[5] He attended John Dewey High School and by that time was reading textbooks on the subject and teaching himself Swahili.

[14] Sapolsky then returned to New York and studied at Rockefeller University, where he received his Ph.D. in neuroendocrinology[10][11] working in the lab of endocrinologist Bruce McEwen.

After the initial year-and-a-half field study in Africa, he returned every summer for another 25 years to observe the same group of baboons, from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

He spent eight to ten hours a day for approximately four months each year recording the behaviors of these baboons.

[18] Each year, Sapolsky spends time in Kenya studying a population of wild baboons in order to identify the sources of stress in their environment, and the relationship between personality and patterns of stress-related disease in these animals.

An early but still relevant example of his studies of olive baboons is found in his 1990 Scientific American article "Stress in the Wild".

Sapolsky is also interested in the role of schizotypal disorders in the emergence and development of shamanism and of the major Western religions.

[30] His speaking style (e.g., on Radiolab,[31] The Joe Rogan Experience,[32] and his Stanford human behavioral biology lectures[33]) has garnered attention.

[34] Sapolsky's specialization in primatology and neuroscience has made him prominent in the public discussion of mental health—and, more broadly, of human relationships—from an evolutionary perspective.

[46] In February 2010 Sapolsky was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers,[47] following the Emperor Has No Clothes Award for 2002.

[49] In his book Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, Sapolsky discussed his personal experiences with depression, revealing the complexities of living with the condition while also highlighting moments of relief provided by medication.

And what we're left with is that it's going to be mighty hard for everyone to decide that there's no free will tomorrow and thus society just takes off from there with no more prisons, and no more meritocracy, and no more CEOs with corner offices.