Born To Be Good

"Born to Be Good grows out of Dacher Keltner's postgraduate work with Paul Ekman, a pioneer in the study of facial expressions. Revealing the unspoken language of every facial movement, bodily gesture, and vocal tone, often with fascinating illustrations, Keltner charts the highly coordinated patterns of behavior that have been honed by thousands of generations of evolution and that enable individuals to bring the good in others to completion. With studies that are thought-provoking (Is laughing at death a good sign for long-term happiness?) and unconventional (What can studying goose bumps tell us about our spiritual capacities?), Keltner shows how happiness is found in the rich landscape of positive emotions that until recently remained mysterious to science." Keltner suggests that the secret to happiness lies in a jen ratio (the balance of good and bad in your life) and demonstrates that the simplest of touches and the slightest of smiles are encoded signals of our innate capacity to engage with others in cooperative communities. Laughter when a baby laughs, the warm feeling in the chest at the sight of a loved one, a blush when you feel embarrassed: such visceral behaviors are easy to perceive, hard to feign, and suggest that our capacity for good is programmed into our brains and bodies.