Read a seminal article by Allan Luks in the October 1988 Psychology Today that describes the “helper’s high” – a sense of calm and enhanced self-worth – observed in a study of more than 1,700 women involved regularly in helping others. Altruism functions like exercise but has some advantages over it, Luks suggests.

Read a 2003 Boston Globe article on studies linking altruism to better health and stress reduction.

Read an October 2004 Science & Theology News article on evolutionary theory and altruism.

Read a 2011 article from the International Journal of Person Centred Medicine by Stephen Post, which reviews studies showing a correlation between well-being, happiness, health and longevity of people who are emotionally and behaviorally compassionate.

Eliz Sanasarian is political science professor at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles and has written on gender distinction in genocide in the context of Armenia.

James E. Waller is the Cohen Chair of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College in New Hampshire and author of Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford University Press, 2002).

George E. Tinker is professor of American Indian cultures and religious traditions at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. His books include, as author, Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide (Fortress Press, 1993) and Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation (Fortress Press, 2004); as co-author, A Native American Theology (Orbis Books, 2001); and, as co-editor, Native Voices: American […]

Bettina Arnold is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and author of “Justifying Genocide: The Supporting Role of Archaeology in ‘Ethnic Cleansing’” for the book Annihilating Difference: The Anthropology of Genocide (University of California Press, 2002).