Loretta Bruening, PhD is the author of several books including Beyond Cynical, and I, Mammal. She is a teacher and a mom. She found conventional theories of human motivation didn't ring true for her. While volunteering in Africa with the United Nations, she learned about the mammalian custom of bribery. This led her to learn that many of our motivations and behaviors are shared with other mammals. "Our brains see things as a matter of survival because natural selection built a brain that focuses on survival.