The mind of the market
Subtitle: compassionate apes, competitive humans, and other tales from evolutionary economics
By: Michael Shermer.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Times Books
Published: 2008
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 308
ISBN-13: 9780805078329
Subjects: Evolutionary economics; Economics -- Psychological aspects
Description: In this eye-opening exploration, author and psychologist Michael Shermer uncovers the evolutionary roots of our economic behavior. Drawing on the new field of neuroeconomics, Shermer investigates what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and establishing trust in business. He scrutinizes experiments in behavioral economics to understand why people hang on to losing stocks, why negotiations disintegrate into tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy. He brings together astonishing findings from psychology, biology, and other sciences to describe how our tribal ancestry makes us suckers for brands, why researchers believe cooperation unleashes biochemicals similar to those released during sex, why free trade promises to build alliances between nations, and how even capuchin monkeys get indignant if they don't get a fair reward for their work.--From publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [263]-293) and index.
Table of contents: title: Prologue: Economics for everyone; title: The great leap forward; title: Our folk economics; title: Bottom-up capitalism; title: Of pandas, products, and people; title: Minding our money; title: The extinction of homo economicus; title: The value of virtue; title: Why money can't buy you happiness; title: Trust with credit verification; title: The science of good rules; title: Don't be evil; title: Free to choose; title: Epilogue: To open the world.