Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

The Goodness Paradox: The Strange Relationship between Peace and Violence in Human Evolution by Richard Wrangham (2019)

Evolutionary anthropologist Richard Wrangham’s work on male aggression in human evolution is cited by Sapolsky in Chapter 9. This is Wrangham’s more recent book on human aggression. The Goodness Paradox observes a strange dichotomy in humans of low reactive aggression but relatively high proactive aggression, arguing this is a result of a domestication syndrome in human evolution. Essentially, paleolithic homo sapiens selected for low reactive aggression males in their social groups, leading to a “self-domestication” of the species. This argument has striking similarities to Sapolsky’s observations on the emergent social dynamics of a baboon group once all the aggressive males are exterminated (648-52).

Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict by Ara Norenzayan (2014)

Psychologist Ara Norenzayan’s “moralizing high god” theory is cited extensively in Behave, particularly in Chapter 9’s discussion of the urban transition. This work on the topic is seminal in the field of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) the flagship journal of which, Religion, Brain, and Behavior, Sapolsky also mentions (622). Big Gods argues the creation of omniscient, punitive deities was essential in scaling up societies, as they policed interactions between strangers in contexts requiring their cooperation (i.e., cities and states).

A Natural History of Human Morality by Michael Tomasello (2016)

Primatologist Michael Tomasello’s work is also cited several times in Behave. In this short book, Tomasello provides an evolutionary history of human morality focused on its evolutionary gradualism from primate species, exhibiting joint intentionality and rudimentary reciprocity, to uniquely human behaviors of shared group norms.