User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I received Survival of the Friendliest: Why We Love Insiders and Hate Outsiders, and How We Can Rediscover Our Common Humanity as an ARC. The first few chapters I was learning a lot about the domestication of dogs foxes and I was like, "This isn't what I was expecting, and I don't know where it's going, but I'm surprisingly interested." And then I learned about bonobos and they became my new favorite species and inspiration. And at that point I was like "This still isn't what I was expecting but I don't even care at this point because I am so interested in everything please tell me more." BUT THEN it all tied together so beautifully into the evolution of humans and my brain was sufficiently blown. But then I had questions (mostly my question was "why aren't we like bonobos, but with technology?" lol). And then those questions were answered. And my mind was blown even more (mostly due to what I learned about oxytocin). So basically what I'm trying to say is that I will never look at evolution and society the same ever again. I literally go around now telling everyone I know everything I learned in this book because IT WAS SO INTERESTING. Read it. Please. And then talk to me about it because I need someone to talk to about it.
Rating: really liked it
This is the most playful, refreshing, and illuminating approach I’ve seen to the science of how we evolve. The rigorous but highly entertaining experiments on various species show something Darwin only observed, without the benefit of modern cognitive science. The capacity of creatures to interact, cooperate, and even form interspecies emotional bonds, is the superpower that has unleashed socializing species for a new level of collective evolution.
The first half of the book is a joy to read. Then the authors turn to the social challenges before us, and things get less enjoyably serious. Clearly, the world’s progress in friendship-forming has a dark side, as our lines of inclusion leave other creatures outside our circle of compassion. Our civilization of social networks is expanding, but it has battle lines. Somewhat depressingly, Hare and Woods introduce the science that explains fearful demonization of outsiders. The friendship- and client-building process starts to look more like hard work than engaging fun. Still, Hare and Woods show a highly encouraging big picture. Their data show that success for individuals, businesses, and nations is increasingly measured less in enemies conquered than in friends gained.
Rating: really liked it
This is an absolutely brilliant book. I found out in the afterword that they completely rewrote the second part of the book after the election of Donald Trump. The reason is easy to see.
These two scientists who specialise in the behaviour of dogs , chimpanzees and bonobos delved deeply into aspects of social psychology to look at the other side of the pro-sociality that they said allowed us to evolve as a species ( hence the title).
They start by sharing Brian’s trip to the Siberian wastes to visit a remarkable project where a Russian Zoologist , Dmitry Belyayev, did a long term experiment in breeding red foxes for friendliness.in just a few generations the foxes developed dog traits of curly tails, licking and being friendly towards humans.
This experiment showed how dogs self-domesticated and adapted to living with humans.
The authors contend that humans were able to succeed against other human species, such as the clever and stronger Neanderthals, because they had the ability to cooperate with each other and pass on good ideas through generations.
The kindness that allowed these developments has a downside though. The authors try to explain how kindness to strangers was really “strangers like us”. These prosocial humans could be good Samaritans if the strangers were like them but they could easily kill a neighbouring tribe with no great concerns.
They look at the subject of “dehumanisation” and how this allows you to treat “others” with complete lack of moral scruple as they are considered non-human!
The result of this obverse of the coin of sociality, cooperation, friendship to strangers, is mass murder and slavery which stains our history.
Thus they react to the threats to democracy by people who use race, religion or sexual preference to create hatred in communities. They discuss statements made by Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. election campaign where he denigrated people to whip up support from the disaffected.
This is a powerful, well written informative book that seamlessly covers science (biology, genetics, biochemistry) as well as politics and psychology. I highly recommend it.
Rating: really liked it
Good hypothesis, about how tolerance and friendliness favored cooperation and were evolutionarily beneficial to human culture -- society has "self-domesticated" itself. He looks at how friendliness has developed and played out in a few other species (chimps, apes, bonobos, wolves, foxes, dogs, etc.). However, I think his defense was a little weak (in my mind he didn't "prove" his thesis conclusively) -- some of the evidence, I thought, was "circumstantial." That doesn't mean his hypothesis was wrong -- it did resonate. But I don't think it was conclusive. I also thought points were a little redundant and long-winded (even though it's not a particularly long book).
Rating: really liked it
This book makes some interesting points, and I find the argument that the same mental faculties and systems that make humans so caring and loyal toward "their own" also sharpen their antipathy towards "others" that may be a threat to "their own." However, I think the author is really eager to make the leap from underlying science to relevant social/political commentary, and in service of this goal, he consciously tries to make the science more "digestible" for his audience which means dumbing it down by simplifying which is accomplished by exaggerating the confidence of certain conclusions and neglecting the myriad caveats that could be raised.
I have already read better accounts (Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World) of "domestication syndrome" and the "self-domestication hypothesis." I found the experimental results where people were essentially more prejudiced when administered oxytocin very interesting. However, when trying to draw distinctions between evidence of "prejudice" and "dehumanization" the author gets a bit sloppy I think. Many books are written about prejudice, and this author desperately wants his book to stand out from those, even I think to be seen as the "missing piece" that makes so many other observations/phenomena/issues "click into place" with a coherent explanatory framework. To accomplish this, he tries very hard to distinguish his subject of "dehumanization" from general "prejudice." While he doesn't' quite explain the methodology, he cites studies that apparently score subjects on these supposedly distinct qualities and then regress those scores against experimental outcomes like willingness to administer cruelty to imaginary test subjects. These sort of numeric regressions reveal correlation but not causation which the author glosses over. Further, regressing against some sort of degree of dehumanization automatically implies that dehumanization is some sort of imaginary one-dimensional quality from "like me" to "like animals." There are in fact many facets of the gap we perceive between ourselves and animals, and it only makes sense that our attitudes towards others can be similarly complex rather than reduced to some single "humanness" metric. While I wouldn't mind ignoring this nuance for ease of discussion, I do object to the fact that the author doesn't pause at least once to acknowledge that the nuance exists.
Rating: really liked it
My favourite topic of all times! ♥️
Rating: really liked it
Babies can find a prize under a cup with hints like pointing. By 9 months old, babies recognize the knowledge and intentions of others through “theory of mind”. Humans have cognitive skills that help us cooperate. Theory of Mind is sophisticated. Chimps won’t be able to understand the cup challenge. Dogs will understand more. Chimps don’t have the evolutionary trait. Scientist were able to domesticate foxes. Friendly group: genetic trait with better communication techniques. Friendly group: domesticated animal traits, byproducts of friendliness. Foxes from friendly group can communicate with humans and select the right group. Can a species self domesticate?
Early ancestors became more amenable, evidence on our faces. Modern humans are currently the dominates on this planet. Evolutionary pressure favored friendly people.
“Selecting for friendliness”
Gaze into someone’s eyes to form strong social bonds
Stable
Collaborative environments & mutual exchange.
Social networks beyond immediate family
Black Jews of Africa: marginalized and attacked
Cruel violence
Strong social bonds make outsiders less human - cultivate empathy between groups
*kindness clubs (prevent conflict) children learn by treating and taking care of animals.
*mix housing and break down barriers
Humans have evolved to be social. We need social skills and community. The same bonds call for empathy to outsiders.
Rating: really liked it
It seems quite obvious in hindsight that humans are domesticated animals, but Hare presents his theory and findings in such a mind-blowing way. First, our physical and social evolution resembles that of dogs and other domesticated animals (especially bonobos, who similarly "self-domesticated"). He included some interesting studies about how humans and domesticated animals follow others' gazes and assume they are providing helpful information, whereas chimpanzees other than bonobos, while intelligent, don't understand these social cues.
Second, we display the same dual oxytocin effects of love towards "our people," while doing the equivalent of barking at any outsiders who we perceive as threats. The studies here showed that dehumanization (thinking that some are "less human" than you or your group) is the biggest factor in people being willing to inflict cruelty on others. And the biggest cause for this kind of thinking is if you think that the other group or person dehumanizes YOU "retaliatory dehumanization." This is why propaganda works so well. The antidote, Hare argues, is relationships with individuals from outside your group. Education campaigns, on the other hand, actually do not work very well in changing racist/dehumanizing views.
Again, the findings feel a bit mundane writing them out but the book was written in a fascinating way and ended before it was able to get tiresome.
Rating: really liked it
This book affected me profoundly. I love the idea of survival of the friendliest as opposed to the fittest (nature red in tooth and claw). The authors give convincing evidence of why homo sapiens survived to now while the other proto-humans of 80,000 years ago didn't. They say basically we domesticated ourselves. Being more social and open to other people made it so we could have bigger communities and share innovations and inventions among communities. Those helped to protect from predators and ice ages, advanced progress in the ways people fed and housed themselves, and led to long-distance trade.
The book covers experiments with theory of mind that compare young and older humans and animals. It was previously thought that, since chimpanzees don't pick up the meaning of humans pointing even when food reward is involved, humans are the only animals who respond in this way. Then someone noticed that dogs do, which should have been common knowledge, but, you know, theories and all. Similar experiments confirmed that dogs do, wolves don't; bonobos do, chimps don't. Foxes bred to be friendly/domesticated over many generations do; wild foxes don't.
I'd read in the author's previous book (The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter than You Think, which I highly recommend) about the fox breeding experiment. It was started in the Stalin era in Siberia (the only place a geneticist could survive at the time) and is still happening. They found that, when they continued to breed the very friendliest foxes (not shy, not hostile, but curious) with each other, after a number of generations they had tame foxes.
Okay, being able to breed for tameness was expected. But there were also unexpected physical changes. The tame foxes have smaller bodies, smaller brains, smaller muzzles, more variation in coloring, and more. Same differences as between wolves and dogs. And, it turns out, same differences between chimps and bonobos. Guess what: homo sapiens has similar differences from earlier hominins (check out the difference between that word and hominids, interesting) and the species has been progressing in that direction.
So, basically, we tamed ourselves. The authors then theorize that the downside of our type of tameness is that we are so attached to our own groups that we tend to dehumanize groups that might be seen to be threatening. Which has led to wars and various other atrocities. They show some pathways where this can happen with oxytocin, serotonin, and testosterone. Still quite plausible.
The later part of the book was rewritten before publication after Trump was elected. Much of it seems plausible, but it's rawer and needs more research to substantiate. There are some interesting studies on how people dehumanize other groups. The authors go through a lot of it before they - finally! - get to American racism, which they tackle pretty well. They explore democracy and the current polarization. They present evidence that nonviolent actions are more likely than violent ones to produce positive change. I hope so.
Maybe because of my end of the polarization, I didn't like some of their theory. They have a circle diagram where the "moderates" are in the middle, then two outer layers, of ideologues and extremists (the outer layer). This layer lumps antifa in with white supremacists (on different sides of the circle but the same layer). First, I don't agree that the "moderate" position is necessarily the most reasonable (or friendliest). Second, though yes, they found some violent-ish activities by antifa, I just don't think it's equivalent. I don't agree with using hate to combat hate, but I think there are giant differences between the left and right in this county; one side wants peace and love and the other thrives on hate.
This is a book that presents a theory and applies it to our current situation. It is not a book that offers a solution, though you can tell that the authors, like the rest of us, would like to find one. So, yes, they try to see how our situation could have a nonpartisan solution. The most solid citation they have is a study comparing the attitudes of freshman college students who had dorm roommates of a different race with those who didn't. The conclusion is that familiarity breeds cross-cultural openness (or something like that), which persists into later life.
I highly recommend this book. It touches on a lot more than this review covers, including very interesting animal research and a number of past and present situations worldwide. I imagine it would be controversial in the evolutionary anthropology and psychology fields. I hope it prompts much more research, both into the evolution of people/culture (and other animals) and into ways to promote tolerance and friendship among different cultural groups.
Rating: really liked it
Why did Homo sapiens win and outlast the four other human like ancestors? Hare and Wood argue that Charles Darwin's evolutionary fitness has been interpreted as physical strength, tactical brilliance, and aggression. But recent psychology research reveals that what made us evolutionary fit was a remarkable kind of friendliness, an ability to coordinate and communicate with others that allowed us to achieve all the cultural and technical marvels in human history. But the cost of this friendliness was the ability to draw lines between insiders and outsiders. We are the most tolerant species on the planet and also the cruelest. This book urges the reader, and humanity, to observe our cultural and cognitive evolution so that we can expand our definition of who belongs.
Why I started this book: What a great title! I was ready to learn more and refute the "survival of the fittest" extremism that is preached.
Why I finished it: Fascinating research studies and I know that I will think about this book when when I'm around babies, dogs and momma bears. Interesting to think that the sclera in our eyes was an advantage, making to easier for us to see what someone is looking at, and therefore give us a hint about what they are thinking about. Plus I want a domesticated fox, so bad.
Rating: really liked it
Scientists are always coming up with new interpretations of old data, even as they compile their own. But rarely do they come together with such relevance to our highly-charged times. These authors explain our fear-driven conflicts: we have domesticated ourselves to cooperate very closely with people like us, but react with disgust and fear to those who are different; we can easily dehumanize them by comparing them to animals. But there is a way out: we can come to know and appreciate different kinds of people by simply living and attending to shared problems in physical proximity, especially if we do so by design. We can also develop empathy toward fellow humans by practicing it with animals. The scientific basis for this relies on reconstructions of how dogs domesticated themselves for their mutual benefit with humans.
Rating: really liked it
The authors look at the notion of the "survival of the fittest" and show that the species (including humans) most likely to survive throughout history have not been the most aggressive and most violent but the friendliest and most cooperative. The authors explain that this friendliness and cooperation has a dangerously violent flip side, however, when a species is threatened by an outsider. Though the authors are scientists and provide extensive notes to support their explanations, the book is written in such a way that non-scientists (such as me) can understand it. I was surprised by how much the authors related their concepts to the current political climate but found their explanations for the animosity between different political groups well worth reading.
Rating: really liked it
An absolutely fascinating discussion of domestication, friendliness, and exclusion, and how they’re all related. This book is unbelievably timely, as so many of us are struggling with how to be more empathetic to those who think and look different from us in ways that will keep our nation thriving for generations to come.
Rating: really liked it
This is a relatively short book in which Hare and Woods hypothesise that "friendliness" is the key factor is what makes humans different from other social animals and lead to our evolutionary success. This human
self-domestication hypothesis postulates that natural selection affected the human species in favour of friendlier behaviour that enhanced our ability to cooperate and communicate more flexibly with others of our kind. Over many generations, individuals with hormonal and developmental profiles that favour friendliness, and therefore cooperative communication, were more successful. This theory predicts that there will be evidence for (a) selection for reduced emotional reactivity and heightened tolerance linked to new types of human cooprerative-communicative abilities, and (b) changes in our morphology, physiology, and cognition resembling the domestication syndrome seen in other animals. This is, indeed, what the authors' research finds.
The first half of the book covers various studies on animal domestication, cognition and behaviour, including Belyaev's famous fox experiments, dogs, chimpanzees, bonobos, and humans, as they relate to "friendliness" and behaviour towards group and out-group members. The arguments relating animal domestication to human self-domestication are sound and particularly interesting. The comparison between humans and bonobos is also fascinating. The writing is pleasant and easy to follow.
However, the second half of the book deals with human aggression against what we consider "other", but any scientific information on the subject is overwhelmed by a diatribe on political ideologies. I wished to read about the science of the hypothesis, not to get inundated with the mostly-American-centric, author-biased, and overly simplified political ideologies the authors felt they needed to disgorge onto the page! I found this section of the book to be the weakest in terms of the science presented (sloppy!) and the style of presentation.
In short, this book provides an interesting, and easily digested, introduction to the self-domestication hypothesis, but Hare and Woods should have stuck with the science, included more information how "friendliness" affects relationships, minimized the politics, and included more bonobos!
OTHER BOOK:~Domesticated: Evolution in a Man-Made World by Richard C. Francis
Rating: really liked it
As someone who studies bio. anthropology and is a bit of a nut for evolutionary theory— I was very excited to read this, but also quite skeptical. I did wish information some of the info was presented in a more nuanced way. For instance, the validity of « domestication syndrome » even existing is still under scrutiny, but it is presented as fact in this book. I did appreciate the conclusion that acknowledged this, and encouraged readers to look further into topics that interest them. But that is the tough part about pop science— if everything was presented purely scientifically it just wouldn’t be interesting and probably wouldn’t sell.
This was definitely an interesting read— especially the sections about fox domestication, and the various dog, chimp, and bonobo comparative studies. (The primatologist in me was LIVING!)
The writers go into social and political theory rather abruptly, and I’m not sure if tying these fresh hypothesis into contemporary, global issues is the right thing to do— but as a thought experiment, I found it insightful and uplifting. These are dark times we’re living in, and the notion that friendliness catalyzed our evolution and could potentially be a solution to the problems we now face as a species is very comforting.
I loved how digestible and comprehensible this was to read as well. You definitely don’t have to have any prior knowledge on the subjects to access this book. And I think that’s pretty fantastic. I’m sick of academic writing and gate keeping knowledge that everyone should have access to. Would recommend to anyone who wants to learn more about evolutionary theory and it’s implications on our present, globalized society!
