Behave (book)
First edition | |
| Author | Robert Sapolsky |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Biology of human behavior |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Penguin Press |
Publication date | May 2, 2017 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Pages | 800 |
| ISBN | 978-1-59420-507-1 |
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst is a 2017 non-fiction book by Robert Sapolsky. It describes how various biological processes influence human behavior, on scales ranging from less than a second before an action to thousands of years before.
Reception
A review in The Guardian called Behave "a miraculous synthesis of scholarly domains".[1] Kirkus Reviews called it "An exemplary work of popular science, challenging but accessible."[2] A review in the Star Tribune considers Behave to be Sapolsky's magnum opus as well as "a stunning achievement and an invaluable addition to the canon of scientific literature."[3] In Science Magazine's edited book review blog, Behave was described as "exceptional in its scale, scope, detail, and writing style".[4]
References
- Poole, Steven (June 9, 2017). "Behave by Robert Sapolsky review – why do we do what we do?". The Guardian.
- "BEHAVE | Kirkus Reviews". Kirkus Reviews. March 7, 2017.
- Cain, Hamilton (June 30, 2017). "REVIEW: 'Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst,' by Robert M. Sapolsky". Star Tribune.
- de Waal, Frans (June 20, 2017). "A comprehensive tome explores the biology of our behavior". Books et al. (Science Magazine).
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Matt
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January 25, 2018
This book is a masterful distillation of academic research on social behavior. It's creatively organized, clearly written, and always fascinating. I listened on audiobook, but will probably buy a physical copy for reference.
But I'm only giving it three stars because it completely fails to grapple with the replication crisis sweeping through these fields. After Sapolsky mentioned a study that I know researchers have failed to replicate, I waited for him to discuss the subsequent controversy. He never did. At that point, I started keeping a tally of "red flags:" studies that have subsequently come under fire, but where Sapolsky fails to acknowledge any controversy about their findings.
The ones I noticed:
- People behave themselves when there is an eye watching them, even if it's just a painted eye. Researchers are having trouble replicating this finding: http://lebs.hbesj.org/index.php/lebs/...
- Implicit bias tests. Sapolsky uses this literature extensively without criticism. It's not clear it's as useful as people think: http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/01/...
- Willpower is like a muscle that gets tired from use. Something as simple as having a snack can help. Another one that it's not so clear this is true: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/03/12/...
- People take hurricanes more seriously when they are named after men. Another study that has come in for a pile of criticism: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/...
- Legalization of abortion led to a drop in crime two decades later. No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legaliz... and also Steven Pinker's critique in Better Angels of Our Nature.
- Air rage is more likely if coach passengers have to pass through first class. Probably not. http://www.pnas.org/content/113/47/E7... and http://andrewgelman.com/?s=air+rage
- Judges are way harsher right before lunch. Non. http://nautil.us/blog/impossibly-hung...
- Priming studies (cited extensively). Not so easy to replicate. http://andrewgelman.com/2016/02/12/pr...
These issues have percolated through the mainstream. Just last week, the NYTimes had a great feature about the replication crisis, told through the story of Amy Cuddy (whose work is also cited uncritically in Behave): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/18/ma...
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I still found all these red flags. There are surely many I've missed. At the same time, because I'm not an expert, I can be convinced that the replication crisis isn't that big a deal. But Sapolsky doesn't even try. Unfortunately, that makes me call into question Sapolsky's authority and credibility as a guide to this literature. It's a doubt that poisoned the whole book for me, including his tour of literatures far removed from the ones above.
For example, I don't know much about neuro-imaging studies. About them Sapolsky says "These studies are difficult to pull off, as neuroimaging is as much an art as a science." When I read that, and when I've spent half the book hearing him talk confidently about lots of problematic studies, part of me wonders "hmmm, so are neuro-imaging studies garbage? Should I just skim this chapter?" I don't know!
Or at other points, he talks about studies I am unfamiliar with but because he's sacrificed his credibility on studies I do know a bit about, I don't trust his interpretations. I think to myself, "hmmm, that sounds suspect."
I seriously considered quitting the book because of these issues. I'm glad I stuck with it, because IF THIS STUFF TURNS OUT TO HOLD UP, then it's a wonderfully nuanced portrait of the factors that drive our behavior (neurological, genetic, social). But what a disappointing caveat to have to attach to a book.
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Morgan Blackledge
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July 25, 2022
Sapolsky is my lord. He's an Olympian god on high. He's a titan. This book is ########. It's almost impossible to read. It's like 10,000 pages long. But it's next to impossible not to adore.
It's basically a textbook for his ridiculously, cosmically good Stanford undergraduate course on the biology of behavior (HUMBIO 160 -Stanford)
You're not fully sentient until you have watched all 20+ hours of his lectures from the course (at least once) which are freely available on YouTube. Or listened to them in condensed form in his absolutely spellbinding audio programs available by Great Courses.
The message is more glorious than any gospel or sage vision. Its biology man. It's a real live magical miracle.
We are meat bags of salt water, lipids, proteins and chemicals, that emerged from endoplasmic sewage, and are now capable of having an experience.
Dude!
That alone is frickin amazing beyond words, but that's only the beginning.
Sapolsky is a puckish rascal genius.
Sapolsky is an intellectual nonpareil.
This is a horrible AF review of the important work of a fuckin' intellectual demigod.
FIVE STARS!!!!
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Always Pouting
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March 2, 2022
Robert Sapolsky is a neuroendocrinologist and has studied primates for decades in Africa, and I love him. If anyone wants to watch it he did a TED talk on what makes human's unique from other animals: https://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapo.... The book itself covers a wide range of topics, mostly centered around neurology and it's subsequent effect on behavior. The book is a little long and dense and I have finals so I shouldn't even be reading it, but I've been making time to get it done anyways.
The book goes through the biology of behavior and describes what happens when we do something and how the body's various hormones and major neurotransmitters work to shape it. The book then goes into the genetic and evolutionary basis of our behavior and the ways we're predisposed to think about others specifically in groups and out groups. This topic is then expanded to talk about culture and hierarchies and our unique behavior as humans of killing over ideas. The book end with a discussion of neurology's place in law and how much culpability people actually have for their actions. There's an appendix at the end of the book for those not as familiar with neuroscience or hormones and proteins of the body.
This was a really ambitious undertaking, and the book covers such a vast amount of information. I learned a lot but even with my own familiarity with a lot of the subjects it took me a while to get through this one so I'm not sure how enjoyable this will be for a more general audience. I had so many different thoughts while reading this because it brought up a lot of more pertinent issues but now I can't think of any of them for some reason. I think I'm just a little overtaken with how much I learned from the book. Sapolsky even talked about a lot of popular nonfiction books I havent gotten around to reading plus the criticisms of them and what the evidence against and for them are.
It's just a lot to wrap my head around and I mean his whole point is that behavior is extremely complex and context dependent and that we don't yet understand enough to be able to predict it accurately. There are certain ways of thinking that we are predisposed towards but nothing is a hundred percent certain yet. I love neurology and the brain and so this is my type of books so of course I enjoyed it immensely,I'm not sure how much anyone else would like it. He did a very thorough job going through the current literature and covering much of what is being talked about in the present which a lot of nonfiction books tend not to do. I learned a lot and I really think I need to read more of Sapolsky's books.
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Mario the lone bookwolf
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December 19, 2021
The style of presentation, the concept of showing how interconnected everything is and to expand tiny elements of a second to a broad picture of millions of years are amazing, it seems so logical and consistent once one has grasped the importantce of this work, but nobody before Sapolsky mixed so many interdisciplinary approaches together to form such a comprehensive picture.
This travel back in time starts at the moment of any human action and its neurological, neurochemical, hormonal, neuroelectric,... background and what epigenetic and genetic factor made such a behaviour a habit, a personality, a group dynamic, a cultural identity. And then we go far back until primate times and see what might have influenced our current emotion and illusion of ego and self millions of years ago, and take a glimpse at the one or other event that happened between now and then and the mysticismn and theories rotating around those.
Of course it first seems a bit far fetched to go from hormones and neurotransmitters to apes, but the stages of culture, groups, tribes, hierarchies, mating, violence, competition,… are still very dominant in our genes and much we wouldn´t associate with fight or flight or mate and date instinct is permanently conscious and subconscous influencing our mental condition and thinking.
Sapolsky has a unique view, because he studied both primates and humans and can build his theories on hard facts and field studies, he is close to a modern polymath with his fields neuroendicronoly, neurology, neurosurgery, and biological sciences and he covers everything possible.
There is the question of how much of guilt and responsiblity could be linked to and relativated by brain science and how the law should possibly consider using modern techniques to check what´s going on in a criminals mind, but that´s more a philosophical ethics course topic until there is enough evidence to get it integrated in legislation.
We are so individual and unique that our complex, barely understood consciousnesses make it harder to determine what one person is going to do, while it´s becoming easier to predict large scale- and group dynamics thanks to tech. I did always know that my irresponsible and immature behaviour can be surprising, unpredictable, dangerous, and very funny and now I have the theoretical superstructure to substantiate it.
Not to change or something like that, become a better human, mindfulness, meditation and stuff, no, what are you thinking about me, I like my primitive instincts, just because I now know everything about them doesn´t mean that I can´t enjoy living them out. Come on, anger, greed, and horniness, let´s roll.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroen...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_e...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categor...
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Michael
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June 5, 2017
This is an outstanding and monumental synthesis on the causes of behavior by a talented researcher and teacher. He excels in making the science of the brain and behavior accessible to a wide audience without oversimplification. The goal is to provide a handle on how to account for the origins of the most admirable and most despicable of human actions, i.e. the roots of empathy and altruism on the one hand and violence, war, and genocide on the other.
Sapolsky’s accomplishment yields an expansion of what we mean by the biological basis of behavior, enough knowledge of brain systems to make you dangerous, and a better appreciation of the interplay between cognitive and emotional contributions to our actions. You will come away with a better appreciation of human evolution, an informed perspective on whether our hunter-gatherer ancestors were more aligned with a Hobbesian dog-eat-dog character or of an Edenic Rousseau types. In the end, he mounts an assault on the need for a concept of free will, arguing that it is equivalent to putting a homunculus in the driver’s seat above the material universe. His mantra is for a multifactorial and hierarchical array of causes behind behavior. In the end it will be easy to conclude that the extreme complexity of the brain limits the gains in explanatory power from any simplistic reductionist plan. I this vein, I liked the quote from Hilary Bok:
The claim that a person chose her action does not conflict with the claim that some neural processes or state caused it; it simply redescribes it.
Sapolsky’s organizing principle of serving up mountains of research progress according to different timescales that precede particular behaviors is a very helpful approach. Looking at events a second before a behavior taps into automated and unconscious processes in the brain; seconds before brings in higher neural systems associated with conscious actions; hours to days before is the realm of hormonal influences; days to months before the impact of things like chronic stress and adaptations of neuroplasticity; years and decades before includes the shaping of culture and individual development; and centuries to millennia before the processes of evolution. You’ll be busting at the seams by the time you get through this program. He is so skilled at introducing humor and commonsense translations to the concepts presented you will be amazed in your ability to follow his presentation and never fall asleep. If some of the presentation doesn’t quite sink in, he excels in summary take-home messages at the end of each chapter and provision of frequent links among the chapters.
A big plus for me was his overall humility and restraint in claiming more than is reasonably warranted from the data. He is scathing for the excessive claims such as of genetic causes of bad behavior (e.g. calling a variant of a monoamine oxidase gene that provides limited predictability for violent behavior a “warrior gene”), use of premenstrual syndrome as a claim of diminished responsibility in a court defense, and the puffing up of the evidence about “mirror neurons”, which are active both when a primate acts and observes the same act in another, as the foundation of empathy and altruism. The stupendous advances from being able to assess activity of significant brain structures in humans through functional magnetic resonance imaging are also subject to overinterpretation, which I think he mostly avoids. I liked his outrage that the problem of PTSD depended on brain scans showing shrinkage of the hippocampus to get Congress to recognize the problem as worthy of expanding treatment resources. For me, I was more impressed by the power of images of changed receptors in the meth addict’s brain to justify more funding of substance abuse treatment as a “brain” disease. The principle is the same: these people need help in the social and psychological realm, and using images as a reification of their state doesn’t really change the situation. That said, I was disappointed with his simplistic summary that schizophrenia is a “biochemical disorder” and dyslexia a result of “microscopic cortical malformations”.
The interdisciplinary nature of the topics here raises the issue of reliability of the presenter in interpreting the research. I appreciate how the author has a solid track record both in field studies of dominance and aggression in baboons and in laboratory studies on hormonal and brain system roles in social behaviors. Having been a researcher in the area of brain mechanisms of aggression and motivational systems for several years, I can testify to the veracity and wisdom of his analyses of brain studies. As my former scientific career ended up mostly in the area of brain development and plasticity, I can say he was inaccurate on the status of research on a couple of subjects (e.g. the claim of long distance sprouting of new connections to account for repurposing of the visual cortex in blind people; the conclusion that the extensive neuron cell death during development serves primarily an error-correction function).
Can the average reader handle and dig all the brain talk in this book? I think the author does a great job keeping the jargon down in the narrative and slipping a lot of the details into copious footnotes, providing a primer on basic neuroscience in an appendix, and justifying significant points with a huge collection of references stored in the back. A couple of areas of the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, and the dopamine reinforcement system get the starring role in most of the studies discussed. As an example, here is a bit on the dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex:
The dlPFC is the decider of deciders, the most rational, cognitive, utilitarian, unsentimental part of the PFC. …In contrast to the dlPFC, there’s the ventral part of the PFC, particularly the ventromedial PFC (vmPFC). …This is ..an honorary member of the limbic system because of its interconnections with it. Logically, the vmPFC is all about the impact of emotion on decision making. And many of our best and worst behaviors involve interactions of the vmPFC with the limbic system and the dlPFC.
…Consider a classic moral quandary—is it okay to kill one innocent person to save five? When people ponder the question, greater dlPFC activation predicts a greater likelihood of answering yes.…
In this bit on dopamine, I give you a taste of his humor:
Though the dopamine system is similar across numerous species, humans do something utterly novel: we delay gratification for insanely long times. No warthog restricts calories to look good in a bathing suit next summer. No gerbil works hard at school to get good SAT scores to get into a good college to get into a good grad school to get a good job to get into a good nursing home.
Here is a sample on the amygdala, long linked to a major role in fear and anxiety:
Amygdalae are prepared to learn to associate something bad with Them.
So if whites see a black face shown at a subliminal speed, the amygdala activates. But if the face is shown long enough for conscious processing, and anterior cingulate cortex and the “cognitive” dlPFC then activate and inhibit the amygdala.
…This is so depressing—are we hardwired to fear the face of someone from another race, to process their face less as a face, to feel less empathy? No. For starters there’s tremendous individual variation …Moreover, subtle manipulations rapidly change the amygdaloid response to the face of an Other.
Here is a good example of his humility in the face of the brains complexity:
A “neurobiological” or “genetic” or “developmental” explanation for a behavior is just shorthand, an expository convenience for temporarily approaching the whole multifactorial arc from a particular perspective.
Pretty impressive, huh? Actually, maybe not. Maybe I’m just pretentiously saying, “You have to think complexly about complex things.” Wow, what a revelation. And maybe what I’ve been tacitly setting up is this full-of-ourselves straw man of “Oooh, we’re going to think subtly. We won’t get suckered into simplistic answers, not like those chickencrossing-the-road neurochemists and chicken evolutionary biologists and chicken psychoanalysts., all living in their own limited categorical buckets.”
Sapolsky shines in his overview on the roles of testosterone on aggression, of oxytocin on empathy and prosocial behavior, and of stress on both realms of behavior. I liked his conclusion that no drug or hormone or gene can be said to cause a behavior. And all we know of a person’s state of brain health, genetic background, and experience does not provide a reliable predictor of bad or good behavior. At a critical point Sapolsky illustrates the importance of a multifactorial outlook by considering whether a particular woman will suffer from depression. Having a certain variant of the serotonin transporter gene has at most a 10% predictive power. But adding development in poverty, experience of child abuse, levels of glucocorticoids in the bloodstream, living in a collectivist culture, and menstrual status might bring you up get you up to a 50% level of prediction. This illustrates both progress in understanding the causes of behavior and the limitations of such knowledge.
The author hits a popular vein in his chapter on adolescence. The late maturation of the prefrontal cortex and its function to in reigning in excessive emotionality or impulsive behaviors is held to represent a biological foundation for the folly of youth. I’m not sure what benefits we get in how to treat teenagers wisely with this knowledge over the standard psychological consideration of them as being immature. We are not far from McLean’s model of the Triune Brain, with the neocortex in primates an evolutionary wonder that is seen as riding herd on the unruly mammalian limbic system and lizard-brain of the brainstem like Freud’s Superego over the Id. And emphasizing to parents and teachers the risks of teens’ late development of executive brain functions practically puts them in the category of the brain-damaged. Still, it was fun to experience how eloquent Sapolsky gets on the subject:
If by adolescence limbic, autonomic, and endocrine systems are going full blast, while the frontal cortex is still working out the assembly instructions, we’ve just explained why adolescents are so frustrating, great, asinine, impulsive, inspiring, destructive, self-destructive, selfless, selfish, impossible, and world-changing.
Where it comes to egregious acts of violence or crime, neuroscience provides little new ground for or against excusing someone’s responsibility for their acts on the basis of biological causes not in the person’s control. Still, an essential role of the criminal justice system is to “protect the endangered from the dangerous”. And despite any solid way to predict dangerousness, juries need to consider diminished capacities for judgment among the accused. Knowledge about the delayed maturation of frontal cortical systems in adolescents helps to justify being more lenient on them in the justice system. The philosopher Stephen Pinker and neuroscientist Michael Gazzanaga both lean with Sapolsky toward the concept that free will is an illusion, but they still argue we must hold people responsible to varying degrees for violent criminal acts. The argument that a man can’t help being a pedophile but is responsible for acts of child abuse is compelling. But Sapolsky holds his ground that the latter acts are biologically determined no less than the ingrained proclivity to fixate on children and to think otherwise reflects an unscientific dualism of an ethereal homunculus pulling the strings. He doesn’t have a practical answer for reforming the criminal justice system, though he did launch an ongoing discussion between a group of jurists and social scientists and a set of neuroscientists starting with a workshop. One can expect further encroachment of neuroscience into the courtroom, which Sapolsky hopes will proceed with great caution:
Perhaps we’ll have to settle for making sure our homuncular myths are benign and save the heavy lifting of truly thinking rationally for what matters—when we judge others harshly.
Hopefully, the new science of unconscious biases among juries and judges can also be applied to help mitigate some of the excess manipulations of the prosecutors and defense lawyers. For example, research showing that sentences rendered by judges tend to be more severe when they are hungry (i.e. right before lunch). And all members of society (and jury members) must somehow be on guard for subterranean perceptions like the following:
From an early age, in both sexes and across cultures, attractive people are judged to be smarter, kinder, and more honest. We’re more likely to vote for attractive people or hire them, less likely to convict them of crimes, more likely to dole out shorter sentences. Remarkably, the medial orbitofrontal cortex assesses both the beauty of a face and the goodness of a behavior, and its level on one of those tasks predicts the level during the other. The brain does similar things when contemplating beautiful minds, hearts, and cheekbones. And assumes that cheekbones tell something about minds and hearts.
This is a long book, but I wished the author would have spent more time on the nature of war from a biological perspective. I don’t believe he ever broached the subject of territorial aggression, which represents one of the major classes of intraspecies violence found among many species and some primates and the form that most closely resembles human group conflicts that involve killing people over turf. Maybe the outrageous claims of a territorial instinct behind human war by the likes of Desmond Morris and Robert Ardrey nearly 40 years ago still make this a disreputable topic for current scientists to pursue. The discovery that groups of chimps sometimes coordinate together on patrols and raids into another chimp community and kill members they encounter was a shock to many who imbibed Jane Goodall’s portrait of their communities, and obvious analogies to human war were made in the media. Usually territorial conflicts in animals are resolved through symbolic displays that provoke a withdrawal by the intruders of another groups’ territory. The professor I worked with on a brain region that appeared to organize the freeze-flight-fight system in rats in the early 70’s, David Adams, went on to lead efforts that emphasized that the technology and weapons humans use in group conflicts in the historical period makes war a different kettle of fish from animal territorial aggression because the distances over which the weapons operate preclude use of the usual behavioral signals that moderate lethal outcomes. As part of his work for UNESCO he helped facilitate the drafting of the Seville Statement on Violence in 1986, a proclamation signed by 20 prominent scientists that aimed “to dispel the widespread belief that human beings are inevitably disposed to war as a result of innate, biologically determined aggressive traits” (see http://www.culture-of-peace.info/).
A lot of the debate about biological foundations of lethal violence in humans centers around studies of contemporary hunter-gatherer societies and anthropological evidence from ancient human remains. Popular books by people like Jared Diamond and Stephen Pinker interpret such data to indicate that prehistoric humans were always perpetrators of war. Sapolsky spends significant time on the criticisms from various sources on the veracity of the data from hunter-gatherer societies and argues that the advent of agriculture and fixed settlements made warfare more deadly because conflict resolution by moving to a new territory became a less feasible option. The thesis in Pinker’s recent book, “Better Angels of Our Nature”, that the death rate from war has declined substantially over the historical period does not really figure into considerations of the prehistoric hunter-gatherer origins of our species. Nevertheless, Sapolsky criticizes his use of data on death estimates from some historical genocidal events without taking into account their long duration (e.g. centuries for the black slave trade and colonial annihilation of Native Americans). After taking duration as well as population density into account, wars and genocides of the 20th century account for half of the top 10 events of megadeath from violence in known history (surprisingly the Rwandan genocide makes the list under this framework due to its 700K deaths over only 100 days).
Much food for thought can be found in this important book. If you want to learn a bit more about Sapolsky the man and his fascinating field work on baboons, I highly recommend his A Primate’s Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons . This book was provided by the publisher for review through the Netgalley program.
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Tony
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July 27, 2018
I finished this yesterday, but I had to stop first and catch my breath before writing a review. This was a whirlwind, a high-speed ride, exercising my amygdala mightily. No book I’ve read, at least this year, has challenged me the way this one has. And not just the science, which I will largely forget in its details soon enough. More so, the intellectual challenge was in questioning almost everything I believe.
Why do we behave the way we do? You’ll get no biology primer from me. Let’s plunge right in:
In the fall of 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, and in the run-up to the Gulf War, Americans were sickened by a story that emerged. On October 10, 1990, a fifteen-year-old refugee from Kuwait appeared before a congressional Human Rights Caucus.
The girl—she would only give her first name, Nayirah—had volunteered in a hospital in Kuwait City. She tearfully testified that Iraqi soldiers had stolen incubators to ship home as plunder, leaving over three-hundred premature infants to die.
Our collective breath was taken away. . . . The testimony was seen on the news by approximately 45 million Americans, was cited by seven senators when justifying their support of war (a resolution that passed by five votes), and was cited more than ten times by George H. W. Bush in arguing for U.S. military involvement. And we went to war with a 92 percent approval rating of the president’s decision. In the words of Representative John Porter (R-Illinois), who chaired the committee . . . , “we have never heard, in all this time, in all circumstances, a record of inhumanity, and brutality, and sadism, as the ones that [Nayirah had] given us today.”
Much later it emerged that the incubator story was a pseudospeciating lie. The refugee was no refugee. She was Nayirah al-Sabah, the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. The incubator story was fabricated by the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton, hired by the Kuwaiti government with the help of Porter and cochair Representative Tom Lantos (D-California). Research by the firm indicated that people would be particularly responsive to stories about atrocities against babies (ya think?), so the incubator story was concocted, the witness coached. The story was disavowed by human rights groups . . . and the media, and the testimony was withdrawn from the Congressional Record—long after the war.
Be careful when our enemies are made to remind us of maggots and cancer and shit. But also beware when it is our empathic intuitions, rather than hateful ones, that are manipulated by those who use us for their own goals.
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In the 1990s crime rates plummeted nationwide. Liberals cited the thriving economy. Conservatives credited policing, expanded prisons, and three-strike sentencing laws. Neither, says, our author. Demographics showed that crime rates dropped in areas where abortions became legally, readily available. This was highly controversial, but it makes perfect, depressing sense to me, our author writes. What majorly predicts a life of crime? Being born to a mother who, if she could, would have chosen that you not be.
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Drone pilots, who sit somewhere far-removed from battle, but can blow up a group of men sitting around a campfire just by pushing a button, and watch the whole thing (you know, body parts) on their computer screen, have the same rate of Post-Traumatic Stress as soldiers in the field.
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. . . in a study of more than 1,100 judicial rulings, prisoners were granted parole at about a 60 percent rate when judges had recently eaten, and at essentially a 0 percent rate just before judges ate. . . . Justice may be blind, but she’s sure sensitive to her stomach gurgling.
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Okay, enough examples from the book; I’ll spare you the pages and pages of notes. I read this book because Sapolsky’s book A Primate’s Memoir is an all-time favorite. And this is his life work, here. He didn’t lose me with the long biology lesson at the beginning of the book. Indeed, he sorta said just read through this, enough will stick to understand what follows. But then he resorted to, essentially, sociological surveys to support his positions. Academic things. I’ve been on the answering end of such surveys and understand just how pre-ordained and un-scientific they can be. And, as smart as he is (very, and much smarter than me) he doesn’t get that sometimes when he was talking about bias, he kind of exposed his own biases. He repeatedly confessed to being a Liberal, then stated as scientific fact that Liberals are more intelligent than Conservatives. Which brings up another point. Before plunging into a discussion of Politics, he notes that there are lot of hands raised in that terrain between Liberal and Conservative. My rough guess is that perhaps a majority of people join me in that middle ground. But Sapolsky says, never mind, let’s just consider Liberals and Conservatives. Well, no you can’t; and even if you could, it sure as hell wouldn’t be science. And, oh, he’s glib, with repeated stay tuned and all that is cool, but. . .; and he even reduces himself to making fun of someone’s name.
So, yes, some things he wrote got my amygdala all agitated. But then my frontal cortex took over, which I now know it will do, and let me analyze what he is saying as objectively as I could.
We are learning more from science every day. Like, that that frontal cortex (the decider) isn’t fully online until our twenties. So what responsibility does a 14-year-old murderer own? We once burned epileptics as witches, owned slaves, and thought those acts appropriate, justified, biblically-sanctioned. Now we wonder how we could have done that. What will we think of how we behave now in 100 years, 500 years?
Notwithstanding some annoyances, which I stated above, this really is a remarkable book and highly recommended by me. It takes a while and is not easy in spots. Maybe first check out some lectures by Sapolsky, readily available on YouTube. You will get a sense of his depth, humor and manic energy, all of which fuel this book. Here’s one about the topic in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Oa4... and here’s one on how religion is a mental illness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJM5m... .
This book changed me, of that I’m sure. Imagine that. Now, excuse me, I have to do some chipmunk experiments.
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Bharath
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January 28, 2019
In the shortest possible summary, let me start by saying that Behave is a stupendous book, and among the best science books I have read. While it is a book of science, and very detailed in parts at that – it is still highly recommended reading for everybody. After all, who is not curious about why we behave the way we do. This book is certainly a tribute to the remarkable progress science has made in understanding our brain and our behaviours. However, be warned that it is a big book, which has a lot of detail and you might be in for a slower read than many other books.
Robert Sapolsky invokes interest and curiosity right from the start - talking about how we are very conflicted in our beliefs – especially we condemn many acts of violence, but do support others. I have to admit I have many conflicts I am unable to resolve myself – such as the fact that I find very impressive the progress that science has made as detailed in this book, and yet I am very pained that much of this has come with cruel experiments on animals.
The organisation of the book is very logical – it traces an action from when it happens, to moments before, months/years before and potentially several years earlier in cases. Experiments show that there are several markers in our brain which light up, before we take any action. So the big question (which the book Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari explores as well) – do we really have free will? Do we have the ability to stop when the natural instinct kicks in? As it turns out, much of how we act is a result of a multitude of factors – events which have happened at any time previously - sometimes well in the past, our genes, environment, and many others, some of it still to be determined. This has extremely important implications for law enforcement as well.
There are excellent examples: eg: when you compliment a child on good work, telling them they are clever vs telling them they are hardworking invokes very different responses. While we appreciate empathy – the ability to step into and feel the others experience, empathy stalls action. Compassion is more effective. The discussion around how the brain responds to meditation are alluded to – though I think it deserved far more coverage. There are also other interesting lessons around how judges and juries decide punishment based on a number of factors which logic says should have no bearing.
The issues of “Us” vs “Them” is discussed in detail, and deservedly so. Our brain instantly associates some faces as “Us” and some others as “Them”. We develop this categorisation over time and this association is very strong in adulthood and near impossible to get over. While this is true even in animals, our behaviours are more complex. The “Us” categorisation could be based on country, language, religion, colour, and others. The natural tendency is to think in terms of aggregate labels rather than as individuals, accounting for much of our biases.
This is a big book, and one for which I should have taken notes. But I did not. Since there is a wealth of important information, I expect I will have to revisit the book again – when I feel I am forgetting its contents.
The Appendix has information on Brain / Genes / Hormones which is worth taking a look at. This is an exceptional book, though certainly not light reading. Since it packs great amount of detail, it is a more difficult read than for instance “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari. However, I very strongly recommend this – for reading at the earliest possible
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April 22, 2019
Has an ingenious structure: starting with a piece of behaviour, work backwards through the many scales that caused it: from the nerve bundles that enable the muscle motion, through the brain processing that ordered those, through that morning's hormonal predisposing, foetal genetic construction, all the way to the ancestral environment.
Sapolsky is engagingly cranky about various things: traditional misogynies, war. He uses the neologism "pseudospeciation" (i.e. the dehumanising kind of racism) about 50 times.
He is often thrillingly unimpressed:
Jane Goodall blew everyone's socks off by reporting the now-iconic fact that chimps make tools... Most cultural anthropologists weren't thrilled by Goodall's revolution, and now emphasise definitions that cut chimps and other hoi polloi out of the party. There's a fondness for the thinking of Alfred Kroeber, Clyde Kluckhohn, and Clifford Geertz, three heavyweights who focused on how culture is about ideas and symbols, rather than the mere behaviours in which they instantiate, or material products like flint blades or iPhones...
Basically, I don't want to go anywhere near these debates. For our purposes we'll rely on an intuitive definition of culture emphasised by Frans de Waal: culture is how we do and think about things.
But he's way too credulous about social science. For instance, I recommend skipping the last half of chapter 3, on social psychology, entirely. In the space of two pages (p90-1) he cites power pose, facial feedback, ego depletion, and himmicanes; all as exciting, uncontroversial fact. This is a clean sweep of recent studies well-known to be p-hacked, low-power and spurious.
He also endorses the results of Implicit Association and stereotype threat tests far too strongly. I don't know enough about neuroscience or endocrinology or ethology to make a similar recommendation for the other chapters. But the "Gell-Mann amnesia" effect sadly suggests that we should (partially) discount everything else in here, primates aside; evidence of credulity in one domain is evidence for others.
(Best case, he just didn't keep up with the latest research dramas. Though some results, like the litter -> theft link or the Macbeth effect, have been comprehensively criticised for 8+ years now, so.)
He also takes anthropologists at their qualitative, cherry-picking word when they try to maintain their academic boundary against Pinker's work on violence.
Still worth it for his first-hand stories - him watching Somali oil workers conduct ritual argument, him watching a troop of baboons spread a culture - a pocket of pacifism and gender sanity in the psychotic roundabout of nature.
Minus 1 point because his empirical judgments are unreliable. : (
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January 10, 2021
Sapolsky serves up the most broad-ranging and accessible examination of human behavior. The sheer scope of the book is daunting, but thankfully Sapolsky is an expert guide, taking us one step at a time through how what influences actions, what influences thoughts, how the human brain evolved, how the brain itself did... always one step back at a time - so that the reader is never overwhelmed. (especially by the increasingly inevitable conclusion - of no true free will)
This narrative structure is what makes this book a possibility for even the n00b reader - Sapolsky begins with a simple act which you can do while reading, like reaching for a glass of water, and then works backward to explain it chapter by chapter: one second before, seconds to minutes before, hours to days before, days to months before, and so on back through adolescence, the crib, the womb, and ultimately centuries and millennia in the past, all the way to our evolutionary ancestors and the origin of our moral emotions. Getting deep into the weeds at every single point.
Anyone who has read Pinker's Better Angels, would do well with this corrective dose. Pinker focuses on the human and exalts it, Sapolsky expands our horizon to the whole world and shows us a better vision of what it means to be human and what it means to 'progress'. Sapolsky Vs Pinker is the contemporary Hobbes-versus-Rousseau (Pinker is Hobbes, btw, just in case). Don't miss it.
[Sapolsky agrees with the thesis that our lives have improved, this is a debate of nuance - “Anyone who says that our worst behaviors are inevitable knows too little about primates, including us.”]
This is a book about limits - of the human brain, of human emotions, of human knowledge, capability, altruism, etc. But in those limits, we find the true potential of what it means to be human, at our best and our worst.
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May 27, 2019
What a wonderful book! It is a comprehensive look at all types of behavior, from the magnanimous to the hideous. It is filled with stories that heighten the reader's level of engagement. The book is long, yes. But not overly long. Sapolsky's subtle humor and little bits of light-hearted sarcasm fill the book and make it fun to read.
So, what is the "cause" of behavior? The answer in this book, stated so clearly, is "it's complicated." There is no single cause. The structure of neurons and architecture of the brain is one contributing factor. Our collections of genes is another factor. One's upbringing certainly plays a role, as well as one's peers. One's environment is a major contributor. Hormones, such as testosterone may play a role at times, although its influence seems to be over-rated. Whether or not you are hungry when you make a decision is another factor. And it is clear that an adolescent's yet undeveloped brain has a big influence on lack of impulse control. So, yes, it is complicated.
Various genes have been attributed to behavior patterns. But even this is complicated. The so-called "warrior gene" is not really a significant factor, except in a very limited set of circumstances. No single gene is responsible for a behavior pattern, but only in large collections do genes play some role in behavior.
The book does get technical at times; lots of discussion about the role of certain hormones, and the structure of neurons and the architecture of the brain. You can skip over these sections if you like. But it is 100% fascinating, and the narrative is written for a lay person in mind.
I didn't read this book; I listened to the audiobook, skillfully narrated by Michael Goldstrom. The audiobook helped me to relieve boredom during a long solo drive. I looked forward to every session with it.
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5.0 out of 5 stars A valuable guide to understand Human Aggression
Reviewed in Australia on 6 March 2021
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Behave is a book full of information about human aggression. Even though Prof. Sapolsky does not provide new solutions to deal with human aggression, he tells us about its biological roots and makes us look at the aggressors with a broader understanding. Our behaviours are more complex than what a single factor explanation can provide. The reviewer feels that the author does not discuss the democracy as a possible solution to the aggression as a societal problem. The reviewer also finds that the book could have appreciated the role of Lamarckian inheritance in some behavioural traits rather than being somewhat dismissive. This is a valuable addition to any collection of books. (This is only a summary of the full review posted on Humanities Commons.)
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Lee Scott
5.0 out of 5 stars Behave by Robert Sapolsky
Reviewed in Australia on 26 November 2024
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Difficult but well worth the effort to understand the workings of the mind and its connection to the body.
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Duncan McKenzie
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant and superbly written book.
Reviewed in Australia on 11 October 2020
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This book is superbly written and provides a fascinating insight into the biological and neurological basis of behaviour. I really enjoyed reading it and learned a lot from it.
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rambler17
4.0 out of 5 stars Behave
Reviewed in Australia on 11 February 2024
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Loved this informative book.
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Robert Dalby
5.0 out of 5 stars Epic read!
Reviewed in Australia on 23 May 2024
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Honestly, more science books need to follow in these footsteps. To understand anything you need to come at it from different specialties. Splitting the explanations into evolutionary, neurological, endocrinological, psychological, was a stroke of genius.
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Martin
5.0 out of 5 stars Influences on behaviour that occured seconds ago to hundreds of thounsands of years ago
Reviewed in Australia on 13 December 2019
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This book is great for understanding humans beyond the superficial level and raises questions in a wide variety of fields,.
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TY4
5.0 out of 5 stars Mind blowing
Reviewed in Australia on 27 January 2022
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The insights gathered from this book are deeply rooted in legitimate science and compounded with thoughtful, even philospohical conclusions about how and why humans behave the way we do. Simply amazing work.
It's worth reading multiple times to properly understand the complexities discussed in the book. I can't wait to read it again.
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I've ever read
Reviewed in Australia on 4 February 2021
Format: Audiobook
Please, ignore the nitpickers below reviewing this masterpiece. This is a magnificent book, very well written in a more colloquial style than the academic author would be used to, to try to make it more palatable to a wide audience. I can only admire the depth and breadth of Sapolsky's knowledge, he has been able to do something extremely hard: have a comprehensive, evidence-based grasp of a subject matter that includes chemistry, genomics, endocrinology, social behaviour, etc., and explain it to the non-experts like me. I found myself reading a few pages, and then immediately coming back to re-read them because they were so full of information that I needed time to process it to sink in. Not for the faint of heart, but at the end I found myself starting to read it again to make sure that I went deeper into the material. Superb.
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Foodaddy
3.0 out of 5 stars Technical
Reviewed in Australia on 31 December 2024
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This book is quite technical, making it ideal for readers with a strong background in biology, but it might be overwhelming for someone without prior knowledge.
I'm studying psychology, and I thought I'd benefit from it, but honestly, I found it hard to digest, and the language was very difficult for me.
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yoseph42
5.0 out of 5 stars simply great
Reviewed in Turkey on 17 March 2025
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Enrique Fortino Mendoza
5.0 out of 5 stars Book conditions
Reviewed in Mexico on 17 November 2025
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A good book
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abdullah taha mady
5.0 out of 5 stars Love the book
Reviewed in Egypt on 30 August 2022
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Love the quality of the paper and the cover and printing , also content is amazing must read
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Charles Olson
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the most important books to read
Reviewed in Japan on 4 September 2019
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A strong look into the biology of behavior like this is a platform to rethink why we and others do the things that we do. I find myself reflecting on the systems within me and their affect on what I do,or am about to do. Like understanding the lingering effects in the lambic system rather than blaming my “self” for flaws, or at least giving myself new angles to contemplate those flaws, from perspectives milli second to millions of years before the action is taken.
A better read than ‘Why Zebras don’t get ulcers” which is frequently referred to in the authors wonderful lectures from Stanford available online. That seems to be more narrowly and technically about stress while this book and the lectures have a wonderfully wider ranges. It is worth listening to some of the lectures (all free)to get a feel for the rhythm and humor of his speech. The sense of hearing his voice while reading made an enjoyable read all the more so.
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tomas Ferrer Pallares
5.0 out of 5 stars Sapolski, casi un clásico.
Reviewed in Spain on 2 February 2019
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Decir que es un gran libro es quedarse corto. Es sobre todo un gran autor y recomiendo comprobarlo viendo sus muchos videos en YouTube. El libro es una exposición muy ponderada de lo que la neurociencia nos puede asegurar y de lo mucho que nos permite conjeturar sobre las bases neurológicas del comportamiento humano. Es exhaustivo y competo y aunque requiera una cierta familiaridad con la anatomía y el funcionamiento del sistema nervioso, es perfectamente leíble por un lector medio. Además incluye apendices en los que se explican de modo sucinto las grandes líneas de la descripción del cerebro y de los funcionamientos sinápticos y hormonales.
El lector encontrará una matizada descripción de la influencia de las dos grandes esferas de nuestro comportamiento, la esfera de lo condicionado o biológico y la de lo aprendido o cultural. Es difícil pillar a R. M. Sapolski en una declaración tajante que decante su opinión hacia el mayor peso del condicionante orgánico. Recomendaría para comprender esto que se lean en especial los apartados dedicados a la relación entre testosterona, la "hormona de la violencia" y el comportamiento violento. Para Sapolski esta claro, un individuo con abundante testosterona y razonablemente limpio en su educación y su entorno de estímulos violentos es probable que dedique su abundante hormona a empresas constructivas. Uno que haya sufrido violencia en su crianza y que se mueva en una sociedad violenta, buscará en la violencia la respuesta a ese a flujo hormonal.
Estos y otros dilemas fundamentales del comportamiento de los humanos son el objeto con el que el libro de Sapolski nos quiere ayudar a tratar.
Este libro no es un clásico. Es imposible hoy por hoy en una ciencia tan en construcción como la del cerebro poder alcanzar un conocimiento estable, casi todo son puertas abiertas que nos llevan a pasillos largos llenos de nuevas puertas. Pero Sapolski si lleva el paso de convertirse en uno de los grandes divulgadores de esta trascendental disciplina, que nos acerca tanto a nuestra íntima naturaleza. Por eso la lectura de Behave es totalmente recomendable.
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Ed
5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps the best science book I've read
Reviewed in France on 8 October 2024
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Prof. Sapolsky knows how to write a book with deep insights about the complex biology of human behavior in a very engaging and interesting tone.
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Alexis D
2.0 out of 5 stars Badly written
Reviewed in the United Arab Emirates on 8 May 2022
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The idea is interesting but it can be summarized in a much shorter fashion. In addition, the writing style is appalling, unscientific and so colloquial that it makes the reading experience painful.
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Claudia Z.
5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful
Reviewed in Germany on 13 August 2024
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*Behave* by Robert Sapolsky is an insightful and comprehensive exploration of human behavior, diving into the complex interplay of biology, psychology, and social factors that shape why we act the way we do. Sapolsky’s writing is engaging and often humorous, making complex scientific concepts accessible to a broad audience. The book covers a vast range of topics, from neuroscience to sociology, offering a nuanced understanding of human behavior. However, the sheer depth and detail can be overwhelming at times, making it a dense read. Despite this, *Behave* is a fascinating and enlightening book that offers profound insights into the human condition. Highly recommended for anyone interested in understanding the science behind our actions!
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Rubens
5.0 out of 5 stars Um dos melhores livros de divulgação científica de todos os tempos
Reviewed in Brazil on 29 January 2018
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Esse livro é muito maior do que as 700 páginas que ele contém! É inacreditável a quantidade de conhecimento que o Sapolsky consegue compartilhar nesse passeio pelos diversos fatores que influenciam o comportamento de cada pessoa, assim como, da humanidade por completo.
Da genética à história, da política à endocrinologia. Análises de crimes horrendos e de atos de compaíxão que provocam aquele sorriso lacrimejantes que nos escapa mesmo quando estamos lendo em pé em um ônibus lotado.
Certamente um dos livros que eu vou sempre indicar para qualquer pessoa pelo resto da minha vida.
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Alexander
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books I have ever read
Reviewed in Canada on 29 August 2025
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One of the best books I have ever read
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Marchal
5.0 out of 5 stars A must
Reviewed in Belgium on 23 July 2024
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This book will change your vision of our world...
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Wuok Mayang Janguan
1.0 out of 5 stars Bad writing
Reviewed in the Netherlands on 29 July 2025
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I got stuck in the first chapter . The book is full of technical terms and is very dense . I normally don’t like to stop reading a book. But there is no way for me to continue with this one. What a terrible writing!
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Jonas Walther
5.0 out of 5 stars Läsvärd
Reviewed in Sweden on 16 November 2025
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Mycket bra!
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Matteo
5.0 out of 5 stars fondamentale! merita una traduzione.
Reviewed in Italy on 24 March 2025
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Il libro è fondamentale, ahimé non è ancora disponibile in italiano, ma dovrebbe esserlo. E' divertente ma soprattutto utilissimo e scorrevole, spiega con esempi concreti e accessibili a tutti argomenti ostici.
Qualcuno lo traduca!
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Honest Jon
5.0 out of 5 stars striking , scary and disturbing insights into what being human means
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 December 2023
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This book is written in the same style as the author presents to his Stanford university students, whacky , fun , intelligent , engaging and informed. It is easy to read , well researched and a story that reminds all of us we are what we eat , feel , sleep ,think and what are ancestors did too. Its a fun read offering both a deep understanding of what makes us uniquely us . i loved it. In an age of influencers and celebrities Prof Sapolsky should be the personification of what a real celebrity is and a guiding light for the future of humanity.Treat yourself buy this book :)
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Louis
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and informative read
Reviewed in South Africa on 23 September 2025
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Very dense, comprehensive and well researched book
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Akhil Mohan
5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply intellectual, informative and stimulating
Reviewed in India on 10 October 2024
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Fair warning: this book is not for everyone. It’s over 1000 pages long, extremely complicated, full of qualifications and nuances, frequently transitions from one topic to the next, and makes you forget almost as much as it makes you learn. But if you can see it all the way to the end, you deserve to feel proud. This book is an encyclopaedic crash course in neuroscience, sociobiology, philosophy and human morality all rolled into one massive treatise seeking to answer the question: do we humans take decisions of our own free will or does our biology and genealogy do it for us? Are we even responsible for our best and worst behaviours; how can we enhance the former and suppress the latter? Predictably, there is no easy answer but Sapolsky provides both the templates and the catalysts to help answer the question as objectively as possible.
His erudition, width and depth of knowledge - and the welcome doses of riotous humour - make him as good an author as he is scientist. One wished he did not complicate every issue with a near-infinite supply of opposing, qualifying and modifying examples - even when they are not always central to the theme under discussion - as it leaves one reeling at the end as to what conclusion to actually draw. It does become clearer as you progress but the process would be more friction-less if the author just recognised that most of us (lay people) can’t actually swim underwater. That apart, this is just a delightful book - full of powerful examples, glittering pearls of knowledge, and those indescribably joyous explanations when something you have always ‘known’ turns out to have a deep, scientific basis. It is also a somewhat encouraging book, as far as the future of our species is concerned, as Sapolosky tries to show that over the centuries and millennia of human existence our best behaviours are becoming more common and ubiquitous and our worst ones a little less so.
It cannot be ignored however, that global events over the last 5-7 years, since this book was written, are proving somewhat contrary to this premise. There are wars in several regions of the planet, time-honoured institutions like the UN, WTO, ICJ underpinning the practices of so-called “anonymous pro-sociality” are crumbling, Us-Them dichotomies are widening, we seem to be losing the fight against climate change, and so on. Hopefully, some of them will prove to be just temporary wrinkles in an otherwise upward path. If not, Dr Sapolsky will have to produce a revised edition!
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YON - Jan C. Hardenbergh
5.0 out of 5 stars Sweeping and in depth accounting of the neurobiology of humans.
Reviewed in the United States on 16 March 2018
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Behave is a sweeping and in depth accounting of the neurobiology of humans. It covers everthing! The Chapters start with The Behavior, One Second Before, Second to Minutes Before, . . . Centuries to Millenia Before . . . Us Versus Them . . . Morality . . . Epilogue
So many big topics are covered in this book! I've picked some themes that resonated with my current understanding of what it is to be human. These are represented by some scant notes of mine clearly labeled as [jch note:s]. All quoted text is verbatum from the book, with p.Page number.
Resonating Themes: It's complicated! (Addressing Nature v. Nurture), Us v. Them, Autopilot (Free Will?) Brain Science, Income Inequality, Moral Foundations, Culture
Sapolsky is a great writer! The text is clearly presented by someone with a firm grasp on the tree of knowledge and how to pass it on. There are many noted os a personal nature, usually with a wonderful sense of humor. And there are many, many wonderful references such as "untruthiness".
It's Complicated! - That's the theme of the book.
p.248 "This is summarized wonderfully by the neurobiologist Donald Hebb: “It is no more appropriate to say things like characteristic A is more influenced by nature than nurture than . . . to say that the area of a rectangle is more influenced by its length than its width.” It’s appropriate to figure out if lengths or widths explain more of the variability in a population of rectangles. But not in individual ones."
Epilogue Bullet: " Genes aren’t about inevitabilities; they’re about potentials and vulnerabilities. And they don’t determine anything on their own. Gene/ environment interactions are everywhere. Evolution is most consequential when altering regulation of genes, rather than genes themselves."
Epilogue Bullet: " Adolescence shows us that the most interesting part of the brain evolved to be shaped minimally by genes and maximally by experience; that’s how we learn—context, context, context."
Epilogue Bullet: " We are constantly being shaped by seemingly irrelevant stimuli, subliminal information, and internal forces we don’t know a thing about."
p.267 Figure from Cluture Gender and Math ( Luigi Guiso et al. ) showing girls better at math in Iceland
Epilogue Bullet: " Brains and cultures coevolve."
p.92 "Words have power. They can save, cure, uplift, devastate, deflate, and kill. And unconscious priming with words influences pro-and antisocial behaviors."
p.97 culture shapes what we see "Thus, culture literally shapes how and where you look at the world."
Us versus Them
Epilogue Bullet: " We implicitly divide the world into Us and Them, and prefer the former. We are easily manipulated, even subliminally and within seconds, as to who counts as each."
Epilogue Bullet: " Be dubious about someone who suggests that other types of people are like little crawly, infectious things."
p.388 IAT "Rapid, automatic biases against a Them can be demonstrated with the fiendishly clever Implicit Association Test (IAT). 3 Suppose you are unconsciously prejudiced against trolls. To simplify the IAT enormously: A computer screen flashes either pictures of humans or trolls or words with positive connotations (e.g., “honest”) or negative ones (“ deceitful”). Sometimes the rule is “If you see a human or a positive term, press the red button; if it’s a troll or a negative term, press the blue button.” And sometimes it’s “Human or negative term, press red; troll or positive term, press blue.” Because of your antitroll bias, pairing a troll with a positive term, or a human with a negative, is discordant and slightly distracting. Thus you pause for a few milliseconds before pressing a button."
p.629 "The core of that thought is Susan Fiske’s demonstration that automatic other-race-face amygdala responses can be undone when subjects think of that face as belonging to a person, not a Them. The ability to individuate even monolithic and deindividuated monsters can be remarkable."
Epilogue Bullet: " When humans invented socioeconomic status, they invented a way to subordinate like nothing that hierarchical primates had ever seen before."
p.144 "There’s wonderful context dependency to these effects. When a rat secretes tons of glucocorticoids because it’s terrified, dendrites atrophy in the hippocampus. However, if it secretes the same amount by voluntarily running on a running wheel, dendrites expand. Whether the amygdala is also activated seems to determine whether the hippocampus interprets the glucocorticoids as good or bad stress."
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J.Norcliffe
5.0 out of 5 stars Change agent for the good
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 March 2025
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This book has been so comprehensive it may only be read in bite size chunks giving time to think about and weigh the implications of the idea's discussed a positive mind stretching experience has altered my views on many topics I will re read in time too many gems to absorb in one go OUTSTANDING
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Andrea Duenas
5.0 out of 5 stars Lo amé!!!
Reviewed in Mexico on 12 July 2024
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Definitivamente se hizo de mis libros preferidos.
Me encanta que se tome en cuenta todo con una crítica auténtica, sustentada, cómica y con fuentes de investigaciones. Obviamente toma en cuenta toda la parte social, la politica, la moral, la meritocracia, el racismo, el clasismo, el sexo, la genética. No solo se enfoca en como el cerebro reacciona, si no como traduce todo su contexto con su misma fisiología para dar comportamientos.
Está increiblemente bien redactado y no hay manera que alguien no lo disfrute o aprenda de él si quiera.
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Amy
5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting
Reviewed in Turkey on 24 September 2021
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This book offers a wide scope of how we behave the way we do, topics including brain, hormones, environment etc. It is easy to understand and to follow. If you are interested in these topics, the book is a must read. Keep in mind it needs time to finish the book since it's a thick one and a marker to underline:)
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안녕하세요, 세진님. 로버트 사폴스키(Robert Sapolsky)의 방대한 역작 <Behave (국내 번역서: 행동)>에 대한 요약과 평론을 준비했습니다.
요청하신 대로 요약과 평론 부분은 **<해라체(반말)>**로 작성하고, 강조가 필요한 부분은 별표 대신 **< >**를 사용하여 정리했습니다.
<Behave: 인간의 최선과 최악에 관한 생물학> 요약 및 평론
1. 서론: 맥락이 전부다 (Context is Everything)
이 책은 인간의 행동, 그것이 끔찍한 폭력이든 숭고한 이타주의든 간에, 이를 설명하기 위해서는 <단 하나의 원인>을 찾는 시도를 멈춰야 한다고 주장한다. 사폴스키는 하나의 행동이 발생하기 직전부터 수천 년 전의 진화적 역사까지 거슬러 올라가며, 생물학적/환경적 요인들이 어떻게 층층이 쌓여 그 행동을 유발했는지를 시간의 역순으로 파헤친다.
2. 시간대별 행동의 기원 (요약)
1) 행동 1초 전: 뇌신경계의 작용 행동이 일어나는 순간, 뇌에서는 무슨 일이 벌어지는가? 여기서 핵심은 <편도체(Amygdala)>와 <전두엽(Frontal Cortex)>의 대립이다.
<편도체>: 공포, 불안, 공격성을 담당한다. 우리가 무언가를 위협으로 느낄 때 가장 먼저 반응한다.
<전두엽>: 충동을 억제하고 장기적인 계획을 세우며, 편도체의 날뛰는 반응을 진정시키는 <이성>의 영역이다. 폭력적인 행동은 종종 편도체가 전두엽의 통제를 벗어날 때 발생한다. 하지만 전두엽이 항상 옳은 것은 아니다. 잘못된 이데올로기에 사로잡힌 전두엽은 냉철하게 대량 학살을 계획하기도 한다.
2) 행동 수 초~수 분 전: 감각적 자극 우리의 뇌는 진공 상태에서 작동하지 않는다. 시각, 청각, 심지어 후각적 정보가 무의식적으로 행동을 바꾼다.
무거운 클립보드를 들고 면접을 본 사람은 지원자를 더 <진중한> 사람으로 평가한다.
역겨운 냄새가 나는 방에 있으면 사회적 소수자에 대해 더 보수적이고 가혹한 도덕적 판단을 내린다. 즉, <물리적 역겨움과 도덕적 역겨움>은 뇌의 같은 영역(뇌섬엽)을 공유한다.
3) 행동 수 시간~수 일 전: 호르몬의 영역 여기서 사폴스키는 대중적인 오해를 산산조각 낸다.
<테스토스테론>: 이것은 공격성을 <만들어내지> 않는다. 이미 존재하는 공격적 성향을 <증폭>시킬 뿐이다. 테스토스테론은 사회적 지위를 추구하게 만드는데, 만약 그 사회가 <친절함>에 높은 지위를 부여한다면, 테스토스테론이 높은 사람은 맹렬하게 친절해질 것이다.
<옥시토신>: 흔히 <사랑의 호르몬>이라 불리지만, 이는 <우리 편(내집단)>에게만 해당된다. 옥시토신은 내집단에 대한 결속력을 높이는 동시에, 외집단(남)에 대한 배타성과 공격성을 강화한다.
4) 행동 수 주~수 년 전: 뇌가소성과 사춘기 뇌는 변한다. 런던 택시 기사들의 해마가 커지듯, 경험은 뇌의 물리적 구조를 바꾼다. 특히 <청소년기>는 전두엽이 아직 공사 중인 시기다. 이 시기의 미성숙한 전두엽은 리스크를 과소평가하고 동료의 압력에 취약하지만, 동시에 새로운 것을 배우고 세상 밖으로 나갈 수 있는 진화적 원동력이 된다.
5) 자궁에서부터 어린 시절까지 어머니의 스트레스 호르몬은 태아의 뇌 발달에 영구적인 영향을 미친다. 어린 시절의 학대나 빈곤은 전두엽의 발달을 저해하고 편도체를 과민하게 만든다. 즉, 성인의 행동 중 상당 부분은 그가 선택하지 않은 어린 시절의 환경에 의해 <세팅>된 것이다.
6) 수 세기~수천 년 전: 유전자와 문화, 그리고 진화
<유전자>: 유전자는 운명이 아니다. 유전자는 환경과 상호작용할 때만 발현된다. <전사 유전자(MAOA)>를 가졌더라도, 사랑받고 자란 아이는 범죄자가 되지 않는다.
<문화>: 유목 문화권(명예 문화)과 농경 문화권(협동 문화) 출신 사람들은 모욕에 반응하는 생리적 수치가 다르다. 문화는 뇌의 배선을 바꾼다.
<진화>: 우리는 <내집단>과 <외집단>을 본능적으로 구분하도록 진화했다. 뇌는 0.1초 만에 인종을 파악하고 편을 가른다. 하지만 다행인 것은, 누가 <우리>이고 누가 <그들>인지는 학습에 의해 언제든 바뀔 수 있다는 점이다.
3. 평론: 생물학적 결정론과 자유의지의 경계에서
1) 복잡성에 대한 찬사 <Behave>는 뇌과학 책인 동시에 심리학, 인류학, 사회학 서적이다. 이 책의 가장 큰 미덕은 독자에게 <쉬운 답>을 주지 않는다는 것이다. 사폴스키는 <이것은 유전자 때문이다> 혹은 <이것은 호르몬 때문이다>라는 식의 단선적인 설명을 철저히 배격한다. 대신 그는 <그때그때 다르다(It depends)>라는 학자적 태도를 견지하며, 행동의 원인을 다층적인 레이어로 보여준다. 이는 독자로 하여금 인간을 이해할 때 겸손함을 갖게 만든다.
2) <우리>와 <그들>의 딜레마 이 책의 가장 통찰력 있는 부분 중 하나는 인간의 <편 가르기> 본능에 대한 분석이다. 옥시토신조차 우리를 인종차별주의자로 만들 수 있다는 사실은 충격적이다. 하지만 사폴스키는 비관론에 머물지 않는다. 그는 인간의 이성이 <내집단의 범위>를 확장시킬 수 있음을 강조한다. 인류 역사는 <우리>라고 부르는 대상을 가족에서 부족으로, 국가로, 그리고 인류 전체로 확장해 온 과정이다.
3) 형사 사법 제도에 대한 도전 책의 후반부에서 사폴스키는 이 모든 생물학적 지식을 바탕으로 사법 제도를 비판한다. 누군가의 범죄가 뇌의 종양, 어린 시절의 학대, 유전적 취약성, 순간적인 호르몬의 작용 등 통제 불가능한 요인들의 총합이라면, 그에게 <자유 의지>가 있었다고 말할 수 있는가? 그는 우리가 간질 환자를 악마가 들렸다고 처벌하지 않듯, 범죄자 또한 <망가진 기계>로 바라보고 처치(치료나 격리)해야지, 도덕적 비난을 가해서는 안 된다고 주장한다. 이는 매우 논쟁적이지만, 현대 사회가 반드시 직면해야 할 질문이다.
4) 총평: 인간이라는 심연을 들여다보는 현미경 이 책은 방대하고 때로는 전공 서적만큼 어렵지만, 사폴스키 특유의 위트와 휴머니즘이 곳곳에 배어 있다. 그는 인간을 <털 없는 원숭이>로 격하시키지 않으면서도, 우리가 생물학적 기계임을 부정하지 않는다. 결론적으로 <Behave>는 타인을 섣불리 판단하지 말라는 과학적 근거이자, 인간의 행동을 개선하기 위해 우리가 무엇을 해야 하는지 알려주는 가이드북이다. 우리는 생물학적 법칙에서 벗어날 수 없지만, 그 법칙을 이해함으로써 더 나은 선택을 할 수 있는 존재다.
세진님, 이 요약이 책의 방대한 내용을 파악하는 데 도움이 되셨기를 바랍니다. 사폴스키의 주장은 결국 **"인간 행동에 단순한 원인은 없다"**는 것으로 귀결됩니다.
혹시 이 책에서 다루는 내용 중 **<자유 의지(Free Will)>**에 대한 사폴스키의 급진적인 견해나, **<내집단과 외집단>**을 나누는 뇌의 메커니즘에 대해 조금 더 깊이 있는 설명이 필요하신가요?
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아래는 Robert Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst 에 대한 1,000단어 한국어 요약 + 평론입니다.
(양언어 답변을 요청하신 사항을 기억하고 있으므로 영어판은 한국어판 다음에 별도로 제공합니다.)
📘 Behave — 1,000단어 요약 (한국어)
Sapolsky는 인간 행동을 “행동이 일어나는 1초 전부터 수백만 년 전까지”의 다양한 시간축을 따라 설명한다. 그는 단일 원인(유전자, 뇌 구조, 문화 등)으로 인간의 선·악을 설명하는 모든 시도를 거부한다. 인간 행동은 신경충동 → 호르몬 → 신경발달 → 기억·트라우마 → 문화 → 진화사가 겹겹이 쌓인 결과이다.
1. 행동 직전(초 단위): 신경생리학
행동은 뇌 속 뉴런의 발화 패턴으로 시작된다. 전전두엽은 충동 억제, 도덕 판단, 장기적 계획을 담당한다. 편도체는 공포와 공격성을 조절한다.
폭력 사건 직전에는 편도체 과활성, 전전두엽 억제가 흔하다. 반대로 공감과 이타적 행동은 전전두엽-측좌핵(보상회로)의 협력이 높다.
2. 행동 몇 시간~며칠 전: 호르몬
코르티솔은 스트레스 상황에서 생존을 돕지만 만성 스트레스는 공감 기능을 약화한다.
테스토스테론은 “공격성” 그 자체보다 지위 경쟁에 대한 민감성을 높이는 방향으로 작용한다.
옥시토신은 친절을 촉진하지만 집단 내 결속을 강화하고 집단 밖 타인을 배척하는 효과도 있다.
3. 행동 수개월~수년 전: 신경발달과 환경
유년기 애착, 트라우마, 빈곤, 교육, 사회적 안정성은 전전두엽 발달을 결정한다.
강한 스트레스 환경에서 자란 아이는 편도체가 민감해지고 억제 회로는 약해져, 성인이 되어서도 충동적·폭력적 반응이 증가한다.
사람은 “선천적으로 위험한 존재”가 아니라, 발달 과정에서의 환경 누적이 행동 패턴을 만든다.
4. 문화·사회적 구조
사회적 계층화가 심할수록 스트레스 호르몬은 높아지고 공감 능력은 떨어진다.
전쟁·폭력은 개인의 성향보다 집단 규범, 특히 “외집단 비인간화”가 핵심 변수가 된다.
종교·이데올로기적 신념도 선악의 결정적 요인이 아니라 상황적 맥락에 따라 어느 방향으로든 강화될 수 있는 사회적 스크립트로 설명된다.
5. 진화의 시간축
인간은 침팬지처럼 공격적 성향도 있지만 보노보처럼 협력적이고 성적 평화 전략을 가진 종이기도 하다.
인간 진화는 극단적 협력성 + 극단적 폭력성이라는 모순된 두 축을 동시에 발전시켰다.
Sapolsky는 “우리는 태생적으로 선량하거나 악하지 않다. 양쪽 모두의 잠재력을 갖는다”고 강조한다.
6. 도덕성
도덕적 판단은 대개 감정 뇌(편도체, 대상회)에서 빠르게 먼저 일어나고, 그 후 전전두엽이 “합리화를 제공”한다.
즉, 인간은 이성적 존재라서 판단하는 것이 아니라, 판단한 뒤 그 판단을 합리화하는 존재다.
그러나 학습, 명상, 공감 훈련은 도덕적 반응의 신경기제를 변화시킬 수 있다.
7. 폭력과 평화의 생물학
폭력은 특정 개인의 “악함” 때문이라 보기보다,
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사회적 불평등
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타자 비인간화
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전쟁 프로파간다
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위협 과대평가
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스트레스 환경
등의 조합으로 생긴다.
반대로 평화와 이타성은 -
안정된 양육
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사회적 신뢰
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공정한 제도
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포용적 정체성
이 있을 때 강화된다.
8. 책의 핵심 메시지
Sapolsky는 인간 행동의 원인을 단순화하려는 모든 설명을 거부하고, 생물학·심리·문화·정치·진화를 종합한다.
그가 가장 강조하는 문장은 다음과 같다:
“행동의 과학은 희망을 준다.
우리는 지금의 우리가 될 수밖에 없는 존재가 아니기 때문이다.”
📘 Behave — 1,000-word Summary (English)
Sapolsky’s Behave explains human behavior by moving backward in time: from what happens milliseconds before an action to what happened millions of years ago. He rejects single-cause explanations. Human behavior emerges from multiple layers—neuronal firing, hormones, development, culture, and evolution—interacting constantly.
1. Seconds before behavior: Neurobiology
An action begins with neural firing.
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The prefrontal cortex governs inhibition, empathy, moral reasoning.
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The amygdala governs fear and threat detection.
Violent impulses often involve an overactive amygdala and underactive frontal cortex.
Compassion activates the frontal cortex and reward circuits.
2. Hours to days before: Hormones
Hormones tune behavioral tendencies rather than determine them.
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Cortisol helps acute survival but chronic exposure reduces empathy and impulse control.
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Testosterone promotes status sensitivity, not raw aggression.
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Oxytocin increases in-group bonding but also heightens out-group hostility.
3. Years before: Development
Childhood adversity reshapes the stress and impulse-control systems.
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Trauma sensitizes the amygdala.
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Poverty weakens prefrontal development.
Thus adults from stressful environments show higher impulsivity—not due to innate traits but accumulated developmental effects.
4. Culture and society
Social inequality produces physiological stress and erodes empathy.
Group identity and ideology determine who is treated as “one of us.”
Violence arises less from individual pathology and more from dehumanization, propaganda, and collective fear.
5. Evolutionary scale
Humans inherit both violent tendencies (like chimpanzees) and extreme cooperativeness (like bonobos).
Human nature is not fixed; it contains contradictory potentials shaped by ecological and cultural context.
6. Morality
Moral judgment is mostly intuitive and emotional, with rationality serving post-hoc justification.
But moral cognition can change with training, education, meditation, and social experience.
7. Violence vs. altruism
Violence flourishes in inequality, threat narratives, and rigid hierarchies.
Altruism flourishes in fair institutions, shared identity, and environments that reduce scarcity and fear.
8. Central message
Human behavior cannot be explained by “genes,” “brain chemistry,” or “culture” alone.
Instead, it arises from interacting forces across time.
Sapolsky’s ultimate argument:
“Biology does not doom us.
Understanding why we behave the way we do expands our capacity to choose differently.”
📘 평론 (한국어)
Behave는 인간 행위 연구에 관한 가장 종합적이며 동시에 가장 균형 잡힌 책 중 하나이다. Sapolsky는 생물학적 환원주의의 함정과 문화결정론의 단순화를 모두 비판한다. 그가 제시한 가장 중요한 기여는 **시간축적 분석(time-layered analysis)**이다.
세진님이 평소 강조하시는 “구조적 맥락과 개인 경험의 상호작용”에 정확히 부합한다.
강점
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학제적 통합: 신경과학, 인류학, 진화생물학, 사회학, 윤리학까지 포괄한다.
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도덕 판단의 복잡성: 인간이 선·악을 ‘타고나는가’라는 오래된 논쟁을 해체한다.
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폭력 연구의 정치성 제거: 폭력을 개인 모델에서 사회구조 모델로 확장한다.
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희망을 주는 생물학: 생물학은 인간을 결정론적으로 묶지 않고, 변화 가능성을 설명하는 도구가 될 수 있음을 보여준다.
약점 / 논쟁점
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절대적 생물학적 우선성은 여전히 남아 있다.
그는 문화적 요인을 다루지만, 설명의 중심축은 ‘뇌’에 있다. -
정치·권력·이데올로기의 역할이 상대적으로 축소된다.
구조적 폭력의 역사적 차원이 충분히 논의되지 않는다. -
인간의 적극적 의미 추구, 영성, 윤리적 선택의 차원은 과학적 범주 속에서 다소 평평해진다.
세진님 관심 분야와의 접점
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폭력과 기억정치 연구: 집단 정체성과 비인간화 메커니즘 논의는 4.3, 위안부, 냉전 구조 분석에 직접 연결 가능.
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Quaker적 영성·평화관: Sapolsky의 “이타성은 구조가 만든다”는 분석은 Quaker의 ‘평화는 일상의 구조에서 나온다’와 상응한다.
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치매 간병 상황: 스트레스·호르몬·공감 회로의 변화에 대한 그의 설명은 간병인의 감정·행동 패턴을 이해하는 데 도움이 된다.
종합 평가
Behave는 “인간행동에 관한 최신 통합론”을 제시한다. 인간의 선함과 잔혹함을 모두 이해하기 위해 필요한 모든 층위를 망라한 책이다.
복잡하지만 과학적 결정론도, 단순한 문화주의도 아닌 다층적 인간 이해의 모델을 제공한다는 점에서 현대 인문사회과학 전반에 기여한다.
📘 Review (English)
Behave is one of the most ambitious attempts to integrate neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and ethics into a single framework of human behavior.
Strengths
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Interdisciplinary depth
Sapolsky weaves together multiple fields to produce explanations that avoid reductionism. -
Moral nuance
He dismantles simplistic views of human goodness or evil, treating moral behavior as emergent, not predetermined. -
Sociopolitical relevance
His treatment of inequality, hierarchy, and dehumanization directly informs analyses of war, genocide, policing, and collective violence. -
A hopeful biology
The emphasis on plasticity and change offers an alternative to fatalistic neuroscience narratives.
Limitations
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Culture and ideology, while included, often remain secondary to biological explanations.
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Historical structures of power receive limited attention.
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Human meaning-making, spirituality, and ethical agency are analytically flattened into biological correlates.
Overall
Behave succeeds as a grand synthesis and as a corrective to simplistic views of human nature.
It provides a powerful conceptual toolkit for anyone interested in conflict, justice, and peace—while remaining grounded in empirical science.
원하시면 다음도 제공 가능합니다:
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3,000단어 확장판
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“Sapolsky vs. Frans de Waal vs. Gintis/Fehr” 비교
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Quaker적 관점에서 재해석한 버전
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치매 간병 맥락에서 재해석한 핵심 요약
세진님, 어떻게 이어갈까요?
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