Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

by Robert M. Sapolsky

  46.J. Lee et al., “Emotion Regulation as the Foundation of Political Attitudes: Does Reappraisal Decrease Support for Conservative Policies?” PLoS ONE 8 (2013): e83143; M. Feinberg et al., “Gut Check: Reappraisal of Disgust Helps Explain Liberal-Conservative Differences on Issues of Purity,” Emotion 14 (2014): 513.

  47.J. Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Pantheon, 2012); L. Kass, “The Wisdom of Repugnance: Why We Should Ban the Cloning of Human Beings,” New Republic, June 2, 1997.

  48.R. Kanai et al., “Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults,” Curr Biol 21 (2011): 677; D. Schreiber et al., “Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans,” PLoS ONE 8 (2013): e52970; W. Ahn et al., “Nonpolitical Images Evoke Neural Predictors of Political Ideology,” Curr Biol 24 (2014): 2693. For a general review, see J. Hibbing et al., “The Deeper Source of Political Conflict: Evidence from the Psychological, Cognitive, and Neurosciences,” TICS 18 (2014): 111.

  49.J. Settle et al., “Friendships Moderate an Association Between a Dopamine Gene Variant and Political Ideology,” J Politics 72 (2010): 1189; K. Smith et al., “Linking Genetics and Political Attitudes: Reconceptualizing Political Ideology,” Political Psych 32 (2011): 369; L. Buchen, “The Anatomy of Politics,” Nat 490 (2012): 466.

  Some papers on the genetics of political orientation and involvement:

  Twin studies: N. G. Martin et al., “Transmission of Social Attitudes,” PNAS 83 (1986): 4364; R. I. Lake et al., “Further Evidence Against the Environmental Transmission of Individual Differences in Neuroticism from a Collaborative Study of 45,850 Twins and Relatives on Two Continents,” Behav Genetics 30 (2000): 223; J. R. Alford et al., “Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted,” Am Political Sci Rev 99 (2005): 153.

  Genomewide linkage: P. Hatemi et al., “A Genome-wide Analysis of Liberal and Conservative Political Attitudes,” J Politics 73 (2011): 1; D. Amodio et al., “Neurocognitive Correlates of Liberalism and Conservatism,” Nat Nsci 10 (2007): 1246.

  50.T. Kameda and R Hastie, “Herd Behavior: Its Biological, Neural, Cognitive and Social Underpinnings,” in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, ed. R. Scott and S. Kosslyn (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons, 2015); H. Kelman, “Compliance, Identification, and Internalization: Three Processes of Attitude Change,” J Conflict Resolution 2 (1958): 51.

  51.Footnote: B. O. McGonigle and M. Chalmers, “Are Monkeys Logical?” Nat 267 (1977): 694; D. J. Gillian, “Reasoning in the Chimpanzee: II. Transitive Inference,” J Exp Psych: Animal Behav Processes 7 (1981): 87; H. Davis, “Transitive Inference in Rats (Rattus norvegicus),” J Comparative Psych 106 (1992): 342; W. Roberts and M. Phelps, “Transitive Inference in Rats: A Test of the Spatial Coding Hypothesis,” Psych Sci 5 (1994): 368; L. von Fersen et al., “Transitive Inference Formation in Pigeons,” J Exp Psych: Animal Behav Processes 17 (1991): 334; J. Stern et al., “Transitive Inference in Pigeons: Simplified Procedures and a Test of Value Transfer Theory,” Animal Learning & Behav 23 (1995): 76; A. B. Bond et al., “Social Complexity and Transitive Inference in Corvids,” Animal Behav 65 (2003): 479; L. Grosenick et al., “Fish Can Infer Social Rank by Observation Alone,” Nat 445 (2007): 429.

  52.C. Watson and C. Caldwell, “Neighbor Effects in Marmosets: Social Contagion of Agonism and Affiliation in Captive Callithrix jacchus,” Am J Primat 72 (2010): 549; K. Baker and F. Aureli, “The Neighbor Effect: Other Groups Influence Intragroup Agonistic Behavior in Captive Chimpanzees,” Am J Primat 40 (1996): 283.

  53.L. A. Dugatkin, “Animals Imitate, Too,” Sci Am 283 (2000): 67.

  54.K. Bonnie et al., “Spread of Arbitrary Conventions Among Chimpanzees: A Controlled Experiment,” Proc Royal Soc of London B 274 (2007): 367; M. Dindo et al., “In-group Conformity Sustains Different Foraging Traditions in Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella),” PLoS ONE 4 (2009): e7858; D. Fragaszy and E. Visalberghi, “Socially Biased Learning in Monkeys,” Learning Behav 32 (2004): 24; L. Aplin et al., “Experimentally-Induced Innovations Lead to Persistent Culture via Conformity in Wild Birds,” Nat 518 (2014): 538. One study that failed to replicate the basic de Waal finding: E. Van Leeuwen et al., “Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Flexibly Adjust Their Behaviour in Order to Maximize Payoffs, Not to Conform to Majorities,” PLoS ONE 8 (2013): e80945.

  55.E. van de Waal et al., “Potent Social Learning and Conformity Shape a Wild Primate’s Foraging Decisions,” Sci 340 (2013): 483.

  56.A. Shestakova et al., “Electrophysiological Precursors of Social Conformity,” SCAN 8 (2013): 756

  57.H. Tajfel and J. C. Turner, “The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behaviour,” in Psychology of Intergroup Relations, ed. S. Worchel and W. G. Austin (Chicago IL: Nelson-Hall, 1986), pp. 7–24; E. A. Losin et al., “Own-Gender Imitation Activates the Brain’s Reward Circuitry,” SCAN 7 (2012): 804; R. Yu and S. Sun, “To Conform or Not to Conform: Spontaneous Conformity Diminishes the Sensitivity to Monetary Outcomes,” PLoS ONE 28 (2013): e64530.

  58.R. Huber et al., “Neural Correlates of Informational Cascades: Brain Mechanisms of Social Influence on Belief Updating,” Neuroimage 249 (2010): 2687; G. Berns et al., “Neural Mechanisms of the Influence of Popularity on Adolescent Ratings of Music,” BP 58 (2005): 245; M. Edelson et al., “Following the Crowd: Brain Substrates of Long-Term Memory Conformity,” Sci 333 (2011): 108; H. L. Roediger and K. B. McDermott, “Remember When?” Sci 333 (2011): 47; J. Chen et al., “ERP Correlates of Social Conformity in a Line Judgment Task,” BMC Nsci 13 (2012): 43; K. Izuma, “The Neural Basis of Social Influence and Attitude Change,” Curr Opinion in Neurobiol 23 (2013): 456.

  59.J. Zaki et al., “Social Influence Modulates the Neural Computation of Value,” Psych Sci 22 (2011): 894.

  60.V. Klucharev et al., “Downregulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex Prevents Social Conformity,” J Nsci 31 (2011): 11934; See also: A. Shestakova et al., “Electrophysiological Precursors of Social Conformity,” SCAN 8 (2013): 756; V. Klucharev et al., “Reinforcement Learning Signal Predicts Social Conformity,” Neuron 61 (2009): 140.

  61.G. Berns et al., “Neurobiological Correlates of Social Conformity and Independence During Mental Rotation,” BP 58 (2005): 245.

  62.S. Asch, “Opinions and Social Pressure,” Sci Am 193 (1955): 35; S. Asch, “Studies of Independence and Conformity: A Minority of One Against a Unanimous Majority,” Psych Monographs 70 (1956): 1.

  63.S. Milgram, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (New York: HarperCollins, 1974).

  64.C. Haney et al., “Study of Prisoners and Guards in a Simulated Prison,” Naval Research Rev 9 (1973): 1; C. Haney et al., “Interpersonal Dynamics in a Simulated Prison,” Int J Criminology and Penology 1 (1973): 69.

  65.M. Banaji, “Ordinary Prejudice,” Psych Sci Agenda 8 (2001): 8.

  66.Footnote: C. Hofling et al., “An Experimental Study of Nurse-Physician Relationships,” J Nervous and Mental Disease 141 (1966): 171.

  67.S. Fiske et al., “Why Ordinary People Torture Enemy Prisoners,” Sci 306 (2004): 1482.

  68.P. Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (New York: Random House, 2007). This is also one source of the Solzhenitsyn quote.

  69.Ibid.

  70.G. Perry, Behind the Shock Machine: The Untold Story of the Notorious Milgram Psych Experiments (New York: New Press, 2013).

  71.T. Carnahan and S. McFarland, “Revisiting the Stanford Prison Experiment: Could Participant Self-Selection Have Led to the Cruelty?” PSPB 33 (2007): 603; S. H. Lovibond et al., “Effects of Three Experimental Prison Environments on the Behavior of Non-convict Volunteer Subjects,” Psychologist 14 (1979): 273.

  72.S. Reiche and S. A. Haslam, “Rethinking the Psychology of Tyranny: The BBC Prison Study,” Brit J Soc Psych 45 (2006): 1; S. A. Haslam and S. D.
Reicher, “When Prisoners Take Over the Prison: A Social Psychology of Resistance,” PSPR 16 (2012): 154.

  73.P. Zimbardo, “On Rethinking the Psychology of Tyranny: The BBC Prison Study,” Brit J Soc Psych 45 (2006): 47.

  74.A. Abbott, “How the Brain Responds to Orders,” Nat 530 (2016): 394.

  75.B. Müller-Hill, Murderous Science: Elimination by Scientific Selection of Jews, Gypsies, and Others, Germany 1933–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).

  76.S. Asch, “Opinions and Social Pressure,” Sci Am, 193 (1955): 35.

  77.R. Sapolsky, “Measures of Life,” Sciences, March/April 1994, p. 10.

  78.R. Watson, “Investigation into Deindividuation Using a Cross-Cultural Survey Technique,” JPSP 25 (1973): 342.

  79.A. Bandura et al., “Disinhibition of Aggression Through Diffusion of Responsibility and Dehumanization of Victims,” J Res in Personality 9 (1975): 253.

  80.L. Bègue et al., “Personality Predicts Obedience in a Milgram Paradigm,” J Personality 83 (2015): 299; V. Zeigler-Hill, et al., “Neuroticism and Negative Affect Influence the Reluctance to Engage in Destructive Obedience in the Milgram Paradigm,” J Soc Psych 153 (2013): 161; T. Blass, “Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Role as Predictors of Attributions About Obedience to Authority,” Personality and Individual Differences 1 (1995): 99; P. Burley and J. McGuinnes, “Effects of Social Intelligence on the Milgram Paradigm,” Psych Rep 40 (1977): 767.

  81.A. H. Eagly and L. L. Carli, “Sex of Researchers and Sex-Typed Communications as Determinants of Sex Differences in Influenceability: A Meta-analysis of Social Influence Studies,” Psych Bull 90 (1981): 1; S. Ainsworth and J. Maner, “Sex Begets Violence: Mating Motives, Social Dominance, and Physical Aggression in Men,” JPSP 103 (2012): 819; H. Reitan and M. Shaw, “Group Membership, Sex-Composition of the Group, and Conformity Behavior,” J Soc Psych 64 (1964): 45.

  82.S. Milgram, “Nationality and Conformity,” Sci Am 205 (1961): 45.

  Chapter 13: Morality and Doing the Right Thing, Once You’ve Figured Out What That Is

  1.A. Shenhav and J. D. Greene, “Moral Judgments Recruit Domain-General Valuation Mechanisms to Integrate Representations of Probability and Magnitude,” Neuron 67 (2010): 667; P. N. Tobler et al., “The Role of Moral Utility in Decision Making: An Interdisciplinary Framework,” Cog, Affective & Behav Nsci 8 (2008): 390; B. Harrison et al., “Neural Correlates of Moral Sensitivity in OCD,” AGP 69 (2012): 741.

  2.L. Young et al., “The Neural Basis of the Interaction Between Theory of Mind and Moral Judgment,” PNAS 104 (2007): 8235; L. Young and R. Saxe, “Innocent Intentions: A Correlation Between Forgiveness for Accidental Harm and Neural Activity,” Neuropsychologia 47 (2009): 2065; L. Young et al., “Disruption of the Right Temporoparietal Junction with TMS Reduces the Role of Beliefs in Moral Judgments,” PNAS 107 (2009): 6753; L. Young and R. Saxe, “An fMRI Investigation of Spontaneous Mental State Inference for Moral Judgment,” J Cog Nsci 21 (2009): 1396.

  3.J. Knobe, “Intentional Action and Side Effects in Ordinary Language Analysis,” 63 (2003): 190; J. Knobe, “Theory of Mind and Moral Cognition: Exploring the Connections,” TICS 9 (2005): 357.

  4.J. Knobe, “Theory of Mind and Moral Cognition: Exploring the Connections,” TICS 9 (2005): 357.

  5.P. Singer, “Sidgwick and Reflective Equilibrium,” Monist 58 (1974), reprinted in Unsatisfying Human Life, ed. H. Kulse (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002).

  6.J. Haidt, “The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment,” Psych Rev 108 (2001): 814–34; J. Haidt, “The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology,” Sci 316 (2007): 996.

  7.J. S. Borg et al., “Infection, Incest, and Iniquity: Investigating the Neural Correlates of Disgust and Morality,” J Cog Nsci 20 (2008): 1529.

  8.M. Haruno and C. D. Frith, “Activity in the Amygdala Elicited by Unfair Divisions Predicts Social Value Orientation,” Nat Nsci 13 (2010): 160; C. D. Batson, “Prosocial Motivation: Is It Ever Truly Altruistic?” Advances in Exp. Soc Psych 20 (1987): 65; A. G. Sanfey et al., “The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game,” Sci 300 (2003): 1755.

  9.J. Van Bavel et al., “The Importance of Moral Construal: Moral Versus Non-moral Construal Elicits Faster, More Extreme, Universal Evaluations of the Same Actions,” PLoS ONE 7 (2012): e48693.

  10.G. Miller, “The Roots of Morality,” Sci 320 (2008): 734.

  11.For this entire section on rudiments of morality in young children, see the excellent P. Bloom, Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil (Portland, OR: Broadway Books, 2014). This source applies to the subsequent half dozen paragraphs.

  12.S. F. Brosnan and F. B. M. de Waal, “Monkeys Reject Unequal Pay,” Nat 425 (2003): 297.

  13.F. Range et al., “The Absence of Reward Induces Inequity Aversion in Dogs,” PNAS 106 (2009): 340; C. Wynne “Fair Refusal by Capuchin Monkeys,” Nat 428 (2004): 140; D. Dubreuil et al., “Are Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella) Inequity Averse?” Proc Royal Soc of London B 273 (2006): 1223.

  14.S. F. Brosnan and F. B. M. de Waal, “Evolution of Responses to (un)Fairness,” Sci 346 (2014): 1251776; S. F. Brosnan et al., “Mechanisms Underlying Responses to Inequitable Outcomes in Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes,” Animal Behav 79 (2010): 1229; M. Wolkenten et al., “Inequity Responses of Monkeys Modified by Effort,” PNAS 104 (2007): 18854.

  15.K. Jensen et al., “Chimpanzees Are Rational Maximizers in an Ultimatum Game,” Sci 318 (2007): 107; D. Proctor et al., “Chimpanzees Play the Ultimatum Game,” PNAS 110 (2013): 2070.

  16.V. R. Lakshminarayanan and L. R. Santos, “Capuchin Monkeys Are Sensitive to Others’ Welfare,” Curr Biol 17 (2008): 21; J. M. Burkart et al., “Other-Regarding Preferences in a Non-human Primate: Common Marmosets Provision Food Altruistically,” PNAS 104 (2007): 19762; J. B. Silk et al., “Chimpanzees Are Indifferent to the Welfare of Unrelated Group Members,” Nat 437 (2005); 1357; K. Jensen et al., “What’s in It for Me? Self-Regard Precludes Altruism and Spite in Chimpanzees,” Proc Royal Soc B 273 (2006): 1013; J. Vonk et al., “Chimpanzees Do Not Take Advantage of Very Low Cost Opportunities to Deliver Food to Unrelated Group Members,” Animal Behav 75 (2008): 1757.

  17.F. De Waal and S. Macedo, Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Science Library, 2009).

  18.B. Thomas et al., “Harming Kin to Save Strangers: Further Evidence for Abnormally Utilitarian Moral Judgments After Ventromedial Prefrontal Damage,” J Cog Nsci 23 (2011): 2186.

  19.J. Greene et al., “An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment,” Sci 293 (2001): 2105; J. Greene et al., “The Neural Bases of Cognitive Conflict and Control in Moral Judgment,” Neuron 44 (2004): 389; J. Greene, Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason and the Gap Between Us and Them (New York: Penguin, 2014).

  20.D. Ariely, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (New York: Harper Perennial, 2010).

  21.P. Singer, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1972) 229.

  22.D. A. Smalia et al., “Sympathy and Callousness: The Impact of Deliberative Thought on Donations to Identifiable and Statistical Victims,” Organizational Behav and Hum Decision Processes 102 (2007): 143; L. Petrinovich and P. O’Neill, “Influence of Wording and Framing Effects on Moral Intuitions,” Ethology and Sociobiology 17 (1996): 145; L. Petrinovich et al., “An Empirical Study of Moral Intuitions: Toward an Evolutionary Ethics,” JPSP 64 (1993): 467; R. E. O’Hara et al., “Wording Effects in Moral Judgments,” Judgment and Decision Making 5 (2010): 547.

  23.A. Cohn et al., “Business Culture and Dishonesty in the Banking Industry,” Nat 516 (2014): 86. See also M. Villeval, “Professional Identity Can Increase Dishonesty,” Nat 516 (2014): 48.

  24.R. Zahn et al., “The Neural Basis of Human Social Values: Evidence from Functional MRI,�
�� Cerebral Cortex 19 (2009): 276.

  25.K. Starcke et al., “Does Stress Alter Everyday Moral Decision-Making?” PNE 36 (2011): 210; F. Youssef et al., “Stress Alters Personal Moral Decision Making,” PNE 37 (2012): 491.

  26.E. Pronin, “How We See Ourselves and How We See Others,” Sci 320 (2008): 1177.

  27.R. M. N. Shweder et al., “The ‘Big Three’ of Morality and the ‘Big Three’ Explanations of Suffering,” in Morality and Health, ed. A. M. B. P. Rozin (Oxford: Routledge, 1997).

  28.M. Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil (New York: Holt, 2004).

  29.F. W. Marlowe et al., “More ‘Altruistic’ Punishment in Larger Societies,” Sci 23 (2006): 1767; J. Henrich et al., “‘Economic Man’ in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies,” BBS 28 (2005): 795.

  30.R. Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (Nanjing, China: Yilin Press1946); H. Katchadourian, Guilt: The Bite of Conscience (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford General Books, 2011); J. Jacquet, Is Shame Necessary? New Uses for an Old Tool (New York: Pantheon, 2015).

  31.C. Berthelsen, “College Football: 9 Enter Pleas in U.C.L.A. Parking Case,” New York Times, July 29, 1999, www.nytimes.com/1999/07/29/sports/college-football-9-enter-pleas-in-ucla-parking-case.html.

  32.J. Bakan, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (New York: Simon & Schuster 2005).

  33.Greene, Moral Tribes.

  34.D. G. Rand et al., “Spontaneous Giving and Calculated Greed,” Nat 489 (2012): 427.

  35.S. Bowles, “Policies Designed to Self-Interested Citizens May Undermine ‘The Moral Sentiments’: Evidence from Economic Experiments,” Sci 320 (2008): 1605; E. Fehr and B. Rockenbach, “Detrimental Effects of Sanctions on Human Altruism,” Nat 422 (2003): 137.