The Social Brain and the Diffusion of Pro-Social Behavior

We would like to highly recommend The Social Brain and the Diffusion of Pro-Social Behavior, a paper written by John Gowdy for the Garrison Institute’s Climate, Mind and Behavior Program. “As society considers how to motivate humans to address the challenges of climate change,” Gowdy writes, “increasing attention is turning to biological insights into human behavior, an inquiry that is starting to supplant the economic paradigm of the ‘rational actor’ (a model individual who instinctively profit maximizes and optimizes behavior)…. [H]umans are uniquely social mammals whose behavior deviates significantly from “rationality” because of social norms and evolutionary wiring…” It’s fascinating reading, and essential to understanding how to shape more effective policy approaches to climate change.