Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene - Tapa blanda

"Finally, a cultural anthropologist who understands biology! Graced with the gifts of clarity and brevity, Goldschmidt has contributed the best short book on human nature and culture that has appeared in many years."--Melvin Konner, M.D., Ph.D., author of The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit and Samuel C. Dobbs Professor of Anthropology, Emory University "An exceptional book. To my mind, it should be required reading for all anthropology majors and incoming anthropology graduate students. Goldschmidt provides a sophisticated appraisal of the biological and cultural components that underlie human evolution and behavior."--Robert Sussman, Washington University "Dr. Goldschmidt is both an extremely sharp and original thinker and a very, very respected 'elder' in our tribe. He knows the field as do few, if any, others. . . . An amazingly original and insightful book."--Eugene Anderson, University of California, Riverside "My students and I enjoyed the book immensely. Goldschmidt offers a truly insightful synthesis of the influence of genes and environment on behavior. He demonstrates a keen awareness of and appreciation for our genetic predispositions for and constraints on learning. His insight into the need for what he terms "affect hunger", and the early influence by caretakers on molding personality and culture-specific behaviors is enlightening, even after years of learning and thinking about the enculturation process." - Barbara J. Welker, SUNY Geneseo

In The Bridge to Humanity: How Affect Hunger Trumps the Selfish Gene, renowned scholar Walter Goldschmidt demonstrates that culture operates by means of biological mechanisms that came into being by an evolutionary process. Central to the book's main focus is the recognition of the separate evolutionary origin of what we call love: sexual and nurturant. These ancient heritages demand very different forms of behavior; one essentially competitive and the other concerned with mutuality. Underlying nurturance is the phenomenon of "affect hunger," an urge to seek the affection that is needed for the proper development of the neurological system in humans and other social mammals. Goldschmidt analyzes how affect hunger not only provides a reward system for learning language and other cultural information, but also remains a motive for social behavior throughout life.