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To Your Unique Self: 40 Lessons in Personality Psychology
Wang Fang

Introduction

Hello, I’m Wang Fang. The atmosphere of year’s end grows stronger, and I am eagerly anticipating the holiday. Anticipation is a light in ordinary days; I hope you too always have something to look forward to.
Today is a long bonus episode. Last time we discussed evolutionary psychology, and I explicitly opposed the crude, mistaken application of biological evolution to society known as Social Darwinism. Social Darwinists glorify competition everywhere, yethuman beings are a highly social species and often act to benefit others at potentially high cost to themselves: generously helping strangers and even sacrificing themselves. Evolutionary psychology sees precisely these behaviors as products of natural selection.

Cooperation and Reciprocal Altruism

I have recently been reading an interesting evolutionary-psychology book, The Social Leap by William von Hippel; its Chinese title means When We Throw Stones at Lions Together.
What does throwing stones together mean? Millions of years ago, climate change moved our hominin ancestors from forest canopies to savannas. With nowhere to hide, survival became much harder. Our ancestors had weak bodies, slow running speed, and pitiful fighting power, yet faced giant predators everywhere ready to eat them. Survival seemed impossible.
When a predator was about to pounce and neither hiding nor escape was possible, what could they do? The answer:unite, defend together, and throw stones at the lion together.This could repel predators much stronger than any individual—the so-called stone-throwing hypothesis. A group that cooperated instead of fighting internally or looking only after itself enjoyed better survival, as did every member. In other words,cooperation, interdependence, and mutual assistance increased individual and group survival and were selected by evolution. More importantly, cooperation rapidly developed humanity’s social brain and engraved sociality into our nature.
Episode editor: 夏夏
2021.12.28
Audio in Chinese

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31 comments
  • 张连起
    2021-12-28 15:39:21

    之前特烦那些整日呼唤爱与善良的人!暗照我以往的认知,觉得他们特虚伪,骗人骗己。不过最近踏下心认认真真的跟着老师学心理学,反倒有些新的感悟。这些呼唤爱的人,更像是反复强调游戏规则,明确互惠互利! 你爱我,我爱你,蜜雪冰城甜蜜蜜😂

    牧森 :这个理解角度有意思,或者他们属于气氛组的吧,只是宣传合作…😂

    酥酪七 :哈哈哈哈哈哈

  • 1379号监听员
    2021-12-28 08:55:10

    阳光照进黑暗森林。

    牧森 Reply 1379号监听员 :那找到组织了

    1379号监听员 Reply 牧森 :现在你也是了

  • 贾斯汀的飞船
    2021-12-29 02:22:58

    王老师您好,听了这么多期的节目,感受到您的表达简明清晰而温暖宜人,受益匪浅。我有一问:您是如何保持每次录音都保持微笑的呢?

    :就是想听众都认真聆听。

  • 听说这里还不错
    2022-04-13 11:13:21

    这么看甄嬛不就是这样的人吗~哈哈哈 善意合作开始,同时也不放过背叛过自己的人,给他们相应的惩罚

  • 夏月甜
    2024-05-22 22:26:07

    关于节目中提到的囚徒困境锦标赛 有一个叫做信任的进化的小游戏 相关性特别高 还挺有趣的

  • 133****4216
    2023-03-25 10:46:30

    问题的症结在于,人类不能靠脑电波交流,而得靠语言。

  • 自爆就是艺术
    2024-08-18 04:56:55

    光是社会困境是每个人做出利益最大化的选择的说法就很有问题,这个世界的人这么多,你怎么知道每个人?你是否认无私奉献的存在吗?如果是的话就不要叫大家无私奉献,权力与资本最喜欢叫大家无私奉献然后说因为你们每个人要做出利益最大化才会有你们今天的处境,所以你们都无私奉献吧!其实本质上叫大家无私奉献才是最大的剥削。 一边说不要无底线退让,一边又把社会问题怪个人,我看一些人不要思想绝对攻击歧视,以免自行打脸,这些人比不信任别人还在家门口装摄像头监视别人的人还糟糕,他们只是没看到本质,而这些人是看到本质却故意视而不见。

  • 1
    177****4207
    2024-06-16 21:03:39

    复读机生存法则,真有用

  • SERENE
    2023-12-27 14:07:04

    啊,这就是费孝通先生描绘的乡土中国诶!!!!

  • moon
    2023-04-16 16:45:29

    真是太巧了!前一秒刚听到史蒂芬金的这个故事,脑子里下一秒就想到了这个也同样适用于现在全球的环境问题,哈哈,老师随后就讲了环境问题……

  • Slovenia
    2022-12-22 11:38:58

    双减之前……那之后会变得不一样吗……

  • 小貓索菲
    2022-10-11 13:20:11

    一段時間忙於生活瑣事沒來聽王老師的課、看到這一期的熱門評論、心裡五味雜陳~小貓對心理學以及學習心理學沒有偏見、曾經也不過是希望人們經由個人經歷對心理咨詢師的個體保持理性客觀~王芳老師的分享娓娓道來每次都讓小貓受益良多、也非常感謝夏夏精心編輯的文稿~小貓知道這個世界是如何讓大多數人不再相信善良與愛、就連王芳老師提到的提供商品或服務的聲譽監控機制也往往被水軍充斥看不到真相、又或是如若首先假設對方是值得信任、那小女孩好心借傘的韓國素媛案或新聞裡頻頻報導的碰瓷也就不會寒了所有善良的心~但是、如若真的有認真聽王芳老師所述、真正利他的善良與愛不是虛偽算計而是真實存在、小貓遇見過不求名利日復一日默默清理海灘垃圾的無名氏、只憑藉自身對這個星球的愛、小貓遇見過很多這樣滿懷善良與愛的無名氏、正是因為TA們的無私利他、名不見經傳的TA們正在日趨功利的社會裡逐漸消失而不為熱評裡的大多數人所見~人類文明發展至今、看到熱評第一的評論和點贊數字、小貓心裡是對如今社會大家所遭遇感知的深深難過

  • 矛盾体
    2022-05-06 08:19:45

    讲的不正是中国当前在国际上的做法吗,慢慢感受到了我们的大国智慧。

  • Hz52_Lin
    2022-04-15 18:27:51

    以德报怨于生活,以直报怨于人事。

  • 阿彬
    2022-03-28 09:01:05

    这一节有趣。