Photo: flickr/valbanese
They say you are what you eat. This is obviously true physically, but can it extend all the way to your personality? According to this study, consuming the amino acid L-Tryptophan (found, famously, in turkey, but also in chocolate, eggs, and many other foods) makes people more willing to donate to charity. The authors hypothesize that this effect is due to L-Tryptophan's role as a biochemical precursor of serotonin, the brain chemical thought to be associated with happiness. Maybe this explains why people are extra charitable around the holidays?
Tryptophan promotes charitable donating. "The link between serotonin (5-HT) and one of the most important elements of prosocial behavior, charity, has remained largely uninvestigated. In the present study, we tested whether charitable donating can be promoted by administering the food supplement L-Tryptophan (TRP), the biochemical precursor of 5-HT. Participants were compared with respect to the amount of money they ...
