Meme Weaving

Robert Sapolsky, world-renowned lecturer and professor of neurological and biological sciences, gave this talk to a packed audience of students and faculty of all disciplines at Stanford in 2009.

A densely-packed and characteristically lively lecture, consider it a “state of evolutionary anthropology” delivered within a mere 20 minutes.

Discovering the story of humanity continues to reach ever-greater technological complexity and where we stand on the evolutionary ladder will be one of the greatest research accomplishments of this era. The run-away proliferation of information and novelty within our species is most certainly unique; therefore, the importance of understanding the other well-defined ways in which we are unique cannot be overstated.

Sapolsky also points out the implications of recent research on dopamine receptivity and the parallels between chimpanizee and human behavior where rewards are concerned:

“Take a monkey and there’s nothing more addictive out there than the notion that there’s a reward lurking out there, and it’s a MAYBE.

Some of our best social engineers many of them making a good living in Las Vegas learn how to do is how to [create the illusion of] a 50% probability of reward, to make it that salient, when there’s a tenth or a hundredth of a chance of reward.”

The quality of “addictiveness” of a situation, object, or action should provoke the interest of any memeticist, as “mindless” behaviors are often the most frequently copied and repeated, and often with the greatest fidelity from host to host.

When it comes to that delayed reward system, Sapolsky says the uniqueness of humans comes down our capacity to “hold on”. Of all animals, we can carry out chains of actions that take weeks, years, decades, entire lifetimes — all on the premise of the probability of reward.

As Sapolsky points out, that delayed gratification system puts the belief systems of some religions into an explanatory light. After all, what is the meme of heaven if not the ultimate reward for a lifetime of servitude?

“A hard-headed, evidence-based, dare I say LAWYERLY case for rethinking how we run businesses.”

Do hefty bonuses and stringent punishments produce better behavior? Dan Pink wants business to understand that in almost all cases, the traditional motivators certainly don’t — not according to the work of pioneering behavioral economists like Dan Ariely and Steven Levitt.

“There’s a mismatch between what science knows, and what business does,” says Pink, and it boils down to this: autonomy, mastery, and purpose motivate, while traditional motivators like bonuses and punishments tend to destroy both creativity and productivity. These results have been seen, repeated, and studied for 40+ years by science, while in pedagogy and business they have been completely ignored.

Why the decrease in creativity? According to the research Pink has assembled, having a reward in sight literally narrows our focus. This blinding of peripheral vision reduces the number of possibilities the mind can reach for.

Addendum: Dan Pink offered this clarification on the TEDtalks page under his video:

Dan Pink Aug 26 2009:It’s not the people. It’s the tasks. Some require what psychologists call “algorithmic” — that is, routine, rule-based thinking. Others require “heuristic” thinking — nonroutine, conceptual thinking. For one, If-then rewards work; for the other, they don’t. But, of course, people — all people — can do either kind of task.

Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University, presents examples of cognitive illusions that help illustrate why humans make predictably irrational decisions.

Little-known fact! As Dan Ariely reveals in this lecture, he originally wanted to write a book about cooking and lifestyle. For a good chuckle, watch the video to find out what his first book title might have been.

“expensive painkillers work better than cheap [ones]“

…it’s because placebos are so amazing that medical science has a very hard time catching up to the quality of the body in healing itself.”