psychology

The noted archaeologist Richard Leakey ascribes the essence of what makes us human to the reciprocity system. He claims that we are human because our ancestors learned to share food and skills “in an honored network of obligation.” Cultural anthropologists such as Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox view this “web of indebtedness” as a unique adaptive

We want to stay true to our word.

Martin Luther King was asked how, as a pacifist, he could be an admirer of Air Force General Daniel ‘Chappie’ James, then the nation’s highest-ranking black officer, Dr King replied, ‘I judge people by their own principles—not by my own.’

High current profitability often leads to overconfidence among managers, who confuse benign industry conditions with their own skill – a mistake encouraged by the media, which is constantly looking for corporate heroes and villains.

Despite beliefs spawned by popular change-management and reengineering programs, processes are not nearly as flexible or “trainable” as are resources—and values are even less so.

We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change. We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work to innovate and survive.

The more you desperately want to be sexy and desired, the uglier you come to see yourself, regardless of your actual physical appearance. The more you desperately want to be happy and loved, the lonelier and more afraid you become, regardless of those who surround you. The more you want to be spiritually enlightened, the more self-centered and

In response to the ads, the tracking, the trolling, the hype, and other predatory behaviors, we’re retreating to our dark forests of the internet, and away from the mainstream.

For the first time in evolutionary history, one individual could give any of a variety of resources without actually giving them away. The result was the lowering of the natural inhibitions against transactions that must be begun by one person’s providing personal resources to another. Sophisticated and coordinated systems of aid, gift giving,