Survival of the Kindest

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Dacher Keltner is a professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Co-Director of the Greater Good Science Centre at UC Berkeley.

Professor Keltner's studies of human emotion seem to turn the Hobbesian view of human nature - that life is nasty, brutish, and short - on its head. Keltner says we only need to look at emotions such as compassion, awe, and embarrassment, to see that humans are wired to be good. He also suggests that those positive emotions are designed by evolution to ensure the survival of our communities, and of our species. Dacher Keltner's book, Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, is published by W.W. Norton and Company.