Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
by Robert M. Sapolsky
Related videos
15:52
Author discusses behavioral changes plus slides in TED format
1M
35K
May, 2017
Spoiler:
The author gives several examples of “incandescent” change in mindset and behavior, both in groups of humans and individuals. He discusses the 1914 Christmas Truce of World War I, for example, when a temporary cease-fire was ordered to allow soldiers to collect and bury bodies. However, it took only a few hours for soldiers from opposing sides to start playing soccer together and building friendships. He says human behavior is fed by so many complex factors that we must be careful when judging others.
73:13
Author presents at Stanford University and shows slides
0.9M
21K
Jun, 2018
Spoiler:
The author says that we are both a phenomenally violent and an amazingly altruistic species. How to make sense of ourselves at our best and worst? He describes several parts of the brain that play into human behavior, including the amygdala, the insular cortex, the dopamine system, and the frontal cortex. He says the frontal cortex is the most recently evolved part of the brain and is the one that helps us do the right thing and the hard thing, postponing gratification when necessary.
4:06
Key concept from the book, demonstrated in animated format
119K
4K
Dec, 2020
Spoiler:
We must be cautious when making moral judgments about the behavior of others. Human behavior is influenced by what happened in the brain a millisecond ago, what happened years before in childhood, what happened in the womb, and what happened millions of years ago when our ancestors formed their culture. To make an informed judgment, we would also have to know what happened about 5 million years ago, when humans and chimpanzees shared their last common ancestor.
7:54
Author appears live at Politics and Prose to discuss human brain
29K
676
May, 2017
Spoiler:
Sapolsky describes several parts of the brain that are relevant to human behavior. One is the insular cortex, which keeps us alive by helping us perceive rotten food as disgusting. The author says that if we even think about eating something disgusting, our insular cortex activates. However, while in every other mammal the insular cortex is about gustatory repulsion, in humans it also activates around moral disgust. Getting large groups of humans to feel this literal stomach-turning disgust towards specific groups of other humans is one thing that leads to genocide.
Follow the author
Other books by Robert M. Sapolsky
Publications
The Guardian: Behave by Robert Sapolsky review – why do we do what we do?
The New York Times: Insights Into the Brain, in a Book You’ll Wish You Had in College
The Wall Street Journal: How the Brain Makes Us Do It
The Washington Post: Why an adolescent might either mug an old lady or help the needy
Ask Albert:
Rate the book
More books
"The gut microbiome plays a significant role in making our neurotransmitters, which control our thoughts and feelings and regulate mood and behavior."
"Instead of holding a vision of how sick your child could get, integrative pediatrics holds a vision of how well your child can be."
"While the reward-seeking parts of the brain mature earlier, the frontal cortex—essential for self-control, delay of gratification, and resistance to temptation—is not up to full capacity until the mid-20s..."
"We built a food system that poisons us—and then, to keep us away from the avalanche of bad food, we decided to inject ourselves with a different potential poison, one that puts us off all food."
“In short, anything and everything that was “wrong” with women could be attributed to hysteria—and was, with wild abandon.”
"First, Medicine 3.0 places a far greater emphasis on prevention than treatment."
"Movement is medicine, and the simplest acts of daily motion can have profound impacts on our health and longevity."
"Learning to let go of sexual shame can open up new possibilities for pleasure."
"I wanted to coach women to be the best in the world, but without subscribing to the dominant paradigm that athletes are disposable and that winning was worth just about any price."
"Shedding toxic myths of disconnection from ourselves, from one another, and from the planet, we can bring what is normal and what is natural, bit by bit, closer together."
"Over and over, the answer is the same, isn’t it? Love, love, love. The salve and the cure."
"I believe that if an Attention Rebellion begins, we will, sooner or later, have to take on this very deep issue: the growth machine itself."
recommends
"Addiction is not a sign of weakness or moral failing. It's a sign that we are human, with brains that are wired to seek out pleasure and avoid pain."
"Sleep is the single most effective thing we can do to reset our brain and body health each day - Mother Nature's best effort yet at contra-death."
recommends
"The meaning of life must be something that, beneath the surface, motivates the majority of what we do, makes us happy when we are in line with it and unhappy when we are not."
"Where you are is a result of who you were, but where you end up depends entirely on who you choose to be from this moment forward."
"The ideal of the local and the organic isn't an aesthetic decision. It's a moral and ethical decision."
"Our relationship with the microbes that live within us is not just one of coexistence, but one of mutualism and symbiosis."
recommends