A Stanford neuroscience professor’s fascinating deep dive into the complexity of human behavior.
Much like life, Sapolsky starts by looking at our automatic reactions, then gradually zooms out throughout the book to illustrate how it all makes sense in terms of our evolutionary biology. Behave makes clear that our behaviors–good and bad–cannot be reduced to a single cause or explanation. They are both chemistry (our literal brain structures and neurochemical activity) and context (culture, social circumstances, and early life experiences). Understanding the complexity of why we act the way we do can help us design more effective interventions and social policies and ultimately become better people.
BEHAVE IN 10 BULLETS:
1. Different parts of the brain drive our behavior in different ways. Our actions are the result of an ongoing struggle between the amygdala, which triggers emotional responses like fear and aggression, and the frontal cortex, which regulates whether we act on those impulses. There is evidence of frontal cortex damage in many violent criminals, suggesting that the physical makeup of their brain has significantly impaired their ability to regulate.
2. Sensory cues shape our unconscious perceptions. When images of faces are flashed briefly, the amygdala is more likely to trigger if the face is from a different ethnic group. Assuming someone is not overtly racist, this initial response is rationalized by the frontal cortex over a slightly longer viewing period. (Interestingly enough, the same pattern was observed with music. For white test subjects, rap music was found to increase amygdala activity, while chaotic but ‘white-associated’ death metal did not).
3. This has significant real-world impacts, as longer sentences have been given for the same crime to “African” faces than others. Some defense attorneys have taken on strategies like having black male clients wear clunky glasses to push an unconscious association with less-threatening, “nerdy” types.
4. Social context impacts our behavior too. Men are more likely to take risks when they are around women, and also more likely to buy luxury items. This can be interpreted as the male brain unconsciously giving off mating signals.
5. Childhood and adolescent experiences can have a big impact on who we become as adults because the brain’s frontal cortex is not fully developed until our mid-20s. This explains why children are generally able to learn (languages, for example) more quickly than adults, and also why negative experiences in childhood can carry into adulthood. Facing significant childhood adversity like poverty or violence can lead to excessive amygdala growth and an underdeveloped frontal cortex (thus making one more prone to impulse).
6. Culture can literally change how we process the world. If shown an image of a person standing alone in the center of a complex scene, people from individualist Western cultures are more likely to remember the details of the person, while people from collectivist Eastern cultures are more likely to remember the details of the scene.
7. Cultures did not become individualistic or collectivist by chance, but also ecology. In much of East Asia, civilizations developed around rice cultivation, which is a communal activity requiring collective labor. In Northern China, however, it is difficult to grow rice, making wheat the main crop (which is a much more individual form of agriculture). Go figure, divorce rates are higher in these wheat-growing regions than in neighboring rice-growing regions.
8. Our brain’s neurobiology can influence our views of morality and politics. Liberal-leaning people show increased levels of gray matter in the area of the brain associated with empathy, while Conservatives tend to have larger amygdalae (driving more impulsive fear responses).
9. Empathy and compassion are not the same, as empathy is self-serving from an evolutionary perspective as a driver to avoid pain (if you see a needle being pushed into someone’s finger, for example, it is common to have a physical impulse like closing your hand).
10. If you want to be compassionate, it is best that you do not try to empathize. One interesting study found that empathy (volunteers were asked to feel the pain of a distressed subject) triggered an amygdala response driving anxiety and negative feelings. Compassion (volunteers were asked to feel warmth toward the distressed subject and to avoid empathizing) activated the frontal cortex, leading to more prosocial behavior.
HOW I’LL APPLY IT
I’m generally optimistic, but the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ theater that has become central in US politics over the past 15-20 years has challenged that optimism. Behave has given me another shot of hope that humanity can ultimately get past zero-sum thinking and cooperate toward a greater good. Society has changed dramatically in a relatively short period, and our evolutionary brains just need time to adapt.
It has also challenged my assumption that empathy is the most important factor in improving the world. As Behave demonstrated, perhaps cultivating compassion, rather than empathy, is more effective for encouraging prosocial behaviors in ourselves and others.