Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst is a comprehensive overview of ways to think about the causal mechanisms involved in human behavior. This is of course a massive subject that is still poorly understood despite large strides made in the lace century. Robert Sapolsky tackles the root causes of behavior through multiple lenses to give the reader a sense of how our minds work. This book is not easy and the material it covers is from many technical subjects which are then interwoven. But for the interested reader this is a pretty remarkable achievement as one gets an overview of human nature from a combinatorial lens of primatology, neuroscience, behavioral economics, biochemistry, psychology among other subjects. Such an attempt would seem impossible for almost any author, but this book largely achieves its goals. Behave is split into 17 chapters in which each chapter effectively thinks about behavior on a longer time scale, starting with immediately before to getting to evolutionary origin. The author starts by posing questions on how our behavior originates. The first 5 chapters highlight this point and the author discusses topics from how the neuroscience of decisions works to how our the neural architecture is laid through our experiences. There is a lot of technical material which can be tough to follow, but there is an appendix which helps clarify the subject for those less familiar. Nonetheless Chapter 2 discusses the various parts of the brain and aspects of their evolution and has a lot of detail but is a core reference chapter for later in the book. The author then starts getting into hormones and regulation and how they impact our actions, there is a lot of discussion of myths and facts and one gets a sense of how complex the interactions are. The author discusses the adolescent brain and how it is still very much in development. Ideas like how accountable are youths get's discussed, these kinds of questions are posed and re-discussed throughout. The author discusses how the environment can influence behavior and some epigenetic ideas are discussed along side general brain development. The author discusses the basis of our political nature as well, in particular how people categorize other people and have internal Us vs Them delineations. How we frame who is an us and who is a them though is extremely variable and our characterization of groups is deemed to be largely constructed rather than innate. The author discusses how different societies have different levels of social interactions and consequentially how different people think about interacting with strangers depends heavily on how much social capital their respective societies have. The author discusses hierarchies and brings in his primatology expertise and discusses how different ape families manage their hierarchies and stress associated with such systems. Human hierarchical systems are discussed in this contexts and the author highlights that our current capitalistic hierarchical society is all new relative to hunter gatherer systems. The author discusses our systems of morality and where they originate; the author looks at cases of high generosity and discusses what parts of the brain were involved. There are lots of interesting facts to be read in these chapters, really fascinating material. The author discusses things like empathy and sympathy and how too much empathy gets in the way of prudent action. It is the dispassionate observer who ends up being more helpful on average. The author revisits the criminal justice system and discusses the deep flaws in how we might be thinking of right and wrong and responsibility; there are useful ideas to consider when thinking about policy. The author ends up by discussing our propensity for violence and war overtime. There are some great anecdotal stories from recent world wars on reconciliation as well as front line behavior when people weren't considering the enemy a them. Behave is a pretty remarkable book. It is a combination of material from so many subjects, all of which are non-trivial, and it is put together remarkably well. For those interested in how people can behave, where our behavior comes from, what time scales are involved in our propensities and how flexible our responses are this is a must read. One should get a sense of optimism from this, despite science's progress on understanding behavior, we are nowhere close to claiming we have strong causal mechanisms that took a person from point a to b. There are correlated variables and we have some indication on where propensities come from but one still has room for individualism in this book. Very informative, very impressive.

Why do humans act the way we do? What determines our behavior and our thoughts about our behavior? Is there any philosophy or scientific study that can help us begin to unravel the mystery that is our words, actions, and thoughts? This book is a sweeping review of the neurobiology of humans and it provides some clues to the mystery of our behavior. The first chapter is the shortest and starts with an action: We kill someone, or, perhaps guided by our better angels, we save someone’s life. Then, Sapolsky spends the rest of the book examining why we chose a particular action, starting with one second before our behavior occured and expanding out to minutes, hours, days, weeks, and years before. He covers biology, evolution, morality, empathy, nature vs. nurture, and much more. Sapolsky has compiled seemingly every scientific study done by a neurologist in the past century into one book and organized it in beautiful fashion. A classic study is the story of Phineas Gage, a railroad worker from 1848 whose job was to blast rock (to make way for the train tracks) by using a long iron tamping rod to pack gunpowder into a drilled hole. One fateful day on a September afternoon, something went wrong, and the iron rod blasted out of the hole and straight through his head, entering under his left cheek and coming out the top of his skull. Amazingly, he didn’t lose consciousness for more than a few moments, took himself to the doctor, and survived. What’s most amazing, and the reason why his story is studied by neurobiologists, is that his personality drastically changed. Before the accident, friends and coworkers described him as responsible, hard-working, and even-tempered, whereas afterwards he became impulsive, profane, and unreliable. Gage’s story reveals that specific parts of the brain control specific functions, and that the left frontal lobes could be where personality and executive function live. Another classic study is the Stanford Prison experiment, where 24 male students were randomly assigned to be either guards or prisoners in a pretend prison environment set up by their professor, psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo was interested in how the social roles we inhabit and the environment we operate in affect behavior, and the results were monumental. Within days, the ‘guards’ began abusing the ‘prisoners’ who complementarily showed emotional distress. Some of them even had emotional breakdowns, and things became so intense that the study was stopped after only six days (it was planned to last fourteen). While the ethics of the study are questionable, what is still talked about in psychology classes today is how both the environment and the social relation of the people involved (those in positions of authority vs those who are not) impact behavior. Sapolsky examines studies about maternal care and epigenetics, testosterone and oxytocin, population density and social pathology, delay of gratification, implicit associations, utilitarianism, adverse childhood experiences, and more. The point is, there are tons of studies all explored carefully in his writing, and each is included because it reports on a different aspect of human behavior. So, what are his the meta-conclusions? First and foremost, there is no single cause of behavior. To understand behavior better, we must take into consideration our neural firing patterns, our hormones, our immediate environment, our larger social context, our childhood and prenatal environment, our parents, and our evolutionary history, just as a place to start. Secondly, our actions are heavily dependent on the context of their occurrence. Authority, stress, anonymity, and group pressure are some examples of phenomena that can radically shift behavior depending on the context. For example, oxytocin doesn’t simply create feelings of love and bonding, it strengthens in-group bonding, which, in the right context, can also lead to increased feelings of out-group hostility. Thirdly, adolescence is a critical window of development because it’s when our frontal cortex grows the most. Because it is the last past of the brain to mature, by definition the “frontal cortex is the brain region least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience.” And what does it do? Its list of expertises includes “working memory, executive function (organizing knowledge strategically, and then initiating an action based on an executive decision), gratification postponement, long-term planning, regulation of emotions, and reining in impulsivity.” No behavior can truly be diagnosed without understanding the frontal cortex. Fourthly, stress is a major player in our decisions and actions and has deleterious long-term effects. It changes brain architecture, impairs impulse control, increases aggression, and alters risk assessment, just to name a few. Combine stress with early development and adolescence and its effects can change the biology of the brain permanently. “Childhood adversity increases the odds of an adult having (a) depression, anxiety, and/or substance abuse; (b) impaired cognitive capabilities, particularly related to frontocortical function; (c) impaired impulse control and emotion regulation; (d) antisocial behavior, including violence; and (e) relationships that replicate the adversities of childhood (e.g., staying with an abusive partner). And despite that, some individuals endure miserable childhoods just fine.” Fifthly, humans are capable of incredible acts of cruelty and also extraordinary acts of altruism. We are able to dehumanize others with frightening ease and we are also able to see others as ‘Us’ and not ‘Them’ if we can shift our lens of who we consider an ‘Us’. You might like the Yankees while I like the Red Sox, you might be South African while I’m American, but at the end of the day, we’re both human. While these are some of the main themes, in a book this expansive, there are tons of fascinating nuggets of information throughout its pages. For example, judges have been shown to give out harsher punishments when they’re on an empty stomach, and are statistically more lenient after lunch. For another example, “the linking of visceral and moral disgust is bidirectional.” So, if we commit a morally dubious act, we are likely to feel dirty and will spend longer washing our hands. Likewise, if we are tired and covered with sweat and dirt after a long hard day at work, stealing a can of soda from the corner store is a much easier act to commit than if we are freshly showered and shaved. In conclusion, the important thing to keep in mind is that all of these findings are broad trends in the data. Each and every individual is different and will behave differently in different situations based on a combination of what happened in their brain one second before they acted, what happened to their ancestors a generation ago, and what the context of the situation is. Humans are a one of a kind species, with a one of a kind brain, and despite thousands of years of self-contemplation and scientific study, our behavior is, well, complicated.

It took me twelve days to read this book. I'm a Chilean reader so my English is no native and it's hard for me to understand everything, but this book deserved to retry any time I couldn't catch the entire meaning of a sentence or an idea. Robert Sapolsky writes as a lecturer. The reader is seated in the classroom and he's the professor who talks, so you feel very comfortable listening him and, more than that, you feel welcome by him. He's so natural and informal that you feel that a distance has been abolished, and this is just what is needed to capture the very essence of this tremendous achievement. The book is about "us" and "them," and how our biology has modeled us to to replicate and to live this duality as an inexorable destiny. That's the reason why Sapolsky in a very smart design of the book dedicates the thirteen first (out of seventeen) chapters in describing to you how does our brains (and by extension our biology) to produce a human being with all that it means. And it means a lot. More than I can say here. Thus, the first thirteen chapters of the book leave you with the sensation that we are all design to be just the way we are. So nothing to be much optimistic here. There's (for me at least) a tipping point in the book that synthesizes everything. It is in page 448 and shows you a graph that plots the "proportion of rulings in favor of the prisoners by ordinal position [i.e., the order in which they were heard by the judge]," with "points [indicating] the first decision in each of the three decisions sessions." Well, the thing is that "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." Well, there you are. And this is just one example, there are dozens before and after indicating how sensible we are to the environment, the internal and the external one, something that Sapolsky summarize at the end of the book: "...we haven't evolved to be "selfish" or "altruistic" or anything else--we've evolved to be particular ways in particular settings. Context, context, context." As long as you read you think that the book was written to let you know how remarkably open AND close is our nature, in such a way that we are condemned to suffer our tremendous limitations: there is no way out (or in). Yes, as Sapolsky says, it's complicated. In fact, that could have been the title of the book. But that would have lessened the final chapters which are like the cracks in the wall through which a silver lining filters. The thing is that you didn't expect what Sapolsky tells you there. This is not a detectives novel so what's the point in not commenting what's there for everyone of us? Well, I guess that the point is I shouldn't deprive you of discovering by yourself as I did. Yes, I'm talking here of the pleasure that renders the experience of something that sounds (even in a scientific manner) like a revelation. And that is: at the end of the book you see... I'm sure that other reviewers have revealed everything in order to criticize some points here and there. I guess that could be several, but to me that's not the point. The point is that Behave has not been written to convince you, not at all. Behave has been written to show you. Behave is not a book is a window as I suppose any great book is. As I said, I'm Chilean and here, in my country, are hundreds of political prisoners that haven't the minimal chance of being paroled. Not even that light ray that could traverse a crack in a wall. Not even that. They have no chance. Unfortunately this book is not going to be translated to Spanish. And if it is, it's not going to arrive to our commercial and poor (intellectually speaking) bookstores. My country is a very quiet one compared with the rest of the world. Nobody even notice it, so quiet it is. We are like Switzerland bur without the money. And with the political prisoners they don't have. Sapolsky it's not going to change nothing, but that's not the point, I insist: the point is that things are going to change anyway because history tells so. The thing is that we could do something to hurry the future. I don't know how. Sapolsky either. And what about you? Read this book if you are interested into thinking how does it feel not to be the good guy you think you are most of the time. In a sentence: how does it feel to be human. And it feels good. Five highly deserved stars.

This is a fascinating book, and the author does an impressive job of making a very scientific and intellectually demanding topic accessible to the average reader. He covers genetics, hormones, neuroscience, and human behavior in a way that’s engaging without assuming a medical or scientific background. That said, it’s still a dense and lengthy book. I found it was best read in small sections rather than trying to power through it all at once. One note for anyone ordering the paperback: about 30 pages of my copy were printed upside down. I didn’t discover that until I was about 400 pages in. That’s obviously a printing issue rather than the author’s fault, but it’s worth mentioning in case others receive the same edition. If you’re interested in taking a deep dive into why people behave the way they do, but don’t have a background in medicine or neuroscience, I’d highly recommend this book. It takes some commitment, but it’s well worth the effort.

Amazing read and book! Help to understand the human behavior to a deeper level

Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst, by Robert Sapolsky, explains — within the limits of current scientific knowledge — why we do the things we do, good and (especially) bad. It’s a long, thoughtful and fascinating journey that weaves together all the latest thinking in neurobiology, endocrinology, genetics and epigenetics, culture, ecology and more. The book, at 800 pages, is far too immense to encapsulate in a review, but suffice it to say, we humans are far more complex and far less in control of our own actions and behaviors than we care to admit. And our biology — with all its messy shortcomings and quirks — is perfectly reflected in (and a driving force behind) our personal ideologies and idiosyncrasies, and our culture. And that is both alarming (because of how it allows us to treat others) and comforting (because it is ultimately understandable and able to be changed). Sapolsky has a rare combination of deep knowledge and a conversational, at times humorous, writing style that brings the topic to life in a truly memorable way. A few nuggets from the goldmine: “…genes aren’t about inevitability. Instead, they are about context-dependent tendencies, propensities, potentials, and vulnerabilities.” “…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.” “Trust requires reciprocity, and reciprocity requires equality, whereas hierarchy is about domination and asymmetry.” “Poverty is not a predictor of crime as much as poverty amid plenty is.” “In terms of caustic, scarring impact on minds and bodies, nothing in the history of animals being crappy to one another about status differences comes within light-years of our invention of poverty.” “…we judge ourselves by our internal motives and everyone else by their external actions.” Sapolsky’s insights into culture, racism, xenophobia and our legal system based on the science of behavior are especially timely and relevant, ending the book on a somewhat optimistic note that we can, should and MUST look beyond the limits of our biology to create a culture that functions for the good of all. “Eventually it can seem hopeless that you can actually fix something, can make things better. But we have no choice but to try. And if you are reading this, you are probably ideally suited to do so. You’ve amply proven you have intellectual tenacity. You probably also have running water, a home, adequate calories, and low odds of festering with a bad parasitic disease. You probably don’t have to worry about Ebola virus, warlords, or being invisible in your world. And you’ve been educated. In other words, you’re one of the lucky humans. So try.” Reading this book is a great first step.

Sapolsky is witty, intelligent and quite knowledgeable of his subject matter. I never understood what was meant by "identifying with the mind" or why "free will is an illusion". I also didn't understand what amygdala hijack was either even though I had heard about it a lot. All of this is explained and more. The connection between us humans and other animals was profoundly moving and I loved the last half of the book as Sapolsky explains major themes of human behavior such as compassion, empathy, hate, aggression, peace, war and many others and helps us understand what is happening within our brains that drives these behaviors. I found the reviews by obvious conservatives (most of the 1 & 2 star folks) quite funny. Clearly they didn't read the entire book. Because one thing Sapolsky notes over and over and over....the brain is PLASTIC. It can change depending on how much we "feed" it new information. So even when he notes that conservatives tend toward stupidity, he explains what is happening within their brains that dictates this. And it's important to note they were not born this way, but became this way in response to their environment, mostly to the fear of not surviving. (One thing you really get from this book is how survival is a fundamental driver of ALL our behavior). As a result they spend too much time thinking from the limited limbic system (amygdala) and too little time activating and expanding their knowledge within the prefrontal cortex. They are literally continually activating their threat response and all their choices are fear-based. Emotional regulation/mindfulness is the key to overcoming this and it's sad they don't see this. So much unnecessary suffering. This was a really long book and took me months to finish. But was really so much worth the effort. I highly recommend this book to all humans.

This book was complex. My dyslexia was on overload reading this text. There is much technical language that explains the biology and neurology of our brains. The book is long, a hard read, but the insights are worth it. The book does not come from a Christian perspective, but it does explain some of the processing that goes on within our brains. The book talked about various topics that help a preacher understand people better. Here are a couple of insights. "​When you think categorically, you have trouble seeing how similar or different two things are. If you pay lots of attention to where boundaries are, you pay less attention to complete pictures." Think about this one. "​But our frequent human tragedy is that the more we consume, the hungrier we get." This was interesting too. ​A final depressing point about inequality and violence. As we’ve seen, a rat being shocked activates a stress response. But a rat being shocked who can then bite the (...) out of another rat has less of a stress response. Likewise with baboons— if you are low ranking, a reliable way to reduce glucocorticoid secretion is to displace aggression onto those even lower in the pecking order. It’s something similar here— despite the conservative nightmare of class warfare, of the poor rising up to slaughter the wealthy, when inequality fuels violence, it is mostly the poor preying on the poor." People who pick on those who are weaker are like immature rats. Really, there is too much to mention for a good review. If you want a hard read, insights into human nature, and a few times in which your mind is blown, this is the book for you, but it will be a challenge to read. Truly an interesting book.

great

Love the quality of the paper and the cover and printing , also content is amazing must read

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.

O maior desafio de leitura nos meus estudos pessoais

Robert Sapolsky asks some of the most interesting questions about why people behave as they do, drawing on biology, environment and circumstance. The breadth of the subject makes this a valuable book for anyone who prefers explanations to quick judgements. Not light reading, but an intellectually rewarding choice.