Latest Robert M. Sapolsky Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• As long as experiencing your optimal level of good stress doesn't damage others, it's hard to objectively define where normal enjoyment of stimulation becomes adrenaline junkiehood.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Stress, Long, Levels

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• The gigantic challenge is the magnitude of the individual differences in the optimal set point for "good stress." For one person, it's doing something risky with your bishop in a chess game; for someone else, it's becoming a mercenary in Yemen.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Stress, Individual Differences, Games

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• If you care about your longevity and health, be a socially affiliated baboon who is better than high-ranking ones at walking away from provocations.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Walking Away, Care, Ranking

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• We all seek out stress. We hate the wrong kinds of stress but when it's the right kind, we love it - we pay good money to be stressed by a scary movie, a roller coaster ride, a challenging puzzle.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Stress, Hate, Scary

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• The most important point of [Susan] Fiske's work is that it provides a taxonomy for our differing feelings about different Thems - sometimes fear, sometimes ridicule, sometimes contemptuous pity, sometimes savagery.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Feelings, Important, Taxonomy

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• There's the complex categorization of low warmth/high competence. This is the hostile stereotype of Asian Americans by white America, of Jews in Europe, of Indo-Pakistanis in East Africa, of Lebanese in West Africa, of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, and of the rich by the poor most everywhere. It's the same low-high derogation: They're cold, greedy, clannish - -but, dang, they're sure good at making money and you should go to one who is a doctor if you're seriously sick.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Doctors, Europe, White

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Until you appreciate something crucial - It is incredibly easy to manipulate us as to who counts as an Us, who as a Them.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Appreciate, Easy, Manipulate

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Brains distinguish between an Us and a Them in a fraction of a second. Subliminal processing of a Them activates the amygdala and insular cortex, brain regions that are all about fear, anxiety, aggression, and disgust.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Anxiety, Brain, Subliminal

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Almost always, genes are about potentials and vulnerabilities rather than about determinism.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Genes, Determinism, Vulnerability

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Genes are important for understanding our behavior. Incredibly important - after all, they code for every protein pertinent to brain function, endocrinology, etc.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Understanding, Brain, Important

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• The regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Interesting, Regulation, Environment

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• But often, it's easier to resist temptation with distraction, or to be so inculcated in doing the right thing that it's automatic, outside the frontal cortex's portfolio - Then it isn't the harder thing, it's the only thing you can do.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Temptation, Portfolios, Distraction

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• What does the frontal cortex do? Gratification postponement, executive function, long-term planning, and impulse control. Basically, it makes you do the harder thing.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Impulse Control, Long, Doe

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• It's great to have a buff frontal cortex to do that harder thing - for example, help a person in need rather buy some useless, shiny gee-gaw.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Example, Needs, Useless

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• The frontal cortex doesn't even fully develop until age 25, which is wild!

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Age

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Only humans invent moralizing gods who monitor our behavior.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Behavior, Moralizing, Humans

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• The frontal cortex is an incredibly interesting part of the brain - ours is proportionately bigger and/or more complex than in any other species.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Interesting, Brain, Bigger

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• For example, most mammals are either monogamous or polygamous. But as every poet or divorce attorney will tell you, humans are confused - After all, we have monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, celibacy, and so on. In terms of the most unique thing we do socially, my vote goes to something we invented alongside cities - we have lots of anonymous interactions and interactions with strangers. That has shaped us enormously.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Confused, Divorce, Unique

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• The problem isn't testosterone and aggression; it's how often we reward aggression. And we do: We give medals to masters of the "right" kinds of aggression. We preferentially mate with them. We select them as our leaders.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Giving, Leader, Rewards

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• We are just another primate but a very confused, malleable one.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Confused, Primates

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Importantly, rather than promoting aggression, testosterone promotes whatever is needed to maintain status when challenged.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Aggression, Needed, Testosterone

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• It's probably even the case that if you stoked up some Buddhist monks with tons of testosterone, they'd become wildly competitive as to who can do the most acts of random kindness.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Buddhist, Kindness, Monk

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Individual differences in testosterone level predict very little about differences in aggression.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Individual Differences, Levels, Littles

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• Naturally, things are more complicated - those groovy, pro-social effects of oxytocin apply to how we interact with in-group members.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Oxytocin, Groups, Complicated

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

• To out-group-members, oxytocin makes you crappier - less cooperative and more preemptively aggressive. It's not the luv hormone. It's the in-group parochialism/xenophobia hormone.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Xenophobia, Oxytocin, Groups

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com