Von Hippel tells you in the intro that he wants to remove the tediousness of scientific writing by just assuming what he's saying is correct, and that really should have been my red flag to abandon ship.  However, plenty of pop culture writers have done an excellent job representing scientific data (I'm looking at you Carl Zimmer) so I kept going.

While there are some interesting studies discussed (very lightly and without much elaboration to the study design), there is a persistent thread of absenting the context of culture.  If socialization is the central component of human evolutionary "success" then it stands to reason that cultural context must be accounted for when studying human social behavior.

This book just isn't scientifically rigorous enough for someone with Von Hippel's pedigree, and I found myself constantly looking at the references and finding issues with his conclusions and subsequent narrative.  Statistics are, after all, what you make of them. 

Como diría Thalía Garrido, a mí me gusta. Si no le doy cuatro estrellas es porque me ha parecido un poco sexista según que pasajes que me han hecho torcer el gesto.

It's probably my favorite book on the nature of humans to date. I'm due for a re-read to see if it holds up but when it really spoke to me on my first read.

Thought it provided some interesting perspective and insight to why we act certain ways 

I don’t really have that much of a scientific preparation as I always had bad science teachers in school (bar one) and I was always told the sciences were not for me (hello, fixed mindset!). However, there are parts of science that I now find intriguing and I am trying to educate myself more. This book is part of that effort.

In “The Social Leap”, Von Hippel takes an evolutionary science approach to provide a new perspective on human psychology as according to him, the most fundamental feelings we have are inextricably linked to the ‘social leap’ our ancestors made a long, long time ago. The book is easy to read even for a layman as it describes studies and theories in detail but in easy terms that make the text enjoyable and not at all heavy or boring. Obviously it’s not your typical beach read but it was fun and interesting to read even on holiday.