Mads Larsen – författare

Positive psychology is a thriving field with increasing political influence, yet there are few evolutionary studies that have had a tangible impact on rethinking mechanisms of well-being. This Element reviews existing literature and proposes synthesizing insights into human flourishing under an umbrella of multilevel selection (MLS). Conceptualizing quality of life as 'Happiness + Meaning = Well-being' draws attention to how people navigate between individual and group needs, and how they reconcile selfish pursuits with altruism and cooperation. We define happiness as the cluster of affects that reward individuals for solving adaptive challenges. We approach meaning as a reward that individuals experience when contributing to their community. By way of examples, we critically examine the Nordic well-being societies whose ethos and education advance prosocial values and practices and strike a balance between individualist and communitarian ideals. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Positive psychology is a thriving field with increasing political influence, yet there are few evolutionary studies that have had a tangible impact on rethinking mechanisms of well-being. This Element reviews existing literature and proposes synthesizing insights into human flourishing under an umbrella of multilevel selection (MLS). Conceptualizing quality of life as 'Happiness + Meaning = Well-being' draws attention to how people navigate between individual and group needs, and how they reconcile selfish pursuits with altruism and cooperation. We define happiness as the cluster of affects that reward individuals for solving adaptive challenges. We approach meaning as a reward that individuals experience when contributing to their community. By way of examples, we critically examine the Nordic well-being societies whose ethos and education advance prosocial values and practices and strike a balance between individualist and communitarian ideals. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Increasing levels of singledom, dating dysfunction, and sexual inactivity contribute to plummeting fertility rates. This book investigates the perhaps most foundational factor behind this uncoupling: our present era’s ideology of love. Throughout human history, communities have shared fictional stories infused with various mating moralities that compel people to pair-bond and reproduce. After taking readers on a 6-million-year journey through hominin mating regimes—with various extents of promiscuity, polygyny, and monogamy—Stories of Love from Vikings to Tinder investigates the past millennium's radical evolution of Western mating beliefs. Nordic literary works illuminate the pivotal transitions between the West’s First, Second, and Third Sexual Revolutions, which occurred around the years 1200, 1750, and 1968. The conclusion chapter points to the Fourth Sexual Revolution, symbolically placed in 2029. Artificial intelligence and other technologies seem likely to transform our mating practices more radically than any of the previous revolutions.

Increasing levels of singledom, dating dysfunction, and sexual inactivity contribute to plummeting fertility rates. This book investigates the perhaps most foundational factor behind this uncoupling: our present era’s ideology of love. Throughout human history, communities have shared fictional stories infused with various mating moralities that compel people to pair-bond and reproduce. After taking readers on a 6-million-year journey through hominin mating regimes—with various extents of promiscuity, polygyny, and monogamy—Stories of Love from Vikings to Tinder investigates the past millennium's radical evolution of Western mating beliefs. Nordic literary works illuminate the pivotal transitions between the West’s First, Second, and Third Sexual Revolutions, which occurred around the years 1200, 1750, and 1968. The conclusion chapter points to the Fourth Sexual Revolution, symbolically placed in 2029. Artificial intelligence and other technologies seem likely to transform our mating practices more radically than any of the previous revolutions.

Master-Narrative Transitions from the Vikings to Artificial Intelligence: How Fiction Helps Communities Adapt to a Changing World examines how societies survive and transform when their foundational stories begin to collapse. By tracing a millennium of cultural evolution in the Nordic region, it explores the mechanisms through which communities move from one master-narrative to another.Propelled by artificial intelligence (AI), the Fourth Industrial Revolution is challenging the humanist master-narratives that have structured meaning throughout the modern era. In their place, emerging dataist beliefs appear increasingly adaptive to tomorrow's environment, reshaping how individuals and institutions understand progress. Yet such transitions come with the highest possible stakes.Drawing on selected works of fiction alongside cultural analysis, this book offers both historical insight and contemporary agency. It ultimately asks what kind of beliefs can sustain social cohesion in the age of AI, and what new societies might emerge if we choose our narratives wisely.

Master-Narrative Transitions from the Vikings to Artificial Intelligence: How Fiction Helps Communities Adapt to a Changing World examines how societies survive and transform when their foundational stories begin to collapse. By tracing a millennium of cultural evolution in the Nordic region, it explores the mechanisms through which communities move from one master-narrative to another.Propelled by artificial intelligence (AI), the Fourth Industrial Revolution is challenging the humanist master-narratives that have structured meaning throughout the modern era. In their place, emerging dataist beliefs appear increasingly adaptive to tomorrow's environment, reshaping how individuals and institutions understand progress. Yet such transitions come with the highest possible stakes.Drawing on selected works of fiction alongside cultural analysis, this book offers both historical insight and contemporary agency. It ultimately asks what kind of beliefs can sustain social cohesion in the age of AI, and what new societies might emerge if we choose our narratives wisely.