Understanding Mysteries of Human Behavior

Book Review by Shaktiman Singh

In this book, Professor Mark Leary uses years of research done in the field of behavioral psychology, genetics & neuroscience to answer 22 key questions that have intrigued humans for years. The book comprises of 24 lectures which discuss various phenomena about personalities, perceptions and relationships.

It would not only be arduous but also unjust to put all the learnings into a review because I believe it requires a detailed discussion for a proper understanding. Nonetheless, I have tried to encapsulate the three most impactful mysteries that were unraveled while I read this book:

1. What makes people Happy?

2. Why we feel hurt?

3. What makes relationships succeed or fail?

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What makes people Happy?

People’s day-to-day happiness and well-being depend far more on how they approach life than on what life brings. Research suggests that 10% of happiness depends on our life circumstances, 50% on our genes and 40% on our behaviors. Unfortunately we focus most on the first factor which can only result in occasional short term happiness. The most important aspect to focus here is the last one- intentional behavior. People who are happy do things differently. One of them is to focus on intrinsic goals: goals that one feels are important to him/her achieve. Some goals are more intrinsically important to your well-being, meaning that they are pursued for their own sake rather than to get something else. Spending more time with your children or friends can be an intrinsic goal because you probably truly want to spend more time with them—not so that you can obtain some other goal. More desirable than occasional episodes of happiness, is an overriding sense of contentment and pleasure- subjective well-being. That’s what we should aim for.

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Why we feel hurt?

We feel hurt when we perceive that the other person values our relationship less than what we want. There are 6 situations when we feel hurt: a. Rejection b. Being avoided or ignored c. Criticism d. Betrayal e. Malicious teasing f. Being taken for granted Scientists have found that when we’re hurt emotionally, the neurotransmitters in the brain act the same way as when we’re hurt physically. From an evolutionary standpoint, pain is nature’s way to keep us from doing things that might hurt us. If we couldn’t feel pain by cuts or burns, we wouldn’t be careful around sharp objects or fire next time. Similarly, emotional pain is nature’s way of simulating us to work on our relationships. Making positive social circles and forming rewarding relationships are crucial to our well being. Feeling hurt at times only makes us act towards this goal.

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What makes relationships succeed or fail?

Some extent of success of a relationship can be predicted just by personality of a person. By nature, if a person is disagreeable, hostile, suspicious, or selfish, then that person is likely to have less satisfying relationships than a person who is agreeable, easy-going, trusting and giving. Remaining depends on how well personalities of two people mesh with each other. The lecture mentions a very interesting theory called Interdependence theory. A relationship is a combination of rewards a person gets and costs (s)he incurs. Outcome of a relationship is the reward minus the effort. Now you might think that relationships where net outcome is positive (profit) would be successful and failure for negative outcome (loss). But no, this is where Interdependence Theory into play. According to Interdependence Theory, we all have a benchmark for judging whether we’re making enough profit or not. Generally this comparison is determined by our past experiences of relationships. Now, a person feels satisfied in a relationship only when the net outcome is more than their comparison level. People can be unhappy in a relationship that from an outsider’s perspective would appear to be rewarding because their positive outcomes fall below their comparison level. They’re not making as much of a profit as they’d like.

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My take

For every question that’s addressed in the lectures (chapters), the book uses scientific reasoning, mentions research and even suggests further reading on that subject. Which I feel, is not very common and makes this book even more useful for someone who is interested in behavioral psychology. However, the actionable is not identified clearly and left upon the reader’s interpretation. For a person like me, it’s important to know what is the application of the point explained in the chapter. After understanding why something troubles us, I am interested to know what needs to be done to avoid it from occurring in future. However, for the curious folks, the book is a goldmine!