The Social Instinct Audiobook By Nichola Raihani cover art

The Social Instinct

How Cooperation Shaped the World

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The Social Instinct

By: Nichola Raihani
Narrated by: Nichola Raihani
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About this listen

This program is read by the author.

In the tradition of Richard Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, Nichola Raihani's The Social Instinct is a profound and engaging look at the hidden relationships underpinning human evolution, and why cooperation is key to our future survival.

Cooperation is the means by which life arose in the first place. It’s how we progressed through scale and complexity, from free-floating strands of genetic material, to nation states. But given what we know about the mechanisms of evolution, cooperation is also something of a puzzle. How does cooperation begin, when on a Darwinian level, all that the genes in your body care about is being passed on to the next generation? Why do meerkat colonies care for one another’s children? Why do babbler birds in the Kalahari form colonies in which only a single pair breeds? And how come some coral wrasse fish actually punish each other for harming fish from another species?

A biologist by training, Raihani looks at where and how collaborative behavior emerges throughout the animal kingdom, and what problems it solves. She reveals that the species that exhibit cooperative behavior—teaching, helping, grooming, and self-sacrifice—most similar to our own tend not to be other apes; they are birds, insects, and fish, occupying far more distant branches of the evolutionary tree. By understanding the problems they face, and how they cooperate to solve them, we can glimpse how human cooperation first evolved. And we can also understand what it is about the way we cooperate that has made humans so distinctive—and so successful.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

©2021 Nichola Raihani (P)2021 Macmillan Audio
Animals Evolution Psychology Genetics
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Critic reviews

"Enriching." —Publisher's Weekly

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Insightful and enlightening

This book offered key insights and learning Beyond what I Was expecting. I came away enlightened with some new concepts and ways of thinking about things From the information in this book. It is well worth reading and has some informational concepts that everyone should know To understand key changes that are happening in our society. Well done

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Compelling citations with a lovely voice

Truly an eye opener for cooperative behaviors across many species of the planet. Sociology and psychology with wit and charisma.

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excellent book! inspiring

one of the best popular science books I have ever read. Nichola Raihani gives a refreshing and relevent overview on the evolution of cooperation

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