The Mind of the Market

The Mind of the Market

by Michael Shermer
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 26/12/2007

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Bestselling author Michael Shermer explains how evolution shaped the modern economy—and why people are so irrational about money


How did we make the leap from ancient hunter-gatherers to modern consumers and traders? Why do people get so emotional and irrational about bottom-line financial and business decisions? Is the capitalist marketplace a sort of Darwinian organism, evolved through natural selection as the fittest way to satisfy our needs? In this eye-opening exploration, author and psychologist Michael Shermer uncovers the evolutionary roots of our economic behavior.


Drawing on the new field of neuroeconomics, Shermer investigates what brain scans reveal about bargaining, snap purchases, and establishing trust in business. He scrutinizes experiments in behavioral economics to understand why people hang on to losing stocks, why negotiations disintegrate into tit-for-tat disputes, and why money does not make us happy. He brings together astonishing findings from psychology, biology, and other sciences to describe how our tribal ancestry makes us suckers for brands, why researchers believe cooperation unleashes biochemicals similar to those released during sex, why free trade promises to build alliances between nations, and how even capuchin monkeys get indignant if they don't get a fair reward for their work.

ISBN:
9781429924436
9781429924436
Category:
Evolution
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
26-12-2007
Language:
English
Publisher:
Henry Holt and Co.
Michael Shermer

Michael Shermer is the Publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University.

He is the author of The Moral Arc, The Believing Brain, and many other bestselling titles.

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