Most of us appreciate that our behaviour is a product of biological and environmental factors (nature AND nurture), but how well do we understand what shapes our actual behaviour, our thoughts and actions?

Professor Robert Sapolsky takes 25 lectures to bring deep insight to this question. In this short post I share one of the most insightful aspects – a model that describes the causal factors influencing our behaviour. And how these causal factors line up on a time-frame from millions of years ago to the last millisecond leading to our behaviour.

My simplified interpretation of Sapolsky’s model follows:

Insight:

· Behaviour (e.g. an executive decision) that happens … is a consequence of …

· Neural activity that is triggered by environmental factors … occurring milliseconds before, which is a consequence of …

· Hormones that are produced … occurring minutes to hours to days before, which are a consequence of …

· Biological and environmental factors during our development … occurring weeks to years to decades before, which are a consequence of …

· Individual genetics and foetal environment … occurring at and after our conception, which are a consequence of …

· Population genetics … occurring over the last tens of thousands of years, which are a consequence of …

· Species genetics … occurring over the last millions of years, where natural selection has sculpted our species.

Implication:

· Based on this insight, Sapolsky raises this provocative question: “as science explains more and more, will we all be explained as no more than a mass of neurons and hormones (responding to biological and environmental factors), no longer special and different?”

Reference:

"Human behavioral biology", lecture series by Robert Sapolsky (2010)