How often do you do something altruistic at work? Frequently, I hope. I’ve written about altruism before in The Importance of Altruism, almost exactly a year ago. Definitions of altruism vary, but it is a moral code to help others, anyone from a coworker struggling with the copy machine to a client whose computer crashed with your files.

New research in Are you a giver? suggests that altruistic activity originates in specific area of the brain (part of the parietal lobe, the posterior superior temporal cortex), and that people’s own reports of their altruistic activity roughly correlate to their behavior (so that we can accurately judge how altruistic we are). The lead researcher, Scott Huettel, at Duke says:

It is hardly the case that all altruistic acts come from people who are religiously faithful; there are undoubtedly many altruistic atheists. And, a religious explanation would have considerable difficulty explaining why some animals help others of their species at significant cost or danger to themselves.

It seems like altruism would be ideal in the workplace, where people of different religious and non-religious backgrounds come together to work for the common good. You’ll also recall from my post last year on The Importance of Altruism that social insects behave altruistically to the extent that sterile members care entirely for the queen and produce no offspring of their own.

Now I’m not suggesting we stop reproducing in favor of helping the queen (or king). But I am wondering if more altruism at work might make the workplace a happier, more satisfying place to spend the day. I’m not alone in this goal. Altruists International works to re-establish altruism as a viable social norm, perhaps not using the social insect model, but the idea of helping others as a social norm.

Do you have stories of altruism at work in which someone did something selfless?