Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Naturally, in a book about aggression, compassion, morality, evil, and the contextual nature of all of these terms, the concept of “doing the right thing” comes up often. The specific topic of doing the right thing when it is the harder thing to do is “pertinent to every page of this book” (45) and comes up first in discussion of the frontal cortex (FC). One important role of the FC is reining in impulsivity by suppression of the amygdala. It is our frontal cortex that allows us to stop ourselves from eating more chocolate—the right thing, but hard—or stops us from cheating on our spouse. The FC also handles working memory and is therefore the structure that helps us remember an area code to a phone number (bringing a piece of data into working memory) and how to strategically place that number in another area, which prompts us to dial 1 first (47).

Doing the right thing when it is the harder thing to do comes up in several other brain systems as well. The dopaminergic system inspires us to work to achieve goals even though they are difficult (66). Testosterone makes us work to do “whatever behaviors are needed to maintain status” (106).