The Biology Of Human Behavior

Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality, is an interdisciplinary approach to the fascinating subject of behavioral biology, a field that explores interactions among the brain, mind, body, and environment that have a surprising influence on how we behave. In 24 lectures, you will investigate how the human brain is sculpted by evolution, constrained or freed by genes, shaped by early experience, modulated by hormones, and otherwise influenced to produce a wide range of behaviors, some of them abnormal. You will see that little can be explained by thinking about any one of these factors alone because some combination of influences is almost always at work.

Why do human beings behave the way they do? What governs how they act out their daily lives? It is not difficult to provide the traditional argument that it’s largely a matter of the culture in which we live, a product of the influences of family, peers, teachers, religious leaders, the movies we see, the books we read, and so forth. Such behavior often contradicts the independent nature of the human spirit, demanding a certain compromise—we depend on others for our needs, and to obtain these, we must behave accordingly. Evidence grows, however, that, in addition, much of our behavior has its roots in biological processes. Such information indicates that, whether we like to accept it or not, our conduct is often governed by biochemical agents within in the brain, an expression of our animalistic ancestral past, governed by our genetic inheritance, and all beyond the level of our conscious decision-making. This book addresses a series of such behaviors—love, jealousy, travel, suicide, etc.—and examines new-found perspectives that speak to a biological component in explaining just why we behave as we do. Certainly, such scientific insights are limited and currently provide only a narrow insight into human behavior. However, this information clearly forecasts the coming of a greater appreciation that, as members of the animal kingdom, we remain biological beings as well as members of a cooperative society.

Why do we do the things we do? Over a decade in the making, this game-changing book is Robert Sapolsky's genre-shattering attempt to answer that question as fully as perhaps only he could, looking at it from every angle. 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 genetic inheritance. And so the first category of explanation is the neurobiological one. What goes on in a person's brain a second before the behavior happens? Then he pulls out to a slightly larger field of vision, a little earlier in time: What sight, sound, or smell triggers the nervous system to produce that behavior? And then, what hormones act hours to days earlier to change how responsive that individual is to the stimuli which trigger 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--next to what features of the environment affected that person's brain, and then back to the childhood of the individual, and then to their genetic makeup. Finally, he expands the view to encompass factors larger than that one individual. How culture has shaped that individual's group, what ecological factors helped shape that culture, and on and on, back to evolutionary factors thousands and even millions of years old. The result is one of the most dazzling tours de 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.

This volume provides a broad overview of issues in the philosophy of behavioral biology, covering four main themes: genetic, developmental, evolutionary, and neurobiological explanations of behavior. It is both interdisciplinary and empirically informed in its approach, addressing philosophical issues that arise from recent scientific findings in biological research on human and non-human animal behavior. Accordingly, it includes papers by professional philosophers and philosophers of science, as well as practicing scientists. Much of the work in this volume builds on presentations given at the international conference, “Biological Explanations of Behavior: Philosophical Perspectives”, held in 2008 at the Leibniz Universität Hannover in Germany. The volume is intended to be of interest to a broad range of audiences, which includes philosophers (e.g., philosophers of mind, philosophers of biology, and metaethicists), as well as practicing scientists, such as biologists or psychologists whose interests relate to biological explanations of behavior.

In this volume, Longino enters into the complexities of human behavioural research, a domain still dominated by the age-old debate of 'nature versus nurture'. Longino focuses on how scientists study it, specifically sexual behaviour and aggression, and asks what can be known about human behaviour through empirical investigation.

Natural Behavior provides seminal insights into the evolution of animal and human behavior for enthusiasts of Comparative Psychology and Behavioral Biology. Evolution and the behavior of the animal kingdom are discussed with new concepts on science, learning and instinct, and population phenomena. Hominization, interaction with Neanderthals, how the brain evolved, and the impact on the World are described with new views. The origin of our scientific concepts and the trend away from the egocentric position, placing humans at the center of the universe, is considered, along with the status of religion and how the fit with science is positive. This volume carefully explains evolution and the central role of behavior in natural selection. The range of animal behavior from single cells to people is covered, as are, topics like European settling of the New World first, and the effects of humans on the planet.

New edition of a reader developed for an undergraduate anthropology course. The 59 contributions look at genetics, the various interpretations of the early evolution of human behavior, new attempts to link human physical variation to behavioral differences between people, modern evolutionary psychology, and the influences of hormones and the brain on behavior. The emphasis is on providing students with the background information necessary for understanding human universals and the biological bases of the modern social sciences. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

It's obvious why only men develop prostate cancer and why only women get ovarian cancer. But it is not obvious why women are more likely to recover language ability after a stroke than men or why women are more apt to develop autoimmune diseases such as lupus. Sex differences in health throughout the lifespan have been documented. Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health begins to snap the pieces of the puzzle into place so that this knowledge can be used to improve health for both sexes. From behavior and cognition to metabolism and response to chemicals and infectious organisms, this book explores the health impact of sex (being male or female, according to reproductive organs and chromosomes) and gender (one's sense of self as male or female in society). Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health discusses basic biochemical differences in the cells of males and females and health variability between the sexes from conception throughout life. The book identifies key research needs and opportunities and addresses barriers to research. Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health will be important to health policy makers, basic, applied, and clinical researchers, educators, providers, and journalists-while being very accessible to interested lay readers.