A very telling article appeared in today’s copy of the Wall Street Journal. It probably applies to all of us who weren’t created from the same mold as Mother Theresa.

While the writer has a point, it’s my humble opinion that we talk about ourselves as a means of ensuring our legacy. If not us, who? Ninety-nine percent of us will never do anything to see our names lit up on a Times Square marquee.

Broadway show billboards at the corner of 7th Avenue and West 47th Street in Times Square in New York City (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A trait  we inherited from our prehistoric ancestors, storytelling is not a bad thing. In fact, it’s a very good thing. And that we get to be the protagonists of our own stories…hey! everybody’s got a chance to be the star. So like I tell my daughter when she prepares for a performance, “Star in whatever role you’re dancing.”

Science Reveals Why We Brag So Much
by Robert Lee Hotz

     Talking about ourselves–whether in a personal conversation or through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter–triggers the same sensation of pleasure in the brain as food or money, researchers reported Monday.
     About 40% of everyday speech is devoted to telling others about what we feel or think. Now, through five brain imaging and behavioral experiments, Harvard University neuroscientists have uncovered the reason: It feels so rewarding, at the level of brain cells and synapses, that we can’t help sharing our thoughts.
     “Self-disclosure is extra rewarding,” said Harvard neuroscientist Diana Tamir, who conducted the experiments with Harvard colleague Jason Mitchell. Their findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “People were even willing to forgo money in order to talk about themselves,” Ms. Tamir said.
     To assess people’s inclination for what the researchers call “self disclosure,” they conducted laboratory tests to see whether people placed an unusually high value on the opportunity to share their thoughts and feelings. They also monitored brain activity among some volunteers to see what parts of the brain were most excited when people talked about themselves as opposed to other people. The dozens of volunteers were mostly Americans who lived near the university.
     In several tests, they offered the volunteers money if they chose to answer questions about other people, such as President Obama, rather than about themselves, paying out on a sliding scale of up to four cents. Questions involved casual matters such as whether someone enjoyed snowboarding or liked mushrooms on a pizza. Other queries involved personality traits, such as intelligence, curiosity or aggression.
     Despite the financial incentive, people often preferred to talk about themselves and willingly gave up between 17% and 25% of their potential earnings, so they could reveal personal information. “We joked that this was the penny for your thoughts study,” Ms. Tamir said.
     In related tests, the scientists used a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner, which tracks changes in blood flow between neurons associated with mental activity, to see what parts of the brain responded most strongly when people talked about their own beliefs and options, rather than speculating about other people.
     Generally, acts of self disclosure were accompanied by spurts of heightened activity in brain regions belonging to the meso-limbic dopamine system, which is associated with the sense of reward and satisfaction from food, money or sex.
     “It rings true to me,” said psychologist James Pennebaker at the University of Texas at Austin, who studies how people handle secrets and self-disclosure, but was not involved in the project. “We love it if other people listen to us. Why else would you tweet?”

I’ll bet Ms. Tamir and Mr. Mitchell smiled broadly when they saw their names in the Journal this morning. Instead of being buried in some musty scientific archive, their research results are national news. I cheer them, along with their colleagues, teachers, friends and family. After all, they’re only human…

…just like the rest of us…

………hugmamma.   😉

Twitter 6×6 (Photo credit: Steve Woolf)