Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

I bought this book and started reading it because it was advertized as a sociological study of how people are inherently good. The first chapter introduced the concept of jen, which comes from Eastern philosophy and means all the positive social interactions, and positive social capital. The first chapter was amazing and I thought I was going to read a boo about Buddhist philosophy, or media analyses, or a sociological critique that we're all motivated for good.<br /><br />But that's not what I got. I instead received a chapter on the evolutionary and neurological basis for embarrassment. Then another chapter on smiles. Then laughter. Then teasing.<br /><br />By this point I had learned that the author is a Psychology professor who specializes in facial feature analyzes. These chapters all contained lengthy discussions and details about tiny facial movements and how to distinguish between genuine and false smiles. There was lots of heavy discussions of psychology methodology and how to set up research studies, and lots of technical, scientific details. At some points, you completely forgot you were supposedly reading a book about why people are good - it felt like a psychology textbook on emotional development. <br /><br />I was greatly disappointed that I did not have an existential book that argued how we're do good things for society and world. However, I just magically happen to be a psychology PhD student. In any other circumstance, I think the long scientific rants would have made me close the book. But once I accepted this was a psychology book and turned on my "work" brain, I really enjoyed it. It was written at a much more accessible and interesting level than a scholarly article, and the long discussions on emotional development was quite complementary to my field of study in social development. <br /><br />When shyness and Jerome Kagan was mentioned I giggled with joy. I have cited Kagan in both my MA and PhD theses, and the deeper understanding of vagal tone was much appreciated. And of course, I loved the interesting discussions of research methods. The Darwinian rants and longwinded "histories" of smiles and teasing was still boring. <br /><br />And if you are not a PhD student in psychology, then the entire book is likely going to be boring. The end of the book began to combine the psychology and the sociology a bit. The final chapters were on love, compassion and awe. These chapters redeemed the book and the awe chapter made me realize that although I have experience many moments of awe, I have never really thought about them (or the emotion) before - so that was trippy. <br /><br />However, the ending was terrible. A few chapters at the end of the awe chapter attempted to wrap things up and did it quite poorly. Given the wonderful introductory chapter, this was a definite let down.

The author, a professor at UC Berkeley, explains how he and his students and other researchers are demonstrating that positive emotions and behavior such as smiling, touching, and caring for others, are biologically based and have their origins in our evolution as a species who must care for our young over a very extended number of years. Some of it gets a little dry and boring, but it is very uplifting to read of biological evidence of how "fearfully and wonderfully made" we are not only as physical beings but as loving beings. Most people mistakenly assume that Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theories naturally mean that he thought that human beings were evolved to be ruthless competitors. In fact, Darwin theorized in the 19th century that compassion was a result of natural and sexual selection.

<b>Rating: 1.5 stars</b><br /><br />Alright, I think my biggest problem with this book was the misleading title. <i>"Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life"</i> is not accurate to what you're going to read when you open this. A more appropriate title would just be: <i>"The Science and Evolution Behind Positive Emotions"</i><br /><br />This book doesn't give you anything to reflect on your own life or your own experiences or how to apply the science to help alleviate life's suffering. It explains to you the basis of positive emotions and that is it. A lot of the information was very boring and predictable—for example: the author dedicates pages and pages and pages on the different shapes of smiles. And then talks about the difference in a genuine smile and a smile you give when working the McDonald's counter. It's just stuff that I either didn't care about or already knew because it's pretty common-sense knowledge. <br /><br />While reading I was excited to get to the conclusion of the book. The author was stockpiling all this scientific information about emotions in my head, and I was waiting for him to go full circle and talk to me about how this evolutionary standpoint in emotions could help guide me in today's life (thus the title "The Science of a Meaningful Life", I assumed he would tell me how this science is meaningful). The author does not do this though. He repeatedly mentions how an emotion is correlated to <i>jen</i>, but not how to actively seek it out or make one's life more profound through it. <br /><br />The information became so boring sometimes that I found myself skimming entire paragraphs. Keltner was just unable to hold my attention with exciting new insights. That said, there were a couple of cool science-facts in there, but it just isn't something I'd recommend.

Reading Dacher Keltner’s Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life showed me a lot about what humans are missing out on while we’re sheltering-in-place, physically and socially distancing; why it feels so Gawdawful rotten, inhumane and boring. And why “face-to-face” on video platforms, six feet away and/or going for a stroll with someone masked are Way Better Than Nothing! “Touch…alters animals’ nervous systems…” (familially comforted/ “snuggled” mammals) in childhood “show reduced receptor levels of stress-related neurons in the brain” and a “more robust immune system” throughout adult life. Like certain smiles, laughing, gentle teasing, play, handshakes and compassionate nods and bows exhibited together with other humans; it triggers “the orbitofrontal cortex and the release of opioids and oxytocin.” IT FEELS GOOD!<br />Our more “civilized” methods of child care and social interaction, maybe dating back to Abraham and Isaac and before, may have increased our inter-tribal hostilities; but our “strong urge to share and to avoid hoarding,…” group grooming and play, systematically trading “calories for touch,” physico-emotional expression of generosity and sympathy “creates trust and long-term cooperative exchange” in spite of our “touch-deprived culture” and hostile media barrage, even before twitter accounts and COVID-19 restrictions.<br />Keltner and his research associates posit that the vast majority of hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution and survival are built on interaction, collaboration and communication; gestures, facial expressions, negotiation and cooperation between us; and NOT primarily the “tool making,” resource hoarding or building permanent material structures ensconced in the historical record. “Tech” does not make us “human beings:” language, emotion and mammalian bonding and caregiving do.<br />The universally primary social activity depicted on pottery worldwide is dancing together, not warfare or even the hunt. It may be ritual or celebrational, but HUMANS want to “play nice with each other” as the bottom line. (Or maybe women, dancers and elders unable to hunt made the first pots!) Being thrown out of “the pack” is the most dire of circumstances for human survival, since our collective brainpower replaces the fangs, size, reproductive proclivities and brute strength of the other animals. And then there’s the vulnerable 6-month infancy or head size at birth requires. Our “rugged individualist,” isolated lifestyle is a social and biological aberration more than a triumph. It DOES “take a village” to raise a human child. LOVE LED US THROUGH THE FIRST 9/10 OF OUR EXISTENCE ON MOTHER EARTH. We can’t let fear, violence and hate screw us up.<br />I’d like to see Prof. Keltner start this book with the misadventure with his young family on the winter sands near Monterey, the elephant seals’ chapter 10, the one entitled “LOVE.” His story of the alpha males, where they lord over their females with bellows, grunts, clouts, rape and pure physical bulk. They not only attack any lesser males with the same and worse auditory abuse and physical violence; but accidentally-on-purpose expel and murder their rivals, alien progeny and their own neonatal young.<br />Eeewww. What? Too scary? Hey, in the “Survivor” “Mean World,” * that’s what SELLS, RIGHT? And that’s WHAT IT (a meaningful life) ’S ALL ABOUT, RIGHT? At least it would bring us up-close-and-personal into the contrast between his traumatized human family seeking knowledge / inspiration about mammalian “family relationships” and, lacking our human “orbitofrontal responsiveness,” the hostile biology (“science”) that played out before their wind,-sand-and-tear-swept eyes.<br />We humans need “hanging out” together, hearing and telling emotionally moving multisensory experiences to get and stay engaged. That’s what humans DO that has allowed us to survive and thrive. All of our technologies, tools and unique cultural mannerisms are secondary to neuro-emotional¬¬ communication relationships. <br />Travel writers completely know that. The gripping image comes first. We need to latch on. Actually viewing the cold, dominant cruelty of the fellow human’s face, voice and body as he extinguished Mr. Floyd’s life, for example, MOVED us from distanced thought-talk to gut-knowledge (vagus nerve) active RESPONSE. <br />Instead, Keltner starts with an abstract Confucian “complex mixture of kindness, humanity and respect that transpires between people,” data about greed and status-seeking in lab games, then 50 pages of “brief philosophical history” from Darwin to UCSF’s brilliant Paul Ekman charting facial gestures of bonobos and “Cro-Magnon CEOs.” <br />Meh… I liked the anthropology, but Keltner, the founding director of the Berkeley Greater Good Science Center, is short on tales in the first three chapters to draw us in to hear about “that deeply satisfying moment when you bring out the goodness of others.” <br />He has snapshots, snippets, like the part about being in the presence of the Dalai Lama, but this was my third or fourth try at reading this truly wonderful book, and I only succeeded because I started at page 199 and then went back. True, I am neither a scientist nor a mathematician; but I have significant intelligence and a legendary attention span, especially for reading good books. <br />I feel for him. Guys have 7x less oxytocin, the “feelgood” neuropeptide than gals do. The conservative pundit on PBS News Hour’s coverage of the Democratic Convention couldn’t quite grasp the emphasis on empathy, all those odd (normal) people casting ballots from every state. He kept asking what the “policies” and “issues” behind all this openness, diversity and inclusion were. He was truly puzzled. I felt for him, too. <br />Our evolutionary adaptational environment was “defined by an acute tendency to care, by highly coordinated face-to-face social exchanges, by the need to reconcile (differences with others) and the flattening of social hierarchies, by perpetually negotiated conflicts of interests, and by the emergence of the tendency toward sexual monogamy.” <br />Other chapters in Born to Be Good? SURVIVAL OF THE KINDEST, EMBARRASSMENT, SMILE, LAUGHTER, TEASE, TOUCH, COMPASSION and AWE. For example:<br /> “Embarrassment converts events (like)…social gaffes, offensive remarks, violations of privacy…into opportunities for reconciliation and forgiveness…It is in these in-the-moment acts of deference that we honor others, and in so doing, become strong.”<br />AAaaaaahhhhh….. I’m smiling. Relaxing. Letting down some defenses. <br />I feel better already…<br /><br />*(see David Brooks’ NYT 27 August 2020 “Trump and the Politics of ‘Mean World’: A Four-day Showing of Apocalypse Now.”)

This book title is really misleading. The majority of it is really about the physiology of human interaction. The book starts out proposing a formula for happiness which is basically good stuff divided by bad stuff. The result is a measurable happiness quotient. I don't really see this as useful as it's relative (think Chris Farley's religious devotion and charity divided by his drugs, alcohol and escort patronage) and disregards scale. I put this in more of a free-wheelin self-help category versus a scientific and open approach to meaning and science.<br /><br />For instance, the author explains a personal encounter with the titled Dalai Lama and how he felt power and feeling. A scientist would have show an inquistiveness to conducting a test as to where that power emanates: from the self or from the chosen focus, in this case the DL. I would propose conducting a blind test and and a placebo group. That would provide insight as to where the feeling emanates. I would wager it comes from the self and the object (DL, celebrity, etc) is just an affect image on which we project ideas. <br /><br />The valuable information is that a person has control of their state which is based on belief.<br />You can believe anything is positive and it will release oxytocin which creates a biological feedback loop to do more activities that create a content/euphoric feeling. Those activities are subjective as a beautiful sunset, exercising, religion or to psychotic behavior. That's the power of belief.<br /><br />If interested in more on this I suggest the following books: <i>Happiness Hypothesis</i> by Haidt, <i>Thinking Fast and Slow</i> by Kahneman and <i>The Moral Molecule</i> by Zak.<br />

This book makes the compelling point that human nature is not exclusively selfish, as epitomized in Dawkins' title "The Selfish Gene", but instead exhibits, in many respects, cooperation and compassion. Keltner correctly notes that Darwin himself first suggested this, insisting on "the greater strength of the social or maternal instincts than that of any other instinct or motive." What's more, this instinct of trust and compassion has expanded in recent times to extend beyond the family. As Peter Singer has noted, "But over history the circle has expanded ... from village to the clan to the tribe to the nation to other races to other sexes .. and other species."<br /><br />My only reservations about this book is that the majority of it is addressed to what is really an different topic -- the science of facial expressions. Mind you this is very interesting material. But its connection to the principal aim of the book is questionable.<br /><br />Also, I was disappointed that Keltner did not cite some other sources that would help make his point even stronger. Robert Wright's book "Nonzero" comes to mind in particular -- Wright argues that the extension of humankind's cooperative circle is based in mathematical game theory, and is the basis of modern civilization.<br /><br />But Ketlner's book is at least interesting. Many will find it worthwhile.

My thoughts at the beginning were that applying jen science to individuals and relationships makes sense and can be beneficial - these thoughts lasted through the end of the book. However, in the first chapter, the author also mentions applying jen to nations and governments, which seemed too ambitious and a thought that, in my opinion, tends to oversimplify and overlook what causes unhappy citizens.<br />At times, it seemed like the writing went on tangents that, although interesting, are difficult to connect back to the book's main idea.<br />This book answered questions about the origins of different facial expressions that I didn't know I had. This book is split up into 12 chapters. The first explains jen science, and the remaining 11 focus on a certain emotion and explain how that emotion came to exist and evolve. I like knowing that compassion is good for me and has a positive impact on the community around me - and that this claim has some scientific backing. I enjoyed learning that the bodily expressions of love involve head tilts and open-hand gestures. In short, I enjoyed reading about the nuances and significance of small gestures that make up non-verbal communication.

It's way too much academic for me. I did chuckle on some notes as the author tried to lighten the serious mood but I would've liked it much better without all the technical details. It's better to have it but not for me. With the help of all the details in it, if someone would give me a summary of the book, or if there was a mini version of common folks like me, would've been a 5 star book!<br />But I get it. Some people would definitely dig the extra details and would validate the points well.<br /><br />Summary, COMPASSION is the only way to go! This is second book I read which resulted in this conclusion. Check out "The Difficulty of Being Good", Book by Gurcharan Das. Kinda similar, after all the analysis and drama, conclusion is same but digestible for me when drama is there to go along with the analysis.

Totally biased, simplistic, and overly optimistic, but some of the studies presented were interesting. There are much better accounts of our evolutionary nature than this, including Michael Shermer's Science of Good and Evil and anything by Steven Pinker. Barbara Oakley's Evil Genes also gives a different perspective.<br /><br />This guy has an agenda, and he doesn't want to present any evidence or interpret any evidence contrary to it. He would make a great guest on Oprah. Adam Smith was unfairly disparaged in the book, but Smith's armchair philosophy in The Theory of Moral Sentiments is more on target than all of Keltner's starry eyed conclusions based on his selected "scientific" studies.

Definitely worth reading. The presentation of Darwin's work with emotion and body language was especially interesting. It was also good to learn about the vagus nerve, how men and women communicate differently through touch, and how encountering the Dalai Lama makes people feel good for days. Ultimately I wish that this book had been longer and more detailed.