According to a study by the University of Zurich, women are more inclined to be altruistic because they choose prosocial behavior, in other words they feel more gratified by the act of giving, while men are more inclined to behave in a selfish manner. The study was conducted by a team of scientists led by Alexander Soutschek and it involved a group of 28 men and 27 women who had undergone various tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging to analyze the area of the brain that is activated when decisions are to be made. For the first time the team showed that the brains of men and women respond differently to generous or selfish behavior. The results showed that areas of gratification in the frontal lobe of the female brain activate more intensely when a woman shares generously while in the male brain, exactly the opposite occurs. According to Swiss researchers, since childhood the two genders are subjected to cultural conditioning so strong as to make the female brain more generous than the male brain. However, if volunteers are given a substance that alters the functioning of the reward system, women become more selfish and men more generous.
