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The Resource Behave : the biology of humans at our best and worst, Robert M. Sapolsky

Behave : the biology of humans at our best and worst, Robert M. Sapolsky

Creator
Author
Summary
"Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs--whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do ... for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right"--
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
790 pages
Contents
  • Back to when you were just a fertilized egg
  • Centuries to millennia before
  • Evolution of behavior
  • Us versus them
  • Hierarchy, obedience, and resistance
  • Morality and doing the right thing, once you've figured out what that is
  • Feeling someone's pain, understanding someone's pain, alleviating someone's pain
  • Metaphors we kill by
  • Biology, the criminal justice system, and (oh, why not?) free will
  • War and peace
  • Introduction
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
  • Appendix 1.
  • Neuroscience 101
  • Appendix 2.
  • Basics of endocrinology
  • Appendix 3.
  • Protein basics
  • Glossary of abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Behavior
  • Illustration credits
  • Index
  • One second before
  • Seconds to minutes before
  • Hours to days before
  • Days to months before
  • Adolescence; or, Dude, where's my frontal cortex?
  • Back to the crib, back to the womb
Isbn
9781594205071
Instance
Label
Behave : the biology of humans at our best and worst
Title
Behave
Title remainder
the biology of humans at our best and worst
Statement of responsibility
Robert M. Sapolsky
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. A behavior occurs--whether an example of humans at our best, worst, or somewhere in between. What went on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happened? Then Sapolsky pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell caused the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones acted hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli that triggered the nervous system? By now he has increased our field of vision so that we are thinking about neurobiology and the sensory world of our environment and endocrinology in trying to explain what happened. Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than one individual. How did culture shape that individual's group, what ecological factors millennia old formed that culture? And on and on, back to evolutionary factors millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do ... for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. Wise, humane, often very funny, Behave is a towering achievement, powerfully humanizing, and downright heroic in its own right"--
Summary
A professor of biology and neurology at Stanford reveals what makes humans do the things they do, delving into environmental stimuli, things that trigger the nervous system, hormonal responses and how they work in conjunction with evolutionary and cultural factors
Storyline
Writing style
Award
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology, 2017.
Assigning source
Provided by publisher
http://library.link/vocab/ext/novelist/bookUI
10563219
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Sapolsky, Robert M.,
Dewey number
612.8
Illustrations
illustrations
Index
index present
LC call number
  • QP351
  • QP355.2
LC item number
  • .S27 2017
  • .S27 2017
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
NLM call number
  • 2017 E-459
  • WL 102
http://library.link/vocab/resourcePreferred
True
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • Neurophysiology
  • Neurobiology
  • Animal behavior
  • Nervous System Physiological Phenomena
  • Behavior
  • Violence
  • SCIENCE
  • SOCIAL SCIENCE
  • SCIENCE
  • Animal behavior
  • Neurobiology
  • Neurophysiology
Target audience
adult
http://bibfra.me/vocab/lite/titleRemainder
the biology of humans at our best and worst
Label
Behave : the biology of humans at our best and worst, Robert M. Sapolsky
Instantiates
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 721-773) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
  • Back to when you were just a fertilized egg
  • Centuries to millennia before
  • Evolution of behavior
  • Us versus them
  • Hierarchy, obedience, and resistance
  • Morality and doing the right thing, once you've figured out what that is
  • Feeling someone's pain, understanding someone's pain, alleviating someone's pain
  • Metaphors we kill by
  • Biology, the criminal justice system, and (oh, why not?) free will
  • War and peace
  • Introduction
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
  • Appendix 1.
  • Neuroscience 101
  • Appendix 2.
  • Basics of endocrinology
  • Appendix 3.
  • Protein basics
  • Glossary of abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Behavior
  • Illustration credits
  • Index
  • One second before
  • Seconds to minutes before
  • Hours to days before
  • Days to months before
  • Adolescence; or, Dude, where's my frontal cortex?
  • Back to the crib, back to the womb
Control code
21070816
Dimensions
25 cm
Extent
790 pages
Isbn
9781594205071
Lccn
2016056755
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
n
Other control number
40027157126
Other physical details
illustrations
Specific material designation
regular print
System control number
(OCoLC)953597944
Label
Behave : the biology of humans at our best and worst, Robert M. Sapolsky
Publication
Copyright
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 721-773) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
  • Back to when you were just a fertilized egg
  • Centuries to millennia before
  • Evolution of behavior
  • Us versus them
  • Hierarchy, obedience, and resistance
  • Morality and doing the right thing, once you've figured out what that is
  • Feeling someone's pain, understanding someone's pain, alleviating someone's pain
  • Metaphors we kill by
  • Biology, the criminal justice system, and (oh, why not?) free will
  • War and peace
  • Introduction
  • Epilogue
  • Acknowledgments
  • Appendix 1.
  • Neuroscience 101
  • Appendix 2.
  • Basics of endocrinology
  • Appendix 3.
  • Protein basics
  • Glossary of abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Behavior
  • Illustration credits
  • Index
  • One second before
  • Seconds to minutes before
  • Hours to days before
  • Days to months before
  • Adolescence; or, Dude, where's my frontal cortex?
  • Back to the crib, back to the womb
Control code
21070816
Dimensions
25 cm
Extent
790 pages
Isbn
9781594205071
Lccn
2016056755
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
n
Other control number
40027157126
Other physical details
illustrations
Specific material designation
regular print
System control number
(OCoLC)953597944

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Genre

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