The Cultural Animal: Human Nature, Meaning, and Social Life

by Roy F. Baumeister

What makes us human? Why do people think, feel and act as they do? What is the essence of human nature? What is the basic relationship between the individual and society? These questions have fascinated both great thinkers and ordinary humans for centuries. Now, at last, there is a solid basis for answering them, in the form of accumulated efforts and studies by thousands of psychology researchers. We no longer have to rely on navel-gazing and speculation to understand why people are the way they are - we can instead turn to solid, objective findings. This book, by an eminent social psychologist at the peak of his career, not only summarizes what we know about people - it also offers a coherent, easy-to-understand, though radical, explanation. Turning conventional wisdom on its head, the author argues that culture shaped human evolution. Contrary to theories that depict the individual's relation to society as one of victimization, endless malleability, or just a square
peg in a round hole, he proposes that the individual human being is designed by nature to be part of society. Moreover, he argues that we need to briefly set aside the endless study of cultural differences to look at what most cultures have in common - because that holds the key to human nature. Culture is in our genes, although cultural differences may not be. This core theme is further developed by a powerful tour through the main dimension of human psychology. What do people want? How do people think? How do emotions operate? How do people behave? And how do they interact with each other? The answers are often surprising, and along the way the author explains how human desire, thought, feeling, and action are connected.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Sociology, Science, Philosophy, History, Anthropology

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Dr. Roy F. Baumeister is Social Psychology Area Director and Francis Eppes Eminent Scholar at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. He is a social psychologist who is known for his work on the self, social rejection, belongingness, sexuality, self-control, self-esteem, self-defeating behaviors, motivation, and aggression. And enduring theme of his work is "why people do stupid things." He has authored over 300 publications and has written or co-written over 20 books.

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Reviews

[Maher Razouk · Rating 5 out of 5]

ممارسة الجنس في العلن
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صممت الطبيعة نفسية الإنسان للمشاركة في المجتمع الثقافي. استلزم هذا التصميم نوعين من التغييرات. نوع أول ، أثر بشكل مباشر على التركيب البيولوجي للإنسان. أما الآخر فكان غير مباشر: لقد جعلتنا بيولوجيتنا قادرين على التعلم والتغير طوال الحياة ، بحيث يمكن أن تستمر التأثيرات الثقافية والاجتماعية في تكوين شخصياتنا . تعد هذه التغييرات معًا مسؤولة عن العديد من السمات الخاصة وغير العادية للنفس البشرية.

من المحتمل أن يكون التوق الواسع النطاق للخصوصية الجنسية أحد الآثار الجانبية لهذه التغييرات الواسعة. على سبيل المثال ، لدى البشر قدرة أكبر بكثير من أي نوع آخر معروف لتوقع عمليات التفكير والعمليات العاطفية للآخرين. هذا النمط ، المسمى قراءة العقل ، يجعلنا أكثر حساسية لما قد يفكر فيه الآخرون عنا. تعتبر هذه القدرة على استنتاج ما يفكر فيه الآخرون أمرًا حيويًا لتمكيننا من المشاركة في التفاعلات الاجتماعية المعقدة ، ولكنها أيضًا تجعل من الصعب علينا الانخراط في الجنس بينما يراقبنا الآخرون.

تبدو الأرانب سخيفة عندما تمارس الجنس ، لكنها لا تضحك على بعضها البعض ، ومن المحتمل أنها لا تملك القدرة العقلية على إدراك كيف يمكن للأرانب الأخرى التي تراقبها تقييمها. بالنسبة لك أو لي ، يبدو الأرنب الذكر الذي يضاجع سخيفًا تمامًا ، لكن من الواضح أنه لا ينظر إلى الأرانب الأخرى على أنها سخيفة ، وحتى لو كانوا قد أدركوا الأمر بهذه الطريقة ، فقد لا يكونوا قادرين على توقع أن الآخرين يرونهم كذلك.

لذلك ، عندما يحصل الأرنب على فرصة لممارسة الجنس مع أرنب آخر لطيف ، لن ينزعج من وجود المتطفلين. لذا فإن الأرانب لا تمانع في ممارسة الجنس أثناء مشاهدة زملائهم لهم بينما يرفض البشر ذلك. نحن مختلفون ، وهذا الوعي بالتقييم قد يتداخل بشكل جيد مع الإثارة الجنسية. تعد القدرة على رؤية أنفسنا كما يرانا الآخرون ، والاهتمام بما يفكرون فيه ، جزءًا مهمًا مما يجعلنا بشرًا - وهو أيضًا أمر لا مفر منه تمامًا ، ولا غنى عنه ، إذا كنت ستعيش في ثقافة.

لعدم وجود مصطلح أفضل ، دعنا نقول أن الجنس البشري أصبح ثقافيًا. هذا لا يعني إنكار أن الجنس البشري له الكثير من القواسم المشتركة مع الأنماط الجنسية للثدييات الأخرى ، ولا إنكار أن البيولوجيا والطبيعة تظلان قوتان مهمتان تشكلان النشاط الجنسي البشري. علاوة على ذلك ، يتأثر الجنس البشري بحقيقة أن البشر يعيشون في عالم ثقافي.

يدرك البشر الثقافيون أنفسهم ؛ يدركون أنهم جزء من شبكة من كائنات متماثلة ؛ وهم يدركون جيدًا أن مجموعتهم الاجتماعية لديها مجموعة متنوعة من المعتقدات والقيم - بعضها قد يطبقها أشخاص آخرون لتقييم الأنشطة الجنسية لكل فرد.
هذه الحقائق تجعل الجنس مختلفاً في كل من التجربة الذاتية والسلوك الموضوعي. لا يمكننا ببساطة العودة إلى الجنون الطائش الذي يستسلم له الأرنب الذكر أثناء ممارسة الجنس. لا نريد حتى أن يراقبنا الآخرون عندما يكون الجنس قانونيًا (زواج) وأخلاقيًا وروحانيًا واجتماعيًا. الشرعية لا تكفي!!!
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Roy F. Baumeister
The Cultural Animal
Translated By #Maher_Razouk

[Yahya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a result of a heartbreak. The author was heartbroken after seeing that his colleagues over at sociology (or any other non-psychology) department were still relying on theories of Freud and Skinner for their models of mind. To resolve their woes he wrote a summary of the entire psychological literature. He wrote very clearly and easy-to-understand manner. But, when it comes to content, I don't know how many people would be satisfied.
The book is divided into seven chapters.
1) Beasts for culture
2) The Human Psyche at work
3) What people want
4) How people think
5) How and why emotions happen
6) How people act and react
7) How people interact
In the first chapter, the author presents his central thesis that Humans are made to live in cultures. His explanation of culture was insightful. It gave me a better understanding of culture even though I'm doing a sociology honors degree. He defines culture in the following way,
"Culture is an information-based system that allows people to live together and satisfy their needs."
Apart from that, the chapter didn't give me much. The same was the case with the second chapter, apart from some general principles of how the psyche works it didn't have much to offer. This may not be the case for everyone who reads this. People who are complete novices will have something to gain from this chapter.
The third chapter on motivation was my favorite chapter. After reading this chapter, you will have a clear idea of what people want. Apart from this chapter rest of the chapters were mediocre. The remaining chapters felt like a collection of random facts.
I had a problem with how many things were framed in the book. For example, while discussing how people act, he wrote the following sentence
"As this chapter indicates, we should understand the human being as having a behavior system, which the cognitive and emotional and motivational systems may or may not influence."
His discussion on freewill also had similar problems. There was almost nothing written on behavioral biology, even though this was supposed to be an overview of psychological literature for non-psychology social scientists. Some of his philosophical assumptions in the book could be debated. The model of Psyche he describes seems a little bit outdated for 2020. This book was published in 2005, and many of the revolutionary developments aren't included in this book.
As an easy-to-read overview of psychology, the book is okay. Just mind the fact that it was written in 2005.

[Cormac · Rating 1 out of 5]

Baumeister is a perceptive psychologist (see his work on "Evil"). However, when he turns anthropologist - and in particular evolutionary anthropologist - his perceptions fail him.
Really, it is his terms of reference that fail. "Culture", in normal parlance, denotes a sum of factors (customs, works of art, inventions, technology, etc.) that characterize the mode of living of a particular society or group of people. Baumeister, however, understands it as a system of behavior which enables a species to survive. His thesis then becomes simple: man, being more predisposed to culture in this sense, has progressed more than the other animals.
Culture, for most people, stems from rational activity. From the title of his book, one might think that Baumeister agrees (The Cultural Animal = The Rational Animal); but no. On the contrary, for him cultural and rational would not seem to be connected at all. He rather avoids referring to reason or intellect as a distinguishing feature of man. "Meaning" is his key word ("Ultimately, one of the biggest differences between social and cultural animals is in the power of meaning to cause behavior": 391). "Meaning" is a major reference term in his Index, with many more references than "Intellect". ("Emotions" is another major reference heading. "Thought" has only one reference - referred precisely to Emotions). Nowhere does he tackle the questions of how one can invoke "meaning" without positing intelligence, or how intelligence itself can be an evolutionary product.
Morality and self-control appear simply as inevitable evolutionary developments, culturally (in his sense) induced restraints, to make an acceptable social order and the growth of the species possible (348ss). He attributes phenomena such as guilt and virtue more to culture than to nature (147); and relates guilt only to actions that hurt others. The point of reference is always social; the notion of a man violating the imperatives of his personal nature does not enter. ("Conscience" has no entry in the Index. It appears only as social conscience).
Truth scarcely interests him (it has only one ref. in the Index). Thinking is in order to get things done, or to serve in social life; that is also the function of moral reasoning (237-240).
Basically he holds that "culture" conditions nature more than the other way round. But culture remains subject to variable conditions. Ultimately this amounts to a denial of any common human nature. On such a viewpoint it is in fact impossible to develop any science of anthropology, any proper study of "man".
A positive point is that he, unlike most psychologists, rejects determinism and believes in a (at least relative) free will (298-306).