Provides a coherent explanation of human nature, which is to say how people
think, act, and feel, what they want, and how they interact with each other.
The central idea is that the human psyche was designed by evolution to enable
people to create and sustain culture.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 the 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, through 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 dimensions 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 actio
