book The Elephant in the Brain
E161136
The Elephant in the Brain is a non-fiction book that explores the hidden, often self-serving motives behind human behavior and social institutions.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Elephant in the Brain | 2 |
| The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life | 2 |
| book The Elephant in the Brain canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1406278 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: book The Elephant in the Brain Context triple: [Robin Hanson, knownFor, book The Elephant in the Brain]
-
A.
The Human Brain
The Human Brain is a popular science book by Isaac Asimov that explains the structure, function, and mysteries of the human brain for a general audience.
-
B.
The Emotion Machine
The Emotion Machine is a 2006 book by artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky that explores how human thinking and emotions can be understood as computational processes of the mind.
-
C.
How to Create a Mind
"How to Create a Mind" is a nonfiction book by futurist Ray Kurzweil that explores the workings of human intelligence and proposes designs for advanced artificial intelligence based on the brain’s principles.
-
D.
Broca's Brain
Broca's Brain is a popular science book by Carl Sagan that explores the nature of scientific thought, the brain, and the cosmos through essays on astronomy, philosophy, and skepticism.
-
E.
Monocultures of the Mind
Monocultures of the Mind is a book by environmental activist Vandana Shiva that critiques industrial agriculture and globalization for eroding biodiversity, indigenous knowledge, and cultural diversity.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: book The Elephant in the Brain Target entity description: The Elephant in the Brain is a non-fiction book that explores the hidden, often self-serving motives behind human behavior and social institutions.
-
A.
The Human Brain
The Human Brain is a popular science book by Isaac Asimov that explains the structure, function, and mysteries of the human brain for a general audience.
-
B.
The Emotion Machine
The Emotion Machine is a 2006 book by artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky that explores how human thinking and emotions can be understood as computational processes of the mind.
-
C.
How to Create a Mind
"How to Create a Mind" is a nonfiction book by futurist Ray Kurzweil that explores the workings of human intelligence and proposes designs for advanced artificial intelligence based on the brain’s principles.
-
D.
Broca's Brain
Broca's Brain is a popular science book by Carl Sagan that explores the nature of scientific thought, the brain, and the cosmos through essays on astronomy, philosophy, and skepticism.
-
E.
Monocultures of the Mind
Monocultures of the Mind is a book by environmental activist Vandana Shiva that critiques industrial agriculture and globalization for eroding biodiversity, indigenous knowledge, and cultural diversity.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
non-fiction book ⓘ |
| aimsTo |
explain hidden, self-serving motives behind human behavior
ⓘ
show how institutions are shaped by hidden motives ⓘ |
| author |
Kevin Simler
ⓘ
Robin Hanson ⓘ |
| countryOfPublication |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| discusses |
charity as signaling
ⓘ
education as signaling ⓘ healthcare as signaling ⓘ politics as coalition signaling ⓘ |
| genre |
non-fiction
ⓘ
popular science ⓘ psychology ⓘ social science ⓘ |
| hasConcept |
motive ambiguity
ⓘ
self-deception as adaptation ⓘ social signaling ⓘ the elephant in the brain metaphor ⓘ |
| hasPart |
chapters on charity
ⓘ
chapters on education ⓘ chapters on medicine ⓘ chapters on politics ⓘ chapters on religion ⓘ |
| hasPerspective |
cognitive
ⓘ
economic ⓘ evolutionary ⓘ |
| influencedBy |
evolutionary theory
ⓘ
game theory ⓘ signaling theory ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
evolutionary psychology
ⓘ
hidden motives in human behavior ⓘ self-deception ⓘ self-interest ⓘ signaling ⓘ social institutions ⓘ |
| mediaType |
ebook
ⓘ
print ⓘ |
| notableFor |
applying signaling theory to common institutions
ⓘ
popularizing hidden-motive explanations of everyday behavior ⓘ |
| publicationDate | 2018 ⓘ |
| publisher | Oxford University Press ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
general audience
ⓘ
readers interested in economics ⓘ readers interested in psychology ⓘ readers interested in social science ⓘ |
| title |
book The Elephant in the Brain
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
|
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: book The Elephant in the Brain Description of subject: The Elephant in the Brain is a non-fiction book that explores the hidden, often self-serving motives behind human behavior and social institutions.
Referenced by (5)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life
this entity surface form:
The Elephant in the Brain
this entity surface form:
The Elephant in the Brain
subject surface form:
The Elephant in the Brain
this entity surface form:
The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life