The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources Of Love, Character, And Achievement

The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement is a 2011 work of nonfiction by American journalist David Brooks who is best known for his op-ed columns in The New York Times. In The Social Animal, Brooks explores the factors that influence individual behavior and decision-making. His perspectives include psychology, biology, and sociology as he explores topics such as the early development of the brain. While the book is nonfiction, the author includes references to a fictional couple named Harold and Erica to show the changes that take place in the emotional personalities of people over periods of time.

As he looks into the modern human condition, Brooks considers attachment, education, child rearing, love, aging, and marriage, among other areas of life.  Using a story-like literary technique in the tradition of Rousseau, Brooks creates Harold and Erica. He looks at the pair as individuals first and later as a couple. Their fictional lives are presented as a way to understand the scientific and emotional components of human existence. Harold is used to show the development of an infant and the parent-child bond. Erica’s experiences in both good and bad schools allow Brooks to discuss education. Harold authors a book which he talks to Erica about. Other facets of their lives that are used to provide insight into human beings in general include an affair that Erica enters into and later feels remorseful of and Harold’s alcoholism. The book traces them through old age and death.

To back up the fictional narrative, the author references interesting research and factual tidbits. Such examples include the nearly two million new neural connections that the brain of a baby makes every second and how an unusually high percentage of people who are successful lose a parent to death or abandonment. He adds other factoids that on the surface seem less significant, like how the more crowded a restaurant is, the more food the patrons are likely to consume. The research Brooks includes hits many aspects of the human experience, ranging from people’s thoughts about their own IQs to facts about divorce. The overall objective of the book is to show that people are guided by, and bound to, a theory of human behavior that is out of date. Reasoning and logical thinking are what traditionally separate human beings from other species, but Brooks suggests that what is more important are the factors like “emotions, intuitions, biases, longings, genetic predispositions, character traits, and social norms,” which serve as guiding forces that make emotions more significant than reason and that also make the needs of society at large more important than the desires of the individual.



Many members of the psychological, scientific, and philosophical communities agree with Brooks. He goes a long way in supporting scientific viewpoints in The Social Animal. He presents numerous situations where reason and emotions are at odds with one another, and the same is true for character and intelligence. These oppositional forces serve to show that emotions and intellect are in fact closely related. Unlike some prevailing stereotypes in society, intellects can also be emotionally intelligent. Harold and Erica are very intelligent, which is part of their success and happiness. Although the early lives and the development of the characters are considered, Brooks places them in the present, dealing with all of the technology, cultural factors, and ethical and political positions we face in life. Harold and Erica have the ability to go along with social conventions, but at the same time they have the capacity to create new ones as it might seem necessary.

In its review of The Social Animal, The Guardian recognizes the major tenets of Brooks’ text in relation to those that preceded it. “There are already plenty of guides to success and happiness out there, but this book is defined against them in a couple of ways. First, Brooks claims that most life manuals greatly exaggerate the power of reason and will to determine our fate. In truth, our views and decisions are largely shaped through unconscious or barely conscious forces-deep impulses, emotions, and character traits. It's not, says Brooks, that we are mere victims of our unconscious selves. If we are shaped by the interplay of our genes, culture, upbringing and education, and the institutions and networks in which we live and work, we can in turn shape at least some of these. What we can't do is master them. The art of living well is to know how to steer our natures, and slowly remodel our characters. Second, most manuals present success as a matter of material wealth and status. But in this, Brooks believes, they underestimate the vital role of family, friends and larger communities. All the evidence is that trust and reciprocity are as important as wealth and prestige to our wellbeing.”