# Behave **Covers**:: **Source**:: [[Behave by Robert M. Sapolsky]] **Creator**:: [[Robert M. Sapolsky]] # Highlights ##### ^301593485 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=193 ###### ^301593485q This is a central point of this book—we don’t hate violence. We hate and fear the wrong kind of violence, violence in the wrong context. Because violence in the right context is different. ^301593485 ##### ^301593492 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=219 ###### ^301593492q you can’t begin to understand things like aggression, competition, cooperation, and empathy without biology; ... you’re just as much up the creek if you rely only on biology; ... it actually makes no sense to distinguish between aspects of a behavior that are “biological” and those that would be described as, say, “psychological” or “cultural.” ^301593492 ##### ^301593493 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=244 ###### ^301593493q the visual spectrum is a continuum of wavelengths from violet to red, and it is arbitrary where boundaries are put for different color names ... If the color-name boundary in that person’s language happens to fall between the two colors, the person will overestimate the difference between the two. If the colors fall in the same category, the opposite happens. ^301593493 ##### ^301593491 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=248 ###### ^301593491q when you think categorically, you have trouble seeing how similar or different two things are. If you pay lots of attention to where boundaries are, you pay less attention to complete pictures. ^301593491 ##### ^301731138 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=265 ###### ^301731138q with one of these disciplines, you are implicitly invoking all the disciplines—any given type of explanation is the end product of the influences that preceded it. ^301731138 ##### ^301731326 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=356 ###### ^301731326q In the mid-1960s, a rightist military coup overthrew the government of Indonesia, instituting the thirty-year dictatorship of Suharto known as the New Order. Following the coup, government-sponsored purges of communists, leftists, intellectuals, unionists, and ethnic Chinese left about a half million dead.9 Mass executions, torture, villages torched with inhabitants trapped inside. ... they would, incongruously, bring along a traditional gamelan orchestra. ... Why? Why would you possibly do that? The man looked puzzled and gave what seemed to him a self-evident answer: “Well, to make it more beautiful.” ^301731326 ##### ^301731327 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=380 ###### ^301731327q Words pack power and these definitions are laden with values, ... (a) “competition”—your lab team races the Cambridge group to a discovery ... (b) “competition”—playing pickup soccer ... (c) “competition”—your child’s teacher announces a prize for the best outlining-your-fingers Thanksgiving turkey drawing ... principal); (d) “competition”—whose deity is more worth killing for? ^301731327 ##### ^301731147 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=386 ###### ^301731147q Is “aggression” about thought, emotion, or something done with muscles? Is “altruism” something that can be studied mathematically in various species, including bacteria, or are we discussing moral development in kids? ^301731147 ##### ^301731328 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=467 Macleans Triune Model ###### ^301731328q Layer 1: An ancient part of the brain, at its base, found in species from humans to geckos. This layer mediates automatic, regulatory functions. If body temperature drops, this brain region senses it and commands muscles to shiver. ... Layer 2: A more recently evolved region that has expanded in mammals. MacLean conceptualized this layer as being about emotions, ... Layer 3: The recently evolved layer of neocortex sitting on the upper surface of the brain. Proportionately, primates devote more of their brain to this layer than do other species. Cognition, memory storage, sensory processing, abstractions, philosophy, navel contemplation. Read a scary passage of a book, and layer 3 signals layer 2 to make you feel frightened, prompting layer 1 to initiate shivering. ^301731328 ##### ^301731329 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=482 Caveats of the triune model ###### ^301731329q Anatomically there is considerable overlap among the three layers ... The flow of information and commands is not just top down, from layer 3 to 2 to 1. ... Automatic aspects of behavior (simplistically, the purview of layer 1), emotion (layer 2), and thought (layer 3) are not separable. The triune model leads one, erroneously, to think that evolution in effect slapped on each new layer without any changes occurring in the one(s) already there. ^301731329 ##### ^301731154 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=503 ###### ^301731154q for a rat, emotion and olfaction are nearly synonymous, since nearly all the environmental stimuli that elicit emotions in a rodent are olfactory. Peace in our time. In a rodent, olfactory inputs are what the limbic system most depends on for emotional news of the world. ^301731154 ##### ^301731155 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=513 ###### ^301731155q The limbic system’s regions form complex circuits of excitation and inhibition. It’s easier to understand this by appreciating the deeply held desire of every limbic structure—to influence what the hypothalamus does. ^301731155 ##### ^301731156 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=515 ###### ^301731156q The hypothalamus, a limbic structure, is the interface between layers 1 and 2, between core regulatory and emotional parts of the brain. ^301731156 ##### ^301731157 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=523 ###### ^301731157q All of this is automatic, or “autonomic.” And thus the midbrain and brain-stem regions, along with their projections down the spine and out to the body, are collectively termed the “autonomic nervous system.”* ^301731157 ##### ^301731158 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=530 ###### ^301731158q The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) mediates the body’s response to arousing circumstances, for example, producing the famed “fight or flight” stress response. ^301731158 ##### ^301731159 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=532 ###### ^301731159q the SNS mediates the “four Fs—fear, fight, flight, and sex.” ^301731159 ##### ^301731160 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=536 ###### ^301731160q the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) arises from different midbrain/brain-stem nuclei that project down the spine to the body. In contrast to the SNS and the four Fs, the PNS is about calm, vegetative states. The SNS speeds up the heart; the PNS slows it down. The PNS promotes digestion; the SNS inhibits it (which makes sense—if you’re running for your life, avoiding being someone’s lunch, don’t waste energy digesting breakfast). ^301731160 ##### ^301731161 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=544 ###### ^301731161q So the limbic system indirectly regulates autonomic function and hormone release. What does this have to do with behavior? Plenty—because the autonomic and hormonal states of the body feed back to the brain, influencing behavior (typically unconsciously).* ^301731161 ##### ^301731162 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=554 ###### ^301731162q Emotions filter the nature and accuracy of what is remembered. ^301731162 ##### ^301731163 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=556 ###### ^301731163q The cortex and limbic system are not separate, as scads of axonal projections course between the two. Crucially, those projections are bidirectional—the limbic system talks to the cortex, rather than merely being reined in by it. ^301731163 ##### ^301731164 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=560 ###### ^301731164q While the hypothalamus dwells at the interface of layers 1 and 2, it is the incredibly interesting frontal cortex that is the interface between layers 2 and 3. ^301731164 ##### ^301731165 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=570 ###### ^301731165q cortex is not a smooth surface but instead is folded into convolutions. The convolutions form a superstructure of four separate lobes: the temporal, parietal, occipital, and frontal, each with different functions. ^301731165 ##### ^303892920 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=606 ###### ^303892920q Show human subjects pictures that provoke anger, and the amygdala activates (as shown with neuroimaging). Sticking an electrode in someone’s amygdala and stimulating it (as is done before certain types of neurosurgery) produces rage. ^303892920 ##### ^303892929 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=626 ###### ^303892929q Ulrike Meinhof, a founder in 1968 of the Red Army Faction (aka the Baader-Meinhof Gang), a terrorist group responsible for bombings and bank robberies in West Germany. ... the 1976 autopsy showed that remnants of the tumor and surgical scar tissue impinged on her amygdala. ^303892929 ##### ^303892930 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=631 ###### ^303892930q Charles Whitman, the 1966 “Texas Tower” sniper who, after killing his wife and mother, opened fire atop a tower at the University of Texas in Austin, killing sixteen and wounding thirty-two, ... In the prior year he had seen doctors, complaining of severe headaches and violent impulses (e.g., to shoot people from the campus tower). He left notes by the bodies of his wife and his mother, proclaiming love and puzzlement at his actions: “I cannot rationaly [sic] pinpoint any specific reason for [killing her],” and “let there be no doubt in your mind that I loved this woman with all my heart.” His suicide note requested an autopsy of his brain, and that any money he had be given to a mental health foundation. The autopsy proved his intuition correct—Whitman had a glioblastoma tumor pressing on his amygdala. Did Whitman’s tumor “cause” his violence? Probably not in a strict “amygdaloid tumor = murderer” sense, as he had risk factors that interacted with his neurological issues. Whitman grew up being beaten by his father and watching his mother and siblings experience the same. ^303892930 ##### ^301731166 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=645 ###### ^301731166q if you asked amygdala experts what behavior their favorite brain structure brings to mind, “aggression” wouldn’t top their list. It would be fear and anxiety.9 Crucially, the brain region most involved in feeling afraid and anxious is most involved in generating aggression. ^301731166 ##### ^302856288 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=652 ###### ^302856288q In one study subjects in a brain scanner played a Ms. Pac-Man–from–hell video game where they were pursued in a maze by a dot; if caught, they’d be shocked.11 When people were evading the dot, the amygdala was silent. However, its activity increased as the dot approached; the stronger the shocks, the farther away the dot would be when first activating the amygdala, the stronger the activation, and the larger the self-reported feeling of panic. ^302856288 ##### ^302856289 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=659 ###### ^302856289q the human amygdala preferentially responds to fear-evoking stimuli, even stimuli so fleeting as to be below conscious detection. ^302856289 ##### ^302856290 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=661 ###### ^302856290q In PTSD sufferers the amygdala is overreactive to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow in calming down after being activated. ^302856290 ##### ^302856291 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=662 ###### ^302856291q the amygdala expands in size with long-term PTSD. ^302856291 ##### ^303892925 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=668 ###### ^303892925q The amygdala is particularly sensitive to unsettling circumstances that are social. ^303892925 ##### ^302856292 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=676 ###### ^302856292q Stable rankings activated parts of the frontal cortex that we’ll soon consider. Instability activated the frontal cortex plus the amygdala. Being unsure of your place is unsettling. ^302856292 ##### ^302856293 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=685 ###### ^302856293q The core of innate fear (aka a phobia) is that you don’t have to learn by trial and error that something is aversive. For example, a rat born in a lab, who has interacted only with other rats and grad students, instinctually fears and avoids the smell of cats. ^302856293 ##### ^302856309 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=688 ###### ^302856309q The dichotomy between innate and learned fear is actually a bit fuzzy. ... Instead of inevitable fear, we show “prepared learning”—learning to be afraid of snakes and spiders more readily than of pandas or beagles. ^302856309 ##### ^302856296 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=695 ###### ^302856296q The evolutionarily ancient central amygdala plays a key role in innate fears. Surrounding it is the basolateral amygdala (BLA), which is more recently evolved and somewhat resembles the fancy, modern cortex. It’s the BLA that learns fear and then sends the news to the central amygdala. ^302856296 ##### ^302856310 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=702 ###### ^302856310q with repeated coupling of the tone (the conditioned stimulus) with the shock (the unconditioned one), fear conditioning occurs—the ... At first, activation of those neurons is irrelevant to the central amygdala ... with repeated coupling of tone with shock, there is remapping and those BLA neurons acquire the means to activate the central amygdala.* BLA neurons that respond to the tone only once conditioning has occurred would also have responded if conditioning instead had been to a light. In other words, these neurons respond to the meaning of the stimulus, rather than to its specific modality. ^302856310 ##### ^302856300 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=715 ###### ^302856300q conditioning increases levels of “growth factors,” which prompt the growth of new connections between BLA and central amygdala neurons; ^302856300 ##### ^303892926 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=722 ###### ^303892926q Where do these “Ohhh, the tone isn’t scary anymore” neurons get inputs from? The frontal cortex. When we stop fearing something, it isn’t because some amygdaloid neurons have lost their excitability. We don’t passively forget that something is scary. We actively learn that it isn’t anymore. ^303892926 ##### ^302856302 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=727 ###### ^302856302q Research shows that rejecting an offer is an emotional decision, triggered by anger at a lousy offer and the desire to punish. The more the amygdala activation in the second player after an offer, the more likely the rejection. ^302856302 ##### ^302856311 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=734 ###### ^302856311q the amygdala injects implicit distrust and vigilance into social decision making. ... “The generosity in the trust game of our BLA-damaged subjects might be considered pathological altruism, in the sense that inborn altruistic behaviors have not, due to BLA damage, been un-learned through negative social experience.” ^302856311 ##### ^302856305 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=744 ###### ^302856305q some BLA neurons that respond in that circumstance also respond when the severity of something aversive is shifting—these neurons are paying attention to change, independent of direction. For them, “the amount of reward is changing” and “the amount of punishment is changing” are the same. ^302856305 ##### ^302856306 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=747 ###### ^302856306q the amygdala isn’t about the pleasure of experiencing pleasure. It’s about the uncertain, unsettled yearning for a potential pleasure, the anxiety and fear and anger that the reward may be smaller than anticipated, or may not even happen. ^302856306 ##### ^303014370 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=755 ###### ^303014370q the amygdala, specifically the BLA, gets projections from all the sensory systems. ^303014370 ##### ^303474533 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=760 ###### ^303474533q some sensory information entering the brain takes a shortcut, bypassing the cortex and going directly to the amygdala. ... the shortcut projections form stronger, more excitable synapses in the BLA than do the ones from the sensory cortex; emotional arousal enhances fear conditioning through this pathway. ^303474533 ##### ^303892931 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=776 ###### ^303892931q If you (or any other mammal) bite into rancid food, the insular cortex lights up, causing you to spit it out, gag, feel nauseated, make a revolted facial expression—the ... humans also activate it by thinking about something morally disgusting—social norm violations or individuals who are typically stigmatized in society. And in that circumstance its activation drives that of the amygdala. ^303892931 ### Nine Centuries to Millennia Before ##### ^304866727 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4503 ###### ^304866727q when we contemplate our iconic acts—the pulling of a trigger, the touching of an arm—and want to explain why they happened using a biological framework, culture better be on our list of explanatory factors. ^304866727 ##### ^304866744 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4515 ###### ^304866744q Jane Goodall blew off everyone’s socks in the 1960s by reporting the now-iconic fact that chimps make tools. Her study subjects modified twigs by stripping off the leaves and pushing them into termite mounds; termites would bite the twig, still holding on when it was pulled out, yielding a snack for the chimps. ... Different populations make different tools; new techniques spread across social networks (among chimps who hang with one another); kids learn the ropes by watching their moms; techniques spread from one group to another when someone emigrates; chimp nut-cracking tools in excess of four thousand years old have been excavated. ... a female in Zambia got it into her head to go around with a strawlike blade of grass in her ear. ... She did it for years, and over that time the practice spread throughout her group. ^304866744 ##### ^304866745 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4538 ###### ^304866745q Alfred Kroeber, Clyde Kluckhohn, and Clifford Geertz, ... focused on how culture is about ideas and symbols, rather than the mere behaviors in which they instantiate, ^304866745 ##### ^304866734 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4542 ###### ^304866734q we’ll rely on an intuitive definition of culture that has been emphasized by Frans de Waal: “culture” is how we do and think about things, transmitted by nongenetic means. ^304866734 ##### ^304866735 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4545 ###### ^304866735q multiple groups of humans independently invented agriculture, writing, pottery, embalming, astronomy, and coinage. ^304866735 ##### ^304866746 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4555 ###### ^304866746q demographic statistics born of cultural differences: a girl born in Monaco has a ninety-three-year life expectancy; one in Angola, thirty-nine. Latvia has 99.9 percent literacy; Niger, 19 percent. More than 10 percent of children in Afghanistan die in their first year, about 0.2 percent in Iceland. Per-capita GDP is $137,000 in Qatar, $609 in the Central African Republic. A woman in South Sudan is roughly a thousand times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in Estonia. ... Someone in Honduras is 450 times more likely to be murdered than someone in Singapore. 65 percent of women experience intimate-partner violence in Central Africa, 16 percent in East Asia. A South African woman is more than one hundred times more likely to be raped than one in Japan. Be a school kid in Romania, Bulgaria, or Ukraine, and you’re about ten times more likely to be chronically bullied than a kid in Sweden, Iceland, or Denmark ^304866746 #### COLLECTIVIST VERSUS INDIVIDUALIST CULTURES ##### ^304866738 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4590 ###### ^304866738q When asked to draw a “sociogram”—a diagram of their social network, with circles representing themselves and their friends, connected by lines—Americans tend to place the circle representing themselves in the middle of the page and make it the largest. ^304866738 ##### ^304866739 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4593 ###### ^304866739q those from collectivist cultures show more social comprehension; some reports suggest that they are better at Theory of Mind tasks, more accurate in understanding someone else’s perspective—with “perspective” ranging from the other person’s abstract thoughts to how objects appear from where she is sitting. There is more blame of the group when someone violates a norm due to peer pressure, and a greater tendency to give situational explanations for behavior. Competitive drive is about not falling behind everyone else. And when drawing sociograms, the circle representing “yourself” is far from the center, and far from the biggest. ^304866739 ##### ^304866740 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4598 ###### ^304866740q subjects from individualist cultures strongly activate the (emotional) mPFC when looking at a picture of themselves, compared to looking at a picture of a relative or friend; in contrast, the activation is far less for East Asian subjects. ^304866740 ##### ^304866741 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4601 ###### ^304866741q when asked in free recall, Americans are more likely than East Asians to remember times in which they influenced someone; conversely, East Asians are more likely to remember times when someone influenced them. Force Americans to talk at length about a time someone influenced them, or force East Asians to detail their influencing someone, and both secrete glucocorticoids from the stressfulness of having to recount this discomfiting event. ^304866741 ##### ^304866742 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4607 ###### ^304866742q collectivist societies, conformity and morality are virtually synonymous and norm enforcement is more about shame (“What will people think if I did that?”) than guilt (“How could I live with myself?”). ^304866742 ##### ^304866743 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4613 ###### ^304866743q subjects from both individualist and collectivist cultures denigrate out-group members, but only the former inflate assessments of their own group. In other words, East Asians, unlike Americans, don’t have to puff up their own group to view others as inferior. ^304866743 ##### ^306490125 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4621 ###### ^306490125q Consider a monkey, a bear, and a banana. Which two go together? Westerners think categorically and choose the monkey and bear—they’re both animals. East Asians think relationally and link the monkey and banana—if ^306490125 ##### ^306490135 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4626 ###### ^306490135q Show a picture of a person standing in the middle of a complex scene; East Asians will be more accurate at remembering the scene, the context, while Westerners remember the person in the middle. ... force Westerners to focus on the holistic context of a picture, or East Asians on the central subject, and the frontal cortex works harder, activating more. ^306490135 ##### ^306490128 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4637 ###### ^306490128q Cultures change over time. For example, levels of conformity in East Asian cultures are declining (one study, for example, shows increased rates of babies in Japan receiving unique names). Moreover, one’s degree of inculcation into one’s culture can be altered rapidly. For example, priming someone beforehand with individualist or collectivist cultural cues shifts how holistically he processes a picture. This is especially true for bicultural individuals. ^306490128 ##### ^306490129 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4643 ###### ^306490129q In general, it takes about a generation for the descendants of East Asian immigrants to America to be as individualist as European Americans. ^306490129 ##### ^306490136 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4656 ###### ^306490136q Why 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. ... 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.* ^306490136 ##### ^306490132 highlight_tags:: [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4663 ###### ^306490132q in Bali, religious authority regulates water access, symbolized by iconic water temples. ^306490132 ##### ^306490133 highlight_tags:: [[pink]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4678 It's harder to draw the correlation when its not a monoculture. Couldn't the more individualistic types have become herders and the less stayed to fish and farm? ###### ^306490133q Herders thought less holistically than farmers or fishermen—the ^306490133 ##### ^306490134 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4680 ###### ^306490134q “social interdependence fosters holistic thinking.” ^306490134 ##### ^306511809 highlight_tags:: [[blue]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=4688 ###### ^306511809q the 7R variant, producing a receptor less responsive to dopamine in the cortex, associated with novelty seeking, extroversion, and impulsivity. ... the descendants of folks who made it all the way to the Amazon basin—the Ticuna, Surui, and Karitiana—with a roughly 70 percent incidence of 7R, the highest in the world. ^306511809 ##### ^304449638 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=11019 ###### ^304449638q There are about ten glial cells for every neuron, coming in various subtypes. They greatly influence how neurons speak to one another, and also form glial networks that communicate completely differently from neurons. ^304449638 ##### ^304449639 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=11023 ###### ^304449639q Cells are usually small, self-contained entities—consider little round red blood cells: Neurons, in contrast, are highly asymmetrical, elongated beasts, typically with processes sticking out all over the place: ^304449639 ##### ^304449640 highlight_tags:: [[favorite]], [[orange]] Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=11028 ###### ^304449640q A zillion red blood cells fit on the proverbial period at the end of this sentence. In contrast, there are single neurons in the spinal cord that send out projection cables many feet long. There are spinal cord neurons in blue whales that are half the length of a basketball court. ^304449640 ##### ^301731167 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=11627 ###### ^301731167q The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit (New York: Henry Holt, 2003). This is the finest book in existence on the biology of human social behavior—subtle, nuanced, nondogmatic, and wonderfully written—by the anthropologist/physician Mel Konner. ^301731167 ##### ^301731168 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=17834 ###### ^301731168q the hypothalamus consists of a bunch of different nuclei, each receiving a unique orchestration of limbic inputs and equivalently distinctive outputs to various midbrain/brain-stem regions. And while each hypothalamic nucleus has a different set of functions, they all fall under the general rubric of autonomic regulation. ^301731168 ##### ^302856307 Goto: https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B01IAUGC5S&location=17890 ###### ^302856307q Is the amygdala solely the keyboard (with fear memories stored elsewhere), or is it the hard drive as well? ^302856307