WEBVTT

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Let's do uh should we do another one that maybe more of a more of a confident vibe?

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Sure.

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Okay, maybe I'll do welcome this time.

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Okay.

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Let's do like a like a 1920s um uh like no da da da

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like sure, yeah.

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All right, a little bit more confident, a little more fast pace.

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Yeah, you don't have to do like a mid-Atlantic fake accent, but like like Kennedy's, but

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yeah.

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David Pinsoff.

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I'm David Petrozowski.

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Welcome to Evolutionary Psychology.

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The podcast.

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Actual Evolutionary Psychology.

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By actual evolutionary psychologists.

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Hey David.

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Hey Dave.

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Well, it's quite fitting that you are my friend and we're friends because this episode is

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about friendship with the premier scholar of friendship, Jamie Krems, a

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professor at University of California, Los Angeles, where I do research and we uh

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collaborate on some stuff.

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Uh, she is a fascinating top-notch thinker.

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Uh, she has really incredible insights about the nature of friendship and why it is more

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complicated and nuanced and in some ways darker than you might think.

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We cover a lot of stuff.

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I mean, we get into loneliness, uh, whether there is a loneliness epidemic, we get into the

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so-called Dunbar number, whether there is a maximum limit to the number of people we can

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keep in our heads.

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Uh we talk a lot about Philadelphia.

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Uh we do.

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Surprising amount of Philadelphia.

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Yeah, a lot of Philadelphia content.

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So if you have opinions about Philadelphia, uh this episode is for you.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Uh enjoy.

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All right.

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So Jamie, I'll do a we'll do a countdown and then we'll actually start.

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Okay.

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Yeah?

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Uh uh, okay.

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All right.

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So uh five three, two, oh you can do five?

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Let's do five.

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I thought you could do three, but I love you, Farker.

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We should just start this now.

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Yeah.

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So ten?

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Yeah.

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So where do you so Jamie?

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Hi Jamie.

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Do you stand with the three two ones or the five four three two ones or the ten nine seven

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eight seven six?

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I even got that wrong.

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Yeah.

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Ten, three, or five.

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What's the right content?

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Uh three for podcast, five for TV, ten for rockets.

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Okay, I think that's the that's the correct answer, I think.

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Wow.

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Is there a hundred?

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Maybe if you're you're in a James Bond movie and the bomb is about to go off, you'd start

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from a hundred.

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Building demolition.

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Oh that you want to give people a lot of time to get out of there.

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Yeah.

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That's a Scholi paper.

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That's what that makes me think of.

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The omission effect.

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Okay.

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We wouldn't get into that.

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Dr.

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Jamie Krems, it's good to see you.

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Thank you for having me.

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It's good to see you guys.

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Professor at UCLA.

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Yes.

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Um, we're gonna you study friendship.

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Um, and we're gonna talk about that, hopefully, or not.

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Uh we're gonna talk about Evpsych and how you got interested in it.

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But there's one question that is extremely important, probably more important than all

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those things to discuss, which is what is your opinion about the city of Philadelphia?

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It's the best city in the world.

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Thank you very much for letting me say that.

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You could see Gritty behind there.

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And if I were to pan this way, there's Gritty and in fact the world's

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greatest mascot, the Philadelphia fanatic, who is from the Galapagos, which is a place that

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is critical to our field of study.

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So there you go.

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Are you from Philadelphia?

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I am.

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I was born in Philadelphia, like Lita.

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Um, I grew up mostly in Bucks County, like Alex Shaw, Mike Gervin, uh, I

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think Joe Henrick and Annie's, you know, from nearby basically.

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Um, so you just you just give us a huge list of of guests that you have to have.

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That's a great, it's an incubator of great minds.

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There's something in the water.

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It's a weird place full of terribly literate belligerents.

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Mm-hmm.

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I imagine that was what like the uh early days of the Republic were like literate

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belligerents.

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Yeah, it still feels like that.

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Um and it it actually reminds me a lot of your work, uh Dave, because

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the uh people have commented on this when they've come to conferences.

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the place feels like its own team.

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Um, so if you're in Philly, you're on the team.

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It doesn't matter your uh color, creed, SES, ecology,

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race, uh, political view.

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There are people with opposing views sitting next to each other at the stadium or at the

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bar watching the game together.

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If you're on the team, you're on the team.

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So team supersedes race, class, gender, sexual oriented all the whole enchilada

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team is above all.

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Yeah.

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If you're on if you're on team Philly, you're on team Philly.

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And if you're on Team Dallas or you're on you're a Giants fan, um, you know, you're

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gonna get hurt.

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Interesting.

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I it was a kind of a joke question, but actually is that why you love Philly?

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Yeah.

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I, you know, I didn't realize this until I was interviewing for grad school.

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Um, and I think I'd either just come from Santa Barbara or just maybe I was headed to, but

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I I was at ASU and Rebecca Neal, who's now a professor at the University of

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Toronto, who does EV and stereotyping stuff, prejudice stuff.

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Um, she and I were chatting for a while, and she's like, You really love

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teams.

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You have such a coalitional psychology.

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I was like, Yeah, I I never realized that.

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But I love teams.

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Um, I love Aaron Sorkin.

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I love the West Wing.

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Um, I love smart people working together and arguing and pranking each other to get to the

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truth and disagreeing, but getting there.

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Um, and I think that's probably why I love our academic community so much.

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It's the closest thing I found to that.

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Wow.

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We're the West Wing of social science.

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We really are.

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Um instead of a walk and talk.

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Yes.

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Dave and I are working on our banter.

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This is the first this is the first episode with any banter for the record, too.

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That's true.

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Yeah, it's been pretty light on the banter so far.

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I mean, I've been working on it.

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I can West Wing the hell out of this.

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Just say the word and I'll start quoting.

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Nice.

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Uh David, please uh jump in um at any point.

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Um, but uh I I'm following up on the on the Philly thing, which is um the Teams

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thing and coalitional.

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One thing I like about you, Jamie, is you're not coalitional in the way you just explain

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what coalitional means.

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It's not like um we talked, David and I talked, I think it was last episode or the episode

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before, about um people being really coalitional in the sense of really

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attacking the outgroup.

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Um, but what I like about your version of it and when you describe what it is, is very much

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sort of we're all on the same team, right?

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Um Is that something you always liked?

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And is that something that you felt like or is part of what attracted you to Ev Psych, the

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feeling of getting that?

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And therefore, do you feel like sometimes that's missing in in real real life or regular

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life?

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Oh man, uh it is missing in so much of real life.

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It is part of the reason that I love evolutionary social science and Ev in

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general.

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It does feel more like a team than I mean, social psychology is huge.

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And maybe there are sub-areas that feel like that.

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But I haven't found one other than you know the evolutionary lens.

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And I've had a foot in so many worlds.

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I mean, um uh so my master's is in cognitive and evolutionary anthropology.

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Our building, ISEA, the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, was literally

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on the opposite side of the street for the cultural from the cultural anthropology

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building.

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So that was a coalition against a coalition.

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It does feel like we are we are on the same team.

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We think alike and we think in a way that It's

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better.

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I just gotta interject.

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It's better.

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We can stop the podcast.

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We can stop the episode and then a high note.

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It made me feel less alone.

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So I I was um uh through a weird series of events.

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I came to read some Steven Pinker and Richard Dawkins, and I was like, oh my god, other

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people think like me.

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It I I think a lot of people who find it become acolytes for that

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reason, um, more than they learn to think that way.

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Um, so you found it as it was it was echoing intuitions and ways of

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thinking that were already in you rather than you know giving you a new perspective that

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you hadn't considered before.

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Yeah, I mean, I was certainly an idiot when I started out.

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I didn't know anything, it just it uh reflected how I thought about the world.

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And it was the most satisfying level of why explanation that I found.

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Other explanations, you know, um like even I I love Dove Cohen's work and

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the the stuff on culture of honor.

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And I think there's really something there, right?

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But ideas like, oh well it comes back to philosophy and it's Aristotelian thinking versus

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Confucian thinking, to me, that is not a satisfying explanation.

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That that doesn't if I were a two-year-old or a whatever age, uh you guys know

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this, whatever age where they keep asking why, why, why, if I were that age child, that

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would not stop me asking why, I wouldn't be satisfied yet.

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You'd be up for another hour.

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Yeah, you want to hit explanatory bedrock.

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I mean, that's one of the things I love about Tubian Cosmeties.

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Um, you know, they I I remember someone joking that um every Tubi and Cosmeties paper

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starts with the Big Bang and then gets to the the topic at hand.

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Uh, you know, they have a wonderful paper, uh, the second law of thermodynamics is the

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first law of psychology, uh, just sort of grounding psychology and the idea that uh

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entropy is a thing.

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Uh things tend toward disorder, not order.

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Whenever we see order and functionally organized complexity, that demands a very special

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kind of explanation.

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And the only explanation for it that has yet been devised is Darwin's explanation, which is

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natural selection.

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The replication promoting variants uh outreplicate the non replication promoting

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variants, and over time you get increasingly uh complex and elaborate forms of uh

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replication promoting uh uh complexity.

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I think I just repeated the word complexity twice.

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Um you should have been there to to mock me for that, because we gotta work on our banter.

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I'm trying to figure out uh okay, so I think you know there's that quote that

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nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution, but there's a quote at the

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foot of the Darwin statue in the London Natural History Museum.

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Um I'll see if I can Can we Google things on the show?

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Is that okay?

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No, you can't.

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Cut off the knowledge.

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I mean, it kind of feels like cheating sometimes.

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Um uh but does it say this is Charles Darwin?

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I mean, it does say his name on the statue, that's for sure.

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Um does it say my my favorite meme is the orangutan with like the ha

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eyes half closed and says the caption is tell my wife I'm an orangutan

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It's funny but I don't even understand it.

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Yeah.

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Uh yeah, it's funny on many different levels, but is the is does it just say tell my wife

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I'm Charles Darwin?

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No, it doesn't.

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And maybe I'm confusing it with the quote in the Pitt Rivers Museum

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in Oxford, but it's uh oh man, I had it on my Facebook when I had a

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Facebook.

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Um it doesn't matter.

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It's just, you know, the the way to illuminate men's minds is is this thinking this way.

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And I think that's true.

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And I think um it's great to be on a team that also thinks that way.

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And sometimes when our when our team does well, we can convince other people to entertain,

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if not accept our explanations as well.

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Join the team.

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Yeah.

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So s so it seems like you got on board to the team through, you know, popularizations like

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Pinker and Dawkins.

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Is that was that accurate?

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Because that's sort of how I got there as well.

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Yeah.

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Um, so I was working in music in Philadelphia after I went to college.

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I uh was a classics and uh Near Eastern archaeology major.

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Um and I was an incredible hipster.

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Um, and there was this guy in a band um who

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uh if you remember the treadmill video on YouTube, that band OK Go.

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Um, I think they won a Grammy for that video.

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It was like the first big YouTube video of a band.

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Um, and I still have this piece of paper, and he wrote down all of these things that I

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should read.

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Um, and it includes um some of those books, and um

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I probably read them and did some other things in a very in a way that David Buss could

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explain really well.

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Um and so yeah, I uh I read those books and I didn't realize

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that it would actually change my life and I would find my people.

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And I found my people.

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And then I had to figure out how to go to do it.

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Um, and so I um I was in Philly and I started sort of volunteering in a lab at Penn

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and applied to graduate school.

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I didn't get into any PhD programs my first round, but I got into Oxford for um

00:14:42.580 --> 00:14:48.330
masters and went there and worked with Robin Dunbar and Oliver Curry and this great um

00:14:48.650 --> 00:14:50.730
musicologist Ian Morley.

00:14:51.930 --> 00:14:54.490
Dunbar, the the Dunbar of the Dunbar number.

00:14:54.970 --> 00:15:00.730
The great Robin Dunbar is what I would consider my second of four dads in

00:15:01.050 --> 00:15:02.810
um the evolutionary world.

00:15:03.450 --> 00:15:04.570
Or the Dunbar Circle.

00:15:04.650 --> 00:15:08.090
I forget what the I feel like one of his Dunbar's number.

00:15:08.170 --> 00:15:08.250
Yeah.

00:15:08.330 --> 00:15:11.370
I feel like that's made it into the popular culture as like a means.

00:15:12.220 --> 00:15:12.460
Yeah.

00:15:12.860 --> 00:15:18.860
There's um just for those who don't know, the Dunbar number is the number of slots

00:15:18.860 --> 00:15:21.260
in your I don't know how would you describe it?

00:15:21.340 --> 00:15:24.540
Like the like the the maximum capacity of your social network.

00:15:24.620 --> 00:15:26.140
It's like 150 or something like that.

00:15:26.780 --> 00:15:27.020
Yeah.

00:15:27.100 --> 00:15:32.220
So 150 seems to be I mean, I think he used to describe it as sort of a cognitive

00:15:32.220 --> 00:15:36.830
constraint, but um he would say your social network, sort of defined as the number of

00:15:36.830 --> 00:15:40.910
people that if you saw them in an airport, you'd feel comfortable sitting down and talking

00:15:40.910 --> 00:15:43.070
to them, was about 150.

00:15:43.630 --> 00:15:49.390
And he found, you know, when people sent Christmas cards, their network was about 150.

00:15:50.110 --> 00:15:55.880
Different army battalions or groupings ended up being about 150, Anabaptist

00:15:55.880 --> 00:15:58.200
communities split off around 150.

00:15:58.280 --> 00:16:01.400
This number kept appearing and appearing and appearing.

00:16:01.560 --> 00:16:07.560
Um, and uh in his mind, it was linked to um brain size

00:16:07.560 --> 00:16:10.200
and group size and across different primates.

00:16:10.360 --> 00:16:13.480
But um, yeah, I think it it is in popular culture.

00:16:13.640 --> 00:16:17.160
Uh a lot of people in the tech world know Dunbar's number.

00:16:17.400 --> 00:16:23.190
Um, and it even made it into um I read a lot of fiction, and there's a book called The

00:16:23.190 --> 00:16:27.030
Midnight Library by Haig, I think it is.

00:16:27.510 --> 00:16:30.310
Um, and they mention Robin Dunbar in it.

00:16:30.390 --> 00:16:31.830
And like, holy shit!

00:16:31.990 --> 00:16:34.070
Oh holy moly, uh, he made it.

00:16:34.710 --> 00:16:35.510
You can swear, Jamie.

00:16:35.670 --> 00:16:36.070
That's fine.

00:16:36.310 --> 00:16:36.950
You can swear.

00:16:37.270 --> 00:16:37.510
Thank you.

00:16:37.590 --> 00:16:40.550
You did mention Philadelphia, and they do go hand in hand.

00:16:40.790 --> 00:16:41.030
Yeah.

00:16:41.190 --> 00:16:41.350
Yeah.

00:16:41.560 --> 00:16:46.280
I mean it is kind of an intoxicating idea that there's this number that keeps recurring in

00:16:46.280 --> 00:16:48.840
places where you wouldn't expect it to recur.

00:16:49.160 --> 00:16:52.760
Do you are you aware of like whether it holds up now?

00:16:52.840 --> 00:16:56.920
Like whether how it's done, you know, in the wake of the replication crisis if if it's

00:16:56.920 --> 00:16:57.720
still pretty solid?

00:16:58.120 --> 00:17:00.280
There's been some back and forth on it.

00:17:00.520 --> 00:17:04.680
Um, I would not be surprised if it holds up in many ways.

00:17:04.840 --> 00:17:10.230
I I do kind of think that there are these, I don't know, uh strange

00:17:10.230 --> 00:17:12.470
attractory ideas like fractals.

00:17:12.630 --> 00:17:17.190
So when you're flying in a plane, the mountain ridges look like you know they're fractals,

00:17:17.270 --> 00:17:23.110
and the rivers are fractals, and the veins and leaves, and in our bodies, there's there's

00:17:23.110 --> 00:17:28.150
something, there's you know, some sweet spot of efficiency.

00:17:28.310 --> 00:17:33.750
Um, and maybe for many people's brains, for most of human history,

00:17:34.070 --> 00:17:35.270
it's been that.

00:17:35.500 --> 00:17:37.340
Um, I could believe it.

00:17:37.580 --> 00:17:42.540
As for the latest, uh, I don't I don't think I know, but I do know there's been some back

00:17:42.540 --> 00:17:43.420
and forth lately.

00:17:43.580 --> 00:17:43.740
Yeah.

00:17:44.140 --> 00:17:44.700
Got it.

00:17:44.940 --> 00:17:50.620
So uh if I remember correctly, the Dunbar number was derived just by like looking at a

00:17:50.620 --> 00:17:55.340
graph of brain size and group size and just putting all the dots, you know, this is just

00:17:55.340 --> 00:18:00.970
across a number of different species, um, and just drawing a line through the dots to get

00:18:00.970 --> 00:18:06.810
the, you know, the uh and uh just extrapolating from that graph to you know, if humans are

00:18:06.810 --> 00:18:11.530
on this graph based on the line, their predicted group size based on their brain size is

00:18:11.530 --> 00:18:12.170
150.

00:18:12.650 --> 00:18:13.210
Yeah, exactly.

00:18:13.370 --> 00:18:19.130
You had um the brain size on the x-axis across the bottom and on the y-axis, you had group

00:18:19.130 --> 00:18:25.130
size, and um he uh plotted all of the different primate brain sizes and

00:18:25.130 --> 00:18:28.480
group sizes, drew that line, exactly what you're saying.

00:18:28.560 --> 00:18:30.480
You should expect humans to be 150.

00:18:30.640 --> 00:18:33.920
You should also expect the Neanderthals, they had larger brains.

00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:36.000
So they should have had larger groups.

00:18:36.640 --> 00:18:41.360
And so one of the ways that I think he and his group were dealing with that, including a

00:18:41.360 --> 00:18:45.920
woman named Ellie Pierce, was trying to understand why.

00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:51.680
And the last that I remember was that the occipital lobe of Neanderthals was

00:18:51.680 --> 00:18:57.450
particularly um large, or the the indentation, I guess, would have

00:18:57.450 --> 00:18:57.690
been.

00:18:57.850 --> 00:19:03.770
And what they were thinking is that they evolved, particularly at certain latitudes, where

00:19:03.770 --> 00:19:08.730
they would have needed a larger brain size because of something with the light.

00:19:09.210 --> 00:19:14.890
I'm not really remembering, but they had to dedicate that size not to social brain regions,

00:19:15.130 --> 00:19:17.960
but to other mechanics, basically.

00:19:18.280 --> 00:19:18.600
Got it.

00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:21.240
So they would be an outlier on that graph, presumably.

00:19:21.560 --> 00:19:21.720
Yeah.

00:19:21.800 --> 00:19:24.120
I love when exceptions can help you prove the rule.

00:19:24.200 --> 00:19:25.320
And so I remember that one.

00:19:25.480 --> 00:19:31.400
Sort of like when Doug Kenrick and uh Rich Keefe talked about, I think the either

00:19:31.400 --> 00:19:37.400
the Poro or the Tiwi, or one of those societies where the young men end up with much

00:19:37.400 --> 00:19:43.210
older women, which is against the evolutionary, evolutionarily derived prediction, and

00:19:43.210 --> 00:19:47.050
it's because the young men have no status and they have to marry the widows.

00:19:47.370 --> 00:19:48.970
It's not because it's what they want.

00:19:49.130 --> 00:19:51.770
And so yeah, when the exception proves the rule, it's fun.

00:19:52.410 --> 00:19:52.890
Cool.

00:19:53.210 --> 00:19:59.210
So he's also um a proponent of of uh an increasingly popular idea known

00:19:59.210 --> 00:20:03.450
as the social brain hypothesis or the social brain theory.

00:20:03.690 --> 00:20:07.610
Uh and as far as I'm aware, it's been gaining increasing prominence.

00:20:08.220 --> 00:20:13.900
So this idea is that humans don't have huge brains to help them

00:20:15.020 --> 00:20:20.380
solve problems and think rationally and make tools, which is sort of the prevailing view.

00:20:20.540 --> 00:20:25.820
The reason why we have these huge noggins is so we can get inside each other's heads and

00:20:25.820 --> 00:20:30.380
get inside each other's heads, getting inside of our heads, and think through many layers

00:20:30.380 --> 00:20:34.460
of social complexity and recursive mentalizing of I'm trying to predict what you're

00:20:34.460 --> 00:20:38.590
thinking, I'm thinking, you're thinking, uh, and navigating the political landscape,

00:20:38.750 --> 00:20:44.670
forming alliances, uh, maybe secretly flouting social norms in a way that you can get away

00:20:44.670 --> 00:20:44.910
with.

00:20:45.070 --> 00:20:50.670
These kinds of of social challenges are really the main selection pressure driving

00:20:50.670 --> 00:20:51.870
brain expansion.

00:20:51.950 --> 00:20:56.590
Um, and if you think about it intuitively, like, what do you devote most of your brain

00:20:56.590 --> 00:20:56.990
power to?

00:20:57.150 --> 00:21:01.950
You don't devote it to like auto parts or like, you know, furniture repair.

00:21:02.190 --> 00:21:07.200
You devote it to thinking about people and people related stuff and how you're going to

00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:11.840
deal with these people and get them to uh respect you or give you what you want or patch

00:21:11.840 --> 00:21:12.560
things up.

00:21:12.800 --> 00:21:18.800
Um so uh what do you think of this social brain theory?

00:21:19.120 --> 00:21:25.040
Do we need a uh a paradigm shift in how we think about the evolution of

00:21:25.200 --> 00:21:26.640
the human brain?

00:21:27.670 --> 00:21:33.670
Uh I mean, I I think a lot of people would buy this theory, whether or not they call it the

00:21:33.670 --> 00:21:39.510
social brain hypothesis, whether or not they subscribe to all of the potential tenants and

00:21:39.510 --> 00:21:40.950
related hypotheses.

00:21:41.110 --> 00:21:47.110
Um we are uh actually so the same way that Tubi and Cosmodee started a lot of papers with

00:21:47.110 --> 00:21:48.070
the Big Bang.

00:21:48.230 --> 00:21:54.020
You guys might remember in like the 2010s, uh almost all HBS

00:21:54.180 --> 00:21:57.300
talks and posters started with, well, humans are ultra social.

00:21:57.940 --> 00:21:58.260
Right?

00:21:58.660 --> 00:21:59.220
Yes.

00:22:00.100 --> 00:22:06.100
And I I think we all have bought that so hook, line, and sinker at this point, and we

00:22:06.100 --> 00:22:10.100
all agree on it so much that I don't even hear that sentence anymore.

00:22:10.500 --> 00:22:14.420
Um so I I I think we're moving past that and we buy it.

00:22:14.500 --> 00:22:15.060
Yeah.

00:22:15.350 --> 00:22:15.750
Yeah.

00:22:15.990 --> 00:22:21.590
I mean, it seems to me that like a lot of topics that were once considered a purely

00:22:21.590 --> 00:22:26.790
cognitive or rational part of the mind are now being reconsidered as a social adaptation.

00:22:26.950 --> 00:22:32.230
So it used to be that reasoning was sort of seen as this solitary rational practice that

00:22:32.230 --> 00:22:35.430
you'd work through these syllogisms of if P, then Q.

00:22:36.150 --> 00:22:40.950
And uh then, you know, Hugo Mercier and Dance Berber come along and say, Well, no, uh,

00:22:41.190 --> 00:22:43.270
reasoning is a social tool.

00:22:43.350 --> 00:22:49.340
It's for justifying and making excuses to other members of your social group and for trying

00:22:49.340 --> 00:22:52.940
to win arguments and get them to do what you want.

00:22:53.180 --> 00:22:58.860
And really it's much more insightful to view reasoning as a social tool

00:22:59.020 --> 00:23:02.540
rather than an instrument of solitary rationality.

00:23:03.340 --> 00:23:04.700
I'm trying to think of other examples.

00:23:04.780 --> 00:23:07.100
I think Episodic Memory had had a paper.

00:23:10.350 --> 00:23:15.870
uh uh phenomenon episodic memory is biased by social goals, uh, has social

00:23:15.870 --> 00:23:16.510
functions.

00:23:16.670 --> 00:23:21.870
Um there's a paper by Klein and uh Tubian Cosmedys basically arguing that the reason we

00:23:21.870 --> 00:23:27.710
have episodic memory uh as it's as distinct from semantic memory uh is

00:23:27.710 --> 00:23:33.470
that it allows us to reconsider all of the social interactions we've had with a person in

00:23:33.470 --> 00:23:34.910
light of new information.

00:23:35.310 --> 00:23:41.120
So if uh if you uh prove to be untrustworthy uh or a liar,

00:23:41.200 --> 00:23:46.480
I can reflect on all of the past experiences I might have had with with you and reinterpret

00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:51.040
them in light of this novel infation in a way that I couldn't with semantic memory, because

00:23:51.040 --> 00:23:54.400
it's just a list of facts as opposed to a list of raw experiences.

00:23:54.720 --> 00:23:59.840
Um so I I I I think that this is a good direction to go.

00:23:59.920 --> 00:24:01.600
I think we should continue going in this direction.

00:24:01.760 --> 00:24:06.830
So I have a blog post arguing that what we find interesting uh isn't is not really driven

00:24:06.830 --> 00:24:11.550
by what is practically uh useful to us, but but but what is socially useful to us.

00:24:11.710 --> 00:24:16.030
Um, that what what helps us, you know, signal our membership in various groups and show off

00:24:16.030 --> 00:24:17.230
how smart we are.

00:24:17.390 --> 00:24:22.670
Um those kinds of social goals are are driving our curiosity uh and and and what we read

00:24:22.670 --> 00:24:27.550
and what we click on way more than any kind of practical utility.

00:24:27.950 --> 00:24:33.540
Um so yeah, I don't know if uh yeah, I don't know if I have a a question.

00:24:33.860 --> 00:24:36.740
Uh so you do you know Eshin Jolly's work?

00:24:36.900 --> 00:24:39.780
He just knew at UC San Diego.

00:24:40.020 --> 00:24:44.420
He's a social neuroscientist in the sort of Carolyn Parkinson vein.

00:24:44.820 --> 00:24:50.150
Um, and both of them are doing incredible work that um uh would

00:24:51.110 --> 00:24:53.190
would go really nicely with what you're saying.

00:24:53.270 --> 00:24:58.870
But um one of Eshin's cool findings is that the way that you remember people is basically

00:24:58.870 --> 00:25:00.470
through relationships.

00:25:01.670 --> 00:25:07.110
All of these components that we think are for, you know, of this lonely Rodin

00:25:07.270 --> 00:25:12.800
statue thinking really probably are for uh navigating the social world.

00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:17.200
And the social world is way more complex than we've bothered to think it is.

00:25:17.360 --> 00:25:20.320
So it's not a person thinking alone.

00:25:20.480 --> 00:25:24.480
Um, the Rodin Museum is also in Philadelphia on the parkway, by the way.

00:25:24.880 --> 00:25:29.040
Um, it's not um even just, you know, one-on-one.

00:25:29.600 --> 00:25:34.880
It is people embedded in these interconnected networks that are um

00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:39.170
interesting exactly, and terrifying sometimes.

00:25:39.410 --> 00:25:45.410
And um probably the best way to get anything you want is through

00:25:45.410 --> 00:25:48.450
those people and anything you need.

00:25:49.330 --> 00:25:55.250
Um Jamie, you we this is w we're going through your travels,

00:25:55.330 --> 00:26:00.760
so you discover you're in uh Oxford in your

00:26:00.760 --> 00:26:01.640
masters.

00:26:02.040 --> 00:26:06.600
Did you did you want to be in social psychology?

00:26:06.760 --> 00:26:07.960
Did you want to be in psychology?

00:26:08.120 --> 00:26:10.280
Were you toying with anthropology?

00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:12.120
What how did you get to Oh?

00:26:12.680 --> 00:26:13.240
Yeah.

00:26:13.480 --> 00:26:14.440
Um, all right.

00:26:14.520 --> 00:26:20.520
So my honest answer um is that I wanted to do evolutionary social science and I

00:26:20.520 --> 00:26:26.330
did not care whether I was in anthropology or psychology because I think that our remits

00:26:26.330 --> 00:26:26.970
are the same.

00:26:27.130 --> 00:26:29.370
We're trying to figure out human nature.

00:26:30.570 --> 00:26:36.490
Practically, that, you know, that comes up against some issues, which is that

00:26:37.610 --> 00:26:41.130
I didn't know this at the time, but there are fewer jobs in anthropology.

00:26:41.610 --> 00:26:43.050
I didn't know this at the time.

00:26:43.210 --> 00:26:47.560
But if you want to get a job in psychology, it's probably easier to be a social

00:26:47.560 --> 00:26:51.320
psychologist who leverages evolutionary tools than it is to be an evolutionary

00:26:51.320 --> 00:26:55.560
psychologist, particularly in the United States.

00:26:55.800 --> 00:27:01.320
Um, and practically, uh, if you want to be an anthropologist, probably at some point you're

00:27:01.320 --> 00:27:02.760
gonna go into the field.

00:27:02.920 --> 00:27:05.240
And like a motel is the field for me.

00:27:05.400 --> 00:27:11.320
I am I am a city mouse, I am a um a Persian cat that needs a

00:27:11.320 --> 00:27:12.440
velvet pillow.

00:27:12.680 --> 00:27:13.640
I am that.

00:27:13.930 --> 00:27:18.410
And so um fighting a jaguar, that could be kind of cool.

00:27:18.650 --> 00:27:24.650
Having to put my shoes like on a branch so that a dangerous person

00:27:24.730 --> 00:27:28.810
killing centipede doesn't get in them is not for me.

00:27:29.050 --> 00:27:29.610
Yeah.

00:27:29.930 --> 00:27:34.730
So that's that's my honest answer that I probably never said out loud before.

00:27:35.210 --> 00:27:37.210
So how did you give it a little bit?

00:27:37.450 --> 00:27:38.170
I had a similar experience.

00:27:38.330 --> 00:27:43.940
I was debating whether to go into anthropology or psychology, and I remember asking uh Dan

00:27:43.940 --> 00:27:48.980
Fessler about it uh and uh I'm like so this fieldwork thing like that's kind of optional

00:27:49.060 --> 00:27:53.620
right I can I can be an anthropologist and not have to like go to a place without air

00:27:53.620 --> 00:27:55.780
conditioning and with you know man eating spiders.

00:27:56.020 --> 00:27:57.380
He's like, oh no it's very important.

00:27:57.460 --> 00:27:57.940
It's crucial.

00:27:58.020 --> 00:28:02.100
You you uh we take field work very seriously and you you can't get you can't graduate

00:28:02.100 --> 00:28:03.620
without doing really extensive fieldwork.

00:28:03.700 --> 00:28:06.260
You know, sometimes you stay there for months or a year.

00:28:06.580 --> 00:28:08.470
I'm like okay, no thank you.

00:28:08.790 --> 00:28:08.950
Yeah.

00:28:09.110 --> 00:28:13.990
And then I love I love uh talking to uh I I dear I mean we and we're people have some like

00:28:13.990 --> 00:28:17.590
human behavioral ecologists or like field anthropologists on and I dearly love them.

00:28:17.670 --> 00:28:21.830
But then whenever more than like two or three of them get together, they'll like exchange

00:28:21.830 --> 00:28:26.630
their field stories of like, you know, the communicable or flesh eating diseases that, you

00:28:26.630 --> 00:28:28.630
know, like compare their scars, right?

00:28:28.710 --> 00:28:34.240
And and or the story of the person on the path that thought about killing them and they

00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:37.760
convinced them not to because they knew them from when they were a child, which is a true

00:28:37.760 --> 00:28:39.680
story from an anthropologist I heard from.

00:28:39.840 --> 00:28:44.320
So is this Kim Hill or it's uh uh it was John Patton actually.

00:28:46.240 --> 00:28:51.360
I remember uh uh Chris Chris Smith who does research with the Hadza uh in uh what Tanzania

00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:52.240
I think is where they are.

00:28:52.320 --> 00:28:56.640
Or uh and uh he was staying in a tent and he was having horrible diarrhea.

00:28:57.150 --> 00:28:59.470
and uh he had in in in the middle of the night.

00:28:59.630 --> 00:28:59.950
Yes.

00:29:00.190 --> 00:29:02.030
Oh maybe I shouldn't be divulging this.

00:29:02.110 --> 00:29:02.510
Sorry.

00:29:02.830 --> 00:29:07.150
We'll have Chris on and and we'll have to tell him an important story about yourself and

00:29:07.150 --> 00:29:09.710
Chris can decide whether or not Yeah.

00:29:10.110 --> 00:29:10.590
That's true.

00:29:10.670 --> 00:29:10.830
Yeah.

00:29:11.150 --> 00:29:12.110
We're all a family, it's fine.

00:29:12.270 --> 00:29:12.910
We're all it's okay.

00:29:13.870 --> 00:29:14.510
Uh yeah.

00:29:14.590 --> 00:29:19.070
Uh so uh this this story stuck in my head because it it strikes me as the most horrifying

00:29:19.070 --> 00:29:19.310
possible.

00:29:19.470 --> 00:29:22.110
So he's out in the middle of the night at like three in the morning because he's having

00:29:22.110 --> 00:29:27.740
diarrhea, and you can't you know poop in the camp uh because there are you know taboos

00:29:27.820 --> 00:29:28.220
around that.

00:29:28.380 --> 00:29:31.660
So you have to go wander away from camp in order to poop.

00:29:31.820 --> 00:29:35.980
And he's and he's wandering out having horrible diarrhea away from the camp, and he hears

00:29:35.980 --> 00:29:38.700
lions, literal lions, roaring.

00:29:38.780 --> 00:29:44.780
And he has to debate whether he's gonna go out and outside of camp, away from other people,

00:29:44.940 --> 00:29:46.140
where there are lions roaring.

00:29:46.220 --> 00:29:47.660
And he was it was like an emergency.

00:29:47.740 --> 00:29:49.820
And he has to poop or die.

00:29:50.060 --> 00:29:51.020
Poop or die.

00:29:52.390 --> 00:29:55.750
He ultimately chose poop uh and he survived, thankfully.

00:29:55.910 --> 00:29:58.710
Uh, but that's not the kind of decision that I want to ever have to make.

00:29:59.030 --> 00:30:04.230
Oh, we're still at Oxford, and you get so get to get us to um uh

00:30:04.550 --> 00:30:05.430
ASU.

00:30:08.390 --> 00:30:10.390
To several programs.

00:30:10.630 --> 00:30:15.830
Um I I think Marty would be fine with me saying this because uh Marty Hazleton is here at

00:30:15.830 --> 00:30:17.590
UCLA in communication.

00:30:17.750 --> 00:30:22.640
Um I applied to work with Marty and she turned me down.

00:30:23.120 --> 00:30:28.080
Um, and someone else who applied to work with Marty is one of your other guests, Dan Conroy

00:30:28.080 --> 00:30:29.680
Beam, and she turned him down.

00:30:29.840 --> 00:30:35.760
And we were walking her home uh with Larry Sugiyama one night at HBus, and Dan

00:30:35.760 --> 00:30:40.080
and I were on either side of Barney, and she just looked at us and she's like, You're my

00:30:40.080 --> 00:30:41.120
greatest regrets.

00:30:41.280 --> 00:30:42.880
Oh it was very sweet.

00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:47.650
Um but she said yes to pin soft, and that's that that worked out.

00:30:49.730 --> 00:30:50.530
Yep, that's true.

00:30:51.410 --> 00:30:54.850
So uh I applied to a bunch of places.

00:30:55.010 --> 00:30:59.570
Um I thought I would end up at Santa Barbara, the high church.

00:30:59.810 --> 00:31:05.730
Um so uh and I visited and I loved it, and the people were great.

00:31:05.890 --> 00:31:09.730
Um Aldo was there and he was hilarious to me.

00:31:09.890 --> 00:31:12.370
Yeah, I never met such a human Eeyore.

00:31:12.690 --> 00:31:14.530
Yeah, oh he's Aldo is wonderful.

00:31:14.770 --> 00:31:16.920
Yeah, He was just fantastic.

00:31:17.160 --> 00:31:19.160
Um, Andy and Tess were there.

00:31:19.320 --> 00:31:22.200
It was actually the day that Max got the job at Harvard.

00:31:22.840 --> 00:31:28.840
Um, I didn't know what an amazing fellow Andy was at the time.

00:31:29.000 --> 00:31:31.240
I didn't realize that they'd both gone up for that.

00:31:31.320 --> 00:31:36.680
And um, how what an incredible friend and colleague and pal Andy was.

00:31:36.760 --> 00:31:38.840
Um, though I would come to learn that.

00:31:39.160 --> 00:31:43.510
Um anyway, so I visited Santa Barbara and it was amazing.

00:31:43.670 --> 00:31:49.510
Um, and I took a picture of the CEP because, you know, it's this is

00:31:49.510 --> 00:31:52.070
the font from whence we came in my mind.

00:31:52.310 --> 00:31:56.870
Um, and uh uh it was wonderful.

00:31:57.030 --> 00:32:00.630
Then I went to ASU and I really did not think I would go there.

00:32:00.790 --> 00:32:05.910
Actually, I think I only visited ASU because they were the ones who paid for my plane

00:32:05.910 --> 00:32:07.430
ticket from England.

00:32:07.510 --> 00:32:09.520
Uh Santa Barbara wouldn't do it.

00:32:09.760 --> 00:32:12.480
Um I think that yeah, I think that's true.

00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:18.000
Um and so uh I told Doug,

00:32:18.080 --> 00:32:23.680
Kenrick and Steve Newberg during my recruitment trip, uh, listen,

00:32:23.920 --> 00:32:27.440
um, can you make me the best evolutionary psychologist?

00:32:27.600 --> 00:32:32.320
Um and I have to like squeeze up all my courage to ask them that, right?

00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:34.320
Because it's kind of a prickish question.

00:32:34.400 --> 00:32:35.610
Um It's a badass question.

00:32:35.690 --> 00:32:37.050
I wish I'd asked it.

00:32:37.370 --> 00:32:40.170
I mean, it's it's a it's a difficult question.

00:32:40.330 --> 00:32:45.690
Um and I don't even remember what they told me, but they did

00:32:45.690 --> 00:32:51.690
convince me that what they would be able to do is get me a job so that

00:32:51.690 --> 00:32:53.530
I could do this forever.

00:32:53.850 --> 00:32:56.090
Um, and I think they were right.

00:32:56.170 --> 00:33:01.450
I I think there have been few people in the history of our

00:33:02.020 --> 00:33:07.140
field or lens or whatever you want to call it approach that

00:33:07.860 --> 00:33:13.860
whatever we say that's appropriately non-threatening at the time, that have

00:33:14.020 --> 00:33:19.940
uh successfully gotten so many people jobs so that they could keep doing this and making

00:33:19.940 --> 00:33:20.900
more of us.

00:33:21.460 --> 00:33:25.540
Um so uh that that is how I got to ASU.

00:33:26.370 --> 00:33:27.010
Yeah.

00:33:27.570 --> 00:33:28.850
And you did get a job.

00:33:28.930 --> 00:33:29.730
You have an awesome job.

00:33:29.810 --> 00:33:29.970
Yeah.

00:33:30.130 --> 00:33:30.610
So that worked.

00:33:30.930 --> 00:33:31.570
I do now.

00:33:31.810 --> 00:33:34.850
I, you know, I got a job out of grad school.

00:33:34.930 --> 00:33:35.970
I was very lucky.

00:33:36.130 --> 00:33:40.450
It's so hard, especially given that I had an EV background.

00:33:40.610 --> 00:33:45.890
Um, and so many people who do social psych work, you know, um,

00:33:46.530 --> 00:33:48.640
uh, so this was 2018.

00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:53.600
It wasn't um, you know, I did a little bit of stereotyping and prejudice stuff, but that's

00:33:53.600 --> 00:33:58.000
the an intergroup, that's the great, great majority of social psych now.

00:33:58.080 --> 00:34:03.920
Um, and that's not the great great majority of the human mind or the

00:34:03.920 --> 00:34:09.760
social world, um, but the it's the great great majority of the work that you see and the

00:34:09.760 --> 00:34:11.120
jobs that are advertised.

00:34:11.440 --> 00:34:15.730
Um, So I was lucky that there was a job for an experimental psychologist.

00:34:16.050 --> 00:34:16.930
I applied.

00:34:17.570 --> 00:34:20.050
I got the job at Oklahoma State University.

00:34:20.130 --> 00:34:25.730
And with Jen Bird Craven, we created the Oklahoma Center for Evolutionary Analysis, or

00:34:25.730 --> 00:34:31.410
Ocean, which is going strong to this day with uh CEP alum Daniel

00:34:31.410 --> 00:34:37.170
Sneeser and Jen and Juliana French was there for a little while.

00:34:38.290 --> 00:34:41.580
So I was very, very lucky to get a job at all.

00:34:41.660 --> 00:34:47.500
And I was so lucky that I could do the work I wanted to do and had to do at Oklahoma.

00:34:47.660 --> 00:34:53.660
And yeah, now I have uh what I would consider like a job that would impress a person on

00:34:53.660 --> 00:34:57.900
a plane, you know, like when you sit next to them and you're like, I'm a professor at UCLA,

00:34:58.060 --> 00:35:02.300
and I'm a little vain, and that is how I measure my worth sometimes.

00:35:02.460 --> 00:35:05.420
And so that feels really nice.

00:35:05.870 --> 00:35:07.950
It's not it's not vain at all, Jamie.

00:35:08.510 --> 00:35:09.470
No, it's human.

00:35:09.630 --> 00:35:09.870
Yeah.

00:35:10.030 --> 00:35:10.590
Congratulations.

00:35:10.910 --> 00:35:11.630
Well, humans are vain.

00:35:12.590 --> 00:35:13.150
Yes, that's true.

00:35:13.390 --> 00:35:14.270
Very well deserved.

00:35:14.590 --> 00:35:20.510
Um in a cartoonish way, I sort of have friend a friendship bubble next to

00:35:20.510 --> 00:35:24.270
my picture of you in my uh slots of 150 people.

00:35:24.590 --> 00:35:30.380
Um, when you were out at Oklahoma, when you left ASU, and so

00:35:30.460 --> 00:35:36.460
when you were in Oklahoma and now at UCLA, is friendship for you, and we'll

00:35:36.460 --> 00:35:42.380
talk pro presumably about it in in a in a bit, but is friendship for you the

00:35:42.380 --> 00:35:47.180
thing that you think about, or is friendship sort of a way station to a bigger point?

00:35:48.060 --> 00:35:53.980
Um, so you know, like what is your as you've been going through this, um,

00:35:54.300 --> 00:35:59.690
what is what's the thing that you're looking at as you keep proceeding through that sort of

00:35:59.850 --> 00:36:03.610
is your North Star that you're really interested in thinking about and tackling?

00:36:04.250 --> 00:36:09.610
I mean, I'll tell you really honestly, it was originally pragmatic, which was I need to

00:36:09.610 --> 00:36:11.530
publish papers so that I could get a job.

00:36:11.690 --> 00:36:17.130
My my North Star wasn't um lofty in any way, or noble in the very

00:36:17.610 --> 00:36:19.210
it wasn't noble in the least.

00:36:19.370 --> 00:36:24.730
Um uh and then it became, you know, I really did want to understand

00:36:24.730 --> 00:36:29.940
women's social relationships, both the competition,

00:36:30.100 --> 00:36:32.420
aggression stuff as well as the friendship.

00:36:32.580 --> 00:36:38.260
But it turns out that the competition and aggression is sort of built on the same machinery

00:36:38.260 --> 00:36:38.900
as friendship.

00:36:39.060 --> 00:36:42.500
It's the same rails that runs that kind of aggression.

00:36:43.140 --> 00:36:48.820
And I think what we call variously indirect aggression, relational aggression, social

00:36:48.820 --> 00:36:54.370
aggression, things like gossip, Uh we all know they're not unique to women.

00:36:54.530 --> 00:36:59.490
Um what I think we don't realize enough is that they are um

00:37:00.130 --> 00:37:04.690
it's just a different name for friendship and alliance competition.

00:37:05.010 --> 00:37:07.410
Um we don't talk about friendship competition.

00:37:07.570 --> 00:37:11.170
I think we largely pretend that it doesn't exist or we'd like to think that we never

00:37:11.170 --> 00:37:15.570
compete for friends or friends' affections, but we do Which is itself a tactic in the

00:37:15.570 --> 00:37:16.050
competition.

00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:17.280
Yes, it is.

00:37:17.520 --> 00:37:18.320
We don't do that.

00:37:18.560 --> 00:37:19.040
No, okay.

00:37:19.200 --> 00:37:20.560
Romantic partners, sure.

00:37:20.640 --> 00:37:22.800
People do that, but we don't compete for friends.

00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:28.240
I never try and make one friend like me better than they like their other friend by talking

00:37:28.240 --> 00:37:28.720
shit.

00:37:29.040 --> 00:37:31.040
No, but of course we do.

00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:36.800
Um, and it's really hard to um to uh

00:37:37.040 --> 00:37:40.960
understand friendship without understanding that sort of grimy bit of it too.

00:37:41.120 --> 00:37:47.050
So in any case, I started thinking about women's sociality that became a lot

00:37:47.050 --> 00:37:48.090
about friendship.

00:37:48.890 --> 00:37:50.010
That's the machinery.

00:37:50.090 --> 00:37:51.850
Those are the rails, like I was saying.

00:37:52.010 --> 00:37:57.930
And so yeah, I mean, one of my goals would be that at the end of

00:37:57.930 --> 00:38:03.450
my career, I've created enough people studying friendship, because we don't do that,

00:38:04.410 --> 00:38:08.730
who are getting us to the point where we could, you know, if I had to build a robot to do

00:38:08.730 --> 00:38:13.450
friendship, they would be able to deploy the programs to build the robot to do friendship.

00:38:14.320 --> 00:38:20.320
I think my my larger goal, if I'm honest, um, and whatever, I have

00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:22.160
tenure, so I could just say this now.

00:38:22.320 --> 00:38:25.200
Um, it's it's the way we think.

00:38:25.360 --> 00:38:25.920
It's us.

00:38:26.080 --> 00:38:31.440
I want the way that we think to pervade the social sciences.

00:38:31.680 --> 00:38:33.680
Um it should.

00:38:34.390 --> 00:38:40.070
If you think this way in any other area, it is a boon.

00:38:40.310 --> 00:38:46.310
I mean, even engineering, you know, goal-wing design, the design of birds' beaks.

00:38:46.630 --> 00:38:52.470
We have made better machines and tools by looking at nature because evolution has helped to

00:38:52.470 --> 00:38:53.110
create them.

00:38:53.670 --> 00:38:58.660
And if we can start thinking that way about the human mind without all of this really

00:38:58.660 --> 00:39:04.420
stupid stuff, um, I think we'll actually be able to give the taxpayers their money's

00:39:04.420 --> 00:39:09.140
worth and help them solve real social problems that they actually give a shit about.

00:39:09.540 --> 00:39:15.460
Um, but uh so yes, um to that end, I would like to lift up

00:39:15.460 --> 00:39:18.900
and spread our uh our gospel, let's say.

00:39:19.300 --> 00:39:19.620
Yeah.

00:39:19.860 --> 00:39:20.500
But yeah, thank you.

00:39:20.740 --> 00:39:25.650
I mean I mean, you mentioned, you know, giving the taxpayers their money's worth and

00:39:25.650 --> 00:39:26.850
solving real problems.

00:39:27.090 --> 00:39:32.450
I mean one of the biggest problems that we have in the modern world is a is a lack of deep

00:39:32.450 --> 00:39:37.970
social connections with other people, um uh problems making friends as an

00:39:37.970 --> 00:39:38.610
adult.

00:39:39.170 --> 00:39:44.210
Um we we feel I mean there's some evidence to suggest that loneliness is on the rise at

00:39:44.210 --> 00:39:46.210
least a little bit, at least in the in the United States.

00:39:46.370 --> 00:39:50.720
We can, you know, quibble about you know where and when this is this is occurring, but it

00:39:50.720 --> 00:39:54.960
seems like a lot of people are starved for social connection.

00:39:55.200 --> 00:40:00.640
Uh, and figuring out how to help them solve that problem it would be a huge benefit, not

00:40:00.640 --> 00:40:03.360
merely for their well-being, but for their physical health.

00:40:03.600 --> 00:40:09.440
Um, there's tons of evidence showing that your uh social relationships have a huge effect

00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:14.560
on your your physical health, presumably because maybe if you're if you're more stressed.

00:40:14.640 --> 00:40:15.520
Um I don't know.

00:40:15.600 --> 00:40:21.530
I mean uh uh so number one, what do you think is going on with

00:40:21.850 --> 00:40:25.690
with the the relationship between friendship and physical health?

00:40:25.850 --> 00:40:31.290
Uh and number two, uh are you at the point where you can start to see what a potential

00:40:31.290 --> 00:40:35.290
solution to these social problems might look like, or is that too far on the horizon?

00:40:36.010 --> 00:40:39.050
So to one, that is an amazing question.

00:40:39.210 --> 00:40:40.650
Um, here's what we know.

00:40:40.920 --> 00:40:45.720
We know that social connection at the very least, and sometimes specifically friendship,

00:40:45.880 --> 00:40:49.720
not just, you know, social support, not just marriage, right?

00:40:50.120 --> 00:40:52.920
Um, can lead to better health outcomes.

00:40:53.080 --> 00:40:59.080
So friendships can be a route not only to things like arriving at work or

00:40:59.080 --> 00:41:04.600
thriving in your life or feelings of well-being, or even I think Chetty has some stuff on

00:41:05.240 --> 00:41:10.690
how friendships among folks from different economic backgrounds can

00:41:11.090 --> 00:41:16.690
improve the economic trajectory of people who have grown up in disadvantaged uh

00:41:16.690 --> 00:41:17.250
places.

00:41:18.290 --> 00:41:20.050
The economist Raz Chetty, I believe.

00:41:20.370 --> 00:41:21.570
Did he win the Nobel Prize?

00:41:22.130 --> 00:41:23.090
I think he might have.

00:41:23.330 --> 00:41:27.410
This is a one of the sort of twin 2022 working papers.

00:41:27.570 --> 00:41:28.210
It's really cool.

00:41:28.530 --> 00:41:31.890
Economic mobility is an outcome of some friendships.

00:41:32.130 --> 00:41:34.290
But then there's all this stuff about health.

00:41:34.460 --> 00:41:40.460
And so you see, to give some concrete examples, uh, women recover more quickly from

00:41:40.460 --> 00:41:44.540
breast cancer surgery if they feel like they're socially supported, particularly by their

00:41:44.540 --> 00:41:45.420
female friends.

00:41:45.580 --> 00:41:51.180
Um, men in Sweden are less likely to have heart attacks if they have

00:41:51.180 --> 00:41:55.500
friends and it's not about their social support, it's not about being married, it's

00:41:55.500 --> 00:41:56.300
friends.

00:41:56.460 --> 00:42:02.300
Um, we see uh so Julianne Holt Lundstadt had this sort of seminal meta-analysis

00:42:02.300 --> 00:42:08.170
that suggests that having social support, which I would argue is including and perhaps

00:42:08.170 --> 00:42:13.930
mostly friends, is so lacking social support, let's say, is equivalent to

00:42:13.930 --> 00:42:19.050
smoking 15 cigarettes a day, which has led folks like Robin Dunbar to say that having

00:42:19.050 --> 00:42:22.890
friends is the next best thing you could do for your health behind quitting smoking.

00:42:23.290 --> 00:42:29.260
And there's a billboard here in Los Angeles that I sometimes see on my way home that

00:42:29.260 --> 00:42:35.020
actually has a live tally of the predicted number of people who've died this year due to

00:42:35.020 --> 00:42:36.620
smoking-related deaths.

00:42:37.820 --> 00:42:43.500
So if you just sort of switch that to loneliness-related deaths, um,

00:42:43.820 --> 00:42:45.180
that number is huge.

00:42:45.340 --> 00:42:46.860
That number is insane.

00:42:47.420 --> 00:42:53.020
So I mean, I think this is a really valuable problem in terms of you know

00:42:53.210 --> 00:42:55.850
human happiness, longevity.

00:42:56.250 --> 00:43:00.170
And then if you want to look at it by the numbers, healthcare costs and things like that,

00:43:00.250 --> 00:43:00.570
right?

00:43:01.370 --> 00:43:06.650
So, and it's uh loneliness is prevalent among older adults, among new mothers, among the

00:43:06.650 --> 00:43:11.610
young, among college students, I among men, especially.

00:43:11.770 --> 00:43:17.700
So I haven't found a paper that suggests that any particular demographic has been

00:43:17.700 --> 00:43:23.220
buffered by this, buffered from this loneliness epidemic that is in the West, that it's in

00:43:23.300 --> 00:43:24.100
uh the UK.

00:43:24.260 --> 00:43:30.180
I think they have a loneliness czar, like a czar, um, uh, Korea,

00:43:30.340 --> 00:43:32.020
um, a lot of places in the West.

00:43:32.340 --> 00:43:37.860
I I have spoken to Mike Gervin and it doesn't seem to be a problem and sort of um uh

00:43:38.020 --> 00:43:43.870
small-scale societies um For reasons that we could try and play with and get into.

00:43:43.950 --> 00:43:46.590
But in any case, yes, it's a huge problem.

00:43:47.230 --> 00:43:51.710
What are the mechanisms that lead from friendship to health

00:43:52.990 --> 00:43:54.670
or social support to health?

00:43:55.230 --> 00:43:56.110
We don't know.

00:43:56.270 --> 00:43:57.790
That's the short answer.

00:43:58.270 --> 00:44:03.630
My guess would be that you probably have to bear extra energetic costs

00:44:04.190 --> 00:44:06.820
to get and do everything yourself, right?

00:44:07.300 --> 00:44:12.500
Um, and we do know how stress impacts the immune system.

00:44:12.820 --> 00:44:14.900
That's energetically costly.

00:44:15.300 --> 00:44:18.260
Um, so maybe it upregulates that.

00:44:18.740 --> 00:44:24.580
Um, we do know that uh loneliness itself can be a cue of stress,

00:44:24.740 --> 00:44:27.140
um, which might feed back on itself.

00:44:27.300 --> 00:44:32.980
Um, so you've uh in sort of that Mark Leary sociometer sense, um, if you're lonely,

00:44:33.140 --> 00:44:35.780
you're probably doing something wrong.

00:44:36.290 --> 00:44:39.970
You might have a low opinion of yourself and that can feed back on itself.

00:44:41.090 --> 00:44:44.450
So we haven't elucidated those mechanisms.

00:44:44.770 --> 00:44:47.010
There is a world of work to be done.

00:44:47.490 --> 00:44:51.410
It's probably not even that difficult to do some of that work.

00:44:51.570 --> 00:44:57.330
There's really great groundwork that folks like Brenda Major have laid out between

00:44:57.570 --> 00:45:03.490
obesity stigma and the outcomes related to it, obesity

00:45:03.490 --> 00:45:03.970
itself.

00:45:04.210 --> 00:45:06.520
So there are models to use.

00:45:07.480 --> 00:45:11.080
The second question was how do we actually do something about it?

00:45:11.240 --> 00:45:11.480
Right.

00:45:11.640 --> 00:45:11.960
Yeah.

00:45:12.520 --> 00:45:12.840
Okay.

00:45:13.160 --> 00:45:15.000
Uh we don't fucking know.

00:45:16.200 --> 00:45:20.120
People people have started to ask me this question.

00:45:20.200 --> 00:45:23.800
Um, how do we help people not be lonely?

00:45:24.120 --> 00:45:24.440
Right.

00:45:24.600 --> 00:45:29.770
Um and so so first I should just say most of the people that I talk to are what Musa

00:45:29.930 --> 00:45:32.090
Algarbi would call symbolic capitalists.

00:45:32.170 --> 00:45:36.250
They do jobs like we do, they go to college, they move around a lot.

00:45:36.410 --> 00:45:41.930
Um, they have they are the people who are writing the essays about having trouble making

00:45:41.930 --> 00:45:43.370
friends in adulthood.

00:45:43.530 --> 00:45:49.450
Um it is entirely possible that that's a problem for folks like us because

00:45:49.450 --> 00:45:52.810
we are moving around a lot in adulthood, right?

00:45:53.290 --> 00:45:55.850
This is a symbolic capitalist problem more.

00:45:56.490 --> 00:45:56.970
Potentially.

00:45:57.220 --> 00:45:57.700
Potentially.

00:45:57.860 --> 00:45:58.100
Interesting.

00:45:58.420 --> 00:45:58.580
Yeah.

00:45:58.660 --> 00:46:04.340
So if you live in the same place and all the people you went to uh a grade school and made

00:46:04.340 --> 00:46:10.260
friends with live in the same place, you don't face this challenge of making new friends or

00:46:10.260 --> 00:46:15.300
having to recruit the same sort of systems and face the same sort of challenges you needed

00:46:15.300 --> 00:46:18.340
to recruit to essentially solve friendship, right?

00:46:18.500 --> 00:46:18.660
Right.

00:46:19.060 --> 00:46:23.380
You break it down to its components, you need to find, make, and keep friends.

00:46:23.730 --> 00:46:28.290
You are just keeping friends at that point if you stay in the same place.

00:46:28.930 --> 00:46:34.770
Um, uh, so but I'm I'm glad that people are realizing that this is a challenge.

00:46:34.930 --> 00:46:40.210
I think that's been one of the key hurdles is that um most of us make friends when we're

00:46:40.210 --> 00:46:42.050
young and it doesn't feel hard.

00:46:42.290 --> 00:46:47.090
Um, and we only realize that there's a challenge to be solved because now we're adults and

00:46:47.090 --> 00:46:51.860
it feels hard and we're um professional women and we're trying to set our husbands up on

00:46:51.860 --> 00:46:53.940
play dates with other men, right?

00:46:54.260 --> 00:46:57.540
Um, that sounds condescending, and I don't mean it that way at all.

00:46:57.700 --> 00:47:00.180
Um, I've just encountered that over and over again.

00:47:00.340 --> 00:47:02.100
So yeah, people are starting to ask me.

00:47:02.260 --> 00:47:03.860
So, how do we actually solve this problem?

00:47:04.020 --> 00:47:05.380
What do the data say?

00:47:05.700 --> 00:47:08.020
The data don't exist.

00:47:08.340 --> 00:47:10.180
The data simply do not exist.

00:47:10.340 --> 00:47:14.570
We're starting to um do some friendship interventions here.

00:47:15.210 --> 00:47:20.890
We might work with Dan Conroy Beam's lab to do the prospective mating

00:47:20.890 --> 00:47:26.170
study that he's doing there at Santa Barbara to figure out: okay, can we pair people up and

00:47:26.170 --> 00:47:27.610
make good romantic relationships?

00:47:27.770 --> 00:47:29.610
Maybe we could do that for friendship.

00:47:30.170 --> 00:47:35.930
Matt Lieberman, a social neuroscientist here, has a company called Resonance that's

00:47:35.930 --> 00:47:37.610
starting to try and play with this.

00:47:38.340 --> 00:47:44.180
I'm working with an amazing scientist and gentleman named Victor Kaufman, and

00:47:44.180 --> 00:47:49.620
with some of my students and with his postdoc, Lisa Walsh, trying to

00:47:49.860 --> 00:47:55.700
maybe get toward what we'd call a mega study, sort of in the Liz Dunn sense

00:47:55.780 --> 00:48:01.780
of what are all of the interventions that journalists have suggested, and academics to the

00:48:01.780 --> 00:48:05.940
sense that any of them have suggested anything as an intervention for actually helping

00:48:05.940 --> 00:48:07.540
people make friends in adulthood.

00:48:07.750 --> 00:48:08.790
What are they?

00:48:09.350 --> 00:48:15.350
Okay, now that we know what they are, um, let's deploy them across countries and

00:48:15.350 --> 00:48:16.790
see what actually works.

00:48:16.950 --> 00:48:22.790
Um, that requires massive time, money, effort, and infrastructure, and we're

00:48:22.790 --> 00:48:23.510
building that.

00:48:23.670 --> 00:48:29.270
So um that's part of what I've been doing here at UCLA, part of the Center for Friendship

00:48:29.270 --> 00:48:33.590
Research, part of this friendship alliance thing that I am I've been building.

00:48:33.750 --> 00:48:38.120
Um, Because we don't even have the data to answer that question.

00:48:38.360 --> 00:48:42.200
If I wanted to answer that, I'd point you to essays that say go join a club.

00:48:42.600 --> 00:48:43.080
Yeah.

00:48:44.760 --> 00:48:50.600
I mean, I I love that answer because I feel um that the premature giving of

00:48:50.600 --> 00:48:54.520
advice is all too pervasive in social science.

00:48:55.000 --> 00:49:00.840
Um the urge to uh give lessons and takeaways uh and

00:49:00.840 --> 00:49:06.770
glib tips, uh uh it you know, it gets you status, it

00:49:06.770 --> 00:49:11.650
gets you uh in the door for for job applications, it gets you prestige.

00:49:11.810 --> 00:49:15.170
Um everyone's constantly asking you, what do we do with this information?

00:49:15.330 --> 00:49:16.290
What do we do with this information?

00:49:16.450 --> 00:49:20.210
How can I use this to to better myself or or my relationships or whatever?

00:49:20.450 --> 00:49:25.650
You know, every pop psychology book, oh, this has lessons for the boardroom in the bedroom.

00:49:25.730 --> 00:49:28.840
You know, it's like we need to stop giving advice as a field.

00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:32.600
We are giving way too much advice on way too little data.

00:49:32.680 --> 00:49:34.760
Uh and we need to shut the fuck up.

00:49:34.920 --> 00:49:36.280
Uh uh pardon my French.

00:49:36.680 --> 00:49:36.840
Great.

00:49:37.080 --> 00:49:38.360
Would you would you agree with that?

00:49:38.840 --> 00:49:39.320
Amen.

00:49:39.400 --> 00:49:40.280
Yes, a hundred percent.

00:49:40.440 --> 00:49:44.520
We don't, especially in my area of work, we don't know what the hell we're doing.

00:49:44.680 --> 00:49:45.320
I mean, yeah.

00:49:45.480 --> 00:49:47.960
And even when I read other people's papers, right?

00:49:48.040 --> 00:49:53.650
Uh so um, Dave, if I were reading some of your papers on race and coalitions,

00:49:53.730 --> 00:49:57.090
I'd be like, okay, so how do we solve racism sports?

00:49:57.410 --> 00:50:01.250
Um and to some extent, that's actually a kind of practical answer.

00:50:01.410 --> 00:50:05.650
I mean, you look at the the Philadelphia Eagles or any sports team, right?

00:50:06.290 --> 00:50:09.170
And you just don't see the kind of war.

00:50:09.330 --> 00:50:10.050
Those are the two.

00:50:10.130 --> 00:50:10.450
Yeah.

00:50:10.770 --> 00:50:11.010
Yeah.

00:50:11.090 --> 00:50:13.410
So I mean, I wouldn't give the advice of war.

00:50:13.650 --> 00:50:19.170
Um, certainly it comes to mind, but um, you know, if we have to, Canada's close.

00:50:20.820 --> 00:50:21.540
Too soon.

00:50:21.860 --> 00:50:22.580
Too soon?

00:50:22.740 --> 00:50:22.980
Yeah.

00:50:23.220 --> 00:50:25.460
Um, I have a question for you, Jamie.

00:50:25.540 --> 00:50:29.140
So I was living in Germany um until recently.

00:50:29.300 --> 00:50:33.780
And I've actually noticed so in Germany, in Berlin, um, there's really good public

00:50:33.780 --> 00:50:34.740
transportation.

00:50:35.060 --> 00:50:40.900
Um, and I kind of walked everywhere, uh, saw a lot of people, some people

00:50:40.900 --> 00:50:45.220
who I knew in my neighborhood, a lot of people who I didn't, like on public transportation.

00:50:45.810 --> 00:50:48.690
um would eat out often.

00:50:49.570 --> 00:50:55.170
And because you know, eating out was cheap because for lots of reasons, including

00:50:55.170 --> 00:50:56.290
healthcare was cheaper.

00:50:56.370 --> 00:50:58.850
So you don't have to pay the healthcare or the weight staff, whatever.

00:50:58.930 --> 00:51:03.890
You can tip like two Euros and you know a meal is like 30 euros as opposed to like 80 plus

00:51:03.970 --> 00:51:05.410
tip, you know, whatever.

00:51:06.660 --> 00:51:11.780
long winded way of saying since I moved back to the US, I've found myself at a baseline

00:51:11.860 --> 00:51:13.060
being lonelier.

00:51:15.860 --> 00:51:21.860
It's sort of an obvious attribution, but like, has there been work that you know of

00:51:21.940 --> 00:51:27.060
on sort of maybe outside of friendship per se, but just sort of the psychophysics or the

00:51:27.460 --> 00:51:31.460
sort of structural issues beyond sort of like an individual level intervention, that

00:51:31.460 --> 00:51:33.810
there's just certain things.

00:51:33.890 --> 00:51:35.650
Like, I mean, this is the Gervin point, right?

00:51:35.730 --> 00:51:38.530
Like if you look at Schwarand, people aren't lonely.

00:51:38.690 --> 00:51:43.010
Um, presumably it's not just because they're like, you know, seizing the day every morning.

00:51:43.090 --> 00:51:47.650
It's also a function of sort of the environment and how the environment's structured.

00:51:47.890 --> 00:51:49.490
Um, am I crazy?

00:51:49.650 --> 00:51:55.640
Is this an anecdotate, does this comport with sort of what you think uh maybe part of the

00:51:55.640 --> 00:51:56.680
loneliness epidemic.

00:51:56.760 --> 00:51:57.400
What do you think about that?

00:51:57.960 --> 00:52:02.280
I mean, I I think that's absolutely true and that must be correct.

00:52:02.360 --> 00:52:08.200
Um so the the psychophysics of it or like a sort of institutional architecture of

00:52:08.200 --> 00:52:14.040
loneliness is part and parcel of a lot of cities, um particularly affluent

00:52:14.040 --> 00:52:17.480
places where you don't need to rely on one another.

00:52:17.730 --> 00:52:23.570
um, and where you can live your life with a different Uber driver, a different

00:52:23.570 --> 00:52:26.930
postmate, a different whomever every day.

00:52:27.010 --> 00:52:31.410
And you take your car to work and you work alone in your office and you come home and

00:52:31.410 --> 00:52:32.210
that's that.

00:52:32.370 --> 00:52:38.370
Um I so I have talked to folks like um anthropologists Luke Lowackey and Zach Garfield

00:52:38.450 --> 00:52:39.730
who are interested in this.

00:52:39.890 --> 00:52:42.530
Um and like you said, Mike Gervin talks about it.

00:52:42.690 --> 00:52:48.580
But um I mean, if you look at the HRAF, the electronic human relations area files that

00:52:48.580 --> 00:52:49.620
Yale keeps.

00:52:50.260 --> 00:52:56.020
And you look at sort of uh or other surveys of how people spend their time in small

00:52:56.100 --> 00:53:01.540
scale societies, um, you end up seeing a lot of time on shoot the

00:53:01.540 --> 00:53:02.180
shit.

00:53:02.420 --> 00:53:08.260
Um, but it's it's time that co occurs or overlaps with doing chores or anything

00:53:08.260 --> 00:53:08.740
else.

00:53:08.900 --> 00:53:10.740
Um, we don't do that.

00:53:11.210 --> 00:53:15.450
We don't even have the architecture for that anymore.

00:53:15.610 --> 00:53:18.010
We don't have a common courtyard.

00:53:18.170 --> 00:53:20.890
We don't have those kinds of spaces.

00:53:21.690 --> 00:53:27.130
So in our little area, there are people who are thinking about this now with regard to

00:53:27.130 --> 00:53:31.530
social uh social connection, with regard to friendship in particular.

00:53:32.250 --> 00:53:37.130
And then, you know, you can go back to the city planning work and Jane Jacobs, right?

00:53:37.610 --> 00:53:43.220
And she would talk about how some of the greatest public parks were the greatest because

00:53:43.220 --> 00:53:46.260
they had this sort of mixed-use space around them.

00:53:46.420 --> 00:53:51.700
The hinterlands were I always think of Riton House Park in Philadelphia as being a great

00:53:51.700 --> 00:53:54.580
example of this, particularly pre-pandemic.

00:53:54.820 --> 00:54:00.580
It was surrounded by restaurants and shops and apartments and coffee houses.

00:54:00.740 --> 00:54:05.770
It had the giant Barnes and Noble right on the corner, or next to the corner on the corner

00:54:05.850 --> 00:54:08.570
was anthropology, the uh store.

00:54:08.810 --> 00:54:14.810
Um uh and what that meant was that people are always walking through

00:54:14.810 --> 00:54:17.050
the park at all of these different times.

00:54:17.210 --> 00:54:20.330
Um, people are using it for all of these different things.

00:54:20.490 --> 00:54:24.650
You always saw people, and quite often you would see some of the same people.

00:54:25.620 --> 00:54:28.580
So her point was really just about the use of the space.

00:54:28.820 --> 00:54:34.740
But if you are seeing some of the same people, then you can form these acquaintances

00:54:35.060 --> 00:54:40.900
or loose ties, things like that that could go on to become truly supportive friendships.

00:54:41.860 --> 00:54:47.780
One of the things that I love about some of the advice is

00:54:47.780 --> 00:54:51.030
that it non-consciously takes from this, right?

00:54:51.110 --> 00:54:54.390
Like go to the gym, form a habit, join a club.

00:54:54.630 --> 00:54:55.510
We don't know.

00:54:55.750 --> 00:54:56.950
We have to say we don't know.

00:54:57.110 --> 00:54:58.550
We should be saying we don't know.

00:54:58.790 --> 00:55:04.390
But that advice uh at least builds on this idea of repeated

00:55:04.390 --> 00:55:05.350
interaction, right?

00:55:05.510 --> 00:55:10.390
That's like the thing without which you cannot have a relationship.

00:55:10.630 --> 00:55:16.160
Um, one of the things that this idea of sort of an architecture of loneliness misses,

00:55:16.240 --> 00:55:21.760
though, is that it's not just about the mixed-use space and the time and seeing the

00:55:21.760 --> 00:55:22.640
same people.

00:55:23.280 --> 00:55:27.600
At some point, you're actually going to have to have time to spend on them.

00:55:28.080 --> 00:55:31.280
And so there's a really uh there's a fun study.

00:55:31.440 --> 00:55:33.120
It's admittedly very small.

00:55:33.280 --> 00:55:39.030
It's admittedly with undergrads by Hall out of Kansas that says it takes

00:55:39.030 --> 00:55:40.870
200 hours to make a friend.

00:55:41.110 --> 00:55:45.590
Um someone should absolutely do a giant version of that study.

00:55:45.670 --> 00:55:46.870
It would be very cool.

00:55:47.110 --> 00:55:53.110
Um but in any case, yeah, uh one of the things that it it misses is the time it takes to

00:55:53.110 --> 00:55:55.110
actually make a friend.

00:55:55.270 --> 00:55:59.670
Um, and that's something that uh a lot of us lack too.

00:55:59.910 --> 00:56:03.360
Um or uh so it pins off.

00:56:03.840 --> 00:56:07.840
And and just and the difficulty of coordinating schedules, everyone's got all their shit

00:56:07.840 --> 00:56:08.320
going on.

00:56:08.720 --> 00:56:10.480
Oh my god, yeah, right?

00:56:10.800 --> 00:56:15.040
Just like finding a common time is like the planets aligning, you know, it's it's crazy.

00:56:15.360 --> 00:56:18.480
And that's after you solve the problem of wanting the friend.

00:56:18.720 --> 00:56:19.920
So uh Yes, yes.

00:56:20.160 --> 00:56:23.600
Yeah, I there are people that probably want to be your friends, right?

00:56:23.680 --> 00:56:28.090
And I'm sure this is true for both of you, that you're just like, eh, I'd rather not, you

00:56:28.090 --> 00:56:31.290
know, and you see them and they want to have this conversation.

00:56:31.610 --> 00:56:36.810
Um, and yeah, Pinself, I'm thinking about that uh curb your enthusiasm episode where he

00:56:36.810 --> 00:56:40.010
always talks to the guy on his way into the golf club.

00:56:40.490 --> 00:56:45.450
And um, it's just this like rigmarole of a conversation he doesn't want to have, he just

00:56:45.450 --> 00:56:48.010
wants to go and play golf with his real friends.

00:56:48.250 --> 00:56:50.970
Um, he's he has enough friends, he's good.

00:56:51.290 --> 00:56:56.500
Um, and uh so when the next guy comes, he never rolls down the window like to start the

00:56:56.500 --> 00:56:57.060
conversation.

00:56:57.140 --> 00:56:59.220
He just doesn't even go there.

00:56:59.460 --> 00:57:05.300
Um, but yeah, anyway, so you have to find the friends that you want and then

00:57:05.380 --> 00:57:10.820
actually make time for them while they're doing the same for you because you're not just

00:57:10.820 --> 00:57:15.700
picking friends like a claw game, you're trying to pick somebody who picks you back.

00:57:16.430 --> 00:57:17.070
Yes.

00:57:17.390 --> 00:57:23.230
I mean, do you think that part of the problem of why it's so hard to make friends is

00:57:23.230 --> 00:57:27.630
precisely because we're so choosy about our friends?

00:57:28.270 --> 00:57:30.990
Uh well, that's really interesting.

00:57:31.630 --> 00:57:37.470
Um, and uh I mean what feeds into this is being eager to make friends

00:57:37.470 --> 00:57:42.240
with someone, we all sometimes take as a cue that you're kind of low status and cringe.

00:57:42.320 --> 00:57:44.960
That like you must not have a lot of friends, so you must be kind of a loser.

00:57:45.120 --> 00:57:47.920
And if you're eager to be my friend, then you must be kind of a loser.

00:57:48.080 --> 00:57:53.920
Uh and so we get caught in this feedback loop where none of us have friends, but in

00:57:53.920 --> 00:57:58.000
order to uh try to get a friend, you have to look eager to make friends, which makes you

00:57:58.000 --> 00:57:59.440
look like an unappealing friend.

00:57:59.520 --> 00:58:00.800
Uh, could that be going on?

00:58:00.880 --> 00:58:01.440
I don't know.

00:58:01.870 --> 00:58:04.430
Yeah, so I think that's probably part of it.

00:58:04.590 --> 00:58:06.430
I would guess that's a mistaken.

00:58:06.590 --> 00:58:08.350
So that is a perception.

00:58:08.430 --> 00:58:13.150
I I believe I have anek data, and I think we have some preliminary data from an honors

00:58:13.310 --> 00:58:14.670
project we're doing on.

00:58:14.910 --> 00:58:20.350
So there's a lot of work in the romantic relationships literature on um singles

00:58:20.750 --> 00:58:25.950
and how they're stigmatized, and especially people who are voluntarily single, they're just

00:58:26.030 --> 00:58:27.150
they feel good on their own.

00:58:27.310 --> 00:58:29.790
People are like, what's wrong with those nutters?

00:58:29.950 --> 00:58:35.660
Um, And uh we're trying to do a similar line of work, just

00:58:35.660 --> 00:58:41.580
understanding basic person perception stuff about what we'd call friend singles,

00:58:41.740 --> 00:58:41.980
right?

00:58:42.140 --> 00:58:44.700
So people who um don't have friends.

00:58:44.940 --> 00:58:48.860
And then we could split that further into people who want friends and don't have them, and

00:58:48.860 --> 00:58:53.070
people who don't want friends and don't have them, the sort of lone wolf kind of folks.

00:58:53.550 --> 00:58:53.790
Yeah.

00:58:54.030 --> 00:58:59.790
Um, and uh, I would guess that there is a negative perception of people who don't have

00:58:59.790 --> 00:59:05.710
friends compared to people who do have friends, and a cue of not having friends is wanting

00:59:05.710 --> 00:59:06.270
friends.

00:59:06.430 --> 00:59:10.110
And so, yes, exactly what you're saying would likely be true.

00:59:10.350 --> 00:59:14.110
If this person wants to be my friend, what's wrong with them that they don't already have

00:59:14.110 --> 00:59:14.670
friends?

00:59:14.880 --> 00:59:15.120
Yeah.

00:59:15.280 --> 00:59:16.960
You know, it's uh what is that?

00:59:17.120 --> 00:59:19.360
I don't want to be a member of any club that would have me.

00:59:19.440 --> 00:59:19.840
Who is that?

00:59:20.000 --> 00:59:20.160
Yes.

00:59:20.400 --> 00:59:21.200
Groucho Marks.

00:59:21.760 --> 00:59:22.480
That sounds about right.

00:59:22.560 --> 00:59:22.640
Yeah.

00:59:22.800 --> 00:59:22.960
Yeah.

00:59:23.120 --> 00:59:23.840
Something like that.

00:59:23.920 --> 00:59:24.240
Yeah.

00:59:24.560 --> 00:59:28.400
So we have to somehow make friends without making it look like we want to make friends.

00:59:28.560 --> 00:59:29.280
That sounds really hard.

00:59:30.400 --> 00:59:32.080
I mean, grad school was great for this.

00:59:32.240 --> 00:59:34.400
You're all in a room together hanging out.

00:59:34.560 --> 00:59:36.480
You're forced to be next to each other.

00:59:36.640 --> 00:59:42.320
You're in a foxhole essentially fighting for the one job out of 500 that might

00:59:42.320 --> 00:59:43.520
possibly, you know.

00:59:43.790 --> 00:59:49.710
But um yeah, you can't artificially put people in stressful situations next to

00:59:49.710 --> 00:59:55.070
people that have the same interests as them four years, uh, day in and day out.

00:59:55.310 --> 00:59:58.110
But that would probably be a good way to make friends.

00:59:58.350 --> 00:59:58.670
Yeah.

00:59:58.830 --> 01:00:03.310
I suspect another part of uh why it's so hard to make friends, or at least part of the

01:00:03.310 --> 01:00:07.710
anxiety about it, is that in order to be friends with someone, you sort of have to

01:00:07.820 --> 01:00:09.500
equivalently like each other.

01:00:09.660 --> 01:00:13.180
And that itself is a really hard coordination problem to solve.

01:00:13.260 --> 01:00:16.620
Because you don't want to be in a relationship where you like the person way more than they

01:00:16.620 --> 01:00:17.260
like you.

01:00:17.500 --> 01:00:17.980
Right.

01:00:18.140 --> 01:00:22.700
Uh, and oftentimes, like we find ourselves in these relationships where we're liked more,

01:00:22.860 --> 01:00:24.780
where the person likes us more than we like them.

01:00:25.020 --> 01:00:30.220
And we're often reluctant to signal that to them because that could uh sorry, do you hear

01:00:30.220 --> 01:00:30.300
that?

01:00:30.380 --> 01:00:31.420
My daughter's crying.

01:00:31.820 --> 01:00:32.700
Uh no, okay, good.

01:00:32.780 --> 01:00:33.740
I'm glad you don't hear it.

01:00:33.900 --> 01:00:39.010
Um so we don't wanna so if if I secretly don't like someone as much as they like me, or if

01:00:39.010 --> 01:00:43.730
I don't like them at all, like we're very reluctant to sh let them know.

01:00:43.890 --> 01:00:48.130
Like, so it's really hard to actually figure out whether someone likes you as much as you

01:00:48.130 --> 01:00:50.930
like them because if if they didn't, they wouldn't tell you, right?

01:00:51.250 --> 01:00:51.410
Yes.

01:00:51.730 --> 01:00:52.850
That's the other side of it.

01:00:52.930 --> 01:00:53.250
Yeah.

01:00:53.570 --> 01:00:55.810
They're not gonna tell you that they don't like you.

01:00:56.300 --> 01:00:59.340
Yeah, there's just yeah, there's tremendous uncertainty.

01:00:59.580 --> 01:01:03.100
Uh, and there's really no way around that uncertainty.

01:01:03.660 --> 01:01:06.460
It's the it's the same thing as in romantic relationships.

01:01:06.540 --> 01:01:11.580
So let's just think of it as a dyadic kind of thing, but you have to calibrate, right?

01:01:11.820 --> 01:01:16.060
So I like you a three, and uh you like me a four.

01:01:16.140 --> 01:01:21.770
So maybe I go up to four if I want to, because you showed four, but if I like you a three

01:01:21.850 --> 01:01:25.610
and you like me an eight, I'm like, oh, this is a little uncomfortable.

01:01:25.770 --> 01:01:26.890
I don't know here.

01:01:27.050 --> 01:01:32.330
And I can't like it, does not behoove me to tell you that I like you a three when you like

01:01:32.330 --> 01:01:32.810
me an eight.

01:01:32.970 --> 01:01:37.370
Because if you like me that much, you're gonna take my side over more people, you're gonna

01:01:37.370 --> 01:01:39.690
prioritize my needs over more people.

01:01:39.930 --> 01:01:45.450
So it's great for me if you think that I think you're my best friend, even though I think

01:01:45.450 --> 01:01:46.810
that you're a wanker, right?

01:01:46.970 --> 01:01:48.410
And it could and it could be bad for you.

01:01:50.120 --> 01:01:53.880
And it could be bad for you if the truth came out, because if you told the person that you

01:01:53.880 --> 01:01:57.320
were a three, that could end the relationship and they could become your enemy.

01:01:57.640 --> 01:02:01.480
They could become actually hostile to you and do things to damage your reputation.

01:02:01.640 --> 01:02:02.680
They could become an enemy.

01:02:03.000 --> 01:02:06.040
Yeah, you so you want these people to like you.

01:02:06.440 --> 01:02:08.600
And you have to put out a lot of energy.

01:02:08.680 --> 01:02:14.520
Well, if you're me, you have to put a lot of energy out in order to like be likable, right?

01:02:14.920 --> 01:02:17.350
Um that's not true, Jamie.

01:02:17.430 --> 01:02:18.150
That's not true, Jamie.

01:02:18.230 --> 01:02:18.950
You're very likable.

01:02:19.270 --> 01:02:21.270
Well, with you guys, it's not work.

01:02:21.590 --> 01:02:22.950
Um, but you know.

01:02:23.430 --> 01:02:28.310
We we also there's another thing too, which is that uh I mean, with the romantic thing is

01:02:28.310 --> 01:02:31.990
sort of analogous, but it's even worse for friendship than the romantic thing because you

01:02:31.990 --> 01:02:36.310
know, presumably the romantic thing, at least there's sort of some notion of like standard.

01:02:36.870 --> 01:02:41.510
This is the most like non-sexual way to put the idea of sexuality, but it's almost like a

01:02:41.510 --> 01:02:43.830
canalization of like possibility space, right?

01:02:43.990 --> 01:02:47.560
Yeah, sort of like there's Yeah, you know, like there's no first base, second base, or

01:02:47.560 --> 01:02:48.920
third base for friendship.

01:02:49.160 --> 01:02:49.640
So exactly.

01:02:49.800 --> 01:02:55.320
So there's even the additional problem of sort of like we are going to uh slowly like

01:02:55.560 --> 01:03:00.120
escalate the relationship, and that's an additional complication of a friendship.

01:03:00.200 --> 01:03:05.080
Like, there's no like, oh yeah, having sex, having a family, like you know, getting

01:03:05.080 --> 01:03:05.480
married.

01:03:05.640 --> 01:03:10.120
It's it's like a friendship, there's no delineation of uh of that.

01:03:10.280 --> 01:03:16.210
And so if you start early and there's minimal friendship cues, that's

01:03:16.210 --> 01:03:21.970
hiding a latent ideal, but neither person knows the other person well enough, maybe, or

01:03:21.970 --> 01:03:24.130
maybe they do, and then then it's easier to coordinate.

01:03:24.210 --> 01:03:29.970
But that's an additional complication of sort of we don't even know what the other wants or

01:03:29.970 --> 01:03:32.210
even what we want because we don't know the other person well enough.

01:03:32.290 --> 01:03:33.650
So it's really complicated.

01:03:33.730 --> 01:03:33.970
Yeah.

01:03:34.290 --> 01:03:39.700
No, it really it's a a coordination problem, a common knowledge problem,

01:03:40.340 --> 01:03:42.980
a liking problem, a timing problem.

01:03:43.860 --> 01:03:45.780
It's all of these problems.

01:03:45.860 --> 01:03:51.140
And I I love what you're both saying about it, how it's similar to and at once different

01:03:51.140 --> 01:03:54.260
from the romantic relationship space.

01:03:54.900 --> 01:04:00.020
And to complicate it more, you know, you are not looking for, as most people typically are,

01:04:00.180 --> 01:04:03.380
a single person that you then pair off with, right?

01:04:03.670 --> 01:04:07.110
Um, you have to navigate multiple friendships at any one time.

01:04:07.190 --> 01:04:11.670
And maybe you have a best work friend and a best friend from high school and another best

01:04:11.670 --> 01:04:14.390
friend from this other situation.

01:04:14.710 --> 01:04:18.550
Um, but I uh so okay, I'm gonna ask you all a question now.

01:04:18.630 --> 01:04:19.750
Is that is that okay?

01:04:20.070 --> 01:04:20.470
Please.

01:04:20.710 --> 01:04:26.400
I'm going to put it in the most uh crass way possible, But out of curiosity, uh Pins

01:04:26.560 --> 01:04:32.160
off going back to what you said, what is the hand down the pants of friendship to you all?

01:04:32.560 --> 01:04:33.920
Yeah, what's what's the BJ?

01:04:34.160 --> 01:04:34.800
Yeah, I don't know.

01:04:35.280 --> 01:04:37.680
I mean, like when are you friends?

01:04:37.840 --> 01:04:39.600
Um I I have no idea.

01:04:39.760 --> 01:04:41.360
I I honestly have no idea.

01:04:41.600 --> 01:04:44.240
I think that's part of the that's why making friends is so hard.

01:04:44.480 --> 01:04:49.930
At least with romantic relationships, we have, you know, a shared background understanding

01:04:49.930 --> 01:04:52.090
of like what it means to progress in a relationship.

01:04:52.250 --> 01:04:57.450
The stages, you know, you got the bases, you got, you know, marriage, you got, you know,

01:04:57.610 --> 01:04:58.650
you know, w uh kids.

01:04:58.730 --> 01:04:59.690
We we have all of these stages.

01:05:06.090 --> 01:05:09.610
Yep, you got the you got the first kiss and then you got you know, but we have none of that

01:05:09.610 --> 01:05:10.410
for friendship.

01:05:10.570 --> 01:05:13.370
Like I don't even know I don't even know where to begin.

01:05:13.450 --> 01:05:14.570
Like I I don't know.

01:05:14.650 --> 01:05:17.930
Do you have any intuitions about what what the equivalent would be?

01:05:18.250 --> 01:05:21.060
I mean, I like the first kiss or something like that.

01:05:22.020 --> 01:05:27.620
You have made plans to hang out with one another on your own without

01:05:27.780 --> 01:05:32.580
um uh you know the whatever structure in which you met.

01:05:32.980 --> 01:05:38.820
Um so you met each other and then you you go forth and have

01:05:38.820 --> 01:05:40.820
a coffee date or something.

01:05:41.060 --> 01:05:46.790
Um so my best friend um uh who is Keela

01:05:47.030 --> 01:05:50.470
Williams, a professor of psychology at Hamilton College.

01:05:50.630 --> 01:05:56.630
Um, also, I think she's taught the first class on friendship that I know of at the college

01:05:56.630 --> 01:05:57.430
level, period.

01:05:57.750 --> 01:05:58.710
That's insane.

01:05:59.030 --> 01:06:00.310
It is insane, right?

01:06:00.550 --> 01:06:01.670
We have to circle back to that.

01:06:01.750 --> 01:06:04.550
Why, why is friendship uh yeah, we have to circle back.

01:06:04.790 --> 01:06:05.270
Yeah, exactly.

01:06:05.510 --> 01:06:09.620
Um, so uh, and it was people loved that class.

01:06:09.780 --> 01:06:12.100
I'm gonna zoom into it at 5 15 a.m.

01:06:12.260 --> 01:06:13.380
in a couple weeks.

01:06:13.540 --> 01:06:15.060
Um, because I love that class.

01:06:15.140 --> 01:06:16.820
So I love the idea of that class.

01:06:17.060 --> 01:06:22.820
Um so um uh I for the first

01:06:22.820 --> 01:06:26.740
year that we knew each other, um, I thought she hated me.

01:06:26.980 --> 01:06:28.500
It turns out that's her face.

01:06:28.750 --> 01:06:29.470
You know her.

01:06:29.550 --> 01:06:32.430
And I think you exactly you find it funny because you know her.

01:06:33.070 --> 01:06:35.070
Resting bitch face, I believe is the term.

01:06:35.390 --> 01:06:37.070
Uh it it's one of them, man.

01:06:37.150 --> 01:06:37.310
Yeah.

01:06:37.550 --> 01:06:42.350
Um, and so she, but we bonded over Val Kilmer.

01:06:42.750 --> 01:06:48.670
Um, in any movie that Val Kilmer is in, with the exception of Heat, uh, you should

01:06:48.670 --> 01:06:50.110
want to be Val Kilmer.

01:06:50.300 --> 01:06:55.340
So if I am romantically dating you and you tell me that you want to be Maverick, that is

01:06:55.340 --> 01:06:55.980
the end.

01:06:56.140 --> 01:06:56.860
That is it.

01:06:57.020 --> 01:06:59.980
Like you want to be a shortfoot to that guy?

01:07:00.220 --> 01:07:01.340
Absolutely not.

01:07:01.580 --> 01:07:01.900
No.

01:07:02.460 --> 01:07:06.220
Um, but Iceman, that's the right answer.

01:07:06.380 --> 01:07:09.740
Uh, I mean, you could also Viper is cool and whatever.

01:07:09.900 --> 01:07:15.020
Anyway, um, Doc Holiday, who by the way went to Penn for dentistry.

01:07:15.260 --> 01:07:18.380
So um, you should want to be him.

01:07:18.770 --> 01:07:20.130
I'm here, Huckleberry.

01:07:20.210 --> 01:07:23.650
That's come on, like, yeah, you ain't no Daisy at all.

01:07:23.890 --> 01:07:29.010
Um, Real Genius, which is what I thought academia would be a little bit as well.

01:07:29.090 --> 01:07:33.170
I thought it would be the West Wing crossed with the movie Real Genius, where they blow up

01:07:33.170 --> 01:07:35.890
the guy's house with popcorn and lasers.

01:07:36.050 --> 01:07:38.210
And anyway, it doesn't hold up.

01:07:38.450 --> 01:07:39.410
Val Kilmer.

01:07:39.570 --> 01:07:42.210
Anyway, so we bonded over Val Kilmer.

01:07:42.450 --> 01:07:48.340
Um, and uh we were in some room on campus at

01:07:48.340 --> 01:07:52.180
ASU, um, just the two of us talking about work.

01:07:52.260 --> 01:07:53.940
We were talking about ideas.

01:07:54.180 --> 01:07:59.860
Um, and uh we started sort of baring the

01:07:59.860 --> 01:08:05.700
neck a little bit in terms of sharing secrets and ideas or evaluative

01:08:05.700 --> 01:08:07.940
concepts and ideas about other people.

01:08:08.420 --> 01:08:14.250
Um, I told her uh something um that was very private

01:08:14.250 --> 01:08:17.850
about my partner at the time, not in the that's like third base.

01:08:18.330 --> 01:08:20.730
That's like divulging sensitive information.

01:08:20.810 --> 01:08:22.410
That's like hand down the pants, right?

01:08:22.650 --> 01:08:24.410
It re It really might be.

01:08:24.570 --> 01:08:27.610
Um I think those are sort of like entrees.

01:08:27.770 --> 01:08:31.450
So people talk about bids for attention and romantic relationships.

01:08:31.850 --> 01:08:36.730
Um I think sharing sensitive information is a bit of a bearing of the neck or a showing of

01:08:36.730 --> 01:08:37.290
the stomach.

01:08:37.450 --> 01:08:43.440
It's um social play, but it can have really serious consequences in a way that just, you

01:08:43.440 --> 01:08:45.440
know, some play might not.

01:08:45.600 --> 01:08:49.760
Um so anyway, that to me is I remember that moment.

01:08:49.920 --> 01:08:52.880
I remember that is when we became friends.

01:08:53.120 --> 01:08:58.640
Whereas uh with some other friends, like if um folks you've uh so you've had Dan Conroy

01:08:58.640 --> 01:09:02.160
Beam on your show, he and I can't even remember when we met.

01:09:02.810 --> 01:09:06.410
The first time I really remember talking to him is an H bus.

01:09:06.650 --> 01:09:11.770
I sat down next to him and I congratulated him on a BBS paper, which by the way, he did not

01:09:11.770 --> 01:09:12.090
have.

01:09:12.490 --> 01:09:16.010
Um, and we just started talking and we became friends.

01:09:16.170 --> 01:09:17.210
And I don't know.

01:09:17.450 --> 01:09:18.250
I I don't know.

01:09:18.410 --> 01:09:20.570
I don't know when I met Eric Peterson.

01:09:21.050 --> 01:09:26.340
Uh Dave, I met you uh at an EvSec pre

01:09:26.500 --> 01:09:27.860
conference, I think.

01:09:28.020 --> 01:09:31.300
And Rob Kurzban introduced us.

01:09:31.460 --> 01:09:37.460
Uh, you and Annie were there, and I maybe it was I don't know, 2014, 2015,

01:09:37.620 --> 01:09:38.500
around there.

01:09:38.660 --> 01:09:42.100
Um, I remember that, but I don't remember meeting you.

01:09:42.180 --> 01:09:45.540
I just remember that I was going to be introduced to you and I was excited.

01:09:45.780 --> 01:09:48.820
Um, pince off, I don't know how the hell we met.

01:09:48.900 --> 01:09:54.020
And I figured that we were friends before I moved here and we like actually became friends.

01:09:54.470 --> 01:09:57.270
I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I think we met at HBAS.

01:09:57.750 --> 01:09:59.350
It must have been true, right?

01:09:59.430 --> 01:09:59.590
Yeah.

01:09:59.910 --> 01:10:01.830
Like where else would we have met?

01:10:02.310 --> 01:10:08.310
Yeah, I think I remember, yeah, it was maybe I we weren't we didn't become like like

01:10:08.310 --> 01:10:12.710
good friends until you moved to LA, but I remember we were like we knew each other at

01:10:12.710 --> 01:10:13.430
HBS's.

01:10:13.510 --> 01:10:17.750
I remember like we just complimented each other's research or something at one of the HBSs.

01:10:17.990 --> 01:10:18.230
Yeah.

01:10:18.470 --> 01:10:23.780
Um I do think it's easier, at least for me, to become friends with other Ev people

01:10:24.180 --> 01:10:27.380
because we share so many of the same ideas.

01:10:28.020 --> 01:10:30.980
Um uh first principles, maybe.

01:10:31.140 --> 01:10:32.340
Um, I don't know.

01:10:32.420 --> 01:10:37.700
It's uh uh I'm much more relaxed with those folks.

01:10:37.940 --> 01:10:43.780
Um it could also be a particular like personal idiosyncratic weirdness

01:10:43.860 --> 01:10:48.610
of I always worry that I'm not nice because I'm I'm not.

01:10:48.930 --> 01:10:52.210
Um, but or at least it takes a lot of effort.

01:10:52.450 --> 01:10:56.450
Um, and I don't put it in unless there's reason.

01:10:56.770 --> 01:11:02.210
Um and uh social psychologists really value

01:11:02.210 --> 01:11:08.210
niceness and the performance of niceness and thanking people after the talk and all

01:11:08.210 --> 01:11:12.930
these things that I would consider to be gargantuan wastes of time that they could do

01:11:12.930 --> 01:11:15.810
quickly with the same impact on the other person.

01:11:16.200 --> 01:11:22.200
Um uh so anyway, um I don't feel as I don't I worry that I'm an asshole and I

01:11:22.200 --> 01:11:24.840
don't feel that way with you guys in in our world.

01:11:25.080 --> 01:11:27.080
Not even the anthropologists.

01:11:27.320 --> 01:11:28.280
So yeah.

01:11:28.600 --> 01:11:34.280
Behavioral ecologists, some of them, but is that is that is that kind of a throwback to

01:11:34.280 --> 01:11:35.400
Philly too?

01:11:36.690 --> 01:11:37.730
I think it is.

01:11:37.890 --> 01:11:43.490
We're I I mean, I don't I don't think we were particularly colonized by the Dutch or

01:11:43.490 --> 01:11:45.970
anything, but we don't sugarcoat a lot.

01:11:46.130 --> 01:11:48.130
Uh, we're very straightforward.

01:11:48.210 --> 01:11:50.130
Um, and I really appreciate that.

01:11:50.290 --> 01:11:55.730
I appreciate that in everyone I interact with, a directness and and honesty.

01:11:55.810 --> 01:12:01.460
And like there's a level of respect to that, but I think you don't you don't get

01:12:01.620 --> 01:12:07.460
with all of this, you know, baroque niceness um or the performance

01:12:07.460 --> 01:12:08.980
of anyway.

01:12:09.460 --> 01:12:12.740
Uh yeah, I I don't know what the hell is wrong with me.

01:12:14.020 --> 01:12:19.700
I mean, I I suspect another part of the friendship loneliness crisis,

01:12:19.780 --> 01:12:24.020
whatever you want to call it, um, is that it really helps to have a shared thing that

01:12:24.020 --> 01:12:24.420
you're into.

01:12:24.500 --> 01:12:26.020
So we're all into F-Psych.

01:12:26.500 --> 01:12:32.150
Um and it's really hard to be friends with someone if you don't have a shared thing.

01:12:32.390 --> 01:12:38.230
And I think what's happening with culture is that it's getting more and more divided and

01:12:38.230 --> 01:12:40.230
nichefied for lack of a better word.

01:12:40.390 --> 01:12:44.310
Like there are so many different kinds of shows and different kinds of music and different

01:12:44.310 --> 01:12:46.470
kinds of food and different kinds of cloak, whatever.

01:12:46.550 --> 01:12:48.070
There's so many different subcultures.

01:12:48.230 --> 01:12:52.630
And the odds that you're gonna find a friend who is into the same shit that you're into are

01:12:52.630 --> 01:12:53.270
very low.

01:12:53.500 --> 01:12:57.260
And that's a huge problem because you really need a shared thing in order to, you know,

01:12:57.340 --> 01:12:58.940
really escalate a friendship.

01:12:59.340 --> 01:13:03.900
Yeah, there's some really cool work on shared reality that folks are doing here.

01:13:04.060 --> 01:13:09.900
Uh, Grace Meow, um, uh, this uh who's a communication student

01:13:09.900 --> 01:13:13.500
and social neuroscientist working with Rick Dale and Matt Lieberman.

01:13:13.740 --> 01:13:19.740
Um Matt Lieberman's student uh Bear Goldstein is doing this ridiculously

01:13:19.890 --> 01:13:23.890
badass study that I'll probably butcher right now.

01:13:23.970 --> 01:13:29.650
But essentially people who are friends, and this comes from some Carolyn Parkinson's work,

01:13:30.050 --> 01:13:34.050
they have, and people who are closer in the social network and necessarily friends

01:13:34.130 --> 01:13:35.010
sometimes, right?

01:13:35.170 --> 01:13:40.850
So end up having more brain synchrony when they watch videos.

01:13:41.410 --> 01:13:47.090
So if we all watched an episode of the Hulu show the bear or FX show the

01:13:47.090 --> 01:13:53.080
bear, Um, there's one episode where Sydney and Carmi are fighting, and

01:13:53.080 --> 01:13:55.240
you could take one side or the other.

01:13:55.480 --> 01:14:01.480
Um, and as Bear describes it, um, he took one person's side and someone else took

01:14:01.480 --> 01:14:06.200
another person's side, and then they couldn't believe that they weren't seeing the same

01:14:06.200 --> 01:14:10.360
thing, like that dress meme that some people saw it blue and black black, and other people

01:14:10.360 --> 01:14:11.560
saw it white and gold.

01:14:12.010 --> 01:14:13.690
They couldn't even see it.

01:14:13.770 --> 01:14:18.250
And that's what I love about the dress is that I can't even see it the other way.

01:14:18.570 --> 01:14:24.570
Um, and so uh the then they talked about it and they changed perspectives

01:14:24.570 --> 01:14:25.530
and blah, blah, blah.

01:14:25.690 --> 01:14:31.290
But what he's going to try to do is actually um get the sort of

01:14:31.290 --> 01:14:36.480
average of the, I'm just going to call it because I'm not a neuroscientist, and this is

01:14:36.480 --> 01:14:41.040
going to be really clear in a second, because I'm going to call it the brain wavery of the

01:14:41.120 --> 01:14:44.960
um people that are on Carmi side versus Sydney side.

01:14:45.200 --> 01:14:50.720
And while some of these patient people are actually patients undergoing brain

01:14:50.720 --> 01:14:56.690
surgery, um, he's going to try and activate that pattern to see

01:14:56.690 --> 01:15:00.370
if while they watch they have to be awake during the surgery, while they watch this episode

01:15:00.370 --> 01:15:05.410
of the bear, activating that pattern makes them more likely to take the side of one person

01:15:05.410 --> 01:15:06.050
or another.

01:15:06.210 --> 01:15:11.730
So um basically is going to get the average of you know the Carmi side versus the

01:15:11.730 --> 01:15:12.770
Sydney side.

01:15:13.490 --> 01:15:14.770
And it's so cool.

01:15:14.930 --> 01:15:20.400
So people are doing really, really neat work about um synchrony and

01:15:20.400 --> 01:15:26.160
shared reality and i think coming from having something in common like evpsych perhaps in

01:15:26.160 --> 01:15:32.000
particular evpsy for reasons i don't quite understand um provides you a

01:15:32.000 --> 01:15:37.920
shared reality provides you um all of these coordination points um

01:15:38.080 --> 01:15:43.920
things in common uh times you might see each other that lend themselves to creating

01:15:43.920 --> 01:15:48.250
these friendships or alliances Um there was more I was gonna say, but I got totally

01:15:48.250 --> 01:15:50.490
distracted by how cool that study is.

01:15:50.810 --> 01:15:53.850
That that's uh some weird freaky sci-fi stuff.

01:15:54.250 --> 01:15:55.290
It is, right?

01:15:55.850 --> 01:15:56.250
Yeah.

01:15:56.410 --> 01:16:00.410
Uh I also I just can I say I love the idea of you're about to get brain surgery and

01:16:00.410 --> 01:16:04.170
somebody's like, We're gonna have you watch a TV during your brain surgery.

01:16:04.250 --> 01:16:04.730
I just love that.

01:16:05.370 --> 01:16:06.490
It's the bear, by the way.

01:16:06.650 --> 01:16:07.450
Do you like the bear?

01:16:07.530 --> 01:16:08.650
Have you seen it?

01:16:08.970 --> 01:16:11.290
Um I have not I'm yeah, I'm sorry.

01:16:11.640 --> 01:16:12.680
Oh, it's really good.

01:16:13.080 --> 01:16:13.800
Oh, right.

01:16:14.040 --> 01:16:19.800
So um one of the experiments that I would love to do that you cannot do, um, even though

01:16:19.800 --> 01:16:21.320
this one is like, could you do that?

01:16:21.400 --> 01:16:22.840
Yes, they're gonna do that.

01:16:23.000 --> 01:16:26.680
Um uh so pins off to what you were saying.

01:16:26.920 --> 01:16:32.440
Um back when there was a shared reality, when anybody everybody watched either like

01:16:32.440 --> 01:16:35.640
CBS or ABC or NBC, right?

01:16:36.310 --> 01:16:36.710
Yeah.

01:16:36.950 --> 01:16:39.430
So there were common touch points.

01:16:39.510 --> 01:16:41.350
There was a shared reality there.

01:16:41.590 --> 01:16:47.430
And how cool would it be if we forced people to only have those three channels for a

01:16:47.430 --> 01:16:53.270
little while and see if people that had less choice or fewer

01:16:53.270 --> 01:16:59.270
choices in these cultural touchstones actually ended up being less lonely because

01:16:59.270 --> 01:17:02.070
they had more shared reality with other people.

01:17:02.560 --> 01:17:04.720
I think that could be a possibility.

01:17:05.520 --> 01:17:09.680
I also think that they can go on their phones and get on the internet and find, you know, a

01:17:09.680 --> 01:17:15.120
13-year-old SoundCloud rapper with a Xanax problem and a face tattoo that four other people

01:17:15.120 --> 01:17:17.760
have heard of and it ruins everything.

01:17:19.280 --> 01:17:24.000
Yeah, it would be cool to see if, you know, the rise of streaming and the decline of big

01:17:24.000 --> 01:17:30.000
cable networks is associated with changes in loneliness to do like, you know,

01:17:30.370 --> 01:17:32.130
time series or something like that.

01:17:32.770 --> 01:17:33.170
Yeah.

01:17:33.410 --> 01:17:38.530
You'd have to do a time series to get anything close to causality because of the massive

01:17:38.530 --> 01:17:39.490
cohort effects.

01:17:39.570 --> 01:17:41.410
But that would be that would be really cool.

01:17:41.650 --> 01:17:43.410
Someone listening to this should do that.

01:17:43.890 --> 01:17:48.610
I mean, I know, I mean, just anecdotally, like a lot of the reason why people are into

01:17:48.610 --> 01:17:53.090
sports is precisely for social reasons, because it's such a great way to connect with

01:17:53.090 --> 01:17:53.330
people.

01:17:53.650 --> 01:17:59.020
Um, but the thing is like I hate sports and uh I know that if I watch sports I'd probably

01:17:59.020 --> 01:18:02.940
have an easier time connecting with people, but I don't want to connect with sports people.

01:18:03.260 --> 01:18:04.220
I don't know why.

01:18:04.380 --> 01:18:07.740
Maybe they're not high enough on on uh on my friendometer.

01:18:07.980 --> 01:18:08.780
I'm too picky.

01:18:09.180 --> 01:18:11.100
But yeah, I don't I don't like sports.

01:18:11.260 --> 01:18:12.860
Uh I find them boring.

01:18:13.020 --> 01:18:14.540
Um but there's another question.

01:18:16.860 --> 01:18:20.860
Um I you know, I don't I don't know about I don't know about repellent.

01:18:21.180 --> 01:18:23.910
Maybe sports the sports people is what I mean.

01:18:24.310 --> 01:18:26.150
Sports people can sometimes be repellent.

01:18:26.310 --> 01:18:26.630
Yeah.

01:18:26.870 --> 01:18:28.310
Um not always.

01:18:28.390 --> 01:18:29.190
I don't know.

01:18:29.510 --> 01:18:31.830
I think I just find it in intrinsically boring.

01:18:32.310 --> 01:18:33.270
I think that's that's it.

01:18:33.430 --> 01:18:36.470
And you know, I find boring things and boring people kind of repellent.

01:18:36.710 --> 01:18:38.790
Uh so that's probably tied in with it.

01:18:39.030 --> 01:18:42.230
Um I just need a lot of intellectual stimulation.

01:18:42.470 --> 01:18:44.870
And and sports just doesn't get me going.

01:18:45.110 --> 01:18:49.750
Uh but um anyway, leaving aside sports, I'm curious what you think.

01:18:49.990 --> 01:18:55.760
You mentioned at the beginning uh that Psyche has a weird sense of

01:18:55.760 --> 01:19:01.680
community and camaraderie that is probably absent from like social psych or um other

01:19:02.240 --> 01:19:03.040
like large areas, yeah.

01:19:03.120 --> 01:19:04.560
Like larger like yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:19:04.640 --> 01:19:08.320
Like not one of the small con subconferences like CESP or something, yeah.

01:19:08.720 --> 01:19:14.320
So I'm wondering if an ingredient of friendship is not merely having a shared thing or a

01:19:14.320 --> 01:19:19.360
shared group identity, but having a shared group identity that is in some way embattled.

01:19:20.830 --> 01:19:22.910
Well, I was gonna say distinct, but embattled.

01:19:22.990 --> 01:19:28.350
That would be embattled in in the minority, basically lowering the amount of

01:19:28.590 --> 01:19:31.790
outside options for people who are in that group.

01:19:32.030 --> 01:19:36.270
Because if I am a diehard evolutionary psychologist, it's a you know, as we know, it's a

01:19:36.270 --> 01:19:37.310
controversial field.

01:19:37.390 --> 01:19:42.510
Uh, that's going to limit my outside options for the number of people who will be friends

01:19:42.510 --> 01:19:48.480
with me, compared to if I was in more of a mainstream field or a mainstream discipline, or

01:19:48.480 --> 01:19:51.920
if I if I was uh into sports psychology, say.

01:19:52.240 --> 01:19:58.160
Um so maybe there's something about the perception of outside options of a of a

01:19:58.160 --> 01:20:02.960
minority or embattled group that increases camaraderie over and above group membership

01:20:02.960 --> 01:20:03.520
itself.

01:20:04.240 --> 01:20:07.680
So I I I don't think that that's the thing.

01:20:07.840 --> 01:20:09.970
Um Um, I think it's possible.

01:20:10.290 --> 01:20:15.730
I think being embattled, you know, I think that's probably a cue that you're willing to

01:20:15.730 --> 01:20:16.930
take these costs.

01:20:17.170 --> 01:20:21.810
But I would say, and where I thought you were going was that it's not just a shared

01:20:21.810 --> 01:20:27.570
identity, but it's a shared identity that's distinct from maybe something larger that

01:20:27.570 --> 01:20:29.570
anyone else could hold on to.

01:20:29.810 --> 01:20:35.410
And if you think about like the oh god, like the Frankfurt school kind of stuff or all of

01:20:35.410 --> 01:20:41.260
the um sociology of popular culture on adorno and subcultures

01:20:41.260 --> 01:20:47.260
of style and what's that hebdage um uh the that you have a

01:20:47.260 --> 01:20:53.180
style that is not only yours but sufficiently different

01:20:53.180 --> 01:20:58.860
from others is what's so important and that's what cues the the

01:20:58.860 --> 01:21:04.170
membership to one another um and so I I could see the

01:21:04.170 --> 01:21:09.530
distinctness of it being a component, but that it is embattled

01:21:10.010 --> 01:21:15.290
means you're really you are willing to pay a cost to engage in the yeah.

01:21:15.610 --> 01:21:16.970
I mean that that's an idea.

01:21:17.050 --> 01:21:17.370
I don't know.

01:21:17.610 --> 01:21:18.890
They're they're entry costs.

01:21:19.130 --> 01:21:20.250
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:21:21.050 --> 01:21:23.930
So it's sort of like the it's it's oh sorry, Jamie, go ahead.

01:21:24.200 --> 01:21:26.760
No, I said I was leaning back far from the mic.

01:21:26.920 --> 01:21:29.320
I taking all of this in.

01:21:29.480 --> 01:21:30.920
This is so much fun, by the way.

01:21:31.400 --> 01:21:31.560
Sorry.

01:21:33.560 --> 01:21:34.680
Yeah, that's why yeah.

01:21:34.840 --> 01:21:40.840
Um uh there's an idea that um hazing is sort of a like the sousis

01:21:40.920 --> 01:21:41.480
in other people.

01:21:41.560 --> 01:21:45.830
I know Andy Dalton was sort of in Aldo, Chimino Hi, Aldo.

01:21:45.910 --> 01:21:50.550
I'm not sure where you are now, but uh Aldo uh people were looking at this with the idea

01:21:50.550 --> 01:21:56.390
that sort of hazing is sort of the institutional structure that's a workaround when it's

01:21:56.390 --> 01:21:57.430
not an embattled thing.

01:21:57.510 --> 01:22:02.310
That's sort of that there's a um cost to

01:22:02.950 --> 01:22:07.030
enroll up front that show that weeds out people who aren't actually interested.

01:22:07.190 --> 01:22:11.910
Sort of like the fight club thing where they have to just sort of stand outside for in the

01:22:11.910 --> 01:22:14.310
rain for a day before they're even let in.

01:22:15.160 --> 01:22:16.600
I mean that makes a lot of sense.

01:22:16.680 --> 01:22:17.000
Yeah.

01:22:17.320 --> 01:22:17.480
Yeah.

01:22:17.560 --> 01:22:22.680
I know Richard Sosas has some data showing looking at like communes and how long they're

01:22:22.680 --> 01:22:27.880
likely to last and whether they disband, and basically showing a correlation between the

01:22:27.880 --> 01:22:33.640
costliness of the of the rituals uh and the initiation rites uh predicting the longevity of

01:22:33.640 --> 01:22:34.120
the group.

01:22:34.440 --> 01:22:40.370
Um connecting to this idea of entry costs sort of selecting for

01:22:40.370 --> 01:22:42.690
people who are committed to the group.

01:22:43.730 --> 01:22:44.530
It's interesting.

01:22:44.770 --> 01:22:44.930
Yeah.

01:22:45.090 --> 01:22:47.970
I wondered if you're not going to be able to please go.

01:22:49.090 --> 01:22:54.850
So the becoming part of a group sort of solves some of the problems we were

01:22:54.850 --> 01:22:57.010
talking about in dyadic friendship.

01:22:57.170 --> 01:23:01.300
So Pinsaf, Pin you were mentioning about uh mentioning pickiness.

01:23:01.940 --> 01:23:06.820
And so um, I mean, that in and of itself could be a problem because you have to get picked

01:23:06.820 --> 01:23:07.060
back.

01:23:07.140 --> 01:23:11.780
But presumably if you have high friend value or association value, you'd be more likely to

01:23:11.780 --> 01:23:12.980
get picked back.

01:23:13.300 --> 01:23:18.900
Um and uh Dan Conroy Beam and I have some work suggesting that and

01:23:18.900 --> 01:23:24.810
maybe um but uh the the cost of like the the common

01:23:24.810 --> 01:23:26.490
knowledge and calibration.

01:23:26.730 --> 01:23:32.650
Cause if you there's a group and person A wants to be part of the group, that's that's

01:23:32.650 --> 01:23:33.370
really simple.

01:23:33.530 --> 01:23:35.770
You you know you're in the group.

01:23:35.930 --> 01:23:41.210
Um you don't have to do that for the sort of dyadic or maybe you know few person friendship

01:23:41.210 --> 01:23:43.290
of that calibration cost.

01:23:43.690 --> 01:23:45.690
Um I hadn't thought about that before.

01:23:46.120 --> 01:23:50.680
I actually have a student uh with Dan, uh Clara Labrador, who's doing the agent-based

01:23:50.680 --> 01:23:52.920
modeling, and there's an association value.

01:23:53.160 --> 01:23:56.280
Um, and then it's looking at group formation and how stable they are.

01:23:56.360 --> 01:24:01.720
And basically what you find is that um the agents all have their own sort of association

01:24:01.720 --> 01:24:07.640
value, and eventually they actually sort of it's just it's just

01:24:07.640 --> 01:24:09.640
sort of an arbitrary in the in the toy game.

01:24:09.720 --> 01:24:14.970
It's uh it's something like you could be a hundred, which means you're really great to be

01:24:14.970 --> 01:24:19.610
around and or a zero, which means you're not really great in the in the artificial world,

01:24:19.690 --> 01:24:20.970
it's just a hundred to zero.

01:24:21.050 --> 01:24:25.930
But it would be presumably a stand in for you know the ability to you you're a good hunter,

01:24:26.010 --> 01:24:27.770
you have resources, you're funny.

01:24:28.090 --> 01:24:28.650
Okay, cool.

01:24:28.890 --> 01:24:29.610
Anything like that.

01:24:29.850 --> 01:24:30.410
Yeah, exactly.

01:24:30.490 --> 01:24:34.890
But it sort of just gets um distilled artificially down to like a zero to a hundred or or

01:24:35.130 --> 01:24:36.890
got it, um roughly speaking.

01:24:37.690 --> 01:24:43.320
But what she finds is that um if you include uh agents tracking

01:24:43.320 --> 01:24:48.760
reciprocity, so I sort of see if you'll be friends with me and then I'll wait back to see

01:24:48.760 --> 01:24:50.200
if you reciprocate.

01:24:50.360 --> 01:24:53.640
Um, and then also use third party representations.

01:24:53.720 --> 01:24:58.760
So I sort of the triad things of like, you know, do I'll try to sort of befriend people

01:24:58.760 --> 01:25:01.880
that uh I'm are friends with people I'm friends with, right?

01:25:01.960 --> 01:25:04.600
Um that kind of thing, that sort of transitivity.

01:25:04.840 --> 01:25:10.550
Um, if you include the reciprocity tracking and the third party or

01:25:10.550 --> 01:25:12.630
social learning, the transitivity.

01:25:12.710 --> 01:25:18.470
So I'm using if we're already friends, I'm gonna use how I see you interacting with

01:25:18.470 --> 01:25:23.750
other people as a gauge to see whether or not I should also try those people as friends.

01:25:23.910 --> 01:25:29.830
What you end up finding is that uh people will actually, the groups will assort by

01:25:30.140 --> 01:25:34.220
value, by association value, even then that's not programmed into the agents.

01:25:34.380 --> 01:25:39.980
If you strip out the third party representation where I don't use that

01:25:39.980 --> 01:25:44.460
transitive model and I'm just looking at who reciprocates, you don't get it.

01:25:44.700 --> 01:25:46.860
Um interesting.

01:25:47.020 --> 01:25:51.500
So in the same way that like in the mating domain, uh the tens will pair up with the tens

01:25:51.660 --> 01:25:55.740
and the nines will pair up with the nines, you see that in the group game where the tens

01:25:55.820 --> 01:26:01.090
will form a group of tens, the cool kids, the popular kids, and the k in the cafeteria and

01:26:01.170 --> 01:26:03.250
and so forth down the line.

01:26:03.650 --> 01:26:03.890
That's right.

01:26:04.370 --> 01:26:05.810
They're especially stable when they do.

01:26:05.890 --> 01:26:10.770
There's the occasional sort of um, and and some of the details are sort of a function of

01:26:10.770 --> 01:26:14.290
some of the details of implementing it, but the general principle applies.

01:26:14.450 --> 01:26:18.130
Um, but generally, you know, you get like stable groups of four, for example, and they're

01:26:18.130 --> 01:26:19.090
almost like carbon atoms.

01:26:19.170 --> 01:26:23.570
They're really hard to sort of break up, but occasionally it gets sort of like, you know, I

01:26:23.570 --> 01:26:29.080
think where there's somebody on a uh an edge where they're acceptable to one person in the

01:26:29.080 --> 01:26:30.120
group but not the others.

01:26:30.200 --> 01:26:33.960
So they're kind of constantly it's sort of a five then a four, a group of five then a four,

01:26:34.120 --> 01:26:35.160
group of five, then a four.

01:26:35.240 --> 01:26:35.800
Yeah.

01:26:36.200 --> 01:26:37.240
So interesting.

01:26:37.720 --> 01:26:43.400
If you amplify the hazing costs there or the the costs of entry,

01:26:43.800 --> 01:26:49.160
does that allow for a more heterogeneous uh group in terms of association value?

01:26:49.240 --> 01:26:51.080
Or it's a great question.

01:26:51.320 --> 01:26:53.400
Uh I should talk to Clara about that.

01:26:53.480 --> 01:26:54.520
And just curious.

01:26:54.680 --> 01:26:55.000
Yeah.

01:26:55.320 --> 01:26:59.630
That is I if anything, it might um reduce heterogeneity.

01:27:00.190 --> 01:27:05.070
So insofar as yeah, your ability to to incur those costs is correlated with your

01:27:05.070 --> 01:27:05.790
association value.

01:27:05.870 --> 01:27:06.910
So only that's right.

01:27:06.990 --> 01:27:08.350
What's the relationship between that?

01:27:08.510 --> 01:27:08.830
Yeah, yeah.

01:27:09.310 --> 01:27:09.390
Yeah.

01:27:09.790 --> 01:27:14.590
So if if the the costs function to sort of filter out people by their association value,

01:27:14.750 --> 01:27:20.540
then you could it could actually help, you know, uh stabilize groups of tens because only

01:27:20.540 --> 01:27:23.020
tens are willing or able to pay the costs.

01:27:23.100 --> 01:27:27.180
And so that's gonna ensure that only tens enter the group or stay in the group.

01:27:27.980 --> 01:27:28.780
Oh wow.

01:27:28.940 --> 01:27:31.260
That is yeah, that's a lot of fun.

01:27:31.500 --> 01:27:37.500
Um it also makes me think of so when I gave my job talk here at UCLA, the very

01:27:37.500 --> 01:27:43.180
first question I got was from Carrie Johnson, and it was about um couple's

01:27:43.340 --> 01:27:44.220
friends.

01:27:44.510 --> 01:27:50.510
Uh, and so if you are partnered with somebody who is like this is

01:27:50.510 --> 01:27:55.470
your partner, uh, most social outings in your, you know, time is inelastic.

01:27:55.550 --> 01:27:58.110
A lot of social outings, they're gonna have to be with you.

01:27:58.270 --> 01:28:03.950
And if they kind of suck or they're uh disagreeable, that can pose so many

01:28:03.950 --> 01:28:08.990
problems for you, not only um having couples' friends, but for you yourself having friends.

01:28:09.220 --> 01:28:12.420
Um, and uh thank God I love each of your wives.

01:28:12.500 --> 01:28:13.540
They're really cool.

01:28:13.700 --> 01:28:19.380
Um, but uh I what I told Carrie was like, my husband's really difficult.

01:28:19.540 --> 01:28:23.540
And I didn't mean that to be funny, but everybody thought that was really funny.

01:28:23.860 --> 01:28:28.260
Um somebody needs to have a somebody needs to have a theory of humor to explain that.

01:28:28.420 --> 01:28:30.820
So if only that existed.

01:28:30.900 --> 01:28:36.660
Um it does make it more difficult when you have

01:28:36.660 --> 01:28:39.150
to go into the group with someone.

01:28:39.390 --> 01:28:45.070
And typically, you know, uh, romantic couples will probably have similar association value,

01:28:45.150 --> 01:28:49.230
even if the good itself is not the same good that they're high on, right?

01:28:49.710 --> 01:28:55.550
Um, but um, and this is why in like the real world outside of academia, if I get

01:28:55.550 --> 01:29:01.470
stuck in like a sort of traditional gender group that is not a bunch of academics where all

01:29:01.470 --> 01:29:06.910
the women are in the kitchen and they're talking about God knows what, like their children,

01:29:07.400 --> 01:29:11.160
I oh man, I cannot get out of there soon enough.

01:29:11.240 --> 01:29:12.520
Thank God Bob doesn't talk to us.

01:29:12.920 --> 01:29:15.400
Yeah, it's like me being in a group of dudes talking about sports.

01:29:15.640 --> 01:29:17.160
Yeah, we could switch.

01:29:17.320 --> 01:29:19.560
I would totally talk about sports.

01:29:19.880 --> 01:29:21.320
I would totally talk about kids.

01:29:23.880 --> 01:29:24.440
It does.

01:29:24.600 --> 01:29:26.600
It really like, let's do this.

01:29:26.760 --> 01:29:32.600
Um, but also uh yeah, the the people that you associate with

01:29:32.760 --> 01:29:36.150
um do really, really affect you.

01:29:36.310 --> 01:29:41.350
Um, we don't we don't always think about it in that way, that they're sort of the, you

01:29:41.350 --> 01:29:45.910
know, pair-bonded atom that comes with you in the conversation.

01:29:46.950 --> 01:29:51.270
Jamie, one thing we've talked about in other episodes is sort of from an evolutionary

01:29:51.270 --> 01:29:56.310
perspective, one gets a sense of respect for the complexity and sort of

01:29:56.310 --> 01:29:59.430
fragility of human nature.

01:30:00.180 --> 01:30:01.220
Friendship.

01:30:01.380 --> 01:30:05.300
Well, I was thinking when I, you know, when you were coming on, I was thinking about how I

01:30:05.300 --> 01:30:09.620
think about friendship or how I think about the culture thinks about friendship.

01:30:09.780 --> 01:30:11.700
And it feels like such a luxury.

01:30:11.940 --> 01:30:16.500
It sort of feels like giving somebody a hug almost, where it's sort of seen as this sort of

01:30:16.660 --> 01:30:20.420
all it's a luxury that's not respected, or it's almost campy.

01:30:20.500 --> 01:30:21.700
It's sort of like, well, friendship.

01:30:21.780 --> 01:30:22.020
Yeah.

01:30:23.060 --> 01:30:24.340
Do you agree with that?

01:30:24.420 --> 01:30:27.860
And then do you have a thought about why that is?

01:30:28.670 --> 01:30:33.630
So I sort of agree with that to the extent that, and this is to the second part of your

01:30:33.630 --> 01:30:38.510
question, when people think about it, they don't think about it in terms of trade-offs or

01:30:38.510 --> 01:30:39.710
the net benefits.

01:30:39.790 --> 01:30:42.430
They just think friendship is a pure good.

01:30:42.910 --> 01:30:45.950
Like friendship is great, hugs are great.

01:30:46.110 --> 01:30:48.990
Um, at the very least, there's an opportunity cost.

01:30:49.150 --> 01:30:52.510
The hug that you are giving is the meal you're not hunting, right?

01:30:52.590 --> 01:30:56.510
And an evolutionary psychologist would at least get that.

01:30:56.990 --> 01:31:02.760
Um, I think a lot of people think that it really is this fuzzy, happy,

01:31:03.080 --> 01:31:05.400
purely beautiful thing.

01:31:06.360 --> 01:31:10.840
And so that would be that would be my best answer to that.

01:31:11.640 --> 01:31:16.600
We don't think about the fact that friendships are costly.

01:31:16.840 --> 01:31:19.160
You end up fighting some of your friends' battles.

01:31:19.320 --> 01:31:21.000
Your friends take some of your time.

01:31:21.640 --> 01:31:27.630
I'm working on this paper with uh Doug Kenrick and some grad students uh from across

01:31:27.630 --> 01:31:33.550
labs at ASU, actually a couple papers um on uh what we're calling

01:31:33.550 --> 01:31:34.270
bad friends.

01:31:34.350 --> 01:31:36.510
And it's not really bad so much as ambivalent.

01:31:36.590 --> 01:31:41.310
And there's some cool work on ambivalent ties, but um basically when we think about

01:31:41.310 --> 01:31:43.470
friends, we think about all the great things they do for you.

01:31:43.550 --> 01:31:47.070
And I even said, you know, friendship is the next best thing you could do for your health

01:31:47.070 --> 01:31:48.430
behind quitting smoking.

01:31:48.740 --> 01:31:53.220
Presumably, although we never say it, that is good friends, right?

01:31:53.780 --> 01:31:57.300
High quality, positive friendships.

01:31:58.100 --> 01:32:03.940
But you've probably had friends or former friends or colleagues

01:32:03.940 --> 01:32:07.300
who are a net drain on you, right?

01:32:08.020 --> 01:32:11.860
Or friends of friends who you can't get rid of because you can't get rid of the friend who

01:32:11.860 --> 01:32:13.060
are a net drain on you.

01:32:13.140 --> 01:32:14.980
And that's an indirect drain.

01:32:15.630 --> 01:32:21.630
So yeah, I think a part of the reason we think of it as a luxury or as a fluffy thing

01:32:21.950 --> 01:32:27.550
is we don't think about its uh gnarly underside and it has one.

01:32:27.790 --> 01:32:31.230
And an Ev person absolutely thinks about that.

01:32:31.470 --> 01:32:37.310
Um it's uh so there's this book series called the Sholomance series.

01:32:37.390 --> 01:32:43.360
It's like a young adult, um, dark Harry Potter, And it's a three-book series.

01:32:43.520 --> 01:32:45.200
The first book is really awesome.

01:32:45.360 --> 01:32:51.280
Um, and for to do magic, you need

01:32:51.280 --> 01:32:53.360
to incur costs.

01:32:53.520 --> 01:32:59.520
So, for example, you might do 50 push-ups or something to be able to cast a spell to clean

01:32:59.520 --> 01:33:00.240
your room.

01:33:00.480 --> 01:33:06.090
Um in Harry Potter, you're just Alohomora or whatever it is, right?

01:33:06.170 --> 01:33:08.330
You you magic is free.

01:33:08.410 --> 01:33:10.170
Um, and that's bullshit.

01:33:10.330 --> 01:33:12.730
Uh, I like worlds where magic is costly.

01:33:12.890 --> 01:33:15.610
Like the same thing in Lev Grossman's The Magicians.

01:33:15.690 --> 01:33:17.210
You have to pay a cost.

01:33:17.370 --> 01:33:22.490
But um, the Sholeman series makes the trade-offs so apparent and embedded into the world,

01:33:22.570 --> 01:33:26.090
it's it's almost like reading Ev fiction or something.

01:33:26.650 --> 01:33:30.730
Um how is it possible that there's so little work on friendship?

01:33:32.660 --> 01:33:35.780
Okay, so why is there so little work on friendship?

01:33:36.020 --> 01:33:39.460
Um so it is a compounding problem.

01:33:40.100 --> 01:33:45.860
Um first, people don't tend to think of it as a problem that needs to be solved.

01:33:46.020 --> 01:33:49.620
Um there's a real instinct blindness there, right?

01:33:49.700 --> 01:33:54.740
That friendship is a challenge or um consists of challenges that we have to solve in order

01:33:54.740 --> 01:33:55.700
to realize it.

01:33:55.860 --> 01:33:57.940
And so we haven't bothered with it.

01:33:58.580 --> 01:34:03.630
Whereas, you know, the most easy and direct comparison is romantic relationships.

01:34:03.790 --> 01:34:09.550
People have trouble having romantic relationships throughout history all the time, right?

01:34:09.790 --> 01:34:12.990
So we know that that's a problem to solve and we study it.

01:34:13.150 --> 01:34:16.190
Um, and maybe we even throw some money at it.

01:34:16.430 --> 01:34:17.310
Very cool.

01:34:17.630 --> 01:34:23.470
Um so if you don't realize it's a problem to solve, you

01:34:23.470 --> 01:34:25.310
don't even think to study it.

01:34:25.580 --> 01:34:31.580
Um, if you don't see it as a phenomenon that's interesting, you don't think to study

01:34:31.580 --> 01:34:31.740
it.

01:34:31.900 --> 01:34:35.260
And again, the direct comparison would be romantic relationships.

01:34:35.420 --> 01:34:38.700
People are always going to find it sexy and interesting because they're definitely going to

01:34:38.700 --> 01:34:42.060
want to have a romantic relationship, or most people, right?

01:34:42.460 --> 01:34:48.460
Um uh most people want to have friendships, but again, it's not a thing they see as

01:34:48.460 --> 01:34:50.270
a challenge that they have to solve.

01:34:51.310 --> 01:34:54.590
So that's sort of the first step of the problem.

01:34:55.790 --> 01:35:00.430
There people haven't studied it because they didn't realize it was a thing that was needed,

01:35:00.670 --> 01:35:05.310
worthy of study, or a challenge that the mind had to solve, or however you want to put it.

01:35:13.180 --> 01:35:18.140
So some sociologists study friendship, some anthropologists study friendship,

01:35:21.180 --> 01:35:23.180
psychologists who study friendship.

01:35:23.260 --> 01:35:26.780
So within social developmental psychologists study it all the time.

01:35:26.940 --> 01:35:27.660
Let's say that.

01:35:27.740 --> 01:35:29.820
I should say for adult friendship, right?

01:35:31.500 --> 01:35:36.140
So then you end up in health psychology, and maybe they look at older adults because

01:35:36.140 --> 01:35:38.700
they're worried about their loneliness and health outcomes.

01:35:39.830 --> 01:35:44.870
for just um healthy adults um

01:35:45.830 --> 01:35:51.670
who's studying friendship you can look in social psychology and in the subfield of um the

01:35:51.830 --> 01:35:57.830
close relationships um and there are very very few people which means there are very very

01:35:57.830 --> 01:36:03.510
few labs for um undergrads to get trained in friendship or exposed to

01:36:03.510 --> 01:36:09.240
friendship um i think I think that a lot of our textbooks don't even

01:36:09.240 --> 01:36:10.440
mention friendship.

01:36:10.520 --> 01:36:15.880
So they don't read about friendship in science and social psychology.

01:36:17.640 --> 01:36:20.040
So yeah, they don't realize it exists.

01:36:20.200 --> 01:36:21.960
They don't get exposed to it.

01:36:22.200 --> 01:36:23.960
They don't get training in it.

01:36:24.120 --> 01:36:28.680
And so if the time comes where they want to go to grad school to study friendship, then

01:36:28.680 --> 01:36:29.800
where are they going to apply?

01:36:29.960 --> 01:36:31.400
There are like 10 places.

01:36:34.770 --> 01:36:40.370
uh part of what we're doing at the Center for Friendship Research is we have a page on our

01:36:40.370 --> 01:36:43.810
website that's just all of the places that you can go to study friendship.

01:36:44.050 --> 01:36:48.850
And a lot of those people are people who are willing to study friendship, but don't

01:36:48.850 --> 01:36:50.530
actually do it as their bread and butter.

01:36:50.610 --> 01:36:52.050
They study relationships.

01:36:52.290 --> 01:36:56.130
Um and so actually, this is serendipitous.

01:36:56.210 --> 01:37:01.330
I have this book by Bev Fair on my desk, Friendship Processes from 1996.

01:37:01.650 --> 01:37:07.360
I know it's on page six, And this is sort of the state of the art of friendship

01:37:07.360 --> 01:37:11.440
in 1996 in relationship science and still now.

01:37:13.360 --> 01:37:18.960
In any case, the the whole point of it is that in friendship science,

01:37:19.360 --> 01:37:24.720
um, there is simply in relationship science, they don't differentiate

01:37:24.720 --> 01:37:26.750
friendship from other relationships.

01:37:26.910 --> 01:37:29.710
So they study attraction and relationships.

01:37:29.790 --> 01:37:31.070
They're all grouped together.

01:37:31.310 --> 01:37:34.510
There is literally no theory of friendships per se.

01:37:34.670 --> 01:37:38.990
That's the quote that I was looking for, which I'm sure is underlined in there somewhere.

01:37:40.110 --> 01:37:45.710
And so that's that's the state of the art then, and that remains the state of the art now

01:37:46.030 --> 01:37:49.950
in mainstream social psychology and relationship science.

01:37:50.190 --> 01:37:56.020
Um and also, I should say those relationship science is not like a big job getter

01:37:56.180 --> 01:37:56.900
sub-area.

01:37:58.020 --> 01:38:00.020
So that can be difficult too.

01:38:00.100 --> 01:38:03.860
You sort of have to rub up against health to get a job, to get a grant.

01:38:04.020 --> 01:38:09.620
People aren't spending a lot of money for basic science on romantic relationships,

01:38:09.940 --> 01:38:15.430
the way that they are for things that have more directly uh that are more directly linked

01:38:15.430 --> 01:38:16.310
to health outcomes.

01:38:16.470 --> 01:38:21.750
Hopefully that will change because of this loneliness epidemic, because of um the

01:38:21.750 --> 01:38:25.350
economic and social costs of not having friends.

01:38:25.510 --> 01:38:28.550
Um, because so few people are studying friendship.

01:38:28.710 --> 01:38:33.270
If you were to put in a grant on friendship, I think it would have a good chance.

01:38:33.350 --> 01:38:37.990
Uh Templeton, as far as I know from Michael Barlov, doesn't have a single grant that

01:38:37.990 --> 01:38:42.360
they're funding on friendship, but it's a very John Templeton kind of topic.

01:38:42.520 --> 01:38:46.200
Um, NSF doesn't have a lot on friendship right now.

01:38:46.280 --> 01:38:52.040
Um, I have their career award, um, and that's all friendship stuff that we're

01:38:52.040 --> 01:38:53.240
doing in my lab.

01:38:53.640 --> 01:38:59.160
Um, and then the Center for Friendship Research that we started here at UCLA with Carolyn

01:38:59.160 --> 01:39:04.550
Parkinson, Matt Lieberman, Naomi Eisenberger, and Victor Kaufman, and this panoply of

01:39:04.550 --> 01:39:09.990
amazing grad students spanning developmental and social neuroscience and com and social

01:39:12.070 --> 01:39:17.990
and postdocs who are now at other places, and some of your grad students come

01:39:17.990 --> 01:39:19.110
in and hang out.

01:39:21.270 --> 01:39:26.710
We are trying to sort of galvanize the community and change this.

01:39:27.190 --> 01:39:32.200
But yeah, the reason people don't do it is they don't realize it's a a thing to be studied.

01:39:32.280 --> 01:39:36.200
They don't get exposed to friendship as a thing worthy of study.

01:39:36.360 --> 01:39:41.800
Um, and then even if they do, there are so few places to go to study it.

01:39:42.280 --> 01:39:44.200
That was the answer I should have given it first.

01:39:44.440 --> 01:39:45.800
No, that's great.

01:39:46.440 --> 01:39:51.630
I mean, I wonder if part of the reason why we view friendship

01:39:51.630 --> 01:39:57.550
incorrectly as a kind of frivolous thing is that we're so alienated from

01:39:57.550 --> 01:40:03.390
the Darwinian functions of friendship and our modern prosperous society that if you think

01:40:03.390 --> 01:40:07.470
about what the selection pressures for friendship might have been for our ancestors, it was

01:40:07.470 --> 01:40:10.590
probably something like really extreme hardships.

01:40:10.920 --> 01:40:13.400
You're injured and you can't forage.

01:40:13.560 --> 01:40:16.280
You're sick and you need someone to take care of you.

01:40:16.520 --> 01:40:20.680
You know, people in the group are conspiring against you and you need allies who will take

01:40:20.680 --> 01:40:21.160
your side.

01:40:21.320 --> 01:40:24.680
You're accused of a transgression and you need people to stick up for you.

01:40:24.840 --> 01:40:28.040
Like these would have been life or death situations.

01:40:28.600 --> 01:40:34.440
Um, and precisely because we're living in such modern, affluent, safe societies with police

01:40:34.440 --> 01:40:40.120
forces and fire departments and modern medicine, um, we don't

01:40:40.370 --> 01:40:45.970
really have those hardships uh that we would need friends to help us out with.

01:40:46.610 --> 01:40:52.450
Um and this is an argument that um Tubian Cosby's make in their paper um the evol

01:40:52.610 --> 01:40:57.490
on the on the banker's paradox and the evolution of altruism, which is that because that um

01:40:57.650 --> 01:41:03.170
these kinds of extreme hardships are often the best sources of information gathering about

01:41:03.170 --> 01:41:04.610
who your true friends are.

01:41:04.690 --> 01:41:08.210
Uh, because it it's often unclear who your tr true friends are, whether they're a fair

01:41:08.290 --> 01:41:13.620
weather friend who's just in it uh when it's in their short term self interest to to help

01:41:13.620 --> 01:41:18.660
you out, or whether they truly care about your your well being, independent of what you can

01:41:18.660 --> 01:41:19.860
uh do for them.

01:41:20.100 --> 01:41:26.100
Um and when you're sick or people are conspiring against you or injured or whatever,

01:41:26.340 --> 01:41:31.090
that's an opportunity to figure out who's who's truly on your side, who truly uh has a

01:41:31.090 --> 01:41:33.810
stake in your welfare and who's just a fair weather friend.

01:41:33.970 --> 01:41:38.930
But because we don't have those kinds of experiences nearly as frequently as we did in

01:41:38.930 --> 01:41:44.370
ancestral environments, there's just so much more uncertainty about who our true friends

01:41:44.370 --> 01:41:44.690
are.

01:41:45.330 --> 01:41:49.330
And so we really don't know who our true friends are because we have we have so little

01:41:49.330 --> 01:41:51.410
evidence one way or the other.

01:41:52.050 --> 01:41:56.740
So I'm wondering if that is not only the the answer to why we don't take friendship

01:41:56.740 --> 01:42:01.300
seriously, is because we have so few of these these hardship moments where where friends

01:42:01.380 --> 01:42:04.740
you know are are um are so necessary.

01:42:05.780 --> 01:42:11.380
But it's also one of the uh many causes of of the loneliness

01:42:11.380 --> 01:42:15.300
epidemic, which is that there's just so much more uncertainty about who our friends are

01:42:15.380 --> 01:42:18.740
because we don't have these kinds of moments to figure out who our true friends are.

01:42:18.900 --> 01:42:20.260
What do you what do you think about that?

01:42:21.150 --> 01:42:22.830
I absolutely buy that.

01:42:23.230 --> 01:42:29.150
It also, so um, we have an embarrassment of riches in terms of well, theory,

01:42:29.230 --> 01:42:34.910
period, but theory of friendship in Evpsy, whereas there does not exist one in relationship

01:42:34.910 --> 01:42:35.790
science, right?

01:42:36.030 --> 01:42:40.910
So we have this alliance hypothesis of friendship that suggests that friendship is in part

01:42:40.990 --> 01:42:45.710
the output of cognitive mechanisms designed to assemble antagonist or um designed to

01:42:45.710 --> 01:42:50.110
assemble support for uh future um agonistic interactions.

01:42:50.340 --> 01:42:55.860
And so, on that view, I should, for example, take the side of the friend in a fight between

01:42:55.860 --> 01:42:56.260
two friends.

01:42:56.340 --> 01:43:00.500
I should take the side of the friend who's most likely to take my side later so that they

01:43:01.300 --> 01:43:05.700
survive the fight and live to take my side another day, right?

01:43:06.500 --> 01:43:12.260
And then we have this sort of Tubian Cosmodies view that could potentially encompass that,

01:43:12.500 --> 01:43:15.210
but friendship is really social insurance.

01:43:15.450 --> 01:43:21.370
And so if a drought and famine strikes our community and we're in need and other people

01:43:21.370 --> 01:43:26.490
around us in need, um, that's exactly when strangers are least likely to invest in us

01:43:26.570 --> 01:43:28.970
because we look like bad bets for reciprocity.

01:43:29.370 --> 01:43:32.410
And I know you guys know this, but just for your listeners.

01:43:33.050 --> 01:43:34.520
So what do we need?

01:43:34.920 --> 01:43:35.720
We need help.

01:43:36.040 --> 01:43:37.880
We might not be able to survive without it.

01:43:38.040 --> 01:43:39.080
How do we get this help?

01:43:39.240 --> 01:43:41.800
We need people who have a stake in our continued welfare.

01:43:42.040 --> 01:43:44.600
And our good friends might have a stake in our welfare.

01:43:45.000 --> 01:43:49.720
Not only that, but they might have a stake in our welfare and help us over other people who

01:43:49.720 --> 01:43:51.400
are in similar need as us.

01:43:51.640 --> 01:43:53.640
And so we survive.

01:43:53.960 --> 01:43:57.080
And that benefits our friends because we have a stake in their welfare.

01:43:57.240 --> 01:44:01.080
And when they inevitably face their own times of illness, injury, et cetera, we'll be

01:44:01.080 --> 01:44:02.120
around to help them.

01:44:02.670 --> 01:44:08.110
And the Tubi and Cosmides version sort of more directly comes from an

01:44:08.110 --> 01:44:11.950
anthropological view of the human world, right?

01:44:12.110 --> 01:44:18.110
This is what a challenge that people would have faced over evolutionary time.

01:44:18.590 --> 01:44:22.190
The alliance hypothesis is also part of that.

01:44:22.350 --> 01:44:27.950
We certainly would have faced that, but that seems uh still part and part of our

01:44:27.950 --> 01:44:32.920
worlds, even today, divorced from everything, when you have to, you know, form your little

01:44:32.920 --> 01:44:37.480
alliances at work to get the person that you want hired or whatever, right?

01:44:38.040 --> 01:44:43.720
Um, and it kind of reminds me again of the the schism between who we are as

01:44:43.720 --> 01:44:46.120
psychologists and who we study.

01:44:46.280 --> 01:44:50.840
Um, sometimes we just study each other and college students, and they're all going to face

01:44:50.840 --> 01:44:52.040
this alliance problem.

01:44:52.930 --> 01:44:58.850
But we don't study a lot of people who don't go to college and live in the same place that

01:44:58.850 --> 01:45:04.290
they grew up and might face or be more likely to face in some instances those real

01:45:04.290 --> 01:45:05.250
hardships.

01:45:06.130 --> 01:45:10.690
They might have better insight into human friendship psychology than any of us do,

01:45:10.770 --> 01:45:13.250
precisely because of pins off what you're saying.

01:45:13.600 --> 01:45:18.720
our friendships are divorced from the challenges um that the

01:45:18.880 --> 01:45:22.320
friendships arose to to combat, to face.

01:45:23.200 --> 01:45:25.200
Did that make any sense the way that I said it?

01:45:25.520 --> 01:45:25.760
Totally.

01:45:26.000 --> 01:45:26.560
Oh absolutely.

01:45:26.800 --> 01:45:26.960
Yeah.

01:45:27.200 --> 01:45:27.600
Yeah.

01:45:28.240 --> 01:45:32.880
Yeah, I think about this sometimes, the the two different views of friendship there.

01:45:33.120 --> 01:45:38.930
Um uh I uh I don't know what the

01:45:38.930 --> 01:45:44.690
right term is, non-symbolic capitalists, like heartland folks, real people.

01:45:44.770 --> 01:45:49.890
Like it depends on who you talk to, but we actually have to talk to people who aren't us to

01:45:49.890 --> 01:45:51.170
understand friendship better.

01:45:51.250 --> 01:45:54.130
And I think we've done a piss poor job at that.

01:45:54.530 --> 01:45:57.010
Um, but also time isn't elastic.

01:45:57.170 --> 01:46:02.130
So um somebody needs to go out there with like a little tape recorder and just start

01:46:02.120 --> 01:46:06.760
interviewing people who are not us in this weird world.

01:46:06.920 --> 01:46:12.360
Um, not the Henrik weird, but like just very strange, weird world, and ask them about their

01:46:12.360 --> 01:46:13.000
friendships.

01:46:13.160 --> 01:46:19.160
Um, and I bet you'll see things like um Ann Campbell recounts this in her um book that's in

01:46:19.160 --> 01:46:20.680
part on female friendships.

01:46:20.920 --> 01:46:26.520
Um, just being able to count on your female friend for some money to leave a bad romantic

01:46:26.520 --> 01:46:28.920
relationship was the difference between life and death.

01:46:29.080 --> 01:46:29.640
Yeah.

01:46:31.010 --> 01:46:33.650
Anyway, I think that's a really nice insight.

01:46:33.810 --> 01:46:34.450
Pensoff.

01:46:34.530 --> 01:46:40.370
I yeah, it's it's fun to think about this stuff and why we give friendship

01:46:40.370 --> 01:46:41.250
the shaft.

01:46:41.570 --> 01:46:41.970
Yeah.

01:46:42.130 --> 01:46:42.770
Yeah.

01:46:45.010 --> 01:46:49.970
And yeah, uh Dave, you were gonna say that there uh something about Keela teaching the

01:46:49.970 --> 01:46:51.970
classes and that there aren't even classes on it.

01:46:52.130 --> 01:46:55.090
I think that's part of the exposure problem, right?

01:46:55.700 --> 01:47:01.300
Most people would say, I think there's a Gallup poll from like 2015 that good friendships

01:47:01.300 --> 01:47:07.220
are part of well being, like right up there with their health and having a job.

01:47:07.460 --> 01:47:11.460
Um, but we don't have a class on it.

01:47:11.540 --> 01:47:16.420
You know, we have classes on jobs, we have classes on health, we have classes on romantic

01:47:16.420 --> 01:47:20.500
relationships, we have classes on 19th century Russian literature.

01:47:20.660 --> 01:47:26.530
Um, but friendship is one of uh the human universals that we don't think about or talk

01:47:26.530 --> 01:47:27.650
about or teach about.

01:47:27.890 --> 01:47:32.450
In fact, I went to Dan uh uh Don Brown's book about it.

01:47:32.530 --> 01:47:33.330
Dan Bro now.

01:47:33.890 --> 01:47:35.490
Yeah, Don Brown, yeah, Definitely Universals.

01:47:35.570 --> 01:47:38.850
Yeah, we talked about that in my coming coming to EP story.

01:47:39.090 --> 01:47:40.210
Oh awesome, yeah.

01:47:40.450 --> 01:47:46.450
I almost said Don Brown, who I think wrote um the those Tom Hanks movie books.

01:47:46.690 --> 01:47:47.090
Exactly.

01:47:47.330 --> 01:47:47.980
Oh Dan Brown.

01:47:48.220 --> 01:47:48.700
Yeah, that's right.

01:47:49.740 --> 01:47:50.540
The Da Vinci Code.

01:47:51.260 --> 01:47:52.300
The Da Vinci Code, yeah.

01:47:52.460 --> 01:47:56.780
So in the Da Vinci Code, uh talking about human universals and friendship, there's an

01:47:56.780 --> 01:47:59.420
albino monk played by Paul Bettney.

01:47:59.660 --> 01:48:02.940
The Da Vinci Code is the book that brought me to EbSec, that's right.

01:48:04.380 --> 01:48:07.100
Going back to the Don Brown Human Universals book.

01:48:07.340 --> 01:48:10.220
Yeah, so I don't think friendship is in there.

01:48:10.380 --> 01:48:15.340
I remember looking this up, and I didn't find friendship.

01:48:15.980 --> 01:48:18.590
Um human universals.

01:48:18.830 --> 01:48:19.070
Interesting.

01:48:19.310 --> 01:48:24.590
Yeah, I I think I probably have that book in here, but um, I pulled it up when I when I

01:48:24.670 --> 01:48:25.550
when I was talking about it.

01:48:25.790 --> 01:48:31.310
Here, let me pull it up, see if I can uh let's see here.

01:48:31.550 --> 01:48:35.630
At least in the physical copy of the book that I have, it wasn't in there.

01:48:35.710 --> 01:48:40.270
Um the first yeah, first first stab at the huge list.

01:48:41.680 --> 01:48:47.200
I mean it's a it's an amazing list and I'm no no T no shade at this list,

01:48:47.440 --> 01:48:48.320
but yeah.

01:48:48.640 --> 01:48:49.920
Are you finding it?

01:48:50.240 --> 01:48:52.320
I don't know how I found it the first time.

01:48:54.560 --> 01:48:56.640
Uh yeah, I maybe I did Google Scholar.

01:48:56.960 --> 01:48:57.280
Yeah, David.

01:48:57.360 --> 01:48:59.200
Well take it, David, take a second while you're doing that.

01:48:59.440 --> 01:49:03.840
Jamie, this is a weird thing to ask this late in the conversation, but if an alien asked

01:49:03.840 --> 01:49:07.280
you what is friendship, what is it?

01:49:07.750 --> 01:49:08.070
Okay.

01:49:08.870 --> 01:49:14.870
Um, I would call it a voluntary, mostly, most of the

01:49:14.870 --> 01:49:20.870
time, uh communal most of the time, bond between two

01:49:20.870 --> 01:49:25.830
or more people uh who have stakes in one another's welfare.

01:49:26.150 --> 01:49:31.830
And then I would try to differentiate it from other relationships by saying that typically

01:49:31.830 --> 01:49:36.400
this would occur between folks who are not highly genetically related.

01:49:36.960 --> 01:49:41.280
It turns out friends are more genetically related to one another than they would be by

01:49:41.280 --> 01:49:42.000
chance alone.

01:49:42.160 --> 01:49:44.880
But I think there's some Christakis work on this.

01:49:45.440 --> 01:49:51.200
And that it's people you also don't want to have sex with or aren't in a

01:49:51.200 --> 01:49:56.880
romantic relationship with, which is a weird thing because that's part of the

01:49:57.170 --> 01:49:59.170
uh practicals of studying it.

01:49:59.330 --> 01:50:04.370
We sort of have to define it that way to make it distinct from romantic relationships.

01:50:04.450 --> 01:50:09.170
But most of the things that make romantic relationships good and successful are probably

01:50:09.170 --> 01:50:11.250
things that make friendships good and successful.

01:50:11.810 --> 01:50:17.810
Um, so anyway, put that in your type of difficulty and choke on the

01:50:17.810 --> 01:50:18.610
smoke.

01:50:21.860 --> 01:50:27.060
I'm curious, i uh in there is that a way of bridging the to be Cosby's banker

01:50:27.220 --> 01:50:31.220
paradox approach with the alliance hypothesis approach?

01:50:31.460 --> 01:50:37.300
If you posit that um we form alliances and take the sides of uh

01:50:37.620 --> 01:50:42.690
people that we have a higher stake in, So we use, you know, interdependence or how much of

01:50:42.690 --> 01:50:48.610
a stake you have uh in someone else as um a uh heuristic for choosing

01:50:48.610 --> 01:50:49.410
allies.

01:50:49.970 --> 01:50:53.490
Um and so if that's the case, then that is a way to bridge those two theories.

01:50:53.730 --> 01:50:56.530
So if if I have a high stake in you, I'm gonna take your side.

01:50:56.690 --> 01:51:00.770
Um and so I'm not only more likely to help you when you're when you're sick, but I'm also

01:51:00.770 --> 01:51:05.250
more likely to to take your side because uh I'm I'm gonna rank my allies based on how much

01:51:05.250 --> 01:51:07.010
of a stake I have in their welfare.

01:51:07.600 --> 01:51:08.000
Yeah.

01:51:08.160 --> 01:51:13.360
So I I talk about um sort of the cognitive mechanics of how people

01:51:13.680 --> 01:51:19.520
figure out whose side to take in a um in a conflict between two of their friends.

01:51:19.680 --> 01:51:24.080
Um and then I always tell people, I'm gonna give you the like difficult answer, and then

01:51:24.080 --> 01:51:28.000
I'm gonna give you the answer that you're probably thinking of right now, um, which is the

01:51:28.000 --> 01:51:28.960
answer that you're bringing up.

01:51:29.040 --> 01:51:31.270
You take the side of the person you like better, right?

01:51:31.670 --> 01:51:37.350
Um, the more difficult version, and this is uh Peter DeSholy and Rob Kurzban would say that

01:51:37.510 --> 01:51:43.510
um uh so we have these Alicentric representations or representations of

01:51:43.510 --> 01:51:46.950
where we think our friends rank us relative to their other friends.

01:51:47.110 --> 01:51:53.110
Um, probably more like a linear hierarchy than um a sort of dispersed

01:51:53.110 --> 01:51:53.510
network.

01:51:53.670 --> 01:51:58.360
So it's a little bit different than how Dunbar thinks about friendship as a sort of

01:51:58.360 --> 01:52:00.760
network, like a 2D circle.

01:52:00.920 --> 01:52:02.680
This is a 2D column.

01:52:02.760 --> 01:52:07.160
Um it's like basically you're talking about you know best friend, second best friend that's

01:52:07.640 --> 01:52:08.120
exactly.

01:52:08.280 --> 01:52:08.600
Yeah.

01:52:08.760 --> 01:52:11.160
So we have these allocentric representations.

01:52:11.320 --> 01:52:16.040
So another person would think that, you know, she has her best friend and I'm her second

01:52:16.040 --> 01:52:17.640
best friend, and so on.

01:52:17.800 --> 01:52:22.440
And so she would take my side over everyone else's in a fight between me and all her other

01:52:22.440 --> 01:52:24.600
friends, excepting her best friend.

01:52:24.790 --> 01:52:25.030
Okay.

01:52:25.750 --> 01:52:25.910
Yeah.

01:52:26.070 --> 01:52:30.710
So then we use these allocentric representations, which are our best bet, right?

01:52:30.870 --> 01:52:36.790
This is not necessarily reality to form uh reciprocally our egocentric friend

01:52:36.790 --> 01:52:41.110
ranking, which is just our best friend at the top, our next best friend, and so on.

01:52:41.350 --> 01:52:41.510
Right.

01:52:41.750 --> 01:52:41.910
Yeah.

01:52:42.070 --> 01:52:45.110
I want to be best friends with the person who thinks they're best friends with me.

01:52:45.270 --> 01:52:47.750
I want to be second best with the person who thinks they're second best with me.

01:52:48.310 --> 01:52:48.710
Exactly.

01:52:48.870 --> 01:52:49.670
Yeah, exactly.

01:52:49.830 --> 01:52:55.720
And so our egocentric friend ranking, So what I'd say is it's not

01:52:55.720 --> 01:52:59.480
like out of a beautiful mind where you're just like coldly calculating these things on a

01:52:59.480 --> 01:53:00.120
window.

01:53:00.360 --> 01:53:06.040
Um it's the same thing as taking the side of the friend you like better, because um

01:53:06.280 --> 01:53:10.520
the reciprocal nature of it means that in a fight between your second ranked friend and

01:53:10.520 --> 01:53:14.360
your fourth ranked friend, you're taking the side of your second ranked friend, i.e.

01:53:14.520 --> 01:53:17.240
the friend you like better than your fourth ranked friend, right?

01:53:17.400 --> 01:53:17.720
Yep.

01:53:17.880 --> 01:53:21.000
Um, so I think these things are hand in glove.

01:53:21.160 --> 01:53:24.010
Um And they make a lot of sense.

01:53:24.170 --> 01:53:26.010
I think they do go together.

01:53:26.650 --> 01:53:31.690
I do think there are valid questions about whether it's, you know, like a um

01:53:32.570 --> 01:53:38.570
a 3D sort of um like a think of goo and you lift goo

01:53:38.570 --> 01:53:44.490
up by a tip, like it's uh a representation of a network like that, rather than a 2D

01:53:44.490 --> 01:53:50.010
column or a 2D circle or concentric circles and what the networks really look like, and

01:53:50.010 --> 01:53:50.810
blah, blah, blah.

01:53:50.890 --> 01:53:56.480
And there are really interesting questions about how we try and game these

01:53:56.480 --> 01:54:01.200
allocentric representations in order to make other people like us better.

01:54:01.440 --> 01:54:07.120
Because ideally, you know, um everyone would think that I am their best friend and I would

01:54:07.120 --> 01:54:12.880
take their side in a conflict because then they'd all take mine, um, which is a

01:54:12.880 --> 01:54:17.200
really horrific pressure if you think about it on friendships and can make them really

01:54:17.200 --> 01:54:18.000
messy.

01:54:18.160 --> 01:54:23.650
Um and uh then it you are back to that sort of

01:54:23.650 --> 01:54:26.610
Aristotle quote that a friend to all is a friend to none.

01:54:26.770 --> 01:54:29.490
Um there are many, many ways for that to be true.

01:54:29.730 --> 01:54:31.090
And this is one of them.

01:54:31.330 --> 01:54:32.290
Anyway, yeah.

01:54:32.530 --> 01:54:38.210
I do, I do think that that's sort of how they go together as this liking component is

01:54:38.210 --> 01:54:42.370
built on stakes and welfare, which we can measure by welfare trade-off ratio.

01:54:42.770 --> 01:54:48.760
Um, I do think that we have to be sensitive not just to the absolute value of the

01:54:48.760 --> 01:54:50.120
welfare trade-off ratio.

01:54:50.280 --> 01:54:53.960
So like uh pins off if I value you a five, right?

01:54:54.200 --> 01:54:58.840
Um, we're gonna interact and I'm gonna do positive things for you, and that's awesome.

01:54:59.080 --> 01:55:05.000
Um, uh, but if you put me in a room with you and now Dave, but I value Dave a seven,

01:55:05.160 --> 01:55:09.800
although absolutely nothing has changed about the absolute value or quality of our dyadic

01:55:09.800 --> 01:55:13.640
relationship, now everything I was doing for you, I might do for him instead.

01:55:14.090 --> 01:55:19.850
Um, and so I think we have to think about these things um in terms

01:55:19.850 --> 01:55:25.610
of their being embedded in a network, um, and not just in terms of the dyad, which is how

01:55:25.610 --> 01:55:30.410
we typically study them, um, because it's easier and also because that's how people think

01:55:30.410 --> 01:55:32.810
about friendship as a dyadic relationship.

01:55:32.970 --> 01:55:36.570
Um, but uh it's uh yeah.

01:55:36.730 --> 01:55:39.210
And anyway, there are massive implications of that.

01:55:39.700 --> 01:55:40.260
Totally.

01:55:40.420 --> 01:55:41.380
No, I I get that.

01:55:41.460 --> 01:55:45.140
I think that's a really beautiful insight that is underappreciated.

01:55:45.380 --> 01:55:50.740
Just how much um friendship is beyond the dyad, and how much, say,

01:55:50.900 --> 01:55:56.180
Dave's friendship rankings uh have externalities for me, and how your friendship rank so

01:55:56.260 --> 01:56:00.790
like if you bump Dave up in your friendship hierarchy, um there are often times where you

01:56:00.790 --> 01:56:01.990
have to choose between me and Dave.

01:56:02.070 --> 01:56:05.990
You only have one concert ticket or one spot left at the at the dinner reservation.

01:56:06.070 --> 01:56:07.270
Are you gonna choose me or Dave?

01:56:07.430 --> 01:56:11.270
If you bump Dave up, then then you're gonna be less likely to choose me and I'm gonna pay

01:56:11.270 --> 01:56:11.990
costs for that.

01:56:12.150 --> 01:56:13.670
That's gonna be a direct threat to me.

01:56:13.750 --> 01:56:17.750
Uh and we need to think about those kinds of positive and negative externalities of of

01:56:17.750 --> 01:56:18.070
friendship.

01:56:18.150 --> 01:56:20.710
And you know a relationship with you is not just a relationship to you.

01:56:20.790 --> 01:56:23.430
It affects everyone else in the social network.

01:56:23.590 --> 01:56:26.470
Um it's it it's way more complicated than we think.

01:56:26.710 --> 01:56:31.220
Um so I pulled up the human universals, and you are correct.

01:56:31.380 --> 01:56:34.340
The word friendship is not on the list.

01:56:34.820 --> 01:56:40.100
However, there are there are some relate there's like cooperation is there, um

01:56:40.340 --> 01:56:45.220
reciprocity is there, affection expressed and felt is there.

01:56:45.620 --> 01:56:48.900
Um you have like coalitions and collective identities.

01:56:49.380 --> 01:56:54.650
Alliances Uh the word alliance is not there.

01:56:55.050 --> 01:56:58.330
You have coalitions, collective identities, and conflict.

01:56:59.610 --> 01:57:01.210
You have insulting.

01:57:03.130 --> 01:57:07.530
You have division of labor, role social roles.

01:57:07.690 --> 01:57:11.850
So stuff that's sort of like related to friendship on the periphery of it.

01:57:12.330 --> 01:57:14.010
Do you have the romantic stuff?

01:57:14.410 --> 01:57:19.850
Do you have um mating or pair bonds or any of those?

01:57:20.580 --> 01:57:25.220
Um let's have those and you don't have friendship.

01:57:25.380 --> 01:57:29.860
Um, you only have some of the features that are sometimes common to friendship, then it

01:57:29.860 --> 01:57:31.220
would be more egregious.

01:57:31.460 --> 01:57:35.060
Again, it's still an amazing list, it's really important, etc.

01:57:35.300 --> 01:57:35.540
etc.

01:57:36.020 --> 01:57:37.460
Not yeah.

01:57:38.100 --> 01:57:38.500
Yeah.

01:57:38.660 --> 01:57:41.790
Uh so yeah, uh this I don't know.

01:57:41.870 --> 01:57:42.670
It's it's interesting.

01:57:42.750 --> 01:57:43.550
It's an interesting omission.

01:57:43.630 --> 01:57:48.110
So yeah, there's sexual attracti attraction, sexual attractiveness, sexual jealousy, uh

01:57:48.270 --> 01:57:49.150
stuff like that.

01:57:49.390 --> 01:57:54.910
Um so yeah, this this this could be uh an important omission.

01:57:55.070 --> 01:57:56.110
Um I think it is.

01:57:56.750 --> 01:57:57.230
Yeah.

01:57:57.550 --> 01:57:57.870
Cool.

01:57:58.030 --> 01:58:03.200
Um Yeah, I mean it goes back to what you guys have been saying about we don't even have

01:58:03.200 --> 01:58:04.800
words for some of these things, right?

01:58:04.960 --> 01:58:09.600
We don't have friendship um canalization or friendship first base, second base.

01:58:09.920 --> 01:58:10.080
Yeah.

01:58:10.320 --> 01:58:15.520
We don't have um, you know, uh Pensaff, what did you say?

01:58:15.600 --> 01:58:16.640
Uh sexual attraction.

01:58:16.720 --> 01:58:18.640
We don't have like friend attraction.

01:58:18.960 --> 01:58:23.200
We don't have like um your friend sociosexuality.

01:58:23.970 --> 01:58:24.290
Yeah.

01:58:25.410 --> 01:58:25.490
Yeah.

01:58:25.730 --> 01:58:28.770
Bromance is probably the closest thing, but that's even not quite attraction.

01:58:28.850 --> 01:58:30.530
That's what happens after the attraction.

01:58:30.610 --> 01:58:30.850
Yeah.

01:58:31.010 --> 01:58:31.170
Yeah.

01:58:31.330 --> 01:58:32.370
That's more like courtship.

01:58:32.450 --> 01:58:32.850
Yeah.

01:58:33.090 --> 01:58:33.330
Yeah.

01:58:33.730 --> 01:58:34.450
What is friendship?

01:58:34.610 --> 01:58:35.090
Courtship.

01:58:35.170 --> 01:58:36.290
What is like it?

01:58:36.450 --> 01:58:42.370
We are so good at denying that we are doing this friendship flirting that because

01:58:42.370 --> 01:58:45.330
it would be bad, like you don't want to be the friendship flirt, right?

01:58:45.410 --> 01:58:47.730
No one wants to be the person courting the friendship.

01:58:47.810 --> 01:58:52.770
So, like you're saying, um, so we don't even have words for it.

01:58:53.080 --> 01:58:54.600
Um maybe that.

01:58:54.680 --> 01:58:57.960
So I keep getting approached by people to be like, write a book on friendship.

01:58:58.040 --> 01:59:01.000
Then I'll be like, I will when I have data to write about.

01:59:01.240 --> 01:59:06.840
Um, but that might be a first chapter, is just all the words that we don't have for,

01:59:07.080 --> 01:59:10.760
you know, this is the list of romantic relationship things.

01:59:10.920 --> 01:59:16.920
Um, this is the list of sort of uh slang in in the popular lexicon.

01:59:17.000 --> 01:59:21.230
You have your bromance, but um what would be the actual word for this?

01:59:21.390 --> 01:59:25.550
What is the give us a language to use at least?

01:59:25.710 --> 01:59:28.910
Um so yeah, maybe one day.

01:59:29.310 --> 01:59:33.870
And we don't have a a a girl mance word as far as I'm aware.

01:59:34.190 --> 01:59:40.120
Um no, I'm I'm pretty sure that that's like an XNXX search term, but

01:59:40.120 --> 01:59:40.440
yeah.

01:59:43.640 --> 01:59:44.840
Yeah, don't Google that at work.

01:59:45.160 --> 01:59:46.280
Yeah, and I won't Google that.

01:59:46.680 --> 01:59:49.880
That'll be my my OnlyFans page, Girl Mance.

01:59:50.520 --> 01:59:51.000
Awesome.

01:59:51.160 --> 01:59:51.480
Yeah.

01:59:51.720 --> 01:59:54.280
Jamie, is there any question we should have asked you?

01:59:54.760 --> 02:00:00.680
Oh, um uh I

02:00:00.680 --> 02:00:03.000
mean I don't have a good F psych animal name.

02:00:03.160 --> 02:00:03.800
You do.

02:00:04.040 --> 02:00:09.830
Um what There is

02:00:09.830 --> 02:00:11.670
nothing that I can think of.

02:00:11.910 --> 02:00:15.430
This was so much fun and very thorough.

02:00:15.590 --> 02:00:21.430
And I am really, I forgot how great it was to just talk about

02:00:21.430 --> 02:00:26.870
ideas without having a necessary return on investment.

02:00:27.270 --> 02:00:32.870
Um, you know, there needs to be a paper at the end of this, or let's talk about this toward

02:00:32.870 --> 02:00:33.830
a paper.

02:00:34.180 --> 02:00:38.020
um, just open-ended conversation about ideas.

02:00:38.180 --> 02:00:41.220
It makes me want to cry to remember that I like this.

02:00:41.940 --> 02:00:42.820
So thank you.

02:00:43.300 --> 02:00:45.300
Yeah, you gotta let people breathe.

02:00:45.540 --> 02:00:45.940
Yeah.

02:00:46.180 --> 02:00:47.700
We gotta let ourselves breathe.

02:00:47.940 --> 02:00:48.340
Yeah.

02:00:48.660 --> 02:00:50.180
Really good to talk to you, Jamie.

02:00:50.740 --> 02:00:55.060
Unless unless you've thought of a question between now and the the previous thing.

02:00:55.460 --> 02:00:56.020
I wish.

02:00:56.180 --> 02:00:56.660
I wish.

02:00:56.740 --> 02:00:57.140
I know.

02:00:57.300 --> 02:01:01.220
I just um someday I want to ask you all about your friendships.

02:01:01.540 --> 02:01:03.220
I think that would be really fun.

02:01:03.430 --> 02:01:05.510
Um, but thank you for having me.

02:01:05.670 --> 02:01:06.550
I really appreciate it.

02:01:06.630 --> 02:01:08.150
This was fantastic.

02:01:08.470 --> 02:01:08.790
Cool.

02:01:08.950 --> 02:01:09.670
This was lots of fun.

02:01:09.750 --> 02:01:13.510
Maybe we'll bring you back sometime and we'll talk about our friendship stories.

02:01:18.710 --> 02:01:19.990
Thank you for listening.

02:01:20.150 --> 02:01:25.030
Uh if you like what you're hearing, please leave us a kind review or check out our Patreon

02:01:25.030 --> 02:01:26.870
page if you want to throw us some money.

02:01:27.110 --> 02:01:29.360
Uh Yeah.

02:01:29.520 --> 02:01:29.840
Yeah.

02:01:30.720 --> 02:01:31.200
I don't know.

02:01:31.680 --> 02:01:32.720
Is there anything else to say?

02:01:33.040 --> 02:01:39.040
Um uh come back for the next episode and um or if you're in the middle of binge

02:01:39.120 --> 02:01:41.120
listening, you know, go for that.

02:01:41.680 --> 02:01:42.000
Okay.

02:01:42.480 --> 02:01:45.120
Um stay tuned for the for the next episode.