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This innovative study focuses on seven inherent personality traits humans share with primates; activity, fearfulness, impulsivity, sociability, altruism, aggressiveness, and dominance. The author discusses these traits from the dual perspective of our evolutionary history and our human uniqueness.

Personality. --- Psychology, Comparative. --- Behavior evolution.

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In A Better Ape, Victor Kumar and Richmond Campbell reveal the essential role that morality played in the evolution of human beings. They are the first to argue that morality evolved alongside the other building blocks of human evolution: complex sociality and intelligence. For a long time, human cooperation was stable only because of morality, which limited violence and domination. And so, unless humans had deep-seated dispositions to care about one another, follow moral rules, and exchange moral reasons, our complex sociality would have collapsed, and along with it, the selection pressures in favor of intelligence. So, the authors argue in this pioneering work, it is morality that helps explain not just the evolution of human cooperation, but the very existence of humans as self-aware beings who can grasp their ultimate origins.

Behavior evolution. --- Human behavior. --- Ethics, Evolutionary.

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Beyond Biofatalism is a lively and penetrating response to the idea that evolutionary psychology reveals human beings to be incapable of building a more inclusive, cooperative, and egalitarian society. Considering the pressures of climate change, unsustainable population growth, increasing income inequality, and religious extremism, this attitude promises to stifle the creative action we require before we even try to meet these threats. Beyond Biofatalism provides the perspective we need to understand that better societies are not only possible but actively enabled by human nature. Gillian Barker appreciates the methods and findings of evolutionary psychologists, but she considers their work against a broader background to show human nature is surprisingly open to social change. Like other organisms, we possess an active plasticity that allows us to respond dramatically to certain kinds of environmental variation, and we engage in niche construction, modifying our environment to affect others and ourselves. Barker uses related research in social psychology, developmental biology, ecology, and economics to reinforce this view of evolved human nature, and philosophical exploration to reveal its broader implications. The result is an encouraging foundation on which to build better approaches to social, political, and other institutional changes that could enhance our well-being and chances for survival.

Pure sciences. Natural sciences (general) --- Evolutionary psychology. --- Human evolution. --- Behavior evolution. --- Social evolution.

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Why do humans, uniquely among animals, cooperate in large numbers to advance projects for the common good? Contrary to the conventional wisdom in biology and economics, this generous and civic-minded behavior is widespread and cannot be explained simply by far-sighted self-interest or a desire to help close genealogical kin. In A Cooperative Species, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis--pioneers in the new experimental and evolutionary science of human behavior--show that the central issue is not why selfish people act generously, but instead how genetic and cultural evolution has produced a species in which substantial numbers make sacrifices to uphold ethical norms and to help even total strangers. The authors describe how, for thousands of generations, cooperation with fellow group members has been essential to survival. Groups that created institutions to protect the civic-minded from exploitation by the selfish flourished and prevailed in conflicts with less cooperative groups. Key to this process was the evolution of social emotions such as shame and guilt, and our capacity to internalize social norms so that acting ethically became a personal goal rather than simply a prudent way to avoid punishment. Using experimental, archaeological, genetic, and ethnographic data to calibrate models of the coevolution of genes and culture as well as prehistoric warfare and other forms of group competition, A Cooperative Species provides a compelling and novel account of how humans came to be moral and cooperative.

Cooperation --- Cooperativeness --- Behavior evolution --- Moraal en ethiek (algemeenheden). --- Behavior evolution. --- 170 --- 201 --- AA / International- internationaal --- 316 --- Cooperation (Psychology) --- Social psychology --- Collaborative economy --- Cooperative distribution --- Cooperative movement --- Distribution, Cooperative --- Peer-to-peer economy --- Sharing economy --- Economics --- Profit-sharing --- Behavioral evolution --- Evolutionary psychology --- 316 Sociologie --(algemeen) --- Sociologie --(algemeen) --- Moraal en ethiek (algemeenheden) --- Sociologie: algemeenheden --- Economic order --- Cooperation. --- Cooperativeness.

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Neanderthals. --- Prehistoric peoples --- Behavior evolution. --- Land settlement patterns, Prehistoric --- Prehistoric land settlement patterns --- Behavioral evolution --- Evolutionary psychology --- Homo mousteriensis --- Homo neanderthalensis --- Homo primogenicus --- Homo sapiens neanderthalensis --- Neandertalers --- Neandertals --- Neanderthal race --- Neanderthalers --- Fossil hominids --- Prehistoric peoples. --- Paleolithic period. --- Cavemen (Prehistoric peoples) --- Early man --- Man, Prehistoric --- Prehistoric archaeology --- Prehistoric human beings --- Prehistoric humans --- Prehistory --- Primitive societies --- Human beings --- Antiquities, Prehistoric --- Eolithic period --- Old Stone age --- Palaeolithic period --- Stone age --- Neanderthals --- Behavior evolution --- Paleolithic period --- Europe.