Hadrian's Reviews > Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Sapolsky, in this volume, hopes to address the causes of violence, competition, and aggression in human beings. He bases his study on neuroendocrinology - the chemical and biological interaction between hormones and the brain, but also primatology, the study of primates - not just human beings. In looking at 'causes' of behavior, he looks at immediate causes, causes from the development of the brain and hormone systems, and different adaptations across evolutionary history. He also does this in a way that a layperson like myself can understand what exactly he is trying to say.

The first ten chapters cover what behaviors he hopes to discuss - Chapter 1 is a definition of what exactly aggression and competition are. Chapters 2-10 cover the causes of these behaviors - from seconds before to adolescence, childhood, prenatal development, millennial, and the evolution of behavior itself. This framing lets Sapolsky cover so many different causal approaches of behavior. Chapter 3, which covers the seconds and minutes before a behavior, talks about neurobiology and neuroanatomy. Chapter 4, about hours or days before, takes into account the effect of hormones. The simplest takeaway is that there is no single proximate causes for behavior, but a collection of tendencies, factors, and propensities, which go into effect in different environments.

The last seven chapters, again to grossly oversimplify is about what can we do with all this - how to manage human aggression in maintaining complex societies. Sapolsky is an optimist here. He argues - and makes a serious case for - understanding the plasticity of human nature and the benefits of creating just and fair societies and environments that aid the development of the human brain, and so to avoids thinking about biology alone as destiny.

The book is written in a convincing, knowledgeable, and humorous style. If he talks like how he writes, he would be an engaging professor to have. The book also contains useful appendices on the endocrinal system and the brain.

While I have little reason to doubt the author's own expertise, especially in his affectionate descriptions of his own work and his explanation of the fields - I admit some skepticism over the older studies and examples he references. This is not his own fault, of course, but the results of the "replication crisis" which is roiling through human psychology. In short, so many studies that were once held as iconic representations of human behavior were now cast in doubt, as their findings cannot always be reproduced. The "broken windows" study, the "marshmallow test", and even the "implicit-association test" have had their findings called into doubt.

That said, this is a book that presents complicated issues in a way that an attentive reader can at least approach them and understand their premises and where they came from. I would think, but I cannot say for sure, that specialists might also benefit from a closer study of the book's sources and conclusions. Few science books can straddle the line between both these audiences, but Sapolsky has done it.