Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not only to hunt and collect, but also to greatly help us get forward socially, frequently via deception and self-deception. But while we may become self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending normally. The less we know about our own unpleasant motives, the better-and thus we don’t like to talk as well as think about the extent of our selfishness. This is ‘the elephant in the brain.’ Such an introspective taboo makes about The Elephant in the mind: Hidden Motives in EVERYDAY LIVING it hard for all of us to think clearly about our character and the explanations for our behavior. The purpose of this book, after that, is certainly to confront our hidden motives directly-to locate the darker, unexamined sides of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is actually visible, we are able to work to raised understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? What makes performers sexy? Why perform we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak instead of listen?

Our unconscious motives travel more than just our personal behavior; in addition they infect our venerated sociable institutions such as for example Art, School, Charity, Medication, Politics, and Religion. Actually, these establishments are in many ways made to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their ‘established’ ones. The life of big concealed motives can upend the usual politics debates, leading one to issue the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of regular policies designed to favor or discourage them. You will not see yourself-or the world-the same after confronting the elephant in the mind.