Jane Smiley Quotes

I was obsessed with learning about social behaviors. I remember explaining to my mom that kids on my soccer team were fighting because of dyads and triads.

Mankind have always wandered or settled, agreed, or quarreled in troops and companies.

One thing that I've noticed about big families is that they usually break down into two camps: the talkers and the watchers.

Children were pack animals; let any one of them act different from the group, and the rest would bring him down.

no one in a group of three is the same person he (she, it) is in a group of two. No more than he is the same in a group of two as he is alone.

Girls are not accustomed to jockeying for status in an obvious way; they are more concerned that they be liked.

In any group there is more or less tension between people, and there are complicities and affinities.

In New York there isn't that weird palpable competitive thing where it's friendly but everyone isn't trying to top one another with jokes when you're just hanging around.

Men tend to be hierarchical, but women are driven to make lateral connections so they can cooperate.

When people ask what I'd like to do next, the answer is usually, 'Something with people in rooms.'

Human beings all mimic each other.

I never liked group work in school.

I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.

In principle, every social situation involves strategic interaction among the participants.

Stuff with a group, stuff where there are other people around, I'll try that.

I'm really puzzled by why people in societies find it difficult to work collaboratively together with other people in societies.

People sometimes ask if I want to be a solo artist, but it just wouldn't be any fun being on your own.

Successful cult memes induce intense social interaction behaviour between cult members. This trips the attention detectors.

Humans are humans because we are able to communicate with each other and to organize to do things together that we can't do individually.

When two people are paying close attention to each other, check out the others in the group and see who's observing. Human dynamics are amazing, but so much that you might learn is subconscious interplay.

When you get together in a group, it becomes like a family, with the different personalities and the politics that comes with being in a band. It's different than bringing something in by yourself.

Science of Society

The balance between the cooperative and altruistic tendencies and those which are disoperative and egoistic is relatively close. Under many conditions the cooperative forces lose, In the long run, however, the group centered, more altruistic drives are slightly stronger. ... human altruistic drives are as firmly based on an animal ancestry as is man himself.

There are different groups of people in your life that you behave slightly differently with. You behave one way with your family. You behave in a different way with your work colleagues. You behave differently with your friends from the movie club, your fitness instructor - all subtly different personas.

I used to play football with a load of lads, and I would be like a secret agent going out with a hat on so they wouldn't see my hair in a bun.