Quotes About Behavior

Technology stocks crash after forming history's biggest stock market bubble—the culmination of irrational exuberance, decades of herd-like behavior, and the recent injection of cheap money and moral hazard by the Federal Reserve.

Is man a savage at heart, skinned o'er with fragile Manners? Or is savagery but a faint taint in the natural man's gentility, which erupts now and again like pimples on an angel's arse?

To fuss is human; to rant, divine!

We do as we have been done by.

Thus in the right place, at the right time, and in right degree, anger is not only appropriate but may be indispensable. It serves to deter from dangerous behaviour, to drive off a rival, or to coerce a partner. In each case the aim of the angry behaviour is the same - to protect a relationship which is of very special value to the angry person.

To ascribe feeling is usually to make a prediction about subsequent behaviour.

Whoever may still be sceptical whether knowledge of animal behaviour can help our understanding of man can find no support from Freud.

Regular monitoring both of behavioural progress and of consequences is of course necessary if the organism is to learn.

the consequences of some behaviour are experienced as pleasurable or painful, the quicker and more persistent is the ensuing learning likely to be.

Thus, appraisal is a complex process in which two main steps can be distinguished: (a) comparing input with standards that have developed within the organism during its lifetime; (b) selecting certain general forms of behaviour in preference to other forms in accordance with the results of comparisons previously made.

A model of the psychical apparatus that pictures behaviour as a resultant of a hypothetical psychical energy that is seeking discharge was adopted by Freud almost at the beginning of his psychoanalytical work.

In his heart, he knew that there was no reason to be impolite to someone, even if they did work for you. There was such a thing as manners after all.

A recent study found that non-abused six- to fourteen-month-olds who showed disregard for others' distress were significantly more likely to be antisocial as adolescents.

people judge people as less moral when they act altruistically and gain in the process than when they gain from clearly nonaltruistic behavior.

people view "tainted altruism" as worse than no altruism at all.

evolutionary psychologists have got it right. We are evolved beings and therefore our psychology will have to be understood in terms of natural selection, among other factors.

if we wish to understand why, as humans, we often act in certain predictable ways (and particularly if there is a desire or need to change these behavioral responses), we can remember our animal heritage and look for the possible releasers that seem to stimulate our fixed-action patterns.

seminary students in a rush were far less likely to help a stranger than were seminary students who weren't late, in the experiment performed by John M. Darley and Dan Batson).

Economics graduate students are far more likely to free-ride than other students.

Bad behavior is seen as something to be noticed, reported on, and analyzed, whereas people who do not lie and cheat are taken for granted.

The graphical desktop guides useful behavior and hides what is true but not useful.

WEIRD people, they argue, are "the weirdest people in the world.

Every dog has one free bite. A dog cannot be presumed to be vicious until he has proved that he is by biting someone.

think that people may be more careful for a year or two, and then we may see another speculative buildup followed by another crash, and so on until God makes people less greedy.