Connectedness. We don’t just have relationships, we are relationships A walk on the wild side

Abstract

Organismal behavior refers to the actions and reactions of any living organism, from microorganisms to humans, in response to internal or external stimuli. Behavior has been around for billions of years. In sharp contrast, the focus in economics is on the last split-second of the behavioral evolutionary timeline. Does this make sense? Bluntly put, did the prefrontal cortex make me (homo sapiens) do what I did? What can we learn from taking an evolutionary cross-species perspective and the critique on human exceptionalism? In this talk, based on mounting evidence, I focus on the role of connectedness in understanding and modeling human behavior. We don’t just have relationships, we are relationships. The neoclassical assumptions of a rational and selfish homo economicus, as well as the scope of methodological individualism, are thereby questioned.