I've been doing some reading lately and I've had the pleasure of reading a few great books related to human behaviour. In summary:

• Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society - Nicholas Christakis
  What core features do all of US share and how are we evolutionarily inclined towards building 'good' societies? The book explores the positive side of our humanity; we are social animals and within us, we all carry a set of hard-wired traits which make up our 'social suite': identity, love, friendship, cooperation, solidarity, mild dominance, learning, and social networks. The book further shows how all successful societies are comprised of these universals and illustrates through many examples how societies can fall apart when diverging from our blueprint.

• Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman
  Our mind is composed of two metaphorical agents, or systems. System 1 is responsible for our fast, automatic, unconscious, intuitive thinking while System 2 is slow, deliberate, conscious and effortful. The book examines the interplay between this duality, with respect to how they play a role in our decisions and the innate biases we possess.

• Behave : The Biology Of Humans at Our Best and Worst - Robert Sapolsky
  A human behaviour has occurred. But what is it that led to this behaviour? The book travels back in time before an action occurs and starts unraveling the components responsible for our behaviours. The book attempts to synthesise the knowledge of different domains such as neuroscience, endocrinology, genetics, sociology and psychology into an intertwined exploration of human behaviour spanning from one second before an action occurs to before the individual was even born.

Each of these books presents a different glimpse of the decisions of US. They dive into our core features, our biases and our behaviours and they describe how everyone is different, but at the same time, not so different after all.

Evolution, Environment and Culture

WOW to US to YOU

But who is US really? Who is YOU? What makes YOU different but US not so different after all?

WOW

We first need a change of perspective to look at where we actually are first. All living things we currently know about, are DNA-based organisms. If we were to represent the space of all possible DNA-based organisms, that is all DNA-based organisms that could possibly ever exist, no one would be able to find US within this space. Let's call this space WOW, as in WOW it's so big. Outside WOW, we have organisms like Urgsåblø∆ks but we don't care about them here. Inside WOW, there is US, velociraptors, tardigrades, a bunch of creatures you can create in Spore and that one bacteria that looks like Nicolas Cage.

- Urgsåblø∆ks

EARTH

Now let's confine this space to organisms that can survive - exist AND persist - in our current environment; our current fauna, flora and our various goldilocks properties. Lets call this subspace EARTH. It's safe to say that most DNA-based organisms won't be able to survive in our current environment.

US

To get to US, which is what we would define as humans at our current stage of evolution, we would need to limit our space even further to a much much smaller, refined, adapted subspace inside EARTH. Continuing with the metaphor we would share a lot of that space with NEADERTHALS, less so with VELOCIRAPTORS. And of course, all these subspaces are mutable. Evolution acts upon them over time, changing their shape, molding them into the various specialized species we have today. Since the shape of this subspace defines US, we can now extract its general properties. All these properties are the similarities all humans share. We grow 1 head and 2 eyes. But we also cooperate, teach and love in similar ways. Over time these properties might change, but US are stuck with them now. The fundamental features of humanity are part of these properties of US. Our biases are part of these properties of US. This is the level of abstraction we can look for the similarities of US.

YOU

But US is not YOU. YOU is the individual, a single particle or instance inside the subspace US. This particle continually moves around over its lifetime. Its location completely defines that individual. Even monozygotic (identical) twins will start diverging from each other the moment the environment acts upon them. Therefore, while each YOU lives within US and possesses similar universals, each YOU is also unique. This is where we find individual differences.

So. The shape of US determines our fundamental features. The similarities every YOU shares. On the other hand, the location of YOU highlights our differences.

Coevolution

Sometimes a chicken is an egg's way to make another egg - Samuel Butler

Shaping US

What influences our similarities? How does the shape of US change over time?

US is shaped by evolution, but refined by ... US, a coevolution of sorts. Evolution is shaped by our environment. Whether it is the climate, the resources available or competing organisms, our environment is the playground evolution requires to play. But the environment of US is also especially shaped by culture. This may be social/artificial environments we have built over time, like our customs, beliefs, languages, habits and more literally our cities. Building culture has its own unique properties. Culture is transmitted horizontally (any human to any human communication) and spatially (buildings, artefacts...) transcending the usual limitations of vertical transfer of information such as evolution which requires offspring.

In a way, US are becoming more adaptable like bacteria! Just as bacteria are improving their chances of survival through horizontal gene transfer mechanisms to deal with our pesky antibiotics, we share culture (e.g. technology) to improve our lives.

We are not following a single strand of evolution, but two strands, intersecting and intertwining, creating an evolutionary web instead of a tree. Culture is the ultimate bootstrapping tool.

Locating YOU

YOU is always on the move. It’s influenced by any environmental factors YOU is exposed to. These may be food, exercise, cultural influences, radiation, the list goes on. All these factors perturb YOU into seemingly random directions that make up everything that is YOU.

In this setting

Therefore, with this setting in mind:

• Blueprint provides an overarching view of US, in the context of building societies.
• Thinking Fast and Slow takes a look at the biases of US.
• Behave goes deeper and explores how YOU moves during its lifetime and influences behaviours.

The following sections explore our innate biases in the context of US and how our behaviours arise in the context of YOU.

Biases biases biases

What is a Cognitive Bias

Cognitive Biases are systematic errors in thinking, leading to errors in judgment and decisions. If you google 'Cognitive Biases' you'll find a whole army of biases listed. This bucket of biases can be viewed as biases in US; universal biases that stem from our common features as US.

Language of Bias and the Brain

If you are holding a cold drink you are more likely to judge someone for having a cold personality. You cannot avoid complex intercommunication between parts - Robert Sapolsky

The brain is a complex system. In the context of bias we are required to use a level of abstraction appropriate enough to encapsulate and separate the basic systems responsible for our behaviours.

Thinking Fast and Slow uses a two system approach:

• System 1 - fast, automatic, instinctive, emotional; driving a car on an empty road as an experienced driver.
• System 2 - slow, effortful, deliberate, logical; deciding to go for a run.

Behave on the other hand splits the brain into 3 metaphorical layers (triune brain):

• Limbic Brain : Emotional, Feeling brain
• Reptilian brain: Instinctual brain
• Neocortex : Rational, Thinking Brain

For the sake of simplicity I will be using System 1/Cortex for slow, rational thinking and System 2/Limbic for fast, instinctive thinking.

Note that in reality there is significant overlap between parts and the flow of information is not always as straightforward as [rational (read something scary) → emotional (be afraid) → instinctual (shiver)].

Bias in US

Stereotyping isn't a case of lazy, short-cutting cognition. It isn't conscious cognition at all - Berreby

Attention

You are tasked to remember the digits '253143973' in their current order for a few minutes. While your attention is focused on this task, you are offered a choice of desserts. Why is it that you are more likely to choose a chocolate cake over a fruit salad?

Self-control and cognitive effort are forms of mental work, thus System 2 is more engaged. If you think of System 2 as a resource then it is easier to understand how cognitive effort may influence our decisions. You are more likely to be unrestrained, selfish, use inappropriate language or make superficial judgments when this resource is running out. Of course, mental effort is not the only way to deplete your mental resources. A combination sleep depravity, hunger, thirst, alcohol levels etc. will also influence this.

A most worrying real-world example of this taking place was shown in a study of more than 1100 judicial rulings related to granting parole. Parole was granted at 60% rate when judges had recently eaten, compared to a measly 10% just before their next food break. Here, the denial of parole is the default - eating the chocolate cake - and going against the default position will require intellectual effort which is dependent on the available resources.

Competence

In an experiment, they showed children 2 faces of candidates from obscure elections and asked them:

"Imagine that you will now sail from Troy to Ithaca. Who would you choose as the captain of your boat?"

The children were able to predict the winner ~70% of the time. The same applied for adults.

"Face effects appear to be age-invariant, suggesting that adults and children use similar cues in judging competence from facial appearance." - link

Biases of appearance and competence can likely be attributed to health from an evolutionary fitness perspective. However in the current society we live in, competence cannot simply be predicted from facial appearance. Yet our deeply entrenched generalised biases still remain and still influence important decisions.

Small numbers big problems

In a survey of ~1600 schools in Pennsylvania, researchers concluded that the most successful schools, on average are small. That is, there were 6 small schools in the top 50 with an overrepresentation by a factor of 4. Because small schools have smaller classes they pay more attention to their students and they perform better. This study encouraged funding to create or convert schools into smaller chunks in an effort to improve education. But wait... in the study the worst schools were also on average small. This is because smaller samples lead to larger extremes. 2 great students out of 5 are much more impactful than 2 great students out of 100.

It is easy to jump to causal conclusions. Causal conclusions fit into a coherent story and give us a sense of cognitive ease. Recognising the mistake is much much harder.

Bias in Groups

Friends vs Others, Us vs Them, My Team vs Your Team. Each of US has group biases, whether spiritual, religious, ethnic or just the different coloured shirt in a sports match. In-group members are implicitly favourable by US, we are more prone to help, share resources and view their actions more positively. Contrarily out-group members are viewed as monolithic or interchangeable in terms of their characteristics and actions. If out-group bias is pushed further it might even lead to dehumanisation.

Of course, the line is not clearly drawn. Each of US belongs to multiple categories of groups and at varying degrees which, in some ways, forms an individual identity. This identity changes over time from experience and most often the dichotomies between groups are not that straightforward.

Interesting examples of non-trivial dichotomies often arise in wars. There is no clearer dichotomy of a Friend vs Enemy during war time. But, when a soldier finds themselves stuck for months on end in some forsaken trench, things begin to change. The enemy faces similar conditions. He has to go out every night to untangle and reset their barbed wires. He might even see the Enemy doing the same. Yet both sides collectively decide to place their defences in peace as if they aren't placing them for the Enemy. A famously recorded example of both sides coming together took place during Christmas of 1914 where soldiers got out of their trenches to shoot footballs instead of bullets.

Memory bias

Of the most interesting biases, memory bias has to be up there. How well can US remember good and bad moments? In one experiment researchers wanted to test this out in the context of pain. Each participant was told they would go through 3 cold hand trials. The first 2 cold hand trials consisted of

1. 60 second immersion in water at 14 degrees
2. 60 second immersion in water at 14 degrees followed by 30 second immersion at 15 degrees

randomized in their order for different participants.

For the third trial the participants had to choose which trial to repeat.

Obviously the second option is objectively the more painful one as it is literally just 30 seconds of more pain; just at a slightly warmer temperature. Yet ~70% of the participants chose the objectively more painful option!

Why? It's all about the highlights. We judge a painful experience by the average of how it felt at its most intense and how it felt at the end. The duration is irrelevant. This is called the peak end rule. Data was also obtained for colonoscopy procedures but lets not go there...results were similar.

Meta-bias

Disbelief is not an option. The results are not made up, nor are they statistical flukes. You have no choice but to accept that the major conclusions of these studies are true. More important, you must accept that they are true about you" - Daniel Kahneman

I placed too much faith in underpowered studies - Daniel Kahneman

Bias occurs unconsciously. System 2 is responsible for deciding when to "do the harder thing when it's the right thing to do". Understanding and correcting for bias is the harder and right thing to do.

But it is HARD. It is so hard that even the people who study the science of mistakes are not immune to making them. Take for example publication bias, an extremely common problem in social sciences. Because negative or insignificant results are less likely to be published, study outcomes are more exaggerated. Combined with difficulties to replicate the studies, these exaggerated results face the danger of morphing into facts and influencing the whole field of study to move in the wrong direction. Daniel Kahneman, the writer of Thinking Fast and Slow, made the same inescapable mistake when referencing many 'true' studies within the book.

In the Attention section I mentioned how hungry judges tend to give harsher sentences - denial of parole. The original paper takes into consideration various factors that might influence the judges decisions. For example the possibility that they have a daily quota of favourable decisions after which they are more prone to making unfavourable ones. Or their severity of the crime. Or previous incarcerations. However, unbeknownst to the researchers, unrepresented prisoners simply tended to go last. Additionally, statistical artefacts such as unfavourable rulings taking longer than favourable ones, also corrupted the results. Does this mean hunger plays no role in our decisions? No, the biases are there. The question is to what extent?

As we can see, simply learning about biases is not enough to be objective. Even if you are able to recognise biases in others, it is much harder to recognise biases in yourself. It might even influence you to think you can avoid biases, a bias in itself.

System 2 is not useless of course. Identifying biases and being critical about them is a step towards avoiding the bias auto-pilot of System 1. But biases will always stem from the domain of System 1. Therefore no matter how hard System 2 is trained the unconscious will dominate.

Its akin to driving a car and only having control of the gas pedal (System 2). The driving wheel (System 1) is guiding you but you get to slow down if you don't like where its taking you.

Behaviours in YOU

What influences guide the behaviours of YOU? This section is mostly an exploration of what affects the behaviour of YOU. Changes in our behaviour gravitate us towards weighing our options differently and thus making different decisions. This is the kind of 'bias' we are looking at here. Not the fundamental bias in US, but the 'bias' that builds up due to the battle of nature vs nurture of YOU.

DNA

A typical human behavioural trait is associated with very many genetic variants, each of which accounts for a very small percentage of the behavioural variability

What makes YOU different? At a fundamental level its our genomic makeup; our DNA. So how does our DNA influence our behaviours?

We can take a bunch of people with a particular phenotype - an observable trait like people with 3 eyes - and compare their DNA with people who do not exhibit this particular phenotype - people with 2 eyes. By studying the genomic differences between the two groups we can find potential associations related to the phenotype.

Take for example, MAOA, the 'warrior gene'. As the name implies, this gene has been popularised as a gene responsible for aggression because functional changes of MAOA have been correlated with more aggressive phenotypes. This gene codes for an enzyme responsible for the breakdown of various neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. Therefore it is reasonable to say that a functional change of MAOA due to a genomic difference might make people more susceptible to various behavioural disorders.

However susceptibility to a behaviour $X$ due to genomic difference $Y$ does not imply behaviour $X$. It might imply instead that the likelihood of behaviour $X$ is 3x as likely given other genomic ($G_i$) and environmental ($E_i$) influences $(G_1, G_2, G_3, ... E_1, E_2, E_3)$. GIVEN other influences is key. Without other compounding influences the increase in likelihood would not be existent. And the 3x increase? It might just be a (0.01% → 0.03%) difference on average.

DNA is like a big library of recipes. An alteration to a lemon sauce recipe will still make you chicken.

Epigenetic changes

If genomics is the study of what our recipes contain, epigenetics is the study of selecting our recipes. Which recipes should we use, what lemon sauce are we using, how many chickens are we making?

Epi ('over')genetics is the study of phenotypic changes that do not involve changes in DNA. Rather, they involve changes in the expression of DNA - how often a recipe is read - using various mechanisms. What do these mechanisms do? Continuing with the metaphor; if you build a library of recipes, you can design the library as you like. You can add labels 'READ ME' and place them in the front of the entrance or close off sections. The design of the library, which changes over time, determines what is read and as all things biology structure determines function.

Which is why female bees with the same DNA sequence can become workers or queens just based on what they are fed. This is how the environment comes in and shapes YOU.

Linking the aggression example: In one study rats were submitted to fear inducing experiences during their time of puberty. Exposure to this peripubertal stress resulted to increased and sustained rates of aggression in adulthood. The increased rate of aggression was associated with a permanent epigenetic change on the MAOA gene's promoter changing its expression levels (epigenetic modification changing how often the MAOA recipe is read).

Hormonal changes

On to hormones. If YOU was a video game character, hormones should be included in the character status. Hormones are transported by the bloodstream influencing any cells throughout the body that possess receptors to them. Effects may last for hours, days or ... forever - you know puberty.

Hormones are incredibly versatile. They are responsible for, and not limited to, inducing stress responses, maintaining our circadian rhythm, stimulating growth during childhood and the regulation and homeostasis of the body.

Being versatile also implies they are not unidimensional. The effect of hormones on behaviour always depends on the context and therefore the same hormone may influence our decisions in seemingly contradictory ways given what situation we are in.

Let's briefly explore how two hormones, testosterone and oxytocin affect our environmental 'prejudices'. Testosterone is commonly linked with aggression whereas oxytocin is linked with trust and overall niceness.

Testosterone

Instead of looking at testosterone as an aggression hormone, it can be viewed as a hormone that makes us more willing to do what it takes to attain and maintain status. This is called the Challenge Hypothesis. In a study female subjects were administered a dose testosterone and asked to play the Ultimatum game. The first player chooses how to split a sum of money. The second player either accepts this and they leave happy ever after or rejects and neither gets anything. If testosterone was simply linked to aggression, the second player would reject more often than a control group. However, the reverse was the case as in the Challenge hypothesis: attaining status in this game revolves around being fair over multiple rounds, not being aggressive. It just so happens that in most environments - and especially when studying animals - aggression is the path towards attaining status. In the current environment we live in this is less so and as seen with the Ultimatum game testosterone can affect our decisions.

Oxytocin

Oxytocin is the ultimate bonding hormone. It facilitates maternal behaviour and increases bonds between partners. Even US and DOGS coevolved to release oxytocin when they interact with each other!

Pair bonding - creating close-knit relationships with others - is part of the universal values of US and oxytocin mediates this. US likely evolved pair bonding as a side effect (an exaptation) to sharing efforts of raising and protecting offspring.

Oxytocin enhances generosity, trust and social understanding. But context always matters. If an outsider looks to harm your 'bonds' such as your offspring, aggression is promoted by oxytocin (more danger of friends → more oxytocin → more aggression for protection). Oxytocin is an in-group 'drug'. In a study they split male subjects into two groups. Each subject chose, within-group first, how much money to put into the group pot. Then, subjects played the Prisoners dilemma game with the other team (out-group), forming out-group pairs. Each subject was given two choices, to backstab or to share:

Prisoner's dillemma game
both share	both gain $2
both backstab	both gain $1
one backstab - one share	backstabber gains $3

Increased oxytocin meant higher generosity for within-group pot, but also higher backstabbing rates for out-group competitions. Meh. So much for being nice to everyone.

Local culture

YOU is invariably influenced by their respective local culture. Each country stands at different levels of socioeconomic status, violence rates, gender equality, individualism vs collectivism, GDP etc. These can all affect the perspective of each individual in terms of the decisions they make.

Human cooperation is a great example that, fundamentally, exists in all of US, but can be influenced by local culture. Researchers studied how cooperation varies in different cultures using the Ultimatum game mentioned before. In an industrialized world country like the USA, a 55/45 split between players was generally deemed acceptable. However, when this was tested on the Machiguengua (located in a tropical forest of southeastern Peru) the common offer was a 85/15 split and despite such low offers they were rarely if ever rejected. On another extreme the Lembata in Indonesia who live in seaside settlements that require intensive coordination and cooperation in large groups offered roughly 43/57 split. Therefore the level of economic cooperation between people depends on the local culture. Different cultures also may have different concepts of fairness. Machiguengua may have a more 'will pay back in the future' model compared to a more industrialised market that relies on one off anonymous trades. Market integration and community size is more associated with fairer offers and also willingness to punish unfair players (if a punisher 3rd player is included).

Other influences could also result to different ways of cooperating. For example high levels of inequality and/ or low levels of social capital in a country predict high rates of antisocial punishment. That is, spending resources to punish players more generous than you. Them being generous raises the expectations of generosity, so punish them for being nice. Antisocial punishment is nearly nonexistent in university students of Australia, but common in Greece, both well developed countries but with apparently divergent differences in their approach of cooperation.

And why not... parasites and bacteria

Humans are a kind of super-organism or more appropriately holobionts. YOU is not only made up of human cells but bacteria and maybe some parasites living in the same confined space. There are ~1.3 bacteria for each human cell in our body - not 1:10 or 1:100 as it has been wrongly cited for a long time - so it wouldn't be an unfair question to ask: Is it possible that some human behaviours and traits are influenced by the bacteria or parasites of YOU?

Gut bacteria:

Bacteria can communicate with the brain through the vagus nerve. An obvious use of this nerve is to communicate with the brain about its food intake. But it appears that some bacteria can even influence our behaviours. In a study autistic mice with an intact vagus nerve that received Lactobacillus reuteri (bacterium) had corrected their social deficits by making changes to their oxytocin-dopamine system. Research on gut bacteria and human behaviour is still in its infancy right now.

Parasites:

Although difficult to study in humans, the parasite Toxoplasma gondii lives its glamorous life by replicating inside cats, getting pooped out and then infecting mice that eat it. Since the parasite can't replicate inside the rat it finds its way back to the cat. How? The parasite infected mice become less fearful of cats - become more attracted to cat urine - making them that much more likely to help keep the food cycle going. Strangely enough, infected male mice also become more attractive to females, helping to pass on the infection. A possible reason for this dynamic is that toxoplasma induces an increase in testosterone leading to epigenetic changes in the amygdala which plays a role in fear responses and olfactory information.

As with mice, the human body is an ecosystem, consisting of multitudes of complex symbiotic relationships we barely understand. With this in mind, we cannot rule out their possible effects on our behaviours.