Which Real Studies Support Claims In The Humankind Book?

I get fired up talking about this book — 'Humankind' really leans into the idea that people are basically decent, and there’s actually a surprising amount of empirical work that Bregman draws on (or that supports his claims). One strand is developmental psychology: studies by Warneken & Tomasello (mid-2000s) showed toddlers spontaneously helping strangers and sharing without obvious external rewards, suggesting prosocial impulses emerge very early. That lines up with Bregman’s claim that kindness isn’t just cultural window-dressing.

On the social side, classic experiments like Muzafer Sherif’s Robbers Cave study (1954) demonstrate how intergroup conflict can arise from competition, but—crucially—how superordinate goals or cooperative tasks can quickly reduce hostility. That supports Bregman’s point that circumstances and structures shape whether people act selfishly or cooperatively. Likewise, John Darley and Bibb Latané’s work on the bystander effect (late 1960s) and Darley & Batson’s 'Good Samaritan' study (1973) both show situational forces (crowds, distraction, urgency) dramatically affect helping behavior; Bregman cites this to argue that bad outcomes often come from context, not some deep seeding of evil in people.

There’s also literature on disasters and crowds that contradicts the 'panic' myth: journalists like Rebecca Solnit in 'A Paradise Built in Hell' and scholars such as John Drury and Steve Reicher have documented solidarity and mutual aid after crises. Meanwhile, critiques and re-analyses of classic studies matter: the BBC Prison Study and later critiques of the Stanford Prison Experiment by Haslam & Reicher emphasize social identity and role expectations rather than straightforward obedience to authority as the only explanation. Finally, Frans de Waal’s primate work and Tomasello’s research on shared intentionality give evolutionary ballast — empathy and cooperation have deep roots. If you want the receipts, look up Warneken & Tomasello (2006), Sherif (1954), Latané & Darley (1968), Darley & Batson (1973), Burger (2009) for the Milgram replication nuance, Drury/Reicher on crowd solidarity, and de Waal/Tomasello for primate and infant prosociality. I love how reading these studies made the book feel less like wishful thinking and more like a challenge to redesign institutions so we bring out that decent side of people.

I was flipping through notes the other day and realized how many different research angles back up the optimistic claim in 'Humankind'. On a practical level, developmental experiments are compelling: infants and toddlers helping without reward (Warneken & Tomasello) suggest prosocial tendencies are part of our developmental toolkit. That’s an important counterpoint to narratives that humans are selfish by default.

Then there’s the social-situation literature. Sherif’s Robbers Cave shows how quickly conflict can be manufactured by competitive setups, but it also shows how easily cooperation can be restored when groups share goals. Similarly, Darley and Latané’s bystander research and the Good Samaritan experiment reveal that people’s failure to help often comes down to context—crowding, ambiguity, distraction—not absence of compassion. Bregman uses these to argue institutions and framing matter.

I also appreciate the corrections to the “evil experiments” trope: Milgram’s obedience studies have been revisited (Burger’s partial replication in 2009 found obedience still present but nuanced), and the Stanford Prison story is more contested than the pop version. Crowd scholars like Drury and Reicher document solidarity after disasters rather than mass panic. For a reader who wants to dig deeper, follow up those names and you’ll find the empirical backbone that makes Bregman’s case feel seriously grounded rather than just hopeful.

Reading these papers made me rethink casual cynicism—structure shapes behavior far more than I used to admit, and tweaking structure might nudge out better outcomes.