Continuing Education for Psychologists

BEHAVE
The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

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.

Robert M. Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and the receipient of a MacArthur Foundation genius grant.

"Sapolsky has created an immensely readable, often hilarious romp through the multiple worlds of psychology, primatology, sociology and neurobiology to explain why we behave the way we do. It is hands-down one of the best books I've read in years. I loved it."
--Dina Temple-Raston, The Washington Post

"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

"A quirky, opinionated and magisterial synthesis of psychology and neurobiology that integrates this complex subject more accessibly and completely than ever. a wild and mind-opening ride into a better understanding of just where our behavior comes from. Darwin would have been thrilled."
--Richard Wrangham, The New York Times Book Review

"[Sapolskly's] new book is his magnum opus, but is also strikingly different from his earlier work, veering sharply toward hard science as it looms myriad strands of his ruminations on human behavior. The familiar, enchanting Sapolsky tropes are here–his warm, witty voice, a sleight of hand that unfolds the mysteries of cognition–but Behave keeps the bar high. . . . A stunning achievement and an invaluable addition to the canon of scientific literature, certain to kindle debate for years to come."
--Minneapolis Star Tribune

"A masterly cross-disciplinary scientific study of human behavior: What in our glands, our genes, our childhoods explains our species' capacity for both altruism and brutality? This comprehensive and friendly survey of a 'big sprawling mess of a subject' is leavened by an impressive data-to-silly joke ratio. It has my vote for science book of the year."
--Parul Sehgal, New York Times

"A monumental contribution to the scientific understanding of human behavior that belongs on every bookshelf and many a course syllabus . . . It is a magnificent culmination of integrative thinking, on par with similar authoritative works, such as Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel and Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature."
--Michael Shermer, American Scholar"Behave is the best detective story ever written, and the most important. If you've ever wondered why someone did something–good or bad, vicious or generous–you need to read this book. If you think you already know why people behave as they do, you need to read this book. In other words, everybody needs to read it. It should be available on prescription (side effects: chronic laughter; highly addictive). They should put Behave in hotel rooms instead of the Bible: the world would be a much better, wiser place"
--Kate Fox, author of Watching the English

"Magisterial . . . This extraordinary survey of the science of human behaviour takes the reader on an epic journey . . . Sapolsky makes the book consistently entertaining, with an infectious excitement at the puzzles he explains . . . a miraculous synthesis of scholarly domains."
--Steven Poole, The Guardian

Rarely does an almost 800-page book keep my attention from start to finish, but "If anyone can save evolutionary biology from TED talkers and pop-science fabulists, it might be Sapolsky. Behave ranges at great length from moral philosophy to social science, genetics to Sapolsky's home turf of neurons and hormones–but all of it is aimed squarely at the question of why humans are so awful to each other, and whether the condition is terminal."
--Vulture

"Robert Sapolsky's students must love him. In Behave, the primatologist, neurologist and science communicator writes like a teacher: witty, erudite and passionate about clear communication. You feel like a lucky auditor in a fast-paced undergraduate course, where the implications of fascinating scientific findings are illuminated through topical stories and pop-culture allusions."
--Nature