87 Quotes by Robert M. Sapolsky

In a typical study, higher testosterone levels would be observed in those male prisoners with higher rates of aggression. But being aggressive stimulates testosterone secretion; no wonder more aggressive individuals had higher levels.

Priming people to think of God as punitive decreases cheating; thinking of God as forgiving increases it. The researchers then studied subjects from sixty-seven countries, considering the prevalence in each of belief in the existence of a heaven and hell. The greater the skew toward belief in hell, rather than heaven, the lower the national crime rate. When it comes to Eternity, sticks apparently work better than carrots.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

The childhood capacity for empathy progresses from feeling someone’s pain because you are them, to feeling for the other person, to feeling as them.

A high incidence of 7R, associated with impulsivity and novelty seeking, is the legacy of humans who made the greatest migrations in human history.

Logically, when the amygdala wants to mobilize a behavior – say, fleeing – it talks to the frontal cortex, seeking its executive approval. But if sufficiently aroused, the amygdala talks directly to subcortical, reflexive motor pathways. Again, there’s a trade-off – increased speed by by-passing the cortex, but decreased accuracy. Thus the input shortcut may prompt you to see the cell phone as a gun. And the output shortcut may prompt you to pull a trigger before you consciously mean to.

This is thought to reflect the killer combination that these folks are often burdened with, namely, high work demands but little autonomy – responsibility without control.

In general, our morally tinged cultural institutions – religion, nationalism, ethnic pride, team spirit – bias us toward our best behaviors when we are single shepherds facing a potential tragedy of the commons. They make us less selfish in Me versus Us situations. But they send us hurtling toward our worst behaviors when confronting Thems and their different moralities.

It takes surprisingly little in terms of uncontrollable unpleasantness to make humans give up and become helpless in a generalized way.