Behave
最新书摘：
-
Ned2021-01-14Racial Us/Them-ing can seem indelibly entrenched in kids because the parents most intent on preventing it are often lousy at it. As shown in studies, liberals are typically uncomfortable discussing race with their children. Instead they counter the lure of Us/Them-ing with abstractions that mean squat to kids—“It’swonderful that everyone can be friends” or “Barney is purple, and we love Barney.”
-
Ned2021-01-14This simply reflects not taking kindly to someone new, a Them. But some other species have a broader concept of Us and Them.4 For example, chimp groups that have swollen in number might divide; murderous animosities soon emerge between ex-groupmates. Remarkably, you can show automatic Us/Them-ing in other primates with a monkey equivalent of the IAT. In one study animals were shown pictures of either members of their own or the neighboring group, interspersed with positive things (e.g., fruit) or negative (e.g., spiders). And monkeys looked longer at discordant pairings (e.g., group members with spiders). These monkeys don’t just fight neighbors over resources. They have negative associations with them—“Those guys are like yucky spiders, but us, us, we’re like luscious tropical fruit.”
-
Ned2021-01-14The brain’s fault lines dividing Us from Them were shown in chapter 4’s discussion of oxytocin. Recall how the hormone prompts trust, generosity, and cooperation toward Us but crappier behavior toward Them—more preemptive aggression in economic play, more advocacy of sacrificing Them (but not Us)for the greater good. Oxytocin exaggerates Us/Them-ing.
-
Ned2021-01-14According to Gould, traits often evolve for one reason and are later co-opted for another use (fancy term: “exaptation”); for example, feathers predate the evolution of bird flight and originally evolved for insulation.75 Only later did their aerodynamic uses become relevant. Similarly, the duplication of a gene fora steroid hormone receptor (as mentioned many chapters ago) allowed one copy to randomly drift in its DNA sequence, producing an “orphan” receptor with nouse—until a novel steroid hormone was synthesized that happened to bind to it. This haphazard, jury-rigged quality evokes the aphorism “Evolution is a tinkerer, not an inventor.” It works with whatever’s available as selective pressures change, producing a result that may not be the most adaptive but is good enough, given the s...
-
Ned2021-01-14Thus, both gradualism and punctuated change occur in evolution, probably depending upon the genes involved—for example, there has been faster evolution of genes expressed in some brain regions than others. And no matter how rapid the changes, there’s always some degree of gradualism—no female has ever given birth to a member of a new species.
-
Ned2021-01-14In 1972 Stephen Jay Gould and paleontologist Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History proposed an idea that simmered and then caught fire in the 1980s. They argued that evolution isn’t gradual; instead, most of the time nothing happens, and evolution occurs in intermittent rapid, dramatic lurches.
-
Ned2020-12-17A psychosocial explanation has been championed by Ichiro Kawachi of Harvard. When social capital decreases (thanks to inequality), up goes psychological stress. A mammoth amount of literature explores how such stress—lack of control, predictability, outlets for frustration, and social support—chronically activates the stress response, which, as we saw in chapter 4, corrodes health in numerous ways.A neomaterialist explanation has been offered by Robert Evans of theUniversity of British Columbia and George Kaplan of the University of Michigan. If you want to improve health and quality of life for the average person in a society, you spend money on public goods—better public transit, safer streets, cleaner water, better public schools, universal health care. But the more income inequality, ...
-
Ned2020-12-15Why has East Asia provided textbook examples of collectivism?21 The key is how culture is shaped by the way people traditionally made a living, which in turn is shaped by ecology. And in East Asia it’s all about rice. Rice, which was domesticated there roughly ten thousand years ago, requires massive amounts of communal work. Not just backbreaking planting and harvesting, which are done in rotation because the entire village is needed to harvest each family’s rice.*Collective labor is first needed to transform the ecosystem—terracing mountains and building and maintaining irrigation systems for controlled flooding of paddies. And there’s the issue of dividing up water fairly—in Bali, religious authority regulates water access, symbolized by iconic water temples. How’s this for amazing—the ...
-
Ned2020-12-15Recall from the last chapter dopamine and DRD4, the gene for the D4 receptor. It’s extraordinarily variable, with at least twenty-five human variants (with lesser variability in other primates). Moreover, the variation isn’t random, inconsequential drift of DNA sequences; instead there has been strong positive selection for variants. Most common is the 4R variant, occurring in about half of East Asians and European Americans. There’s also the 7R variant, producing a receptor less responsive to dopamine in the cortex, associated with novelty seeking, extroversion, and impulsivity. It predates modern humans but became dramatically more common ten to twenty thousand years ago. The 7Rvariant occurs in about 23 percent of Europeans and European Americans. And in East Asians? 1 percent.
-
二月2022-04-19記住，看超來很理性的事情常常都經過了合理化、操弄著潛意識的力量，而我們從來不疑有他。請把焦點放在更大、為眾人所共享的目標。練習觀點取替。將群體個別化、個别化、個别化。謹記歷史教訓：最邪惡的他群經常躲起來，讓別人當他們的替死鬼。
-
豆友426177742021-06-22躯体标记：就是每一种后果能带来什么感觉。这股内在刺激在边缘系统中运行，然后向腹内侧前额叶报告。这个历程不是思想实验，而是情绪实验，利用情绪记忆在不同未来之间做出选择。
-
豆友426177742021-06-22用想法控制情绪的历程是非常由上而下的，额叶皮质让紧张的杏仁核平静下来。但在需要用直觉进行决策时，关系也可以由下而上。
-
豆友426177742021-06-22用想法调节情绪：先行聚焦策略和反应聚焦策略。
-
豆友426177742021-06-22额叶受损后：变得无理而飘忽不定，不时爆出粗口，明显对同僚不尊重。对待别人的建议与自身心意相冲突时，他就很没耐性。冥顽不灵，反复无常，优柔寡断。他不断想新的工作计划，但很快就放弃执行，转向其他更加可行的方案。
-
豆友426177742021-06-22社会复杂度扩大了额叶皮质。
-
豆友426177742021-06-22执行最困难的道德行动时经常是自动化的神经生物机制在进行调节......（而不是额叶皮质）
-
豆友426177742021-06-22“认知负荷”：做一件额叶皮质需要卖力完成的事——困难的工作记忆、调控社会行为、在购物时做一堆决定。然后接着进行另一项高度运用额叶的任务，表现会下降。
-
豆友426177742021-06-22它是工作记忆、执行功能、延迟满足、长期计划、情绪管理、冲动控制的专家。
-
Ned2021-01-14Rapid change in the human gene pool has occurred as well with the spread of lactase persistence—a change in the gene for the enzyme lactase, which digests lactose, such that it persists into adulthood, allowing adults to consume dairy.68The new variant is common in populations that subsist on dairy—pastoralists like Mongolian nomads or East African Maasai—and is virtually nonexistent in populations that don’t use dairy after weaning—Chinese and Southeast Asians.Lactase persistence evolved and spread in a fraction of a geologic blink of an eye—in the last ten thousand years or so, coevolving with the domestication of dairy animals.