Quotes About Behavior

Sociobiology, E. O. Wilson

Behavior doesn't fossilize. This is why speculations about human prehistory are often based on what we know about other primates. Their behavior indicates the range of behavior our ancestors may have shown.

Traditionally, primatologists looked at alpha males as those who succeeded in spreading their genes. But in making this point, we relied entirely on observed sexual activity. The more we saw a male mate, the more offspring he sired, we thought. This assumption proved flawed. While alpha males have no qualms about mounting females in the open, other males often get busy out of sight and at night.

Position in the male hierarchy is only one factor in the mating game. The other one is female preference.

Lo que interpretamos como un sentimiento de culpa en las personas a menudo es, igual que en los perros, una manera de evitar consecuencias negativas, más que la evidencia de una distinción profunda entre lo correcto y lo incorrecto.

This is clearly not so. Pigeons, for example, do better than humans at mentally rotating visual images, and some birds have an amazing memory for the location of hidden objects. Clark's nutcrackers store up to 33,000 seeds in caches distributed over many square kilometers and find most of the caches again months later.28As someone who occasionally forgets where he has parked an item as large and significant as his car, I am impressed by these peanut-brained birds.

The study of human psychology usually relies on the use of questionnaires, which are heavy on self-reported feelings and light on actual behavior. But I favor the reverse. We need more

The study of human psychology usually relies on the use of questionnaires, which are heavy on self-reported feelings and light on actual behavior.

Recognition of this parallel between anatomy and behavior was a great leap forward, which is nowadays taken for granted.

Desperto um belo dia no mundo e me atribuo um único direito: exigir do outro um comportamento humano. Um único dever: o de nunca, através de minhas opções, renegar minha liberdade.

The behavior of an individual is therefore determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment.

A gentleman is any man who wouldn't hit a woman with his hat on.

The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.

We humans are born with intuitions, drives, and personality traits that determine how we interact with the world around us. These dispositions—both inherited and acquired—lie at the very core of who we are as human beings.8

Wilson also makes a powerful point when he says that strong character leads to the integrated self—a joining of head and heart, where thoughts, feelings, and actions are in harmony, resulting in behavior that demonstrates the character of an individual who walks the talk of his or her belief system.

We reveal our character all the time through observable behaviors: in the way we treat other people. As we mature, these character-driven behaviors become automatic reflexes, the character habits that express our guiding principles and beliefs.

In essence, our behavior is a product of our genetic makeup and basic human nature filtered and honed through the environments, experiences, and relationships that form our life journey. Together, these factors—governed by both our nature and the nurturing we receive—help shape the belief system and moral habits that form our character, and in turn, trigger the habitual behaviors that express it.

Sometimes people are good, and they do just what they should. But the very same people who are good sometimes are the very same people who are bad sometimes. It's funny but it's true. Its the same isn't it, for me and . . .

I must be an emotional archaeologist because I keep looking for the roots of things, particularly the roots of behavior and why I feel certain ways about certain things.

Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior, can cooperate on a basis of mutual trust and helpfulness.

Let's assume that people respond to stress." "Is that true?" "Well, not just negative stress, but also positive stress like interest, or ambition. If they're under too little stress, they don't care, so it's very hard to motivate them to do something. But if they're under too much stress, they panic. They freeze, or they get angry and do completely irrational things.

I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows. But now the damned things have learned to swim ,and now decency and good behavior weary me.

Auch hat sich deine Berner Polizei ja nun wirklich ungeschickt benommen, man erschießt nun einmal keinen Hund, wenn Bach gespielt wird.

Die Vergangenheit löscht man am besten mit einem wahnsinnegen Betragen aus, wenn man sich schon im Irrenhaus befindet.