A gift economy is a model of exchange where valuables or some commodity is given away without an agreement for an immediate or future reward. Every transaction involves either giving or receiving gifts and presents. In a gift economy, there is no money and there is no private property. At first sight, a gift economy seems…
View Post
People will have different opinions about what is funny and what isn’t; what makes them laugh and what doesn’t. But we do know that humour and laughter exist, so the mysterious question surrounding this fact is: how did they evolve? Is there really some evolutionary advantage to finding ‘humour’ (however you define it) in social…
View Post
Julian Jaynes (1920 – 1997) was an American psychologist and is best known for his 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. ‘Bicameral’ means having two chambers. The theory of the bicameral mind says that the two hemispheres of our ancestors’ brains – the left and right – carried…
View Post
From my own personal experience, I find it more difficult to concentrate on something which requires sustained attention – when reading a book, for example – than I used to in the past. I believe that this diminishing ability to concentrate is a result of the internet; more specifically, the way in which I (and…
View Post
Christopher Ryan is an American psychologist who is best known for his book, Sex at Dawn (2010) which looks at the prehistoric origins of human sexuality. The book has attracted quite a bit of controversy due to its main thesis, which says that our ancestors evolved to be sexually promiscuous, not monogamous. Dr Ryan is…
View Post