Scientists on Reddit

Robert Sapolsky

Neuroscientist and primatologist at Stanford

u/RobertSapolsky ↗AMA only

How we know it's theirs

The 2023 r/IAmA AMA, posted from this account

We retrieved 1 post and 15 comments from u/RobertSapolsky, all from 2023, most often in r/IAmA.

Best moment

A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

On “I'm Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist/primatologist at Stanford. Ask me anything”

What was the most powerful personal moment you can recall during your in depth studies of primates?

u/RobertSapolsky replied

There was this young adult male who I really liked in one of my troops (name was Benjamin). He was a little on the dozy side, and one day I was doing a lengthy observational sample on him and it…

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There was this young adult male who I really liked in one of my troops (name was Benjamin). He was a little on the dozy side, and one day I was doing a lengthy observational sample on him and it consisted entirely of him sitting underneath a bush and falling asleep. End of the riveting sample was right around when he woke up, and we both discovered that the entire troop had moved on to someplace else during the stretch, and neither of us had a clue where the troop was. He ran around being agitated, I got on top of my jeep to try to get a view of things, finally spotted them, and I started driving in that direction -- and I paused and looked back at him, and we had this second of shared eye contact where I felt absolutely certain that he knew I had found the troop, and there was something almost resembling relief on his baboon face. I drove slowly, he trotted along beside me, we found the rest of the troop. Of course, the rest of the time, he'd look at me as if I was a tree, but for that moment at least we were just two primates being clueless together.

More moments

A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

On “I'm Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist/primatologist at Stanford. Ask me anything”

Hey Dr. Sapolsky, What's the most unusual conclusion that came up from one of your researches? And how did you interpret it?

u/RobertSapolsky replied

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Well, there was one that struck me as hugely unusual coming out of my baboon research (which is to say that it sure struck me as unexpected, but all sorts of sensible people would not have been at all surprised). When I started my research, I was out there thinking I was proving that if you want to be a healthy baboon, protected from stress-related disease, try to be high-ranking. This wouldn't be surprising, given that high rank gives you all sorts of psychological privileges that protect against stress. And it took me merely twenty years to start to figure out that if you get a choice in the matter, don't go for being a high-ranking baboon -- go for being a socially affiliated one. In retrospect, that long delayed insight may have something to do with the fact that I was all impressed with social dominance when starting out as a puerile twenty-year old, and it took some time for the world, even including baboon social behavior, to look different to me.

A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

On “I'm Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist/primatologist at Stanford. Ask me anything”

Dear Dr Sapolsky, I´ve been a great fan of your work after since watching your course on behavioural evolution, I especially enjoyed your stories about the baboons you studied. You once talked about a radical change in the behaviour of these baboons after the more agressive…

u/RobertSapolsky replied

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The social culture of that troop continued for about 15 more years, and it was a bit lucky -- male baboons change troops at puberty, so there'd be a new adolescent male show up now and then. Invariably, having grown up off the commune, he'd be this aggressive, displacing jerk; fortunately, the troop could handle one or two of these at a time, slowly assimilating the newcomer into this style -- "we don't do stuff like that here."

Excerpt

A redditor wrote in r/IAmA

On “I'm Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist/primatologist at Stanford. Ask me anything”

Considering the varying effects of stress on health and behavior, is there evidence to suggest that certain types of stress can be beneficial for the development of young individuals? By the way, I truly value and respect your work.

u/RobertSapolsky replied

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Nonetheless, there are types of stress that are not damaging. In fact, there are types that are so great that you pay to experience it -- eg., a roller coaster, a good scary movie. This sort of good stress has typical features -- it doesn't go on for a long time, it's not too severe, and it's within what is overall a benevolent setting. Roller coaster rides are 3 minutes, not 3 weeks long, and you know there's the danger that you're going to feel queasy afterward, not that there's a decent chance that you'll be decapitated. What do we call the right kind of stress? Stimulation. And too little of it (i.e., boredom) is just as damaging as too much of it (i.e., our everyday sense of stress as adverse). So that expains everyrthing...until you have to deal with that issue of individual differences -- optimal stimulation for one person might be, say, a tiring but fun morning spent bird-watching, while for someone else, it might be signing up to be a mercenary in Mali. How people wind up with these different setpoints is hugely important.

Excerpt