Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

Instead, it is the socially intelligent individuals who advance the interests of other group members (in the service of their own self-interest) who rise in social hierarchies: Several new lines of research lend support to this counterintuitive claim. In a recent review, we summarize how socially energetic, outgoing individuals gain power in social groups, and how aggressive, manipulative, Machiavellian types often lose power. Andersen et al., “Social Status in Naturalistic Face-to-Face Groups: Effects of Personality and Physical Attractiveness in Men and Women,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 81 (2001): 1108–29. Stephane Coté has recently documented that socially intelligent individuals—that is, those individuals who are able to understand their own emotions and those of other group members—acquire leadership in organizations. S. Coté and C. T. H. Miners, “Emotional Intelligence, Cognitive Intelligence, and Job Performance,” Administrative Science Quarterly 51 (2006): 1–28. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this thesis is recent work by Cameron Anderson and colleagues, who have found that individuals in social groups who have modest assessments of their own power actually keep positions of power, whereas individuals who have inflated assessments of power lose power over time. C. Anderson et al., “Knowing your Place: Self-Perceptions of Status in Face-to-Face Groups,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91, no. 6 (2006): 1094–1110. We have long been guided by Machiavellian analyses of power, which suggest that effective leadership requires deception, strategic manipulation, pitting group members against one another, and being feared. The new empirical science of power is proving this to be an erroneous set of assumptions. See Keltner, “The Power Paradox.”

who can tell a good joke or tease in ways: In our research on teasing we have found that individuals who are highly esteemed by other group members are quite adept at teasing in ways that are playful, D. Keltner et al., “Teasing in Hierarchical and Intimate Relations,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75, no. 5 (1998): 1231–47.

bullies, who resort to aggression, throwing their weight around, and raw forms of intimidation and dominance, in point of fact, are outcasts and low in the social hierarchy: D. Olweus, “Stability of Aggressive Reaction Patterns in Males: A Review,” Psychological Bulletin 86 (1979): 852–75.

adorn and beautify themselves in an arms race of beauty to attract resource-rich mates: Darwin, Descent, chaps. 19–20. For an erudite and illuminating extension of Darwin’s ideas, see Geoffrey Miller, The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature (New York: Anchor, 2000). For a playful treatment of the evolutionary biology of sex, see O. Judson, Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation (New York: Owl, 2002).

This logic of competing interests extends to parent-offspring relations: Hrdy, Mother Nature, chap. 18.

This parent-offspring conflict even extends to mother-fetus relations: D. Haig, “Evolutionary Conflicts in Pregnancy and Calcium Metabolism—A Review,” Placenta 25. Supplement A. Trophoblast Research 18 (2004): S10–S15.

In an observational study of American families: Judy Dunn and her colleagues have done revealing research on the dynamics of family conflict, and how those conflicts lay a foundation for talks about emotion and morality, and the development of empathy and conflict resolution strategies. J. Dunn and C. Herrera, “Conflict Resolution with Friends, Siblings and Mothers: A Developmental Perspective,” Aggressive Behavior 23 (1997): 343–57; Dunn and P. Munn, “Becoming a Family Member: Family Conflict and the Development of Social Understanding in the Second Year,” Child Development 56 (1985): 480–92.

This kind of sibling conflict: Frank J. Sulloway, Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives (New York: Pantheon, 1996).

who documented how our primate relatives reconcile after aggressive encounters: Jane Goodall, The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986). Frans B. M. de Waal, “The Integration of Dominance and Social Bonding in Primates,” Quarterly Review of Biology 61 (1986): 459–79; de Waal and A. van Roosmalen, “Reconciliation and Consolation among Chimpanzees,” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 5 (1979): 55–66.