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Robin Hanson

The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life Illustrated Edition

by Kevin Simler (Author), Robin Hanson (Author)

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Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is "the elephant in the brain." Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen?

Our unconscious motives drive more than just our private behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as Art, School, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their "official" ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading one to question the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of standard policies designed to favor or discourage them. You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain.

ISBN-10

0190495995
ISBN-13

978-0190495992
Edition

Illustrated
Publisher

Oxford University Press
Publication date

January 2, 2018
Language

English
Dimensions

9.4 x 1.7 x 6.4 inches
Print length

416 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Many of the details of Hanson and Simler's thesis are persuasive, and the idea of an "introspective taboo" that prevents us from telling the truth to ourselves about our motives is worth contemplating. (That taboo is the Elephant [in the Brain])." - The New Yorker

"The Elephant in the Brain is refreshingly frank and penetrating, leaving no stone of presumed human virtue unturned." -Wall Street Journal

"This book will make you see the world in a whole new light." --Tyler Cowen, Bloomberg columnist; author of The Great Stagnation

"The Elephant in the Brain is a masterpiece." --Scott Aaronson, Director, Quantum Information Center, University of Texas, Austin

"In this ingenious and persuasive book, Simler and Hanson mischievously reveal that much of our behavior is for social consumption: we make decisions that make us look good, rather than good decisions." --Hugo Mercier, Research Scientist, French Institute for Cognitive Sciences

"A thoughtful examination of the human condition." --David Biello, Science Curator at TED; author of The Unnatural World

"Simler and Hanson have done it again- a big new idea, well told." --Gregory Benford, Professor of Physics, University of California, Irvine; two- time Nebula Award Winner; author of The Berlin Project

"Deeply important, wide- ranging, beautifully written, and fundamentally right." --Bryan Caplan, Professor of Economics, George Mason University; author of The Case Against Education

"This is the most unconventional and uncomfortable self- help book you will ever read. But probably also the most important." --Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist at MIT; coauthor of Machine

"Thorough, insightful, fun to read, with the slight negative that everything is now ruined forever." --Zach Weinersmith, author of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

"This book will change how you see the world." --Allan Dafoe, Professor of Political Science, Yale University

"A captivating book about the things your brain does not want you to know." --Jaan Tallinn, Founder of Skype, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, and Future of Life Institute

"It's hard to overstate how impactful this book is." --Tucker Max, author of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

"An eye-opening look at how we deceive ourselves in order to deceive others." --Ramez Naam, author of Nexus

"A provocative and compellingly readable account of how and why we lie to our rivals, our friends, and ourselves." --Steven Landsburg, Professor of Economics, University of Rochester

"Simler and Hanson reveal what's beneath our wise veneer--a maelstrom of bias and rationalization that we all must- for survival's sake--help each other overcome." --David Brin, two- time Hugo Award Winner; author of Existence

"A thoughtful and provocative book." --Andrew Gelman, Professor of Statistics, Columbia University

"Simler and Hanson uncover the hidden and darker forces that shape much of what we say and do." --William MacAskill, Professor of Philosophy, Oxford University; author of Doing Good Better

"There are only a few people alive today worth listening to. Robin Hanson is one of them." --Ralph Merkle, co- inventor of public key cryptography

"Brilliantly written and entertaining on every page." --Alex Tabarrok, author of Modern Principles of Economics

"A disturbing and important book." --Arnold Kling, author of The Three Languages of Politics

"Coauthors Simler, a software engineer, and Hanson (The Age of Em), an economics professor, bring a light touch in this thought-provoking exploration of how little understanding people have of their own motivations...This is a fascinating and accessible introduction to an important subject. " --Publisher's Weekly

"An entertaining and insightful book that sheds light on a diverse collection of perplexing human behaviors from laughter to religion to the origin of language." --Quillette

"The argument that Simler and Hanson make is rather comprehensive, and compelling. They bring together research on various topics of limited reach that, when combined, speak to the outrageous gall of the mind in recreating reality to its own liking, and then covering its tracks." -- Katherine Oktober Matthews, Riding the Dragon

"Charles Darwin, Dan Kahneman and Malcolm Gladwell walk into a bar. . . It's no joke! Reading The Elephant in the Brain is like eavesdropping on a fascinating conversation among a group of well-read and clever iconoclasts as they speculate on why we vote against our economic interests, spend too much on health care, give to the wrong charities and pray to gods we aren't sure really exist." --Steven Pearlstein, Columnist at The Washington Post; Pulitzer Prize Winner

"Drawing upon evolutionary psychology, the authors tackle the basic capacity of humans for self-deception, not merely at the level of the Freudian intrapsychic but collectively as well. Self-deception, they argue, allows people to better manipulate others. In exposing the darker side of human nature, the authors take readers on a fascinating journey into hidden motivations in such diverse realms as education, religion, and politics." --CHOICE

"If you want to know what makes people tick, read The Elephant in the Brain. Simler and Hanson have created the most comprehensive, powerful, unified explanation of human nature and behavior to date." --Jason Brennan, Professor of Business, Georgetown University

About the Author

Kevin Simler is a writer and software engineer currently living in Brooklyn, NY. He's worked for ten years as a programmer, product designer, and engineering director, and continues to advise startups about technology, leadership, and recruiting.

Robin Hanson is an associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He has a doctorate in social science, master's degrees in physics and philosophy, and nine years of experience as a research programmer in artificial intelligence and Bayesian statistics. With over 3100 citations and sixty academic publications, he's recognized not only for his contributions to economics (especially, pioneering the theory and use of prediction markets), but also for the wide range of fields in which he's been published. He is the author of The Age of Em: Work, Love, and Life when Robots Rule the Earth (OUP 2016).

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Illustrated edition (January 2, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0190495995
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0190495992
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.4 x 1.7 x 6.4 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #462,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #51 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)
- #9,554 in Motivational Self-Help (Books)

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784 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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David Youngberg

You won't look at the world in the same way again.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 9, 2018

Verified Purchase

If this book didn't make you uncomfortable, you didn't understand it. It's a really wonderful and eye-opening book.

Simler and Hanson ask you to consider that evolutionary hold-overs motivate even your most selfless acts. The Elephant in the Brain (because it's about a big thing in our brain that we don't acknowledge) argues that many of our actions are motivated by a desire to cultivate allies and mates and, to cultivate effectively, humans have learned to lie others and ourselves. We've learned to fool ourselves into thinking we're pretty great because that makes it easier to fool others into thinking we're pretty great. Our brains evolved succeed in a social setting.

You can argue their explanation is an incomplete understanding of human behavior. The Elephant in the Brain isn't meant to be a handbook of the human brain, able to explain every single thing people do. It's meant to highlight a part of our thinking we willfully ignore. One of the authors is an economist, but the book also draws heavily on psychological and evolutionary research. Indeed, the selfishness argument that's at the heart of the book isn't an economic one (as one reviewer erroneously claims), but an evolutionary one.

Appreciate how hard Simler and Hanson's argument is to show. "You're secretly lying to yourself!" is by definition something people will not be upfront about. Much of the book applies this self-deception/selfishness theory to different areas such as art, education, donations, and body language and concentrates on the contradictions. There's a disconnect between what we claim and what we see. The "elephant in the brain" fills the gap.

To get a feel for how they make their argument, consider their chapter on donations. We typically think of donations as acts of pure selflessness--motivated by a "warm glow" from helping others--but Simler and Hanson point to some contradictions.

-We typically do not do research on the organizations we donate to.
-We are more often motivated by individual stories rather than statistics on effectiveness.
-We rarely keep quiet about our donations and most donations are not anonymous. Even "anonymous" donations aren't kept quiet.

If charity was all about helping others and nothing more, we'd be more careful about where the money goes and wouldn't be so concerned with advertising our benevolence. Charity, Simler and Hanson argue, is an advertisement: a way to show off to others so we can signal success and get allies.

Don't make the mistake in thinking that this a conscious concern; it's more of an explanation as to why the glow is warmer for some acts of charity rather than others. Telling people about our donations feels better than keeping quiet. Helping a person we can identify feels better than helping statistical abstractions that represent people. Our ancestors who were apt at visible giving in a way that felt genuine were more likely to proliferate because they had more allies and better mates. Natural selection made us charitable, but in a weird way.

To their credit, Simler and Hanson don't think humans are terrible people or donations shouldn't occur. They acknowledge multiple times that these hidden motives can have wonderful results. We should just be aware of how easily we can fool ourselves.

48 people found this helpful

Helpful

Paul Sztorc

A Nonfiction "Catcher in the Rye"

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 3, 2018

Verified Purchase

J.D. Salinger enthralled the world with his story about an angsty teenager who gradually became aware of -and infuriated with- the "phoniness" of the world. Salinger's protagonist is blessed with extraordinary insight into people's hypocrisy and self-deception. The blessing seems at times a curse: the character has no friends, can't do well in school, is out of shape, and hints frequently at suicide. The discontent of Holden Caulfield is almost without limit (the astute reader notices that the NYC adventure is in fact narrated from an mental asylum in California).

I don't know if 'EitB' will sell as well as 'CitR' (which outsold 6 of the 7 Harry Potter books), but, pound for pound, its pages are just as valuable.

Like CitR, EitB is about "phoniness". But, unlike CitR, it *explains* phoniness: why it evolved, when/where it is likely to appear, and why we sometimes can't stop ourselves. The book is about our own thoughts, and since we think about ~everything, the concepts have near-universal applicability. Forewarned is forearmed (at least for a certain type of person), and readers will therefore be able to use EitB to improve their health and wealth with superior decision making. However, more interesting to me, is that *some* readers will inherit a repertoire of skills for optimized hyper-phoniness. These people will be world-class persuaders -- eventually, every leader will need to know (or at least name) the ideas presented here, if only for self-defense.

This cognitive science book focuses on "ugly information", ie the kind that you don't want to show to other people. It is hard to talk about these ideas with one's friends. EitB is about disgraceful things -- things that we try not to admit, that we try not to talk about, and that we have in fact **evolved not to even think about**. After digesting the book's lessons, the reader will better understand not only [1] why our world has problems, but also [2] why some of those problems cannot be solved using traditional explanations (ie, explanations that take the form of straightforward verbal persuasion).

As I hinted in the first paragraph, Elephant in the Brain is certainly not for everyone. The ideas presented are very unflattering, and, despite the authors' lighthearted attempts to backpedal the significance of their work by talking about the moon landing or whatever, the explanations in EitB are in fact informative, accurate, relevant, and significant. If anyone asks me, readers are in danger of replicating Holden Caulfield's experience of overwhelming frustration. Some people can't handle the truth, Plato's Allegory of the Cave, etc etc, ya know? This is one of those. If you're into that, you know what to do! Buy it!

126 people found this helpful

Helpful

Michael E. Martin

This Book is All About Me

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 14, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book is all about me, or you if you choose to read it. The authors use data from various studies and surveys of large groups, as well as interesting historical anecdotes to make the case for individual decisions that appear to be in the group interest, but are often in one’s own interest. Not that that is a bad thing; self-interest drives the economy and enables us to survive.

Much of this self-interest is evolutionary and sometimes evolution lags behind our increasingly complex society. Accordingly we make decisions that are intended to maintain or enhance our survival and pleasure, but are in fact harmful to our well-being. Becoming aware of such internal conflicts is one of the benefits I got from reading The Elephant in the Brain.

I also became aware of how others appeal to our self-interest while actually, sometimes unconsciously, pursuing their own self-interests. This revelation is going to result in my writing to my Senators and Congressional Representatives about some of the current legislation being discussed in Washington.

This is a well written, easy read. I’d call it a non-fiction page turner.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

M2

Basic Concepts Reshuffled

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 29, 2022

Verified Purchase

If you've never read anything about human motivations this may be a good intro. No new concepts introduced, as the authors admit, but it is a mostly readable intro. The second half of the book focuses on topical examples and there it tends to lose impact.

Helpful

Briceida P.

Every person who believes that he never fools himself should read this book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 30, 2022

Verified Purchase

This book is just amazing! It thought so many things that from the bottom of my mind I already knew but in some way I didn’t… just read it, thank me later

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Clive F

Very intriguing idea, clearly thought through, with great examples

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 23, 2018

Verified Purchase

I loved the core idea here - that actually we don't know our true motives for many of the things we do, and that our brains are in fact set up so that this ignorance is reinforced. There are some great examples, small and large, of habits (at one end) and entire economic or social institutions at the other end, that illustrated these points. A!though the authors seemed concerned that readers would find some of the examples hard to swallow and too hard to believe, I found them all entire too credible. So perhaps for me the book's only failing was in not being hard hitting enough, rather than going too far. Overall though an excellent read, with many Kindle highlights created.

7 people found this helpful

DR

Changed my world view

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 1, 2018

Verified Purchase

This book introduces a number of concepts, but the central tenant of the book is that we are driven my an inner motive to conform to the norms of a social group. Once we have conformed we are willing to shape our belief systems around those of the group. This is a good possible explanation for the irrational belief systems that humans exhibit. I did find the book a little dry, but it is rare at my age for a single book to shift my world view so profoundly and I think is well worth a read!

8 people found this helpful

kk sn

Interesting book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 22, 2018

Verified Purchase

Well researched although feels a bit obvious at times non the less puts a new perspective on people's motives or rather refreshes it.

3 people found this helpful

Ioannis Damianos

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 8, 2018