Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief

by Jordan B. Peterson

This intellectual position distinguished them, historically, from their Western counterparts, who tend(ed) to view the brain as an information-processing machine, akin to the computer. Psychologists in the West have concentrated their energies on determining how the brain determines what is out there, so to speak, from the objective viewpoint. The Russians, by contrast, have devoted themselves to the role of the brain in governing behavior, and in generating the affects or emotions associated with that behavior. Modern animal experimentalists-most notably Jeffrey Graf5-have adopted the Russian line, with striking success. We now know, at least in broad outline, how we respond to those (annoying, irritating, frightening, promising) things that we do not expect.