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Photo credit: Kim Hong-Ji/Getty Images – South Korean soldiers oversee the arrival of a batch of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccines donated by the U.S. government on June 5, 2021.
Foreign aid may not improve how recipients view donor countries – but it can set off a chain of goodwill that spreads far beyond the original act of giving.
The South Korean government reserved donated Johnson & Johnson vaccines for military reservists and, for medical reasons, excluded anyone under 30. As a result, we could compare the views of South Koreans just above and below that threshold.
We found that the donated vaccines did not improve people’s views of the United States. South Koreans who received American vaccines reported similar views of the U.S. as those who had not been vaccinated.
Yet the results were striking in another way. Those who received donated American vaccines became more supportive of their own government sending aid abroad. Recipients shifted from neutrality on the matter to expressing moderate support for foreign aid, scoring about one point higher on a seven-point scale than those who didn’t make the eligibility cutoff.
There is also evidence that these effects extend beyond direct recipients. South Koreans who were simply told that the U.S. was providing vaccine aid to developing countries also became more supportive of their own government doing the same – though this effect was concentrated among political moderates.
Together, these patterns point to what social scientists call “generalized reciprocity” – the impulse not to repay kindness directly but to pass it on. In this way, one act of aid can prompt another, and spread across borders.
Why it matters
From Washington and London to Berlin and Tokyo, foreign aid budgets have been cut. In November 2020, former U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power invoked a common assumption when she argued that providing vaccines abroad would restore American leadership – that the value of aid lies in the goodwill it generates toward the donor.
Our findings suggest this is one way aid can matter, but not necessarily the most important.
Instead, aid may foster a form of international cooperation that does not depend on treaties or direct reciprocity between nations but emerges from ordinary people’s willingness to pass on goodwill.
If aid can trigger chains of giving across borders, then how we assess its value may need to change. Current frameworks tend to emphasize donor nations’ direct returns or strategic benefits, but the cooperative effects we identify are largely invisible to those metrics.
This suggests that current cuts may be shutting down effects that policymakers have not yet learned to measure – a form of international cooperation that, once set in motion, can generate cascading effects well beyond what any single donor nation could achieve alone.
What we don’t know
Important questions remain: Do similar patterns emerge with other forms of aid – such as disaster relief, food assistance or long-term development programs? And how long do these effects last?
There are also hints that the threshold for triggering this response may be lower than previously thought. The effect persisted even when using eligibility for donated vaccines, rather than actual receipt, as the measure – suggesting proximity to aid, not just receipt, may be enough to activate the impulse to give.
If evidence that past recipients of aid have themselves become donors strengthens public support for giving in donor countries, then aid may be more self-sustaining than critics assume – reinforced not just by its immediate effects, but by the example it sets.
Hollywood loves a superpower. Not all involve capes or cosmic rays. Some are cognitive: characters who can remember everything. In movies and on TV, viewers repeatedly encounter those with extraordinary minds who glance once at a page, a room or a face – and later recreate every detail with surgical precision.
You see it everywhere: “Suits,” “Sherlock” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Even in children’s literature there’s fifth grader Cam Jansen, who activates her photolike memory by saying “Click!”
Most recently, it appeared in the television series “The Pitt,” set in a hospital emergency department. When the digital patient board suddenly went offline, medical student Joy Kwon saved the day by effortlessly reciting from memory every lost detail – names, rooms, doctors, conditions, vitals. It’s a gripping moment. The stakes are high, recall is perfect, and the implication is clear: Some people have minds that function like high-resolution cameras.
The idea of photographic memory is simple and powerful: Experience is captured objectively, stored completely and retrieved perfectly. See it once, keep it forever.
There’s just one problem. There’s no scientific evidence it exists.
Human memory does not work like a recording device. It’s a reconstructive process even among those with the most extraordinary skills. When you recall an event, memory doesn’t just hand you your experiences the same way every time. It’s never a matter of simply accessing, retrieving and playing back a static record of a stored slice of the past.
Rather, you reconstruct the past by piecing together the remnants of experience available to you in the moment of recollection. It’s a process shaped by a range of factors, including the search cues you use; your present knowledge, attitudes and goals; and your current state of mind or mood.
Because each of these factors is dynamic and changing, you’ll remember the past differently today – if ever so slightly – from how you remembered it yesterday, and differently from how you’ll remember it tomorrow. What you remember is not only incomplete but also inexact.
A closer look at extraordinary memory
Some people, such as memory competition champions, do have extraordinary memories. They can memorize thousands of digits or entire decks of cards in minutes. Their feats are real, but they don’t come from a memory that takes mental snapshots.
Instead, these people rely on strategies – mental frameworks built through thousands of hours of deliberate practice to scaffold their memory in specific domains. Without these strategies and in other aspects of life, their recall looks pretty much like everyone else’s. Experts’ performance reflects better methods, not different machinery.
In the scientific literature, the ability that comes closest to photographic memory is eidetic imagery: a form of visual mental imagery in which people claim they can briefly continue to “see” pictures they carefully studied and that are then removed from view.
This ability is rare, is seen mostly in children, and usually disappears by adolescence. Even at its peak, however, it falls short of the Hollywood ideal. Eidetic images fade quickly and are not perfectly accurate. They can include distortions and even details that were not seen.
It’s exactly what you’d expect from a reconstructive memory system – and exactly what you would not expect from a literal recording.
Forgetting is a feature and not a flaw
The myth about photographic memories feeds into the idea that your memory has failed if you can’t remember – that if your memory worked right, it would operate like a camera. When you can’t retrieve information or you lose it entirely, it can feel like something has gone wrong.
For instance, people use their memories of the past to forecast the future. Perfect memory would be a liability. Forgetting washes out the details of specific episodes and retains the gist so you can apply past experiences to novel situations, not just those that exactly match what happened before.
Forgetting also guards your emotional health. The dulling of memories for negative events, like say an embarrassing episode, makes it easier for you to move on than if you reexperienced all the details in full force every time the event came to mind.
Forgetting protects your sense of self as well. Memories of your past form the foundation of your identity. To help maintain a stable self-concept, people selectively modify or even forget those memories that challenge their views of themselves.
The rare individuals who come closest to having near-perfect memory often reveal the downsides. People with highly superior autobiographical memory can remember nearly every day of their lives in vivid detail. If you ask one of these people to recall what they did on Nov. 24, 1999, they likely can tell you.
Their extraordinary ability seems to come from a habitual, even compulsive, reflection on their past and a focus on anchoring memories to dates. However, this skill is limited to autobiographical events, and they are prone to various kinds of memory distortions and errors just like everyone else.
While this ability might sound like an advantage, many people with highly superior autobiographical memory describe it as exhausting. They struggle to move past negative experiences because their memories make them seem as sharp as ever.
Accurate – and empowering – view of memory
Beliefs about “perfect memory” shape how people judge students, eyewitnesses, patients and even themselves. They influence legal decisions, educational practices and unrealistic expectations about what human minds can – and should – do.
Letting go of the camera metaphor could be a step toward better understanding how memory works. The brain is not a roll of film, it’s a storyteller – one that edits, interprets and reshapes the past in light of the present.
Many people finish the workday not just tired but wired. Their mind keeps racing, their body feels tense, and even in moments that should be restful they feel a lingering sense of urgency. Conversations replay in their mind, unfinished tasks resurface, and their nervous system seems unwilling to power down.
You may recognize this experience. It has become so common that it is often accepted as the norm in modern professional life. Yet this persistent state of activation carries consequences for physical health, especially for people prone to headaches.
As a board-certified neurologist who specializes in headache medicine, I see a lot of patients whose pain increases from the high-pressure work culture prevalent today. While it might seem beyond your control, there are some steps you can take.
The nervous system perceives and processes both stress and pain. Built to be highly adaptable, it continually responds to internal signals and external factors, constantly recalibrating to maintain balance. When the brain continuously perceives ongoing demands without adequate recovery, it keeps the body in a prolonged state of alertness.
During these periods of ongoing stress, hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline remain persistently elevated. In this sensitized state, signals that would typically be ignored or interpreted as minor can start to feel much more intense.
This means that persistent exposure to stress may drive up frequency and severity of migraine episodes. In addition, muscle tension in the neck, shoulders and scalp – a frequent effect of stress – can cause tension headaches, too.
Extended periods of sitting, sustained concentration and physical tension during the workday can contribute to the development of tension headaches in the later hours of the day.
Poor sleep, too much desk time and other factors can exacerbate the effects of stress on the nervous system, leading to headaches. ChadaYui/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Poor sleep can, in turn, perpetuate the stress cycle, leaving the brain further sensitized and increasing the likelihood of headaches the following day. This loop can be difficult to break, as fatigue reduces resilience and amplifies the sense of being overwhelmed that comes with stress.
In addition to affecting sleep, chronic stress impairs concentration and cognitive function. When the brain remains in a state of constant vigilance, scanning for demands and threats, it becomes harder to focus, be creative and solve problems. As a result, productivity declines, errors become more frequent and frustration mounts, adding to the overall stress burden.
Headaches that occur alongside these cognitive challenges can further disrupt daily life, making even routine tasks feel difficult.
Managing work stress
Understanding the connection between stress and the nervous system points to some steps you can take to shift the nervous system out of its constantly activated state. You’ll never eliminate stress entirely – that’s neither realistic nor necessary. But it is possible to create intentional space for the body to reset:
Build small transitions into your day. Instead of immediately jumping from work to other obligations, take five to 10 minutes between activities to pause, breathe deeply, stretch or sit quietly. Even brief pauses can reduce muscle tension and lower stress hormone levels.
Add physical activity into your routine. Regular movement, such as walking, yoga or gentle stretching, helps regulate the nervous system by processing stress hormones more efficiently. It also improves blood flow and promotes the release of endorphins, which are natural pain modulators.
Pay attention to posture and ergonomics. Change the chair or screen height, take breaks to move, and relax your shoulders and jaw to prevent tension headaches.
Try to set boundaries around work. When possible, limit after-hours email, define a clear end to your day and designate certain areas within your home as work-free zones.
Seek support if headaches persist. A medical evaluation can look for underlying causes and guide appropriate treatment options. Physical therapy, behavioral therapy and pain reprocessing therapy can address physical and emotional contributors to headaches.
Small, consistent strategies that address both biological and lifestyle causes of headaches can minimize the effects of chronic stress and encourage nervous system regulation. Over time, these strategies can gradually reduce headache frequency and severity, improving overall quality of life.
