Epstein Secrets

From: John Brockman c Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2017 7:55 PM To: Robert Trivers; Nicholas Christakis; Abbas Raza; Michael Shermer; Sendhil Mullainathan; Richard Nisbett; Peter Lee; Michael Norton; Matthew Lieberman; Daniel Lieb

Sent: Tuesday, July 4, 2017 7:55 PM To: Robert Trivers; Nicholas Christakis; Abbas Raza; Michael Shermer

id Gelernter; Carlo Rovelli; Robert Axelrod; Jennifer Jacquet; Rebecca Goldstein; Joseph LeDoux; Elizabeth Phelps; Carl Page; Lucy Page/Southworth; Roy Baumeister; David Haig; June Gruber, Cushman, Fiery; Lawrence Ian Reed; Hugo Mercier, Richard Potts; Peter Norvig; Lori Park; Chris DiBona; Alvaro Fischer; Na

0), 718-723; Sigmund, K., Hauert, C., & Nowak, M. (2001). Reward and punishment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 989), 10757- 10762; Trivers, R.L. (1971). The evolution of reciprocal altruism. Quarterly Review of Biology, 46, 35-57. Quotes Watts, D. P., Muller, M., Amsler, S. J., Mbabazi

so. These ideas started with Charles Darwin. One hundred years later, they were developed in exquisite detail by the American evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers. Combined, they provide an explanation for why, in most species including our own, males compete with each other for access to females — the most val

f ourselves to assess our net worth relative to others. We know from a large body of studies, several carried out by the American social psychologist Roy Baumeister, that when an individual’s sense of self-worth is threatened, especially those individuals with more narcissistic and overly confident personalities,

lves are also the ones most likely to lash out with extreme violence when someone threatens the reality of their stature. The evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers was the first to identify the adaptive significance of self-deception and its connection to deception. As he insightfully notes in his book The Folly

s of victory in war — or any competitive arena. Though this is a costly strategy, there are clear evolutionary benefits under conditions explained by Trivers and Johnson. Self-deception is favored when opponents have imperfect information about their strengths and weaknesses, and where the payoffs are high

d the highest levels of recidivism. There is, however, a fine balancing act, revealing the slippery slope from adaptive to maladaptive: as studies by Roy Baumeister reveal, individuals with the highest self-esteem and the most overblown sense of themselves are also the ones most likely to lash out with extreme vi