Peterson uses lobsters’ behavior patterns to symbolize the fundamental importance of human attitudes toward Being, or existence. Peterson mainly discusses lobsters in reference to Rule 1, “Stand up straight with your shoulders back.” Because lobsters have relatively simple nervous systems, scientists understand their neurochemistry and behavior quite well, and they provide a helpful basis for comparison with humans. While staking out territory on the ocean floor, lobsters engage in escalating levels of combat to establish dominance. The winning lobster has high levels of the brain chemical serotonin, which causes it to assume a strutting posture, extending its limbs to look dangerous. On the other hand, the defeated lobster assumes a drooping posture, and it has high levels of the chemical octopamine and low levels of serotonin, which cause it to have a heightened tail-flick reflex—rather like a heightened startle reflex in a human with PTSD. Victorious lobsters tend to win future fights, while defeated lobsters tend to keep losing.
Besides showing that dominance hierarchies have been present in the natural world for a very long time, lobster behavior models dynamics that are present in human society, too. Peterson says that every person has a “primordial calculator” in their brain that keeps track of their precise social position. When a person’s status is low, the brain releases less serotonin, which causes a person to react to their circumstances with greater stress. On the other hand, when a person’s status is secure, their brain releases plenty of serotonin, so they feel safe, calm, and able to plan for the future. Peterson points out that this status-counter function can create a positive feedback loop: if someone acts like a defeated lobster, then others will treat them that way, their brains will produce less serotonin, and the cycle of anxiety and stress will continue. However, changing one’s posture can go a long way toward breaking this cycle. Standing up straight with one’s shoulders back—acting like a dominant lobster—can make a person feel more confident, which in turn affects the way they’re regarded and treated by others. Peterson says posture also has a deeper psychological impact. Standing up straight can help a person feel prepared to meet life’s challenges and demands, to “accept[] the burden of Being.” If a person skulks around like a defeated lobster, though, they won’t be taken seriously, and they’re more likely to experience life as a series of catastrophes than as a challenge to embrace.
While lobsters serve as an early example of Peterson’s interest in evolutionary insights into human behavior, the significance of lobster posture also sets the tone for the book. Most of the 12 rules focus in some way on our fundamental stance toward the challenges of life—either embracing them as joyfully and responsibly as possible or retreating from them with bitterness.
Lobsters Quotes in 12 Rules for Life
High serotonin/low octopamine characterizes the victor. The opposite neurochemical configuration, a high ratio of octopamine to serotonin, produces a defeated-looking, scrunched-up, inhibited, drooping, skulking sort of lobster, very likely to hang around street corners, and to vanish at the first hint of trouble. Serotonin and octopamine also regulate the tail-flick reflex, which serves to propel a lobster rapidly backwards when it needs to escape. Less provocation is necessary to trigger that reflex in a defeated lobster. You can see an echo of that in the heightened startle reflex characteristic of the soldier or battered child with post-traumatic stress disorder.
But standing up straight with your shoulders back is not something that is only physical, because you’re not only a body. You’re a spirit, so to speak—a psyche—as well. Standing up physically also implies and invokes and demands standing up metaphysically. Standing up means voluntarily accepting the burden of Being. Your nervous system responds in an entirely different manner when you face the demands of life voluntarily. You respond to a challenge, instead of bracing for a catastrophe.
Lobsters Symbol Timeline in 12 Rules for Life
