The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday LifeOxford University Press, 01/12/2017 - 288 من الصفحات Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain." Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen? Our unconscious motives drive more than just our private behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as Art, School, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their "official" ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading one to question the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of standard policies designed to favor or discourage them. You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain. |
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الصفحة 13
... competition and other ugly motives, people are understandably averse to sharing it. It sucks the energy out of the room. As your two coauthors have learned firsthand, it can be a real buzzkill at dinner parties. In light of this, it's ...
... competition and other ugly motives, people are understandably averse to sharing it. It sucks the energy out of the room. As your two coauthors have learned firsthand, it can be a real buzzkill at dinner parties. In light of this, it's ...
الصفحة 20
... COMPETITIVE ALTRUISM Before we move on to human behavior, here is one more quick example. The Arabian babbler, famously studied by Amotz Zahavi and a team of ornithologists at Tel Aviv University, is a small brown bird that lives in the ...
... COMPETITIVE ALTRUISM Before we move on to human behavior, here is one more quick example. The Arabian babbler, famously studied by Amotz Zahavi and a team of ornithologists at Tel Aviv University, is a small brown bird that lives in the ...
الصفحة 21
... compete to help each other and the group— often aggressively so. For example, not only do higher- ranked babblers ... competing to perform them? One hypothesis is that higher- ranked babblers are stronger, and therefore better able to ...
... compete to help each other and the group— often aggressively so. For example, not only do higher- ranked babblers ... competing to perform them? One hypothesis is that higher- ranked babblers are stronger, and therefore better able to ...
الصفحة 22
... compete to help others in a way that ultimately increases their own chances of survival and reproduction. What looks like altruism is actually, at a deeper level, competitive self- interest. HUMAN BEHAVIORS We can't always take animal ...
... compete to help others in a way that ultimately increases their own chances of survival and reproduction. What looks like altruism is actually, at a deeper level, competitive self- interest. HUMAN BEHAVIORS We can't always take animal ...
الصفحة 24
... more carefully at how our brains were designed and what problems they're intended to solve. We have to turn, in other words, to evolution. 2 Competition H umans are a peculiar species. We're relatively 24 Why We Hide Our Motives.
... more carefully at how our brains were designed and what problems they're intended to solve. We have to turn, in other words, to evolution. 2 Competition H umans are a peculiar species. We're relatively 24 Why We Hide Our Motives.
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