From Wikipedia on 5-Nov-2012
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally, i.e. independently of the influence of culture. The questions of what these characteristics are, what causes them, and how fixed human nature is, are amongst the oldest and most important questions in western philosophy. These questions have particularly important implications in ethics, politics, and theology. This is partly because human nature can be regarded as both a source of norms of conduct or ways of life, as well as presenting obstacles or constraints on living a good life. The complex implications of such questions are also dealt with in art and literature, while the multiple branches of the Humanities together form an important domain of inquiry into human nature, and the question of what it means to be human.
The branches of contemporary science associated with the study of human nature include anthropology, sociology, sociobiology, and psychology, particularly evolutionary psychology, and developmental psychology. The “nature versus nurture” debate is a broadly inclusive and well-known instance of a discussion about human nature in the natural sciences.
Book Excerpts
On Human Nature, by Edward O. Wilson. 1978, 2004.
My Own Writing
Human nature is the ultimate driver of society and social evolution. It is the motive force behind history, politics, economics, and drama. If you would understand those subjects, you must first understand this.
Social psychology is really the study of human nature.
The human genome is the source code for human nature.
The more idealistic someone is initially, the more bitter he becomes if disillusioned.
Human Tendencies
People follow trends, fads, and fashions because they want to express their superior knowledge, their “hipness”, their difference from the masses.
People crave a sense of community, but they want to be able to choose the members of their communities.
Humans are extremely good at detecting patterns. So much so that they sometimes see them where they do not exist.
People want what they can’t have.
Humans have a strong tendency to copy each other. This explains fads like SUVs, goatees, men wearing earrings, etc.
Humans tend to categorize people into groups. Which groups they use depends on who is doing the categorizing.
Humans like to put things into categories and have difficulty with things that do not fit neatly into one category (i.e. that span multiple categories).
Humans tend to be very short-sighted. They have a very strong bias toward the present.
People tend to like people whom they perceive to be like themselves.
People tend to underestimate how many other people will act on the same information that they themselves possess.
Other
Trying to take from someone something they won’t give you willingly only makes them more determined to keep it from you. This includes attention.
Hostility and violence always escalate, vengeance provoking vengeance in a self-reinforcing feedback loop, until one side or both are destroyed.
One way humans differ from other animals is that they have a much richer internal model of the world.
The earliest recorded evidence of human symbolic thought is about 50,000 years old.
First the world molds us (our values and beliefs), then we mold the world.
Humans are unique among animals in that they can anticipate the future by more than a few seconds.
Chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas or orangutans.
The bonobo Kwanzii is certainly capable of understanding speech and symbols.
Our minds are like barrels of water, with a layer of sand and gravel at the bottom. The day’s events are like a bucket of sandy water dumped into the barrel: most runs off, unremembered, but a few grains of sand drift to the bottom and remain.
Perhaps human males are preoccupied with sex and violence because traditionally these were both needed to get their genes into the next generation.
Social scientists and fiction writers are both interested in human nature.
Trying to understand human nature without an evolutionary perspective is like trying to understand modern society without a historical perspective.
History clearly demonstrates the evil and stupidity inherent in human nature–of the average person.
There’s nothing new about human nature under the sun.
There are no limits to human good or human evil. Humans are capable of both open-hearted goodness and shocking evil.
Universal human values:
– Honesty
– Courage
– Kindness
– Fairness
It may be that sex evolved to enable faster protective mutations against infectious organisms.
Kinship ties form the basis of social structure in all tribal cultures.
Humans crave experiences that make hem feel alive.
If you give something away, people suspect that it’s worthless.
Every person has a range of potential behavior, of ethics and performance. With inspiration and encouragement, they can soar. With discouragement and despair, they can sink.
The greedy have always preyed upon the stupid.
Humans will tend to copy each other, even if a better way is obvious, until someone breaks from the herd and demonstrates a better way. They will then quickly copy the new behavior.