Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

the prevailing wisdom: Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression, trans. M. Latzke, (London: Methuen, 1967).

Recent studies have found that wolves: For an excellent review of the literature on ostracism, see K. Williams, “Ostracism,” Annual Review of Psychology 58 (2007): 425–52.

our survival depends on healthy, stable bonds with others: R. F. Baumeister and M. R. Leary, “The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation,” Psychological Bulletin 117 (1995): 497–529.

We are relative prudes compared to these primate relatives: Matt Ridley, The Red Queen (New York: HarperCollins, 1993), 213–17.

Bonobo females are sexually active for about five years: Frans B. M. de Waal, “Bonobo Sex and Society,” Scientific American 272 (March 1995): 82–88.

This sexual organization had several important implications: Jared Diamond, Why Is Sex Fun? The Evolution of Human Sexuality (New York: Basic Books, 1997).

sexual monogamy was the most common sexual pattern: Helen Fisher, Anatomy of Love (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).

In The Evolution of Cooperation: Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, (New York: Basic Books, 1984).

Built into the human organism, therefore, must be a set of mechanisms that reverse the cost-benefit analysis of giving: Sober and Wilson, Unto Others, chap. 1.

Jonathan Haidt has called this state elevation: J. Haidt and D. Keltner, “Appreciation of Beauty and Excellent (Awe, Wonder, Elevation),” in Character Strengths and Virtues, ed. Christopher Peterson and Martin E.P. Seligman (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 537–51.

EMBARRASSMENT

 

On July 2, 1860, Eadweard Muybridge boarded a stagecoach in San Francisco: Rebecca Solnit, Rivers and Shadows (New York: Penguin, 2003).

At the time I began my research, the display of embarrassment was thought to be a sign of confusion and thwarted intention: The brilliant sociologist Erving Goffman was fascinated by embarrassment and described it as reflecting a state of confusion. He did, however, suggest that it was a critical signal of an individual’s commitment to the social order—an observation that would guide much of the work on embarrassment. Goffman, Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 97–112.

In a frenzied eighteen months at the University of Pennsylvania: Eadweard Muybridge, The Human Figure in Motion (New York: Dover, 1955).

That is the orienting function of the startle: S. S. Tomkins, “Affect Theory,” in Approaches to Emotion, 163–95.

the magnitude of the 250-millisecond startle response is a telling indicator of a person’s temperament, and in particular of the extent to which the person is anxious: There is now an extensive literature that relies on the magnitude of the startle response, most typically measured in terms of the intensity of the eyeblink, as an index of fear and negative emotion. Just as importantly, a person’s positive emotional disposition or current positive emotion tends to attenuate the startle response. P. J. Lang, “The Emotion Probe,” American Psychologist 50 (1995): 372–85; Lang, M. N. Bradley and B. N. Cuthbert, “Emotion, Attention, and the Startle Reflex,” Psychological Review 97 (1990): 377–95, and “Emotion, Motivation, and Anxiety: Brain Mechanisms and Psychophysiology,” Biological Psychiatry 44 (1998): 1248–63.

neurotic individuals make for more difficult marriages: Neuroticism is defined by elevated levels of tension, anxiety, worry, and self-doubt. As important as negative emotions are in certain contexts, their chronic occurrence has proven to be difficult for marriages. N. Bolger and E. A. Schilling, “Personality and the Problems of Everyday Life: The Role of Neuroticism in Exposure and Reactivity to Daily Stressors,” Journal of Personality 59 (1991): 355–86.

My first step was to embarrass people, a task that has given license to a more mischievous side of researchers’ imaginations: For reviews of studies of embarrassment, see R. S. Miller, “The Nature and Severity of Self-Reported Embarrassing Circumstances,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 18 (1992): 190–98; D. Keltner and B. N. Buswell, “Embarrassment: Its Distinct Form and Appeasement Functions,” Psychological Bulletin 122 (1997): 250–70.

after eighteen months of age, they show embarrassment: M. Lewis, M. V. Sullivan, C. Stanger, and M. Weiss, “Self-Development and Self-Conscious Emotions,” Child Development 60 (1989): 146–56.