Beyond human nature
Subtitle: how culture and experience shape our lives
By: Jesse J. Prinz
Publisher: Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books; Allen Lane
Published: 2012
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 401
ISBN-13: 9780713998177
Subjects: Personality and culture; Human behavior; Nature and nurture; Ethnopsychology; Behavior; Personnalité et culture; Comportement humain; Hérédité et milieu; Ethnopsychologie; Beeinflussung; Erfahrung; Individualität; Kultur; Verhalten
Description: In this provocative, revelatory tour de force, Jesse Prinz reveals how the cultures we live in - not biology - determine how we think and feel. He examines all aspects of our behaviour, looking at everything from our intellects and emotions, to love and sex, morality and even madness. This book seeks to go beyond traditional debates of nature and nurture. He is not interested in finding universal laws but, rather, in understanding, explaining and celebrating our differences. Why do people raised in Western countries tend to see the trees before the forest, while people from East Asia see the forest before the trees? Why, in South East Asia, is there a common form of mental illness, unheard of in the West, in which people go into a trancelike state after being startled? Compared to Northerners, why are people in the American South more than twice as likely to kill someone over an argument? And, above all, just how malleable are we? Prinz shows that the vast diversity of our behaviour is not engrained. He picks up where biological explanations leave off. He tells us the human story.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.