-
Behave
- The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
- Narrated by: Michael Goldstrom
- Length: 26 hrs and 27 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $42.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
- The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping - Now Revised and Updated
- By: Robert Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now in a third edition, Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers features new chapters on how stress affects sleep and addiction, as well as new insights into anxiety and personality disorder and the impact of spirituality on managing stress. As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear-and the ones that plague us now-are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer.
-
-
The narrator is awful
- By Amazon Customer on 12-15-14
By: Robert Sapolsky
-
Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition
- By: Robert Sapolsky, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Robert Sapolsky
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When are we responsible for our own actions, and when are we in the grip of biological forces beyond our control? What determines who we fall in love with? The intensity of our spiritual lives? The degree of our aggressive impulses? These questions fall into the scientific province of behavioral biology, the field that explores interactions between the brain, mind, body, and environment that have a surprising influence on how we behave.
-
-
Important & beautifully conveyed
- By Rebecca on 09-05-15
By: Robert Sapolsky, and others
-
Chaos
- Making a New Science
- By: James Gleick
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the 20th century's third revolution.
-
-
Best AudioBook on Math/Physics yet
- By Ryanman on 03-02-11
By: James Gleick
-
Thinking, Fast and Slow
- By: Daniel Kahneman
- Narrated by: Patrick Egan
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The guru to the gurus at last shares his knowledge with the rest of us. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's seminal studies in behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and happiness studies have influenced numerous other authors, including Steven Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman at last offers his own, first book for the general public. It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work. It will change the way you think about thinking. Two systems drive the way we think and make choices, Kahneman explains....
-
-
Not on audio
- By Bay Area Girl on 09-25-17
By: Daniel Kahneman
-
How Emotions Are Made
- The Secret Life of the Brain
- By: Lisa Feldman Barrett
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research overturns the long-standing belief that emotions are automatic, universal, and hardwired in different brain regions. Instead, Barrett shows, we construct each instance of emotion through a unique interplay of brain, body, and culture.
-
-
I cannot recommend this book
- By Amazon Customer on 02-25-18
-
A Primate's Memoir
- A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons
- By: Robert Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla," writes Robert Sapolsky in this witty and riveting chronicle of a scientist's coming-of-age in remote Africa. An exhilarating account of Sapolsky's twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya, A Primate's Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengeti-for man and beast alike.
-
-
One of the best books I've ever read.
- By Jan on 07-06-15
By: Robert Sapolsky
-
Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
- The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping - Now Revised and Updated
- By: Robert Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Now in a third edition, Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers features new chapters on how stress affects sleep and addiction, as well as new insights into anxiety and personality disorder and the impact of spirituality on managing stress. As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear-and the ones that plague us now-are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer.
-
-
The narrator is awful
- By Amazon Customer on 12-15-14
By: Robert Sapolsky
-
Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, 2nd Edition
- By: Robert Sapolsky, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Robert Sapolsky
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When are we responsible for our own actions, and when are we in the grip of biological forces beyond our control? What determines who we fall in love with? The intensity of our spiritual lives? The degree of our aggressive impulses? These questions fall into the scientific province of behavioral biology, the field that explores interactions between the brain, mind, body, and environment that have a surprising influence on how we behave.
-
-
Important & beautifully conveyed
- By Rebecca on 09-05-15
By: Robert Sapolsky, and others
-
Chaos
- Making a New Science
- By: James Gleick
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
James Gleick explains the theories behind the fascinating new science called chaos. Alongside relativity and quantum mechanics, it is being hailed as the 20th century's third revolution.
-
-
Best AudioBook on Math/Physics yet
- By Ryanman on 03-02-11
By: James Gleick
-
Thinking, Fast and Slow
- By: Daniel Kahneman
- Narrated by: Patrick Egan
- Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The guru to the gurus at last shares his knowledge with the rest of us. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman's seminal studies in behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, and happiness studies have influenced numerous other authors, including Steven Pinker and Malcolm Gladwell. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman at last offers his own, first book for the general public. It is a lucid and enlightening summary of his life's work. It will change the way you think about thinking. Two systems drive the way we think and make choices, Kahneman explains....
-
-
Not on audio
- By Bay Area Girl on 09-25-17
By: Daniel Kahneman
-
How Emotions Are Made
- The Secret Life of the Brain
- By: Lisa Feldman Barrett
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The science of emotion is in the midst of a revolution on par with the discovery of relativity in physics and natural selection in biology. Leading the charge is psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, whose research overturns the long-standing belief that emotions are automatic, universal, and hardwired in different brain regions. Instead, Barrett shows, we construct each instance of emotion through a unique interplay of brain, body, and culture.
-
-
I cannot recommend this book
- By Amazon Customer on 02-25-18
-
A Primate's Memoir
- A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons
- By: Robert Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla," writes Robert Sapolsky in this witty and riveting chronicle of a scientist's coming-of-age in remote Africa. An exhilarating account of Sapolsky's twenty-one-year study of a troop of rambunctious baboons in Kenya, A Primate's Memoir interweaves serious scientific observations with wry commentary about the challenges and pleasures of living in the wilds of the Serengeti-for man and beast alike.
-
-
One of the best books I've ever read.
- By Jan on 07-06-15
By: Robert Sapolsky
-
The Selfish Gene
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life.
-
-
Interesting, but too many post-scripts
- By Hailey Spillane on 08-09-17
By: Richard Dawkins
-
Algorithms to Live By
- The Computer Science of Human Decisions
- By: Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths
- Narrated by: Brian Christian
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From finding a spouse to finding a parking spot, from organizing one's inbox to understanding the workings of human memory, Algorithms to Live By transforms the wisdom of computer science into strategies for human living.
-
-
Loved this book!
- By Michael D. Busch on 10-03-16
By: Brian Christian, and others
-
Projections
- A Story of Human Emotions
- By: Karl Deisseroth
- Narrated by: Karl Deisseroth, Natalie Naudus, Karen Chilton
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Karl Deisseroth has spent his life pursuing truths about the human mind, both as a renowned clinical psychiatrist and as a researcher creating and developing the revolutionary field of optogenetics, which uses light to help decipher the brain’s workings. In Projections, he combines his knowledge of the brain’s inner circuitry with a deep empathy for his patients to examine what mental illness reveals about the human mind and the origin of human feelings - how the broken can illuminate the unbroken.
-
-
Authors, USE BETTER NARRATORS!!
- By aaron on 08-28-21
By: Karl Deisseroth
-
Noise
- A Flaw in Human Judgment
- By: Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass R. Sunstein
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the best-selling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, the co-author of Nudge, and the author of You Are About to Make a Terrible Mistake! comes Noise, a revolutionary exploration of why people make bad judgments, and how to control both noise and cognitive bias.
-
-
Another masterpiece from Kahneman
- By JDM on 05-21-21
By: Daniel Kahneman, and others
-
The Laws of Human Nature
- By: Robert Greene
- Narrated by: Paul Michael, Robert Greene
- Length: 28 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Robert Greene is a master guide for millions of listeners, distilling ancient wisdom and philosophy into essential texts for seekers of power, understanding, and mastery. Now he turns to the most important subject of all - understanding people's drives and motivations, even when they are unconscious of them themselves. Whether at work, in relationships, or in shaping the world around you, The Laws of Human Nature offers brilliant tactics for success, self-improvement, and self-defense.
-
-
Interesting mix of biography and thoughts
- By Tintin on 12-13-18
By: Robert Greene
-
Why Evolution Is True
- By: Jerry A. Coyne
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why evolution is more than just a theory: it is a fact. In all the current highly publicized debates about creationism and its descendant "intelligent design", there is an element of the controversy that is rarely mentioned: the evidence, the empirical truth of evolution by natural selection.
-
-
As great as everyone says it is
- By Joseph on 12-01-10
By: Jerry A. Coyne
-
How the Mind Works
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 26 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this delightful, acclaimed bestseller, one of the world’s leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness?
-
-
Excellent, but a difficult listen.
- By David Roseberry on 12-11-11
By: Steven Pinker
-
The Blank Slate
- The Modern Denial of Human Nature
- By: Steven Pinker
- Narrated by: Victor Bevine
- Length: 22 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, one of the world's leading experts on language and the mind, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. With characteristic wit, lucidity, and insight, Pinker argues that the dogma that the mind has no innate traits, denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces objective analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of politics, violence, parenting, and the arts.
-
-
Excellent, as expected
- By Carolyn on 05-30-14
By: Steven Pinker
-
The Molecule of More
- How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity - And Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race
- By: Daniel Z. Lieberman MD, Michael E. Long
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, George Washington University professor and psychiatrist Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, and Georgetown University lecturer Michael E. Long present a potentially life-changing proposal: Much of human life has an unconsidered component that explains an array of behaviors previously thought to be unrelated, including why winners cheat, why geniuses often suffer with mental illness, why nearly all diets fail, and more.
-
-
Did you know conservatives have more orgasms?
- By Josh on 10-21-20
By: Daniel Z. Lieberman MD, and others
-
The Gene
- An Intimate History
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
-
-
Scientific history blended with humanity
- By S. Yates on 05-23-16
-
A Hunter-Gatherer's Guide to the 21st Century
- Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life
- By: Heather Heying, Bret Weinstein
- Narrated by: Heather Heying, Bret Weinstein
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are living through the most prosperous age in all of human history, yet we are listless, divided, and miserable. Wealth and comfort are unparalleled, but our political landscape is unmoored, and rates of suicide, loneliness, and chronic illness continue to skyrocket. How do we explain the gap between these truths? And how should we respond? For evolutionary biologists Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein, the cause of our troubles is clear: The accelerating rate of change in the modern world has outstripped the capacity of our brains and bodies to adapt.
-
-
Presents conjecture and bias as science
- By Reviewer on 09-16-21
By: Heather Heying, and others
-
The Righteous Mind
- Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
- By: Jonathan Haidt
- Narrated by: Jonathan Haidt
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding. His starting point is moral intuition - the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right.
-
-
Fundamentally changed my thinking
- By Tristan on 10-14-16
By: Jonathan Haidt
Publisher's Summary
The New York Times best seller.
From the celebrated neurobiologist and primatologist, a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior, both good and bad, and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do?
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.
Critic Reviews
One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2017
"It has my vote for science book of the year.” (Parul Sehgal, The New York Times)
“It’s no exaggeration to say that Behave is one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read.” (David P. Barash, The Wall Street Journal)
Featured Article: 20 Best Psychology Audiobooks
Everyone is affected by human psychology and learning about the field is not only interesting; it can also impact our development. Comprehending psychology is a way for us to gain greater understanding of ourselves and others—whether it’s through basic connection or a deeper dive into our psyche. We’ve put together the 20 best psychology audiobooks to help you master the workings of the human mind and keep your thinking sharp, insightful, and aware.
More from the same
What listeners say about Behave
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Doug Hay
- 07-27-17
Insightful
I'm a salesman with no medical training. Not going to lie, getting through the first 1/3 of this book was TOUGH with me listening at about 20% my normal speed! BUT, the payoff was worth this investment with this being one of the most important books I've read. Surprisingly it will not help me so much in sales as its helping me understand myself, how to relate better to other people, and how to boost my compassion -- especially to those with chronic stress. Well worth the read for anyone wishing to be a better human being.
146 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Neuron
- 12-07-17
An encyclopaedia of neuroscience and psychology
I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, Robert Sapolsky is an excellent writer. Throughout the book he is clever, witty and informative, all at the same time. You can open this book on any page and find information about interesting studies and their implications. And, as you might have guessed from the number of pages this book has, it covers a lot of ground.
The book’s common theme is what determines our behavior. As a little side note here, like myself Robert Sapolsky does not believe we have free will. This means that, when we believe we are acting according to our own free, it is really just the sum of our past experiences, upbringing, genes etc, acting on our brain and causing the illusion of free will…
The question of what determines our behavior has many different viable answers. I moved my arm because my muscles contracted. My arm moved because neurons in my brain ordered the muscles to contract. I moved my arm to catch the ball flying towards me. I moved my arm because it hurts if it hits my head. I moved my arm because I have an evolved instinct to avoid harmful stimuli. And so on. All these answers are correct and they differ mainly in how long before the arm movement they acted they were involved in forming our behavior. The book is organized in the same manner. Sapolsky first explains the immediate causes of a behaviour (neurons and muscles), and then moves further and further back in time. Which stimuli in the environment caused your brain to react in the way that it did? Which factors in your upbringing and in your evolutionary past formed your brain so that you reacted to the stimuli in the way you did.
The book, as mentioned covers a lot of ground, and it feels almost like an encyclopaedia rather than a popular science book. Indeed, on one of the first pages of the book, the author apologizes for the length of the book, explaining that all the content is important if you want to properly understand behavior. I agree with this and you don't usually get the feeling that he is using unnecessarily many words. However, it does result in a lack of focus.
Should you buy the book? Yes, if you want a comprehensive book that covers a wealth of interesting neuroscience and psychology. There is no doubt that you will learn a lot if you read this book. Just be prepared for a very long book with not so clear connections between the dots.
50 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Philomath
- 05-17-17
The most comprehensive scientific look at behaviour
Robert Sapolsky does not disappoint. This book is as detailed and scientific as any I've read on behaviour. The author delves in technical detail on all aspects of human behaviour, starting with the brain, the animal, the genes, society, environment, and as many factors as one can think of that can fit in a book this size.
This is not for the lame reader. It is meant for someone who has established basic knowledge on behaviour and wants to expand it.
We think we know a lot, but Sapolsky humbles us by explaining the complexity of the subject.
Highly recommended to anyone who wants to know the relatively knew science of behaviour from a truly scientific perspective.
97 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Andrew C
- 07-09-17
Changes the way you look at life
What did you like best about this story?
After reading this book, my main conclusion is that there is a high probability that Sapolsky has the warrior gene. This book is without a doubt the most comprehensive analysis of behavior out there as of now. It summarizes and compiles other important books, impressively raising key issues, and taking the next step to correct their theses. Don't waste your time reading books that focus on a tiny part of the picture, this categorization is dangerous as Sapolsky notes and can get you thinking in a constrained worldview, similar to how Jeff Skilling of Enron's favorite book was The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Instead, read this book first with an open mind, which will give you the foundation you need to then critique reads by other authors. Sapolsky makes a very balanced assessment of many interesting studies and hypotheses looking from both sides, and begins to put them together throughout the book to reach a conclusion that could seem quite extreme at first glance: that free-wills existence is little to none. The end result is that you are left with an intuition to predict what factors likely contribute to a behavior, understanding that there is much to still be explained that is often encapsulated with 'evil' or 'free-will,' and guaranteeing that your next conversation with that friend who is a lawyer or judge will leave them with a changed worldview, or will leave you no longer friends.
56 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ary Shalizi
- 12-22-17
If you read one book about the brain this year...
...read this one!
As a trained neuroscientist, this is a book I’d like to hand out on the street everyone. Any time you hear a pop-culture think piece confidently declare “gene X is responsible for behavior Y,” “hormone Z is a ‘love potion,’” or “socioeconomic factor A means you will do B in situation C,” there are reams of caveats omitted, context and nuance left out in our breathless excitement that is important for understanding not just the experimental design, but the type of behavior, even the “meaning" we ascribe to the behavior itself.
Sapolsky’s book is a chance to stop and take your breath, an ambitious but accessible introduction to behavioral neuroscience that attempts to understand the headline-grabbing findings by synthesizing across a variety of temporal and biological scales. He begins with momentary and molecular and, by constantly expanding his scope, eventually encloses the cultural and generational in his arguments. His tone is conversational, like you met at a party or a coffee shop and started chatting about the topic with someone who happens to be a world expert accustomed to explaining things to novices.
With patience, an abundance of evidence, and a sophisticated understanding of the drawbacks inherent to each level of analysis, he dispels common misconceptions about behavioral science, and explains the complex interplay between different levels of inquiry–genes and environment and individual history and evolutionary history and social context and economic factors and… you get the idea. As a pair of simple examples, consider that elevating testosterone can increase cooperation, and that increasing levels of the “love hormone" oxytocin can promote aggression; in both cases, the social context is king when determining the behavioral outcome of the biological manipulation.
As a consequence of all this effort, Sapolsky comes to some truly radical conclusions about “what it all means” for topics like education and criminal justice. In particular, Sapolsky posits that as our understanding of the neural basis of behavior, and the scope of social, cultural, and economic influences thereupon, improves, our conception of justice must change. He hopes that a future “justice” will look upon our current system of crime and punishment the way we now look at epilepsy and mental illness: not as a cause for ostracism or execution due to demonic possession but as organic maladies that deserve treatment, and our sympathy.
This is that rare scientific book that is at once comprehensive and morally ambitious. I cannot recommend it enough.
34 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Curmud the prof
- 05-28-17
A Magnum Opus
What a work! This book ties together insights ranging from so many disciplines that it defies categorization. Factors influencing human behavior but not determining per se - a major theme) are reviewed and illustrated with countless experimental examples ranging from molecular to societal -with everything in between. Some may find it repetitive but that is the essence of learning. So much detail is included that you should sign up for 15 Medical School credits if you make it to the end. And very importantly the narrator dealt with the big words in a manner was much appreciated by this reviewer - a retired professor of pharmacology.
54 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- S. Yates
- 06-27-17
Complex subject, expertly explained
Any additional comments?
4.5 stars. Sapolsky brings a truly epic amount of scientific research to bear in the entertaining, humane, and illuminating book. This book acts as a synethesis of a wide array of research into human behavior, incorporating work in evolutionary development, neurology, psychology, sociology, and the like. Sapolsky has looked at the various factors that influence human behavior, guiding the reader from the immediate influences that trigger a behavior in the preceding seconds, to the factors that lead to any given behavior in preceding days and weeks, to those that shaped us in the years before and in the womb, all the way back to the evolutionary factors that gave rise to homo sapiens. He manages to patiently lay out complex webs of influence, never giving in to oversimiplification and often finding ways to inject wit and humor into the text. He repeatedly offers up commonly held beliefs, pat explanations, and historical certainties and then explains why we now have evidence showing that we were wrong. And he does this not only with obsolete conclusions from yesteryear, but with some overly enthusiastic interpretations of recent data (often falling into the category of people overstating findings and failing to see nuance). The book discusses the full range of human behavior as promised in the subtitle - our behavior at its best and its worst. Having finished the book, a reader should walk away with mind broadened and an understanding that our behavior is not as simple as a gene or an environement or an event, but a complex tapestry of all those things interacting. This knowledge should both frighten and engender hope.
26 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeremy G
- 07-28-17
Absolutely engrossing!
I generally enjoy any book dealing with psychology and/or biology, but this one is a new favorite. Concepts I struggled with as a grad student in biopsychology are masterfully deconstructed into easy to comprehend stories, and only rarely required a second reading. If you love learning about how the mind and body function together, this book will definitely satisfy that itch.
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- gus cirulli
- 07-26-17
everybody should have this book
if you want to understand life better and get an inside on thing you never understood before , reed it , share it , buy it .
One of the most charismatic , and intelligent scientist of our times , maybe he should run for president , loved it
16 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anthony W. Shallin
- 07-10-17
Excellent overview of behavior.
Would you listen to Behave again? Why?
Yes. Dr Sapolsky is able to explain very complex ideas in ways that make sense.
Who was your favorite character and why?
n/a
Have you listened to any of Michael Goldstrom’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
no
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
Find out why you do what you do.
10 people found this helpful