain and Emotion; R. J. Davidson, “What Does the Prefrontal Cortex ‘Do’ in Affect.”

For Charles Darwin: All quotes in this paragraph are from Browne, Charles Darwin I, Voyaging.

For cell biologist: U. Goodenough, Sacred Depths of Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

“identification of ourselves with the beautiful which exists in thought, action, or person, not our own”: Shelley, “A Defence of Poetry.”

TEXT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

 

Confucius, excerpts from Analects, translated by Wing-Tsit Chan, from A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Copyright © 1963 and renewed 1991 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.

 

 

E. E. Cummings, “which is the very” from Complete Poems 1904–1962, edited by George J. Firmage. Copyright 1944, © 1971, 1984, 1991 by the Trustees for the E. E. Cummings Trust. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

 

 

Lao Tzu, excerpts from Tao Te Ching, translated by D. C. Lau. Copyright © 1963 by D. C. Lau. Reprinted by permission of Penguin Group (UK) Ltd.

 

 

T. C. Boyle, excerpts from Drop City. Copyright © 2003 by T. Coraghessan Boyle. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. and Georges Borchardt, Inc., for the author.