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I'm David Pinsoff.

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I'm David Petrozowski.

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And this is Evolutionary Psychology, the podcast where uh actual evolutionary psychology

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is being done by actual evolutionary psychologists.

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David, today we are talking about love.

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Yes, love and the propaganda of love and regrets about love,

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disappointments, really all the emotions that the human is capable of experiencing are

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felt in the context of love or a loving relationship or the end of a loving relationship.

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Uh this was a really sweeping uh vast conversation where we covered all these topics

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and more with uh a really fun guest.

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And who is that guest, Dave?

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Carrie Getz.

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Carrie Getz.

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Whatever Carrie wants, Carrie Getz.

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She made that joke.

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Um reminder of how to pronounce her last name.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Uh but this was this was uh such a fun conversation.

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Uh it's my favorite type of conversation where we get to just, you know uh talk about

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whatever topic catches our fancy in the moment and and sort of discover new insights and

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ideas while while the conversation is happening.

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And so um I think you'll have a fun time listening to this conversation.

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Yeah I don't think you'll regret or be disappointed and you might love the episode.

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Yes all of the above.

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All right.

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Enjoy.

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Enjoy Okay I found the record button.

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Today we have Carrie Getz, who is professor at um uh Cal

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State San Bernardino.

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Bernardino.

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I have uh uh I had it on the tip of my tongue, but I wanted to make sure.

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There's a lot of Cal State campuses, it's okay.

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Yeah.

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Um where how big is that campus?

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Oh, we have about 18 to 20,000 students, sort of depending on what enrollment looks like.

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So we're kind of mid-size.

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We're not one of the big giant, giant campuses.

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So like Cal State Fullerton, those are closer to UC size.

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You know, Cal State Long Beach, I think those are like 40, 50.

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Um, but then there's some much smaller Cal State campuses.

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So we're kind of in the middle.

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Well, we can cut all this out.

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UCSB is smaller than Fullerton, I think, by a lot.

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Actually, oh really?

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Yeah, Fullerton's huge.

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Yeah, Fullerton's huge.

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Yeah.

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How big is UCLA, David?

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Do you know?

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I have no idea.

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It's at le it's at least one.

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Um so uh we are here on a podcast about evolutionary psychology, so

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I guess we should start talking about that.

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I guess.

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Okay.

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Yeah, I guess.

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What is that thing?

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What is that anyway?

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I don't know.

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Um I wanna I want to actually carry, you can choose.

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There's two options for you.

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So choose your own adventure.

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Um uh either your research or mating psychology and its state in

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Evpsych.

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Oh.

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I mean, we can weave between them.

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Yeah.

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Um, but um, I like the bigger picture starting point, the, you know, mating psychology,

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you know, and it's yeah.

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You know.

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Let me let me let me tee this up a little bit and then you can completely reject it like a

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politician if you want and answer the question you wish you had been asked, which is um we

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had Dan Conroy Beam on, and he is the he's really there's there hasn't been a lot of mating

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people on the this.

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And I think a lot of people when they come to EpSec, they come about it through the mating

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stuff, especially if they take it like an undergrad class.

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And I think a lot of people who are outside of Ev Psych think about um the mating stuff.

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And if you look online, you see a lot of stuff about mating.

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Um and if you hear other people talking about evolutionary psychology, it's often about

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mating.

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Right.

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um yeah what is your take on that either sort of

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socially or scientifically and what's your take on it um in terms of like has that been

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is that good for the science yeah what do you think yeah um i i my

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thoughts on this uh question i think go back and forth all the time um there's

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times when i think we can really highlight the contributions right, that

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research on human mating from an evolutionary perspective have made, you know,

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in general to psychological science and understanding of human nature and human behavior

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and cognition.

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And then also for getting evolutionary psychology out there as a perspective and an

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important approach that people can be taking to these questions.

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But then, you know, there's the flip side of that.

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It's it's in some ways it's to our own detriment.

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Um, it's in many ways because the questions of human mating are in some way

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the first introduction or sometimes sort of the poster child for evolutionary psychology,

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it is seen as that's what evolutionary psychology is.

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It is these questions about human mating.

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Uh, many of them that have um are about um hypothesizing about and demonstrating sex

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differences.

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Uh, and and that you know, the field for many people is that um, or their perception of the

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field is that.

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Uh, and even when I teach, right, um, I actually, you know, as I've gone on through

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time, have tried to structure my classes to really just de-emphasize uh that work.

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And it's because I'm taking the perspective of thinking about evolutionary psychology as

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you know, all the different types of questions it can answer, and thinking about human

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nature in totality and all the different domains, you know, there is research in.

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But if I was taking the perspective of trying to teach students about um sort of like

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the the research into evolutionary psychology proportionally, right?

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If if I was going to spend the same proportion in class as the proportion of published

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literature, right?

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Then yeah, we might spend 50% of the time on mating studies because there's just a lot of

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studies out there that focus on that.

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Um, and I think it also I've talked a lot.

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Um this is your you can talk as much as you want.

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I it's the way to our own detriment, right?

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Is that I think we're um because it's the focus there, it it, you know, it we don't

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there's so many other important questions that evolutionary psychologists are working on

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that aren't in that domain and they aren't seen or understood uh or known as

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part of this discipline and part of this perspective.

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Uh, and that's one of the the issues.

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Um, I think also because it's so those findings, some of them can be flashy or

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eye-catching, they can be easily misinterpreted, uh, they can be

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then I think used by people in ways that aren't necessarily what the researcher was

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intending or what the researcher would have concluded from their own research.

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And that causes another problem for us.

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Um, our big our EPPR problem in many cases comes, I think, from mating research,

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right?

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So, so it's I absolutely am a mating researcher.

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It's what I do, right?

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I'm like, I'm, you know, trying to answer these questions, but at the same time, I I very

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much recognize I think some of the problems it's caused for us as a as a science.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I I I think I I would be inclined to agree with uh everything you said.

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Um I think in a in addition to the overemphasis on mating in general, even within the

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category of mating, I feel like there's a lopsided focus on certain topics to the detriment

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of other topics.

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So within the field of mating psychology, uh, I think there's an overemphasis on research

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on sex differences and in particular research on attraction and on the early stages of a

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relationship, as opposed to the long uh middle part of a relationship and all of the

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cooperative uh dynamics and conflicts that might arise, and maintaining a relationship,

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which is really hard, um, Deciding whether you want to stay in it or leave it.

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Eventually, you know, rearing offspring, which is the ultimate purpose for our

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relationships, there's very little research on parenting despite its outsized impact on our

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fitness.

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And so I think even within the field of mating psychology, there's a lopsided focus that's

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that's not quite encompassing the full human experience.

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Yeah.

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And, you know, everywhere in psychology, there's uh criticisms of our uh

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especially in psychology, right?

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That we, you know, study undergrads, right?

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But I think this is a particular issue for mating research, right?

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Especially the undergrads we study, you know, if we're if a lot of research is coming from

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very traditional undergraduates.

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So, you know, mean age of 20 and they don't have kids, uh, and they're, you know,

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away from home and making these decisions with, you know, no input from anybody, um, you

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know, what the outputs of those decisions, right?

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Um, they they tell us something, right?

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They absolutely tell us something, right?

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That is valuable data.

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Um, but the extent to which we've then backtracked that to say, well, oh, this is you know,

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telling us these specific things about human nature is a little questionable because we

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haven't captured a bunch of this other stuff related to human mating.

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Uh, and stuff that probably would have described the mating lives of most people through

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humanity.

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They they most of the time when making mating decisions, they probably already would have

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had kids.

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Um, they, you know, would be going, uh, you know, uh navigating, staying or leaving a

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relationship or finding a new partner after uh death or splitting up or you know, all these

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different sorts of things later in life that aren't captured by many of our studies on on

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mating and attraction, even the ones on attraction and the ones on preferences and the ones

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that are on sex differences that we have don't uh get at all of that that stuff that you

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just talked about, which if we're thinking about mating across the lifetime, a larger

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proportion of your mating decisions would have made been made in those contexts.

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Um and we aren't we aren't studying those um as much as as we could be.

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Yeah, I think those are hard to study too.

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I mean I was just yeah for a completely different reason.

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It's so funny if you poke on anything like everything you could the whole universe is in

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mating psychology.

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Like the whole problem with i as as we've talked about in other episodes, and David, I

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think you mentioned this, is that um if you count publications um and that's your

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criteria for people sort of being good scientists, then you sort of you just get what's

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easy to measure and what's the easiest thing to measure.

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You know, you don't go out and actually measure like real world families or things, right?

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Unless you're an anthropologist.

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So you have undergrads.

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You're you're also, I mean, the other thing too is you're also uh the consumers of our

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science are also undergrads.

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So it's even worse because we're not teaching 40 year olds or 80-year-olds.

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We're not studying 40-year-olds and 80-year-olds.

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We're both studying, but also teaching early, like late teenagers and early 20-year-olds

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who are kind of weird in that they're not parents yet because of our very, very late um

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altrucial or you know, we're very we're altrucial to very late um in this culture.

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Um and so uh yeah, I think it's it's an example of it's a

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combination of where our science happens to be done that we're teaching and uh

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around these younger kids.

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But it's also I think a problem of if you have to just collect a lot of data um and and

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crank out a lot of papers, then yeah, you're not gonna be going far afield from you know

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who's just down the hall, basically.

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Absolutely.

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The incentive structures of our science play a role here.

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Because yeah, that, you know, these other types of things, it's it's it's hard data to get

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and it's complicated.

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Um, all of those different pieces, right?

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If you if you can have it, you know, isolated down to um, you know, these folks who

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don't vary a lot on certain dimensions, right?

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Yeah, you can get at certain things more purely, but that not varying on those other

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dimensions might really matter.

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Um, but on the plus side, right?

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So this is one of the the great things about you know evolutionary social sciences is that

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we aren't just the you know psychologists here studying undergrads, right?

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Um, so I think about the work from you know Brooks Shelza and like Elizabeth Pillsworth and

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and people who I think about as part of our broader evolutionary social science community

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who who look at these similar questions in folks who are very different than

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than the ones that I am often studying.

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And I think that's, you know, that's that's some of the power of our field, is that that is

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part of it.

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I think when I when I teach undergrads, it's one of the, you know, I teach an evolutionary

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psychology class in a psychology department in a psychology major.

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It's it's mostly psych majors taking the class and you know, trying to explain to them,

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like, well, we're called evolutionary psychology, but but to me, this evidence from this

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anthropologist and this study is more informative in my work and speaks

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more and is more similar to what I do than this research that came from this other person

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who's also called a psychologist who's who's studying attraction or something, right?

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From a social psychology perspective or something.

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Um, and and trying to get that across about how all of I I see that as part of my

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um my discipline, right?

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Um, is I think unique for them.

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I I think that's that's different than what they uh see in some of the other classes that

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they'll take.

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Yeah.

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And I think too, I mean, you know, I study undergrads, you study undergrads.

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David's, well, David, I don't know, do you study undergrad?

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Occasionally, I guess.

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No, no.

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00:13:49,720 --> 00:13:52,680
I mean, I don't mean like I just mean, you know, I think you're typical participants of

238
00:13:52,680 --> 00:13:52,760
that.

239
00:13:53,160 --> 00:13:56,840
And I think like it's also easy because we're academics and we like to self-flagellate.

240
00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:02,840
Like there's, and as you said, Carrie, um, there's a lot of really important work

241
00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:08,680
done in insights on undergraduate or 20 year old or early mating psychology.

242
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:10,520
And that just wouldn't exist without this approach.

243
00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:15,030
And so I don't, I don't think we should uh throw that baby out with the bathwater either,

244
00:14:15,110 --> 00:14:15,430
for sure.

245
00:14:15,510 --> 00:14:17,270
And I think we should be very proud of that.

246
00:14:17,510 --> 00:14:23,270
And maybe this is getting into a little bit of your research, but what um you mentioned,

247
00:14:23,350 --> 00:14:28,230
you know, this thing that this anthropologist studied, what to your mind is sort of the

248
00:14:28,230 --> 00:14:33,590
core baby um of the uh and not the bathwater of the mating

249
00:14:33,590 --> 00:14:34,390
literature.

250
00:14:34,470 --> 00:14:40,310
Um, and sort of if you could wave a magic wand and sort of have people actually understand

251
00:14:40,310 --> 00:14:45,900
what it is that you're trying to do um in the mating research, you know, what would

252
00:14:46,060 --> 00:14:46,940
what is that?

253
00:14:47,100 --> 00:14:52,700
Um, you know, is it is it for example, you know, that it's not just flashy effects, but

254
00:14:52,700 --> 00:14:56,060
it's actually sort of design mindedness or or you know, that kind of thing?

255
00:14:56,220 --> 00:14:59,500
Like what what do you think what do you think people aren't getting?

256
00:14:59,660 --> 00:15:03,420
And if you could just sort of like pick 'em up by the scruff of the collar and be like, you

257
00:15:03,420 --> 00:15:07,500
stupid YouTube podcaster, don't do this, do this other thing.

258
00:15:07,580 --> 00:15:09,340
What's that other thing they should be doing?

259
00:15:09,580 --> 00:15:12,670
If they're listening, if they're playing or not, but maybe they're listening.

260
00:15:13,470 --> 00:15:14,510
Tell them what to do.

261
00:15:16,270 --> 00:15:22,030
Um it's certainly it's the the design-mindedness.

262
00:15:22,190 --> 00:15:27,390
Um, it's it's at the heart of it the you know, thinking of the mind as this collection of

263
00:15:27,390 --> 00:15:28,750
adaptations, right?

264
00:15:29,390 --> 00:15:35,120
And and that these decisions or the outputs that we observe, right?

265
00:15:35,280 --> 00:15:40,960
The feelings we feel, the things we're attracted to, the motivations we might experience,

266
00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:41,280
right?

267
00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:44,320
Uh in the mating realm, but of course in all the other realms, but at least in the mating

268
00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:45,680
realm, which are really important to us.

269
00:15:45,840 --> 00:15:49,440
We spend a lot of time thinking about these things and talking about these things to each

270
00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:55,040
other, um, about, you know, who we're interested in and what we like and uh our

271
00:15:55,040 --> 00:15:56,800
relationships and how we feel about them.

272
00:15:56,960 --> 00:15:59,530
Those occupy a lot of our conscious thought, right?

273
00:15:59,690 --> 00:16:04,410
Um, and so it's so important for that reason because it occupies so much of our conscious

274
00:16:04,410 --> 00:16:04,970
thought.

275
00:16:05,130 --> 00:16:11,050
Um, but I think the the the biggest thing I when I teach a lot of this

276
00:16:11,050 --> 00:16:16,890
stuff for students and and when I talk about in my research, um, is how much of the what is

277
00:16:16,890 --> 00:16:21,130
happening under the hood to result in that stuff that we're conscious of is stuff that

278
00:16:21,130 --> 00:16:22,890
we're not consciously aware of, right?

279
00:16:23,050 --> 00:16:28,820
That we don't have, um, and we're probably we're designed probably to not have good access

280
00:16:28,820 --> 00:16:33,620
to what's the information that we're actually taking in and how that information is being

281
00:16:33,620 --> 00:16:39,460
weighted or toggled uh or used by our mind to then produce that outward feeling of, oh,

282
00:16:39,540 --> 00:16:40,900
I think that person's hot, right?

283
00:16:41,060 --> 00:16:45,460
Or oh, I don't want to, you know, that's not the kind of person that I would want to be

284
00:16:45,460 --> 00:16:45,620
with.

285
00:16:45,780 --> 00:16:50,710
Um, and actually going on under there is stuff that we probably we don't have access to.

286
00:16:50,790 --> 00:16:53,190
Uh and we might slap explanations on top of it.

287
00:16:53,350 --> 00:16:55,910
Oh, I like this person for this reason, right?

288
00:16:56,230 --> 00:17:01,670
But those those are explanations that might not map on to the actual functional

289
00:17:01,670 --> 00:17:05,670
reality of what is leading to the desire, right?

290
00:17:05,910 --> 00:17:10,520
And I think Communicating that

291
00:17:11,720 --> 00:17:16,600
and helping people understand that, I think is probably one of the most important things

292
00:17:16,600 --> 00:17:18,040
for our meeting research.

293
00:17:18,680 --> 00:17:24,520
Because a lot of the misconceptions come from the idea that if we're

294
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:29,240
arguing there's some sex difference for functional reasons, is that people have conscious

295
00:17:29,240 --> 00:17:32,750
access to the the that functional reason.

296
00:17:32,830 --> 00:17:36,510
And then that they're consciously doing that for that functional reason, right?

297
00:17:36,750 --> 00:17:41,550
And I think that's a lot of where the misinformation and misconceptions about mating

298
00:17:41,630 --> 00:17:45,230
research in evolutionary psychology come from, not appreciating that distinction.

299
00:17:46,190 --> 00:17:46,430
Yeah.

300
00:17:46,590 --> 00:17:51,870
So I hear what I'm hearing you say is there's really two things that Evpsych has done.

301
00:17:51,950 --> 00:17:57,820
Number one is it's provided data or knowledge about something people care about a

302
00:17:57,820 --> 00:17:59,100
lot, which is mating.

303
00:17:59,260 --> 00:18:02,460
And that really was very absent, right, from the literature.

304
00:18:02,620 --> 00:18:07,660
I mean, it's sort of there's this trope that a lot of people want to go into psychology and

305
00:18:07,660 --> 00:18:13,580
they read a textbook and they think it's going to be about jealousy and, you know, lust

306
00:18:13,900 --> 00:18:17,500
and disappointment and envy and jealousy.

307
00:18:17,580 --> 00:18:20,370
And it's starting to be, but it's usually about like perception.

308
00:18:20,450 --> 00:18:21,890
No, no offense to perception.

309
00:18:22,050 --> 00:18:24,450
But you know, it's about perception and reasoning and logic.

310
00:18:24,530 --> 00:18:27,570
And you're like, where, where is my experience as a human being?

311
00:18:27,730 --> 00:18:31,890
And I think like one of the things I'm hearing you say is like the one of the really uh

312
00:18:32,130 --> 00:18:36,770
important things has been to study that stuff, but not in a way that's just sort of like

313
00:18:36,770 --> 00:18:42,290
cataloging people's experiences, but but genuinely a science of here are actual

314
00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:46,120
evolved systems and mechanisms and a way to sort of study this stuff.

315
00:18:46,280 --> 00:18:52,120
But then the other thing you're saying is that this thing that most of us go

316
00:18:52,120 --> 00:18:57,960
through when we're trained, which is to really, and it's a multi-year process, it was for

317
00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:01,960
me, is to understand that the way we naturally think about ourselves, which is sort of like

318
00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:05,470
there's a little person in the head, and we consciously sort of make our decisions.

319
00:19:05,550 --> 00:19:11,310
And maybe there's some non-conscious effects that sort of make me want to have a piece of

320
00:19:11,310 --> 00:19:15,310
chocolate or, you know, say, oh, I should sleep with this person even though I don't want

321
00:19:15,310 --> 00:19:15,550
to.

322
00:19:15,790 --> 00:19:18,750
You know, those little things poking on the little person in us.

323
00:19:18,830 --> 00:19:20,830
But otherwise, that's sort of the model.

324
00:19:21,230 --> 00:19:26,920
And the thing that we get trained out of is that no, all of us is a mechanical system.

325
00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:31,800
There's a software level description of you and I and the little person in our head.

326
00:19:32,040 --> 00:19:37,480
And then just as you said, then therefore, when we're talking about um

327
00:19:37,800 --> 00:19:43,560
why uh the evolved psychology of mating is the way it is, we're not talking about it being

328
00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:45,960
inevitable, we're not talking about being conscious or not.

329
00:19:46,040 --> 00:19:48,120
We're just saying, like, this is the way it works.

330
00:19:48,360 --> 00:19:53,130
And it's sort of we're agnostic as to whether or not or we might have a principal reason to

331
00:19:53,130 --> 00:19:54,890
suspect people aren't aware of it.

332
00:19:55,050 --> 00:19:58,490
So it's a very different um sort of way of thinking.

333
00:19:58,570 --> 00:20:03,290
And if you don't have that way of thinking, then it sounds like people might sort of blame

334
00:20:03,290 --> 00:20:09,210
people um for the way that they're built, or I don't know, what what what to what do you

335
00:20:09,210 --> 00:20:12,090
think is the consequence of giving thinking it's conscious?

336
00:20:12,170 --> 00:20:14,970
Is that what um there's blame people for the way they're built.

337
00:20:15,050 --> 00:20:20,720
There's also the attaching sort of um to the extent that there's um

338
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:24,320
so let's say it's sex differences in meat preferences.

339
00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:25,520
We'll pick the big one.

340
00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:31,600
Um right that uh oh okay you know that if if if men

341
00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:35,360
place a greater premium on physical attractiveness, well then they're just shallow, right?

342
00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:38,800
Or if women place a greater premium on resources, well then they're a bunch of gold

343
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:39,600
diggers, right?

344
00:20:40,480 --> 00:20:46,090
So it's that sort of um value judgment, I guess, that is

345
00:20:46,090 --> 00:20:52,010
applied to some of that because the thinking behind those preferences is, oh,

346
00:20:52,170 --> 00:20:56,250
that you're functionally can you're consciously conniving about those, right?

347
00:20:56,410 --> 00:21:00,490
Oh, well, I need this or I want that, you know, for these reasons, right?

348
00:21:00,730 --> 00:21:04,960
And that's what then leads to that kind of value judgment about those differences.

349
00:21:05,120 --> 00:21:06,320
And that's just a sex difference.

350
00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:08,240
It's the big sex differences example.

351
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:12,320
But you could think of a lot of this for for lots of mating psychology in in the world of

352
00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:13,280
jealousy, right?

353
00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:16,720
Uh in the world of, you know, anything right that we might think about.

354
00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:22,800
Um that it it it allows for that as opposed to if you're having that more

355
00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:26,720
complex way of thinking about it, you can appreciate when there's those differences or when

356
00:21:26,720 --> 00:21:31,600
we might predict people will feel a certain way or another way without uh needing to then

357
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:32,960
attach that value judgment to it.

358
00:21:33,710 --> 00:21:34,030
Yeah.

359
00:21:35,070 --> 00:21:35,790
It's interesting.

360
00:21:35,950 --> 00:21:41,630
Um I I certainly buy this this logic that there's a lot of instinct blindness where we

361
00:21:41,630 --> 00:21:46,430
we're not fully aware of all the complex computations that are going on underneath the hood

362
00:21:46,510 --> 00:21:50,030
before we even feel something like attraction or jealousy.

363
00:21:50,990 --> 00:21:55,470
But it seems to me that there's a there's a disconnect between other forms of instinct

364
00:21:55,470 --> 00:21:58,270
blindness and the instinct blindness related to mating.

365
00:21:58,510 --> 00:22:03,080
So if if I'm if I'm talking about, say, perception or proprioception or the way I balance,

366
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:07,400
you could you could really delve into all the complex computations in my vestibular system

367
00:22:07,400 --> 00:22:10,840
and really blow my mind about you know all the complexity there.

368
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:12,040
And I'm totally not aware of it.

369
00:22:12,120 --> 00:22:15,160
I'm just walking around and effortlessly balancing, but there are like these, you know,

370
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:19,400
hundreds of tiny computers in my head that are just registering my position in space, and

371
00:22:19,400 --> 00:22:19,960
it's amazing.

372
00:22:20,200 --> 00:22:23,400
And when you tell me that, I'm not going to feel threatened or uncomfortable, right?

373
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:25,240
I might even be interested.

374
00:22:25,550 --> 00:22:30,350
But as soon as you start to get under the hood of my attractions, my mating psychology,

375
00:22:30,510 --> 00:22:33,630
then all of a sudden there is a sense of threat there.

376
00:22:33,870 --> 00:22:38,910
Because there it's not merely that we don't have access to it, it's that we often have

377
00:22:38,910 --> 00:22:41,950
strategic reasons to actually conceal it.

378
00:22:42,110 --> 00:22:45,070
Um, because mating is a zero-sum game.

379
00:22:45,230 --> 00:22:48,910
You know, if two people mate with each other, those people are not available to be mated

380
00:22:48,910 --> 00:22:49,860
with to other people.

381
00:22:50,020 --> 00:22:53,860
And so because of this zero-sumness and this competitiveness and this rivalry in the mating

382
00:22:53,860 --> 00:22:57,860
domain, and also even within partners, there's the the temptation to defect in the

383
00:22:57,860 --> 00:23:03,460
prisoner's dilemma, um, uh to, you know, d take advantage of the other party's investment.

384
00:23:03,540 --> 00:23:09,380
Um uh uh so there are all these potential conflicts and you may not want to disclose

385
00:23:09,450 --> 00:23:13,130
your attractions, or if you're, you know, attracted to someone else, if you're in a

386
00:23:13,130 --> 00:23:16,890
relationship, or or what it is about the person that attracted you to them, that could be

387
00:23:16,890 --> 00:23:17,370
threatening.

388
00:23:17,450 --> 00:23:21,290
If it's something that, you know, is not going to last a long time, uh, you might not want

389
00:23:21,290 --> 00:23:22,330
to disclose that to the person.

390
00:23:22,410 --> 00:23:26,570
You might want to make them think that you're going to be in it for the long haul uh when

391
00:23:26,570 --> 00:23:27,530
you might not be.

392
00:23:27,770 --> 00:23:33,160
And so because of there are all these um sort of undesirable or

393
00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:35,160
strategic things that are happening under the hood.

394
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:38,760
When you start to poke at them and reveal them, people get really uncomfortable.

395
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:44,440
And so I'm I'm wondering if if you buy that logic that there's just there's more to conceal

396
00:23:44,440 --> 00:23:48,200
in the mating domain than there is in, say, proprioception.

397
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:52,870
Um and and if and if that's maybe underlying some of this uh

398
00:23:53,830 --> 00:23:55,990
reaction to evolutionary psychology.

399
00:23:56,470 --> 00:23:57,350
I think I think you're right.

400
00:23:57,430 --> 00:23:58,710
That that sounds right to me.

401
00:23:58,790 --> 00:24:03,030
Um, certainly, and that's true for any psychology that's regulating sort of cooperative

402
00:24:03,030 --> 00:24:04,630
relationships in general, right?

403
00:24:04,790 --> 00:24:08,950
Um, more so than than right if you're thinking proprioception or some of those basic

404
00:24:08,950 --> 00:24:12,630
perception things, you know, the calculus my mind is doing to catch a ball, right?

405
00:24:12,790 --> 00:24:15,670
Like, cool, my mind's doing calculus, sweet, right?

406
00:24:15,830 --> 00:24:21,460
But there's no there's no threat there versus oh, um, you know, you ignored that person.

407
00:24:21,700 --> 00:24:25,300
Um, oh, well, that's because you know they had already offended somebody.

408
00:24:25,380 --> 00:24:28,100
I'm pretty sure they were an offensive person and that's why I ignored them.

409
00:24:28,260 --> 00:24:32,500
Not because there's some calculation going on that it would not benefit me to interact with

410
00:24:32,500 --> 00:24:33,620
that person and I, right?

411
00:24:34,100 --> 00:24:36,980
Um, so there's the the broader any type of cooperative relationship.

412
00:24:37,060 --> 00:24:41,460
Um I think this statement's true for, but then mating relationships are you know like the

413
00:24:41,460 --> 00:24:43,610
ultimate cooperative relationship.

414
00:24:43,770 --> 00:24:48,090
Um and there's some thinking I've been doing along those lines lately of like that

415
00:24:48,090 --> 00:24:52,490
dimension of cooperative relationships and really thinking a lot about mating relationships

416
00:24:52,650 --> 00:24:57,210
as that, you know, because they've got the extra layers of shared investments if there's

417
00:24:57,210 --> 00:24:58,090
offspring, right?

418
00:24:58,330 --> 00:25:02,250
And in, you know, in our modern environment, especially all the other shared investments

419
00:25:02,250 --> 00:25:04,090
that happen in mating relationships, right?

420
00:25:04,170 --> 00:25:08,080
You know, these resource investments that are incredibly costly, buying house together,

421
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:08,320
right?

422
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:13,040
You're doing all these things that um you're you're so intertwined.

423
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:19,040
Um uh but yeah and so especially in those relationships right that the extent to

424
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:24,720
which uh there would be motivation to do anything that would be beneficial to you but

425
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:29,330
costly to the other person right um needs to be hidden, right?

426
00:25:29,650 --> 00:25:31,650
It's it benefits you for it to be hidden.

427
00:25:32,130 --> 00:25:35,890
And to to them and then maybe to yourself also.

428
00:25:35,970 --> 00:25:39,490
And so the layers of explanation that you might have that you're conscious you have

429
00:25:39,490 --> 00:25:43,490
conscious access to help help protect that, right?

430
00:25:43,890 --> 00:25:49,570
And yes, the suggestion then that there is that stuff under the hood that is providing the,

431
00:25:49,650 --> 00:25:54,340
you know, is the that that functional layer is is threatening right because if that gets

432
00:25:54,340 --> 00:25:59,220
revealed right or if i start to have knowledge of it and i start to then question well what

433
00:25:59,220 --> 00:26:04,980
are my own motives right how much might that bleed through um what does that say then about

434
00:26:04,980 --> 00:26:10,740
how i can represent myself as as a person right um and my my thoughts about the kind of

435
00:26:10,740 --> 00:26:16,580
person I am um and so yeah I I I your thoughts make sense to me right

436
00:26:16,660 --> 00:26:22,030
that that's could be what's going on I don't know that I've seen anybody write it that way.

437
00:26:23,070 --> 00:26:23,870
That's interesting.

438
00:26:23,950 --> 00:26:24,110
Yeah.

439
00:26:24,510 --> 00:26:27,870
Well, can I uh further so this is something I've been thinking about.

440
00:26:27,950 --> 00:26:33,310
Uh uh I've been thinking about in what circumstances uh deception can be mutually

441
00:26:33,310 --> 00:26:35,950
beneficial to both the deceiver and the deceived.

442
00:26:36,190 --> 00:26:42,110
Um and it seems to me that um romantic relationships might be one such case where something

443
00:26:42,110 --> 00:26:47,360
that is not quite true can nevertheless be beneficial for both parties to believe.

444
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:52,480
So if someone's mate value, uh if a big part of a person's mate value is how committed they

445
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:57,200
are to you, if how uh you know how much they're into you and how much they're committed to

446
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:02,800
you for the long haul, um, and then that then that means that if I falsely

447
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:07,600
broadcast a huge amount of commitment, that could increase your commitment to me and

448
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:09,600
thereby increase your mate value to me.

449
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,710
Uh And you can get into kind of a positive feedback loop there where you can start out with

450
00:27:13,710 --> 00:27:18,190
a lie like, I can say falsely that I'm, you know, you're you're the most beautiful person

451
00:27:18,190 --> 00:27:20,910
in the world, everyone else is hideous by comparison.

452
00:27:21,070 --> 00:27:24,670
You know, there's just something uniquely about you that no one could ever replace.

453
00:27:24,750 --> 00:27:29,230
And uh I'm gonna be with you until the end of time, no matter what happens, you know, even

454
00:27:29,230 --> 00:27:32,910
if you uh become physically deformed or if you lose all your money, whatever.

455
00:27:33,070 --> 00:27:36,000
And we say these things, and they're false to a certain extent.

456
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,280
Like our mating psychology is more strategic than that.

457
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:45,280
Um, but because they create this positive feedback loop where it causes you to

458
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:48,560
increase your commitment to me, which causes me to increase my commitment to you, which

459
00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:53,680
causes you to increase your commitment to me, we can sort of get into a symbiotic uh myth

460
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:54,240
together.

461
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:59,680
Uh and if we work together to build that myth, it actually does, you know, strengthen our

462
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:00,480
relationship.

463
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:06,270
Uh and so there's there's something kind of paradoxical about you know commitment where you

464
00:28:06,270 --> 00:28:07,710
kind of have to fake it till you make it.

465
00:28:07,790 --> 00:28:07,950
Yep.

466
00:28:08,110 --> 00:28:12,990
Or or at least there might be like a kernel of of delusion at the heart of love.

467
00:28:13,470 --> 00:28:18,190
Um and it may be that when once we start to get under the hood of that delusion, it it can

468
00:28:18,190 --> 00:28:18,990
be threatening.

469
00:28:19,470 --> 00:28:20,190
Absolutely.

470
00:28:20,350 --> 00:28:23,390
Um, you know, and I think it's interesting, you know, data on things like arranged

471
00:28:23,390 --> 00:28:29,280
marriages, yeah, uh where you know it's explicit that the this commitment

472
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:33,440
has been made prior to there being sort of these ideas of love, right?

473
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:35,120
Or those those feelings there.

474
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:38,640
But but but people have, you know, they've they've made that decision that this is where

475
00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:40,640
I'm doing this investment, right?

476
00:28:40,960 --> 00:28:44,800
Um, and then you see, right, if you look at the data on that, there's plenty of those

477
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:47,760
marriages that end up quite, you know, successful and happy, right?

478
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:49,200
There's ones that don't, right?

479
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:53,090
But it's it's and and the process you're talking about here, it's it's a very kind of

480
00:28:53,090 --> 00:28:54,450
explicit version of that, right?

481
00:28:54,530 --> 00:28:58,290
It's like we've decided that we're going, we're making this commitment, we're going to do

482
00:28:58,290 --> 00:29:02,450
this investment, and then that builds from there, um, which is you know the opposite

483
00:29:02,450 --> 00:29:08,050
direction from I think what many uh you know folks sort of in in you know the ontogeny we

484
00:29:08,050 --> 00:29:09,090
all developed in, right?

485
00:29:09,170 --> 00:29:12,930
Uh think of it as, as the, you know, falling in love with somebody first and then making

486
00:29:12,930 --> 00:29:14,050
those commitments.

487
00:29:14,210 --> 00:29:19,820
Um, but I think the the fake it till you make it idea, and I, you know, I I get the

488
00:29:19,820 --> 00:29:25,420
feeling from some people I've talked to in sort of the relationships counseling world who

489
00:29:25,420 --> 00:29:28,140
are not evolutionarily informed really.

490
00:29:28,940 --> 00:29:34,140
But some of this is the sort of things that they they recommend to couples when they're

491
00:29:34,540 --> 00:29:35,580
struggling, right?

492
00:29:35,740 --> 00:29:40,780
That it is even if you're not feeling you still need, you know, doing these things for your

493
00:29:40,780 --> 00:29:41,500
partner, right?

494
00:29:41,660 --> 00:29:45,820
You know, having that time and doing those committed things because it it it does that.

495
00:29:46,130 --> 00:29:51,730
right um and so yeah I think I think you're right there that that deception about

496
00:29:52,130 --> 00:29:57,650
um on both ends right it can be beneficial to build you know create that cycle um

497
00:29:58,050 --> 00:30:02,770
that's really interesting yeah I love that idea that um about Carrie what you said about

498
00:30:02,770 --> 00:30:08,530
this super highly cooperative thing and David this thing about um we sort of

499
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:13,400
turn off our skepticism or our usual criticisms.

500
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:19,240
There's uh Marvin Minsky had this book after the um uh Society of Mind, which was not

501
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:20,520
nearly as well received.

502
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:22,760
And and some of it was sort of out of his wheelhouse.

503
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:26,360
He talked about things that like in development that I don't think are true.

504
00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:28,120
But there's some really good insights about it.

505
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:30,040
It was his last book before he passed away.

506
00:30:30,170 --> 00:30:31,690
And one of it is about love.

507
00:30:32,010 --> 00:30:36,650
And his argument is that if you actually look at what a lot of people describe when they

508
00:30:36,650 --> 00:30:40,650
talk about being in love, is sort of like there's nobody I can't think of anyone else other

509
00:30:40,650 --> 00:30:41,210
than you.

510
00:30:41,690 --> 00:30:43,930
You know, I can't think of anything other than you.

511
00:30:44,090 --> 00:30:48,890
Um, and his argument is a lot of it is sort of actually negatively framed, where where he's

512
00:30:48,890 --> 00:30:54,760
basically describing it as the usual critics in our head of sort of like this person's

513
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:55,560
annoying.

514
00:30:55,720 --> 00:30:57,720
What else can I be doing with my time?

515
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,120
Like, there's nothing I'd rather be doing than spend time with you.

516
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:01,800
I can't think of anyone other than you.

517
00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:07,800
It's this sort of super signal of the usual sort of cost

518
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,240
benefit transactional analysis I have with the world.

519
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:17,330
I am pointing to you through this evolved commitment devices output and saying the usual

520
00:31:17,330 --> 00:31:21,650
things of like I'm gonna think about other stuff, I'm gonna do other stuff, I'm gonna even

521
00:31:21,650 --> 00:31:24,050
consider other stuff is all turned off.

522
00:31:24,210 --> 00:31:26,050
There's nothing I can think about other than you.

523
00:31:26,210 --> 00:31:27,970
I can't imagine doing anything other than you.

524
00:31:28,050 --> 00:31:30,290
I never wanna be any with anyone other than you.

525
00:31:30,450 --> 00:31:36,050
You know, like it's just it's this beautiful readout of this just turning off all of the

526
00:31:36,050 --> 00:31:37,730
usual sort of cost benefit things.

527
00:31:37,810 --> 00:31:40,050
So it really reminded me, David, of what you were saying.

528
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:41,480
Yeah, no, totally.

529
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:41,800
Yeah.

530
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:43,560
I I I I I buy that a lot.

531
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:47,800
Um and and you know, it is romantic to turn off those cost benefit things.

532
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:52,760
And and signaling that you've turned off your cost benefit calculators in your brain to

533
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:56,680
your mate can increase their commitment to you, which increases your commitment to them.

534
00:31:56,840 --> 00:32:01,240
And yeah, I think that's a big part of what love is and how you build commitment with

535
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:05,530
someone is, you know, it's it's a two way street and you gotta sometimes you gotta just get

536
00:32:05,530 --> 00:32:10,250
into a positive feedback loop, um, even if it's founded on on something that's you know not

537
00:32:10,330 --> 00:32:15,610
not quite true or or more of a romantic myth, but still, you know, it can lead to something

538
00:32:15,610 --> 00:32:16,970
that becomes real.

539
00:32:17,770 --> 00:32:20,010
Um, you know, it might be true too.

540
00:32:20,170 --> 00:32:24,090
I mean, you can also just imagine like from a very alien and cynical perspective, you might

541
00:32:24,090 --> 00:32:28,900
just imagine you're sort of like, look, we have this organism and it can't stand the other

542
00:32:28,900 --> 00:32:32,740
organisms that's around because you know, like we it's just been designed to sort of like

543
00:32:32,740 --> 00:32:34,580
maximize its own benefits.

544
00:32:34,980 --> 00:32:38,900
But we have to get like two organisms together for long enough to like, you know,

545
00:32:39,140 --> 00:32:41,540
successfully produce and raise children.

546
00:32:41,780 --> 00:32:45,380
What are the things that I mean, we know this for disgust, for example, right?

547
00:32:45,460 --> 00:32:49,620
Like one of the things about sexual and Carrie, you probably know much more about the

548
00:32:49,620 --> 00:32:53,460
primary literature than this, but just anecdotally, you know, or people always talk about

549
00:32:53,460 --> 00:32:58,750
in classes that when lust is turned on, or whatever, what is the technical term for lust?

550
00:32:58,830 --> 00:32:59,470
What would that be?

551
00:32:59,630 --> 00:33:00,910
Sexual arousal.

552
00:33:01,310 --> 00:33:01,870
Arousal.

553
00:33:01,950 --> 00:33:02,430
Yeah.

554
00:33:02,590 --> 00:33:04,110
Um, disgust is turned down.

555
00:33:04,190 --> 00:33:07,550
Like even the Deb Lieberman work, like if you're attracted to somebody, you're not as

556
00:33:07,550 --> 00:33:08,510
disgusted, right?

557
00:33:08,750 --> 00:33:13,710
Um, and that's clearly like the usual, like, well, that's just disgusting to like, you

558
00:33:13,710 --> 00:33:16,110
know, be around somebody or like deal with them.

559
00:33:16,270 --> 00:33:19,180
Those things get turned down in order to, you know, make kids.

560
00:33:19,260 --> 00:33:19,820
That makes sense.

561
00:33:19,980 --> 00:33:25,580
And so the idea is that's sort of just that same design principle, but then applied to lots

562
00:33:25,580 --> 00:33:29,900
of stuff, which is just like if you're around somebody for a long time, is it generally

563
00:33:29,900 --> 00:33:30,300
annoying?

564
00:33:30,380 --> 00:33:36,300
And maybe what love is, this Minsky idea, is it's good reasons

565
00:33:36,300 --> 00:33:39,580
to turn down the things that would ordinarily bother you.

566
00:33:39,740 --> 00:33:42,780
And it's probably the same thing for love for your kid too, right?

567
00:33:42,860 --> 00:33:43,980
Like we're all parents.

568
00:33:44,140 --> 00:33:48,910
I mean, the things that my son does, if another person did it, it would just drive me

569
00:33:48,910 --> 00:33:49,310
crazy.

570
00:33:49,390 --> 00:33:52,990
And it's and it's tolerable, you know, and I love and I love my son to death.

571
00:33:53,150 --> 00:33:56,670
But you know, it's just that threshold just really gets down regulated.

572
00:33:56,750 --> 00:34:02,110
So I this this idea that love is changing thresholds on sort of what's

573
00:34:02,110 --> 00:34:06,750
intolerable, I think is is is a really interesting idea that I've not really seen much

574
00:34:06,750 --> 00:34:07,870
literature on.

575
00:34:08,670 --> 00:34:09,150
Yeah.

576
00:34:09,390 --> 00:34:15,360
Um, you're making me think of so there's there's the piece of it for uh so it was a

577
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,720
couple things you're both saying, but I I don't know if anybody's sort of empirically

578
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:24,160
demonstrated if we've looked at sort of statements or things people say that they think

579
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,240
convey, you know, that love and commitment, right?

580
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:30,160
If the ones that do it the best are the ones that really do indicate exactly what you're

581
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:35,390
saying, that you are forgoing other things or for giving up other options or

582
00:34:35,950 --> 00:34:41,310
or um you know not not interested in those other things and and other like fixed beneficial

583
00:34:41,310 --> 00:34:46,750
things right that but and that that but for you right and if that then uh

584
00:34:46,910 --> 00:34:52,830
those are perceived as as particularly indicative of particularly romantic right I mean

585
00:34:52,910 --> 00:34:58,190
that that it might come feel that way right how interesting yeah and in some of that too

586
00:34:58,270 --> 00:35:03,340
it's it's you know, it's interesting with that kind of, you know, love commitment device

587
00:35:03,340 --> 00:35:04,380
kind of idea.

588
00:35:04,540 --> 00:35:08,540
Um, you know, a big thing that matters is is your alternatives, right?

589
00:35:08,780 --> 00:35:13,900
So it's this, and this is something people don't like to think about with the under the

590
00:35:13,900 --> 00:35:14,780
hood stuff, right?

591
00:35:14,940 --> 00:35:19,660
That, you know, as much as it's, you know, there there is that shared investment you have

592
00:35:19,660 --> 00:35:22,060
with this person that's built this relationship, right?

593
00:35:22,300 --> 00:35:27,410
Um, it is likely that we also, you know, have a sense of what our alternatives are, right?

594
00:35:27,570 --> 00:35:30,930
And that is stored and toggled away somewhere, right?

595
00:35:31,170 --> 00:35:36,050
Uh, and and in many cases, you know, it is it is not worth right, uh, you know, leaving the

596
00:35:36,050 --> 00:35:40,530
current good thing one has, right, for what those potential alternatives are, but the way

597
00:35:40,530 --> 00:35:45,170
that that can fluctuate over time, um, depending on a partner, depending on partner's

598
00:35:45,170 --> 00:35:50,290
value, your value, the um potential of the alternatives you have, right?

599
00:35:50,450 --> 00:35:54,840
Um, that we we should expect relationships to to end, right?

600
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:56,600
That for those reasons.

601
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:02,440
And so for all the the the nice side of this, oh, things that are so romantic and love,

602
00:36:02,520 --> 00:36:03,320
it's so, right?

603
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:08,600
There's a side of it too, I think, that learning and in researching in this world, uh,

604
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,640
that, you know, it's not sad when relationships end, right?

605
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:17,530
That we we should predict relationships and in that successful relationships might be one

606
00:36:17,530 --> 00:36:20,570
that lasts, you know, a certain amount of time, right?

607
00:36:20,650 --> 00:36:24,250
Whether it's, you know, one year, two years, five years, 10 years, 15 years, whatever.

608
00:36:24,570 --> 00:36:28,650
But for very sort of reasonable reasons, right?

609
00:36:28,810 --> 00:36:33,770
That you we would expect, oh, that this is no longer the the cooperative relationship that

610
00:36:33,770 --> 00:36:37,130
it makes sense to be as deeply committed to, right?

611
00:36:37,290 --> 00:36:40,300
And that uh that then that that relationship ends, right?

612
00:36:40,460 --> 00:36:43,820
And we're we're very comfortable with that for the other types of you know, friendships

613
00:36:43,980 --> 00:36:45,180
end, we're okay with that.

614
00:36:45,260 --> 00:36:50,700
Uh business relationships end other types of partnerships, but you know, for romantic

615
00:36:50,700 --> 00:36:54,380
relationships, um, it is a much touchier thing, right?

616
00:36:54,540 --> 00:36:59,420
Um, the perceptions of people when they break up, actually breaking up, the the effects of

617
00:36:59,420 --> 00:37:05,310
that um become uh but but we should expect that people will end relationships, right?

618
00:37:05,390 --> 00:37:07,870
And they will for these different reasons.

619
00:37:08,030 --> 00:37:11,230
So Yeah, we don't really think about like, you know, grief, right?

620
00:37:11,310 --> 00:37:13,310
We just think, well, you know, grief is a natural part.

621
00:37:13,390 --> 00:37:14,990
It should end and there's a function to it.

622
00:37:15,070 --> 00:37:18,270
I mean, or at least maybe nowadays, maybe before we were like, you shouldn't feel grief or

623
00:37:18,270 --> 00:37:18,510
something.

624
00:37:18,590 --> 00:37:18,990
I don't know.

625
00:37:19,070 --> 00:37:23,470
But uh, but yeah, no, the idea that sort of love, it almost feels like, and I don't know if

626
00:37:23,470 --> 00:37:27,180
this is cross-cultural, but it's almost like you're describing that there's sort of love

627
00:37:27,180 --> 00:37:27,980
propaganda.

628
00:37:28,140 --> 00:37:29,820
And I don't know if that's universal.

629
00:37:29,900 --> 00:37:34,060
Like I don't know if that's a function of uh, you know, you have a market of you need

630
00:37:34,060 --> 00:37:37,260
people to sort of like buy your candy bar, and so you got to show them something they're

631
00:37:37,260 --> 00:37:37,740
interested in.

632
00:37:37,820 --> 00:37:41,340
And what are people interested in like violence and um mating?

633
00:37:41,420 --> 00:37:44,300
Because it's really it's opaque, it's difficult to know.

634
00:37:44,380 --> 00:37:46,700
You might learn a lesson horror too, you know, other things.

635
00:37:46,780 --> 00:37:52,610
But um, and so if there's a lot of love propaganda in in fiction or literature or what

636
00:37:52,610 --> 00:37:58,450
you're exposed to, it's all on the these are things that this would make it

637
00:37:58,450 --> 00:37:59,090
really great.

638
00:37:59,330 --> 00:38:03,810
Like you would predict ahead of time, like what would you make to make people want to watch

639
00:38:03,810 --> 00:38:03,970
it?

640
00:38:04,050 --> 00:38:07,250
It would be all about um how to make it work well.

641
00:38:07,410 --> 00:38:11,970
And if it worked well, it would it would it would last and be what you want, right?

642
00:38:12,210 --> 00:38:17,650
And so I wonder if this sort of like love propaganda gives us a really unrealistic

643
00:38:17,650 --> 00:38:19,780
view of what love is.

644
00:38:19,860 --> 00:38:23,460
And that, and it sounds like what you're saying is sort of if we took a much more like

645
00:38:23,460 --> 00:38:28,500
sophisticated view of it and we think about what its function is, then might we might think

646
00:38:28,500 --> 00:38:31,380
about it differently and its time course differently.

647
00:38:32,340 --> 00:38:32,740
Yeah.

648
00:38:32,900 --> 00:38:35,780
And I also think so there's the love, I like the love propaganda idea.

649
00:38:35,940 --> 00:38:38,580
I think that that's that's interesting.

650
00:38:38,740 --> 00:38:42,650
Um, and absolutely, and from a very, very young age, right?

651
00:38:42,810 --> 00:38:47,370
That is that that the idealizing of all of that, right?

652
00:38:47,530 --> 00:38:53,450
Um, but then it's also other stuff about um our norms, uh, you

653
00:38:53,450 --> 00:38:56,650
know, religion, um, our our laws, right?

654
00:38:56,730 --> 00:38:59,610
How all of that works, that that does the same thing, right?

655
00:38:59,850 --> 00:39:04,860
So um, you know, certainly in if you're looking at like Christianity, right?

656
00:39:04,940 --> 00:39:05,900
Like a lot of that, right?

657
00:39:05,980 --> 00:39:10,380
It's it's you're getting married and you're you're together and it in it in it makes that a

658
00:39:10,460 --> 00:39:11,740
that's a biblical thing, right?

659
00:39:11,820 --> 00:39:15,100
That's a you know, God is saying that's a good thing to do, right?

660
00:39:15,340 --> 00:39:19,740
Um so there's that, you know, on top of it as part of that love propaganda, right?

661
00:39:20,140 --> 00:39:25,970
Uh and then also just if you think about uh you know marriage and divorce and and and

662
00:39:25,970 --> 00:39:31,010
other uh the the ways we legally do it right um it gets complicated once you're intertwined

663
00:39:31,010 --> 00:39:35,330
with somebody for those you know those legal reasons right and then unintertwining is hard

664
00:39:35,490 --> 00:39:39,730
right in some cases depending on how intertwined people have become um and so that

665
00:39:39,730 --> 00:39:44,850
scaffolds on top for like why well no you just should be together forever right like

666
00:39:45,010 --> 00:39:49,890
because that dissolution process would be really complicated uh and somebody often people

667
00:39:50,140 --> 00:39:54,540
some or both people end up losing out, losing a lot in the end for doing it that is very

668
00:39:54,540 --> 00:39:56,140
evolutionarily novel, right?

669
00:39:56,300 --> 00:40:01,740
Um, you know, the idea of splitting assets and and all of these things that have to

670
00:40:01,740 --> 00:40:07,740
happen um is is a lot that I I think, you know, it doesn't I I can't imagine

671
00:40:07,740 --> 00:40:10,940
how it would have existed for a lot of human evolutionary history, but it does now.

672
00:40:11,100 --> 00:40:16,530
And so it's more reasons to why just stay together, oh being staying together longer is

673
00:40:16,530 --> 00:40:20,530
better and and that's the right thing to do and the good thing to do when that might not

674
00:40:20,610 --> 00:40:23,410
you know comport with how the psychology is designed.

675
00:40:23,730 --> 00:40:23,970
Yeah.

676
00:40:24,210 --> 00:40:29,330
Yeah the moralization of of of sex in relationships is just so interesting.

677
00:40:29,410 --> 00:40:35,250
And I mean I suspect David it's sort of for I mean you you alluded to it David about sort

678
00:40:35,250 --> 00:40:40,210
of the strategic um reasons for it but it's it's really weird um

679
00:40:44,900 --> 00:40:45,300
Yeah.

680
00:40:49,380 --> 00:40:52,980
That mating is a zero sum game and mates are a limited resource.

681
00:40:53,140 --> 00:40:58,020
And that uh you know if if I commit to someone as a mate, that takes me off the mating

682
00:40:58,020 --> 00:41:01,620
market and that could upset a lot of people because I'm such a handsome guy.

683
00:41:01,780 --> 00:41:07,530
Um but uh uh I think viewing um I th I uh viewing mating as a zero sum

684
00:41:07,690 --> 00:41:10,730
game, I think can offer a lot of insights and a lot of uncomfortable insights.

685
00:41:10,890 --> 00:41:15,450
Because I think one of the ways that we play the game is by concealing its zero sum

686
00:41:15,770 --> 00:41:16,570
aspects.

687
00:41:16,810 --> 00:41:22,410
You know, there's there's nothing less romantic than saying, Oh, um, you are the highest

688
00:41:22,410 --> 00:41:27,370
value mate that I can currently get at my current vape mate value, um, due to these

689
00:41:27,370 --> 00:41:28,410
characteristics.

690
00:41:28,660 --> 00:41:30,980
and that is why I'm uh attracted to you.

691
00:41:31,060 --> 00:41:34,500
Uh there's nothing less romantic than than putting it in those terms.

692
00:41:34,740 --> 00:41:37,940
Um, and and yet that is basically what's going on.

693
00:41:38,100 --> 00:41:41,460
You're making a calculation about what your your value is on the market, what the other

694
00:41:41,460 --> 00:41:45,060
partner's value is on the market, what are the potential alternatives, and you're making

695
00:41:45,060 --> 00:41:48,020
the best uh uh calculation uh based on the circumstances.

696
00:41:48,180 --> 00:41:52,150
But if you were to actually say all that in a relationship, it would torpedo the

697
00:41:52,150 --> 00:41:52,870
relationship.

698
00:41:53,350 --> 00:41:56,550
David, here's a new suggestion about a new entrepreneurial idea.

699
00:41:56,630 --> 00:42:00,310
You could do Valentine's Day, Cards Against Humanity, Valentine's Cards.

700
00:42:00,630 --> 00:42:01,270
Yeah.

701
00:42:02,710 --> 00:42:03,590
Yeah, totally.

702
00:42:04,710 --> 00:42:05,270
Not a good idea.

703
00:42:05,430 --> 00:42:07,030
Not a yes, not a good idea.

704
00:42:07,270 --> 00:42:12,310
No, I mean I I'm thinking about writing a post called Love is Bullshit um on this stuff.

705
00:42:12,470 --> 00:42:15,160
Um maybe maybe releasing it on Valentine's Day.

706
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,760
But I want to poke on David's idea and actually argue that maybe what Carrie was saying is

707
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:21,240
more right, which is that we had Brook Brooke Shellza on.

708
00:42:21,320 --> 00:42:25,560
And it's not like even in a very like polygynous or you know, with a lot of um

709
00:42:26,680 --> 00:42:32,280
polygyny is that the right word when it's not gendered, when they're both I believe

710
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:34,810
there's polygamy pol by polyandry.

711
00:42:35,450 --> 00:42:36,890
Polygamy, I think it's the broader term, right?

712
00:42:37,050 --> 00:42:37,610
Okay, polygamy.

713
00:42:37,690 --> 00:42:37,930
Okay, so I think it's a good thing.

714
00:42:39,370 --> 00:42:40,730
Okay, okay, thank you.

715
00:42:40,970 --> 00:42:43,930
Um for some reason I'm really questioning my like vocabulary today.

716
00:42:44,010 --> 00:42:44,250
I don't know.

717
00:42:44,330 --> 00:42:44,650
It's okay.

718
00:42:44,890 --> 00:42:45,370
It's confusing.

719
00:42:45,610 --> 00:42:45,770
Yeah.

720
00:42:45,850 --> 00:42:51,450
Uh but anyway, even with Brooks Shelza, like I I kind of we didn't talk about this and we

721
00:42:51,450 --> 00:42:52,650
haven't posted the episode yet.

722
00:42:52,730 --> 00:42:54,330
It's probably gonna be coming out soon.

723
00:42:54,490 --> 00:42:55,450
We've already talked to her.

724
00:42:55,690 --> 00:43:01,660
But it was it's It struck me that I can think, Carrie, like your point about uh

725
00:43:01,660 --> 00:43:07,580
mateships being highly cooperative is actually really key to it because even even in the

726
00:43:07,660 --> 00:43:13,660
um in the in the Himba with a lot of polygyny, there's still sort of like this keeping

727
00:43:13,660 --> 00:43:18,940
it on the DL about who exactly the other you know partners are.

728
00:43:19,180 --> 00:43:23,130
And it really struck me that even though everybody sort of knows that everybody else is

729
00:43:23,130 --> 00:43:25,370
doing it and I'm doing it and you're doing it.

730
00:43:25,530 --> 00:43:30,970
And I and it struck me that I think a lot of that has to do with it's this common knowledge

731
00:43:30,970 --> 00:43:31,530
thing, right?

732
00:43:31,610 --> 00:43:33,850
Of sort of like what's my value?

733
00:43:34,170 --> 00:43:40,170
And if I'm uh I am like investing in a partner, but somebody else is

734
00:43:40,170 --> 00:43:46,160
sleeping with that partner, but it becomes common knowledge, then that could lower

735
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:50,080
my status or how much investment other people feel like they need to give me.

736
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:50,640
Right.

737
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:56,400
And so I think a lot of it has to do with the this quo this highly cooperative nature, as

738
00:43:56,400 --> 00:44:00,960
you talked about, Carrie, which is that everybody's sort of status of sort of how much

739
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:06,800
cooperation do I deserve, how much esteem do I deserve, um, how much am I investing in this

740
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:07,120
person?

741
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:13,590
Um, if if it becomes common knowledge that sort of all of this stuff is is out

742
00:44:13,590 --> 00:44:19,510
in the open, then it strikes me that it sort of dissolves precisely because

743
00:44:19,510 --> 00:44:25,430
everybody's worried that their market uh value decreases in the cooperative market.

744
00:44:25,590 --> 00:44:29,910
So everybody knows that other people are sort of like, you know, having sex with other

745
00:44:29,910 --> 00:44:32,920
people, but but why would that be hidden?

746
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:39,000
And I and I think it has to do with like the signals of investment and how much

747
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:45,160
like I might cooperate with you less if I think that other people know

748
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:51,400
that you're not um, you know, being faithful to me in that relationship,

749
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:51,880
right?

750
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:57,370
But it but if it's if it's sort of opaque, then we all can sort of it's a stable

751
00:44:57,370 --> 00:45:01,370
equilibrium, even though it's sort of I don't know if that makes sense, but that's yeah.

752
00:45:01,930 --> 00:45:07,690
In in that, I mean the phenomena at least seems to also happen in like a

753
00:45:07,690 --> 00:45:12,890
society uh like ours, which is, you know, uh mostly monogamous, right?

754
00:45:12,970 --> 00:45:14,970
Um, or at least on the surface of monogamous, right?

755
00:45:15,050 --> 00:45:16,650
Where people do have affairs, right?

756
00:45:16,730 --> 00:45:21,380
And there is sometimes, oh, kind of maybe annoying, but it's not until it becomes public

757
00:45:21,380 --> 00:45:24,740
that that's when the other partners, okay, now it's a problem, right?

758
00:45:25,060 --> 00:45:28,980
And it and it it could be for that exact logic that you're describing there, right?

759
00:45:29,300 --> 00:45:34,740
Now it's not just that I kind of knew, and maybe other people kind of knew, but now I know

760
00:45:34,740 --> 00:45:38,820
that they know, and they know that I know, and we all know all the common knowledge, right?

761
00:45:38,980 --> 00:45:43,620
That uh that everybody knows that you are investing some over here and it's not, and then I

762
00:45:43,620 --> 00:45:47,700
am over, but I am only you know over investing in you, and everybody knows there's this

763
00:45:47,750 --> 00:45:50,550
this investment differential in our partnership now, right?

764
00:45:50,790 --> 00:45:52,230
And what does that say about me now?

765
00:45:52,550 --> 00:45:52,870
Exactly.

766
00:45:52,950 --> 00:45:57,510
You can infer the welfare trade-off ratio that you're willing to tolerate if it's common

767
00:45:57,510 --> 00:45:57,830
knowledge.

768
00:45:57,990 --> 00:46:01,110
So if I don't know you know, then it's ambiguous.

769
00:46:01,190 --> 00:46:05,110
But as soon as I know you know, and you know that you I know and you're still going along

770
00:46:05,110 --> 00:46:10,320
with it, then it's sort of a signal of, yep, this is the level of relationship I'm willing

771
00:46:10,320 --> 00:46:11,120
to tolerate.

772
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:12,560
And it's solidified.

773
00:46:12,640 --> 00:46:14,000
There is ambiguity before.

774
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:18,640
And so not wanting to know your partner's cheating on you is an example of like not wanting

775
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:22,320
to know where it would be sort of you're making the best of a bad situation.

776
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:27,200
And you're sort of like, if I don't pursue it, I don't even let my partner know that I know

777
00:46:27,280 --> 00:46:29,600
because I'm not letting them know I'm willing to tolerate it.

778
00:46:29,730 --> 00:46:29,970
right?

779
00:46:30,210 --> 00:46:35,170
If I suspect it but I don't pursue it, then I can there's sort of plausible deniability

780
00:46:35,170 --> 00:46:37,650
that they didn't know and I still can expect better treatment.

781
00:46:37,730 --> 00:46:41,810
But if it becomes common knowledge, then I'm showing I'm willing to put up with worse

782
00:46:41,810 --> 00:46:43,250
treatment than they might think otherwise.

783
00:46:43,330 --> 00:46:45,810
And that that logic applies to third parties too.

784
00:46:47,250 --> 00:46:48,210
That's really interesting.

785
00:46:48,370 --> 00:46:54,240
I mean that suggests an interesting possibility that to me has not

786
00:46:54,240 --> 00:46:59,440
been studied at all, to my knowledge, which is when uh one partner may uh

787
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:05,360
intentionally um choose not to know if their other partner is cheating or

788
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:11,360
actively try to conceal that information and not want it to become uh common knowledge.

789
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:11,520
Yeah.

790
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:13,360
Uh for for that very reason.

791
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:18,530
It's better to, you know, um know but not know that I know.

792
00:47:18,690 --> 00:47:22,930
You know, to not for it to not be known that I that I am tolerating this level of

793
00:47:22,930 --> 00:47:23,890
exploitation.

794
00:47:24,210 --> 00:47:29,810
And that way I can continue um, you know, with the status quo uh without the

795
00:47:29,810 --> 00:47:30,770
reputational costs.

796
00:47:30,930 --> 00:47:32,690
It's a really interesting possibility.

797
00:47:33,090 --> 00:47:38,050
And and I don't in one of the papers I have with Dan Comrabeam, where he's probably the

798
00:47:38,050 --> 00:47:43,680
lead author, um, where we talk about relationship satisfaction, we get at this idea in some

799
00:47:43,680 --> 00:47:43,840
way.

800
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:46,160
I'd have to go back and look exactly how, right?

801
00:47:46,240 --> 00:47:49,680
But it, but it's this idea, if we're thinking about relationship satisfaction as an

802
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:52,960
adaptation and sort of the function that we lay out, right?

803
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:57,840
Is it that it's, you know, motivating maintenance behavior, you know, to the extent that

804
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:01,520
this is a fitness, you know, the the benefits that weigh the cost, fair for saying this

805
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:05,200
relationship, um, that should lead to high satisfaction and then behaviors that are are,

806
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:08,080
you know, keeping you in the relationship and keeping the partner, right?

807
00:48:08,270 --> 00:48:13,550
Um, whereas, you know, to the extent that there's information or an assessment that, you

808
00:48:13,550 --> 00:48:16,830
know, leaving this relationship would be better, then you should have lower satisfaction

809
00:48:16,910 --> 00:48:18,750
and that might motivate the leaving, right?

810
00:48:18,910 --> 00:48:20,510
Um, and so there's a prediction here, right?

811
00:48:20,670 --> 00:48:24,270
That, you know, for the same person, right, this knowledge that your partner's cheating,

812
00:48:24,430 --> 00:48:24,750
right?

813
00:48:24,910 --> 00:48:29,310
Well, if for all the other reasons the benefits out the way the cost of staying and you

814
00:48:29,310 --> 00:48:33,230
don't have other options, maybe you've got a lot of you know vehicles you're investing in,

815
00:48:33,390 --> 00:48:34,430
those kids, right?

816
00:48:34,590 --> 00:48:40,580
Um, and you, you know, leaving wouldn't, then you should still feel satisfied, right?

817
00:48:40,740 --> 00:48:44,740
Um, but another person, you know, in that same cheating relation, you know, the exact same

818
00:48:44,740 --> 00:48:49,060
cheating is going on, right, with a different array of a different landscape, right?

819
00:48:49,220 --> 00:48:50,900
They would might feel dissatisfaction.

820
00:48:50,980 --> 00:48:56,020
Um, and so we have it in there a little bit with that kind of idea about you know, a

821
00:48:56,020 --> 00:48:58,740
relationship satisfaction adaptation working in that way.

822
00:48:59,490 --> 00:49:00,370
That's really interesting.

823
00:49:00,450 --> 00:49:04,530
I also, I mean, not to just go slightly darker too.

824
00:49:04,690 --> 00:49:09,970
This also happens like in ex other exploitative or abusive relationships too, right?

825
00:49:10,050 --> 00:49:13,890
Where somebody is sort of like, if somebody's like doing something terrible to me, there

826
00:49:14,130 --> 00:49:15,570
people did this weird thing, right?

827
00:49:15,650 --> 00:49:21,520
Where it's sort of like um they people don't if if I'm being abused, I don't want

828
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:24,000
other people to know that, which is sort of weird.

829
00:49:24,080 --> 00:49:27,440
And especially from a modern perspective, like people look at that and they're like, What

830
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:29,920
what is that victim doing?

831
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:33,680
And there's sort of all this narrative that they've internalized their worthlessness or

832
00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:33,920
whatever.

833
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:39,520
But this makes a different view of that, which is that um there's a calculation in their

834
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:44,930
head that if other people know, I'm worried that they're actually, and I and I feel like I

835
00:49:44,930 --> 00:49:49,490
need to stay in this and I don't have outside options, then it's just my evolved psychology

836
00:49:49,490 --> 00:49:52,850
saying I shouldn't let other people know this because I'm actually going to have worse

837
00:49:52,850 --> 00:49:53,490
treatment.

838
00:49:53,650 --> 00:49:57,970
Um, and so I actually think like that might not be true in some circumstances, but this

839
00:49:57,970 --> 00:50:03,090
actually would predict uh ways to, if that's true, then you might actually be able to

840
00:50:03,090 --> 00:50:08,220
formulate a way of actually getting people to sort of like report themselves being abused

841
00:50:08,220 --> 00:50:12,220
at higher rates if you kind of understand the psychology that's otherwise preventing that.

842
00:50:13,020 --> 00:50:14,540
That makes a lot of sense to me.

843
00:50:14,700 --> 00:50:15,820
Um, absolutely.

844
00:50:15,980 --> 00:50:16,380
Yeah.

845
00:50:16,540 --> 00:50:22,540
It and I wonder too, I'm a mating

846
00:50:22,540 --> 00:50:24,460
psychology researcher, so I always go to sex differences.

847
00:50:24,780 --> 00:50:30,570
Um it's uh you know, I if you look in the

848
00:50:30,570 --> 00:50:34,090
the intimate partner violence literature, so that's the term, you know, in the literature

849
00:50:34,090 --> 00:50:38,570
is IPv, intimate partner um violence, and that'll include emotional abuse and physical

850
00:50:38,570 --> 00:50:40,490
abuse and those sorts of things, right?

851
00:50:40,650 --> 00:50:46,250
You see, you know, higher rates, you know, women reporting it more and uh women the I think

852
00:50:46,410 --> 00:50:50,570
actually being, you know, um the victims of IPV more than men.

853
00:50:50,730 --> 00:50:52,650
But there is this question of reporting, right?

854
00:50:52,810 --> 00:50:56,010
The extent are there that sex differences in reporting, right?

855
00:50:56,330 --> 00:51:01,920
And some of this, I wonder if there's men, it would be more costly to be

856
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:04,720
perceived as a victim than it would be for women.

857
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:10,560
And so to the extent that men, there's greater underreporting from men that it's because

858
00:51:10,560 --> 00:51:12,960
of this sort of argument you're making.

859
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:13,520
Right.

860
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:15,120
Yeah, that's interesting.

861
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:16,080
Yeah.

862
00:51:16,240 --> 00:51:21,280
No, I I feel like the topic of strategic ignorance in in mating, I think, is really

863
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:23,120
understudied and interesting.

864
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:28,930
Um I think people would uh a naive psychologist might frame it in terms of I'm protecting

865
00:51:28,930 --> 00:51:33,570
myself from negative feelings or or or whatever, but I think viewing it in a more

866
00:51:33,570 --> 00:51:37,490
functional game theoretic perspective is illuminating.

867
00:51:37,730 --> 00:51:43,650
Um speaking of which, I know you're thinking about um a really interesting topic in mating,

868
00:51:43,730 --> 00:51:48,130
which is regret and disappointment, uh, and trying to um

869
00:51:48,770 --> 00:51:54,060
disentangle what those two terms mean and try to approach it from more of a functional game

870
00:51:54,060 --> 00:51:57,260
theoretic perspective than we might have otherwise taken toward those topics.

871
00:51:57,420 --> 00:52:03,260
So, how how are you thinking about regret versus disappointment in the context of mating?

872
00:52:03,580 --> 00:52:09,580
In in what context might we feel regret about uh a mating decision versus disappointment?

873
00:52:09,660 --> 00:52:11,660
And and what even is the difference between those two things?

874
00:52:11,980 --> 00:52:12,380
Yeah.

875
00:52:12,620 --> 00:52:17,850
So um I'll start a little bit with the difference in like the broader literature that's

876
00:52:17,850 --> 00:52:19,370
looked at regret and disappointment.

877
00:52:19,530 --> 00:52:24,250
Um, and and what at least has been identified in that broader literature, much of which is

878
00:52:24,250 --> 00:52:28,650
not sort of an evolutionary functional perspective, it's at least honed in on the

879
00:52:28,650 --> 00:52:33,290
circumstances in which people experience regret versus disappointment and and separating

880
00:52:33,290 --> 00:52:33,850
the two.

881
00:52:34,010 --> 00:52:39,860
And they they frame um regret as the thing you experience when so so both of

882
00:52:39,860 --> 00:52:43,940
them are emotions that you experience when um you've had to make a decision, right?

883
00:52:44,020 --> 00:52:45,460
And and pick a path, right?

884
00:52:45,620 --> 00:52:49,060
Where you didn't necessarily know what the outcome was was going to be, right?

885
00:52:49,460 --> 00:52:55,460
Um, and regret is what happens when there's the outcome to your decision, and it is

886
00:52:55,460 --> 00:52:59,690
a worse outcome than what would have happened if you had made a different decision, if you

887
00:52:59,690 --> 00:53:01,370
had done something else, right?

888
00:53:01,610 --> 00:53:05,050
Um, and it might be that you actually know what the outcome would have been if you had done

889
00:53:05,050 --> 00:53:05,850
the other thing, right?

890
00:53:06,010 --> 00:53:10,010
But it might also be that you're sort of simulating what would have happened if you had

891
00:53:10,010 --> 00:53:13,610
done the other thing or what the possibilities are for what would have happened, because

892
00:53:13,690 --> 00:53:17,050
because you didn't do that thing, you don't necessarily know what would have happened, but

893
00:53:17,290 --> 00:53:22,410
that certainty can vary depending on what exact statisticision we're talking about.

894
00:53:22,570 --> 00:53:28,400
So so regret in a in relationships or or in a uh in after a sexual

895
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:32,800
encounter or something like that would be something like, well, uh, maybe you chose to have

896
00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:37,280
sex with somebody, and uh, you know, the alternative there might have been if you chose

897
00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:41,760
didn't have sex with them, and regret would be experienced if after having sex with them,

898
00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:45,120
whatever the outcome is, you're you're thinking it would have been better.

899
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:47,920
The outcome would have been better if I had not had sex with this person, right?

900
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:49,840
And I'm now experiencing regret.

901
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:52,400
Um, disappointment is a different discrepancy.

902
00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:57,910
So it's the discrepancy between the outcome that happened and what your

903
00:53:57,910 --> 00:54:00,790
expectations were about that outcome.

904
00:54:01,190 --> 00:54:07,110
So, you know, a disappointment would be something more like, okay, I was,

905
00:54:07,190 --> 00:54:09,990
you know, thinking of having, you know, casual sex with somebody, right?

906
00:54:10,150 --> 00:54:14,550
And I've sort of imagined what this might be like, whether I'm imagining what the actual

907
00:54:14,550 --> 00:54:18,600
encounter would be like, or I'm imagining what the consequences would be.

908
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:22,280
Maybe, maybe this will be the beginning of a beautiful relationship, right?

909
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:26,360
Um, that, you know, there's there's things that could happen from this that are third or

910
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:26,920
great.

911
00:54:27,000 --> 00:54:32,200
Uh, and then you have sex with this person, and then that the outcome does not live up to

912
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:33,160
those expectations.

913
00:54:33,320 --> 00:54:35,320
That's the experience of disappointment.

914
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:39,800
And so you can see how in any given outcome, you could experience both, right?

915
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:45,530
It could be that there's an outcome and it both doesn't live up to expectations and if you

916
00:54:45,530 --> 00:54:47,290
had made a different decision, it would have been better.

917
00:54:47,450 --> 00:54:50,410
But you also could uniquely experience one or the other.

918
00:54:50,570 --> 00:54:52,090
Regret often comes with disappointment.

919
00:54:52,170 --> 00:54:55,370
That one's a little harder to separate, but you can absolutely have disappointment without

920
00:54:55,370 --> 00:54:56,410
having regret, right?

921
00:54:56,570 --> 00:55:01,610
It could be that an experience doesn't live up to the expectations, but it's not that

922
00:55:01,610 --> 00:55:04,970
there's some other outcome that you think would have been better, right?

923
00:55:05,130 --> 00:55:07,770
Than the outcome you experienced.

924
00:55:08,330 --> 00:55:11,850
And so there's this distinction exists in the literature, but again, it hasn't really

925
00:55:11,850 --> 00:55:14,080
built, you know, built into it.

926
00:55:14,240 --> 00:55:16,480
What what is there an evolved function here?

927
00:55:16,720 --> 00:55:21,200
What are we talking about for these different adaptive problems that that might be

928
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:22,160
triggering this?

929
00:55:22,240 --> 00:55:23,520
Um, and this matters, right?

930
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:28,000
It could just be that actually it is sort of the same functional program of the mind

931
00:55:28,000 --> 00:55:32,480
producing these different things, but we have just picked up on different language for

932
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:34,160
different pieces of it.

933
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:39,040
Uh, and so, you know, there's there's the being careful about are these different emotions

934
00:55:39,040 --> 00:55:41,120
from an evolutionary perspective?

935
00:55:41,730 --> 00:55:47,570
But yeah, but what started me on this is there are studies on uh regret after casual sex

936
00:55:47,650 --> 00:55:50,690
uh in from an evolutionary psychological perspective.

937
00:55:51,010 --> 00:55:56,690
And those studies uh highlight a sex difference, and that tends to be a big focus of

938
00:55:56,690 --> 00:55:57,730
those studies.

939
00:55:58,050 --> 00:56:03,330
And what they look at for regret after casual sex is sort of two sides of it.

940
00:56:03,490 --> 00:56:06,520
There's um there's regret from having had casual sex.

941
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:08,840
So action regret is what they call that.

942
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:11,000
And then there's regret, inaction regret.

943
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:15,000
So regret you might experience because you chose not to have casual sex and wishing that

944
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:15,560
you did.

945
00:56:15,720 --> 00:56:19,480
And what they tend to find is that women have greater action regret, right?

946
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:24,760
Regret from casual sexual experiences engaged in than men, and men have greater inaction

947
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:27,240
regret, these missed out experiences.

948
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:31,610
But what I've been wondering in that literature, and in that literature, and a lot of

949
00:56:31,690 --> 00:56:36,250
things I'm doing is is have we conflated a little bit of regret and disappointment if they

950
00:56:36,250 --> 00:56:37,370
are different things, right?

951
00:56:37,450 --> 00:56:38,330
In that literature.

952
00:56:38,730 --> 00:56:44,650
And how much of sort of the story of casual sexual regret in women is less a

953
00:56:44,650 --> 00:56:47,450
story of regret and maybe more a story of disappointment?

954
00:56:48,490 --> 00:56:52,250
And that is some of what I'm trying to figure out now.

955
00:56:52,810 --> 00:56:56,650
Working with some students, I'm trying to figure out maybe, maybe how to study that.

956
00:56:56,890 --> 00:57:01,200
And part of that really is thinking, you know, the EP, you know, first principles trying to

957
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:03,840
figure out uh what are what are the functions here?

958
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:07,840
Um and and yeah, uh it's it's yeah.

959
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:09,280
So I'll st I'll stop there.

960
00:57:09,520 --> 00:57:09,840
Thoughts.

961
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:12,960
Can you well so disappointment and regret.

962
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:16,400
So you you set up nicely what their attributes are.

963
00:57:16,720 --> 00:57:20,000
So disappointment is it's different than what I expected.

964
00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:22,400
Regret is I should have done something different.

965
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:28,290
And maybe this is obvious, but you mentioned that there hasn't been um uh evolutionary

966
00:57:28,290 --> 00:57:30,130
approach yet, and you're doing that.

967
00:57:30,370 --> 00:57:33,810
So what would why why do we have these emotions?

968
00:57:34,050 --> 00:57:34,530
Yeah.

969
00:57:34,850 --> 00:57:36,850
So you know, I'll start with disappointment.

970
00:57:37,010 --> 00:57:40,930
Disappointment, it seems like your sort of model of the world was wrong, right?

971
00:57:41,170 --> 00:57:43,490
Like, because that's what your expectations are, right?

972
00:57:43,570 --> 00:57:48,050
And so so you experience something that has now given you new information about how the

973
00:57:48,050 --> 00:57:49,090
world works, right?

974
00:57:49,250 --> 00:57:50,610
Whatever that is, right?

975
00:57:50,850 --> 00:57:52,920
And so that needs to be updated, right?

976
00:57:53,080 --> 00:57:58,920
Like, and so that experience of disappointment, what seems to go along with it is um a

977
00:57:58,920 --> 00:58:01,720
little bit of like the stuff that's kind of in the depression world.

978
00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:07,560
Like people they they withdraw, um, they might do some ruminating on it, but they it's it's

979
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:12,280
not that they wanna like go back and try again or they that seems to go along with that

980
00:58:12,360 --> 00:58:14,200
that disappointment path of feeling things.

981
00:58:14,280 --> 00:58:18,910
And so my my you know, initial thoughts there, it's it's along those lines, right?

982
00:58:18,990 --> 00:58:23,390
Of of that's giving you time to really assess, like, okay, so that's how the world works,

983
00:58:23,470 --> 00:58:27,710
or this is how I need to reevaluate, you know, the landscape, right?

984
00:58:27,870 --> 00:58:32,750
Um, and it would be on this, you know, dimension of of maybe disappointment to elation,

985
00:58:32,830 --> 00:58:37,790
because you could imagine the the flip of it where the outcome was much better than your

986
00:58:37,790 --> 00:58:38,350
expectations.

987
00:58:38,510 --> 00:58:42,350
So still a discrepancy and your model, the world was still wrong, but it was wrong in the

988
00:58:42,350 --> 00:58:43,150
other direction, right?

989
00:58:43,310 --> 00:58:45,360
Oh, the world works this way.

990
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:46,000
Cool.

991
00:58:46,160 --> 00:58:46,400
Right.

992
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:51,200
So there's still an updating, but it's uh it's on that that that this was a beneficial

993
00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:55,040
thing, you know, and you you were gonna miss an opportunity if you, you know, you know,

994
00:58:55,120 --> 00:58:58,320
hadn't didn't realize that the world could work this way, right?

995
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:04,950
Uh whereas regret, um, it's it's what I've been, you know, wondering, it's a little

996
00:59:04,950 --> 00:59:09,190
tough because there's already some good work, I think, on things like shame and these other

997
00:59:09,190 --> 00:59:14,870
emotions that um, you know, the the function of those seems to be maybe when we've done

998
00:59:14,870 --> 00:59:16,870
some bad thing or guilt, right?

999
00:59:17,110 --> 00:59:20,070
Um, but those are all kind of in the social world, like when we've done something that will

1000
00:59:20,070 --> 00:59:24,230
get us socially devalued or we'll have not valued somebody else well enough.

1001
00:59:24,550 --> 00:59:30,360
I've been wondering a little bit if really the unique thing about regret is that we've made

1002
00:59:30,360 --> 00:59:32,440
this decision, there's been an outcome.

1003
00:59:32,600 --> 00:59:38,520
Uh, and at least my like anecdotal experience on this, that first flash of regret,

1004
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:41,800
right, is I'm not sure if this was the right decision.

1005
00:59:42,040 --> 00:59:42,520
Right.

1006
00:59:42,760 --> 00:59:48,680
And I'm actually wondering if there's something there with what real regret is, is that

1007
00:59:48,690 --> 00:59:53,090
it's sort of an initial like you have to figure out was this the right decision?

1008
00:59:53,250 --> 00:59:58,130
Because you you either didn't have time to know in advance or you didn't just you couldn't

1009
00:59:58,130 --> 01:00:00,050
have the information until you did the thing, right?

1010
01:00:00,290 --> 01:00:03,570
Because the information just wasn't going to be there till you did the thing.

1011
01:00:03,890 --> 01:00:09,820
And then part of what regret might function to do is to help you figure out what was that

1012
01:00:09,820 --> 01:00:10,220
the right thing?

1013
01:00:10,300 --> 01:00:11,100
Was that not the right thing?

1014
01:00:11,180 --> 01:00:12,780
What were the other things I could have done?

1015
01:00:13,260 --> 01:00:17,340
Uh sh you know, talking to people, the hey, hey, well, what do you think?

1016
01:00:17,420 --> 01:00:22,460
You know, getting that feedback about was I right here, right?

1017
01:00:22,620 --> 01:00:24,700
Was that the best decision I could have made?

1018
01:00:24,940 --> 01:00:29,580
And to the extent you get the, you know, both feedback from simulating all the alternatives

1019
01:00:29,740 --> 01:00:35,340
or from seeking information or whatever it is, if you get the information back

1020
01:00:35,500 --> 01:00:39,910
that, no, that you made the best decision you could under the circumstance, regret should

1021
01:00:39,910 --> 01:00:40,950
dissipate, right?

1022
01:00:41,350 --> 01:00:45,510
But to the extent you get the information that no, like an alternative would have been

1023
01:00:45,510 --> 01:00:49,270
better, it might then turn into one of these other emotions, right?

1024
01:00:49,510 --> 01:00:53,510
So if I've done something that I'm going to be socially devalued for, regret, and I now

1025
01:00:53,510 --> 01:00:56,070
realize that that's that's what it is, right?

1026
01:00:56,230 --> 01:00:58,390
That regret should transform into shame.

1027
01:00:58,630 --> 01:01:02,390
If I've done something where I've realized, oh, I've made a decision now that screwed

1028
01:01:02,390 --> 01:01:06,380
somebody else over that I shouldn't have screwed over, that regret will transform into

1029
01:01:06,380 --> 01:01:06,780
guilt.

1030
01:01:06,940 --> 01:01:07,260
Right.

1031
01:01:07,500 --> 01:01:11,980
And so it might regret might be that thing that to like feed into some of those other

1032
01:01:11,980 --> 01:01:17,420
emotions, but it's that initial like having to figure out, oh, is that the right thing that

1033
01:01:17,420 --> 01:01:18,140
I was supposed to do?

1034
01:01:18,220 --> 01:01:22,860
And that might be the that unique thing about regret that hasn't been captured, I think,

1035
01:01:22,940 --> 01:01:25,020
yet, um, from a functional perspective.

1036
01:01:25,100 --> 01:01:26,540
And that's the kind of adaptive problem.

1037
01:01:26,620 --> 01:01:28,940
Like you couldn't have known until you made the decision.

1038
01:01:29,100 --> 01:01:32,300
And now you have the new information from having made the decision.

1039
01:01:32,540 --> 01:01:34,750
And maybe you'll seek out some more information.

1040
01:01:35,310 --> 01:01:36,510
Was it the right decision?

1041
01:01:36,590 --> 01:01:39,470
And then now deploy other emotions functionally.

1042
01:01:40,590 --> 01:01:45,230
I love that because it also explains what I I've never heard an explanation for is buyer's

1043
01:01:45,390 --> 01:01:46,030
regret.

1044
01:01:46,270 --> 01:01:46,510
Right.

1045
01:01:46,670 --> 01:01:50,270
Which is that once you've committed to something like an expensive house or like you know

1046
01:01:50,590 --> 01:01:56,110
marrying somebody, you know, it's it's this registering of I've committed to a very

1047
01:01:56,430 --> 01:01:58,190
high cost thing.

1048
01:01:58,430 --> 01:02:03,060
And your carry, your description of what the function of regret is, it it perfectly

1049
01:02:03,060 --> 01:02:07,780
explains why that would be, which is that it's it's not even that you've noticed a problem.

1050
01:02:07,940 --> 01:02:13,620
It's that just just all the percolations of the full weight of the costs, and this is real.

1051
01:02:13,700 --> 01:02:16,180
And I'm gonna buy this house, I'm gonna marry this person.

1052
01:02:16,420 --> 01:02:20,100
All of a sudden there's like this this thing of like we feel like we're doing the stupid

1053
01:02:20,100 --> 01:02:24,660
thing of like just running the counterfactuals of did I make a mistake?

1054
01:02:24,900 --> 01:02:29,700
And that's actually a really good design per the design you're suggesting, which is it's

1055
01:02:29,860 --> 01:02:33,150
motivating search for information.

1056
01:02:33,710 --> 01:02:38,510
Did are were there better alternatives for something like you don't get buyers' regret for

1057
01:02:38,590 --> 01:02:40,750
like a pack of gum because it's so low cost?

1058
01:02:40,910 --> 01:02:46,350
But this the I really like this idea that for high cost things, it's it's the hallucination

1059
01:02:46,750 --> 01:02:50,670
or it's the auto generation of regret simply by virtue of just being so high cost.

1060
01:02:50,750 --> 01:02:52,270
I love I like that a lot.

1061
01:02:52,670 --> 01:02:58,000
And I I wonder too, you know, with with some of these high cost things, I, you know, I I

1062
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:03,120
think a lot in evolutionary mismatch terms these days, sometimes just because I'm so hyper

1063
01:03:03,200 --> 01:03:07,440
aware of uh, you know, the world we live in and the people we're studying.

1064
01:03:07,520 --> 01:03:11,920
And and, you know, are potential counterfactuals for some things now.

1065
01:03:12,000 --> 01:03:13,680
I I mean they just can be endless.

1066
01:03:13,840 --> 01:03:18,560
And I think some of that is might be somewhat evolutionarily novel, right?

1067
01:03:18,800 --> 01:03:21,830
That, you know, I'm not choosing between three potential mates.

1068
01:03:21,910 --> 01:03:25,510
I choosing between an endless array of potential mates, right?

1069
01:03:25,590 --> 01:03:28,870
I mean, I can run the I could get lost in running forever.

1070
01:03:29,030 --> 01:03:32,150
What if I had picked this person or I picked this person or I picked this person or I had

1071
01:03:32,230 --> 01:03:33,350
picked this person, right?

1072
01:03:33,510 --> 01:03:35,030
And the same with the houses, right?

1073
01:03:35,190 --> 01:03:38,470
Like I'm not picking between the two potential areas.

1074
01:03:38,550 --> 01:03:39,990
I could have built my house, maybe, right?

1075
01:03:40,070 --> 01:03:40,310
I don't know.

1076
01:03:40,550 --> 01:03:43,190
Well, maybe in Santa Barb in Santa Barbara, it's just like the EA.

1077
01:03:43,430 --> 01:03:45,110
It's like this is gonna be your house or nothing.

1078
01:03:45,880 --> 01:03:46,680
Fair enough.

1079
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:47,640
But no, it's fair.

1080
01:03:47,720 --> 01:03:48,520
Yeah, yeah, no, totally.

1081
01:03:48,680 --> 01:03:49,400
But I mean fair enough.

1082
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:50,040
Where I am too.

1083
01:03:50,120 --> 01:03:52,840
We're we're perpetually absolutely not everywhere.

1084
01:03:53,000 --> 01:03:53,480
No, no, no.

1085
01:03:53,560 --> 01:03:54,120
But point taken.

1086
01:03:54,200 --> 01:03:54,280
Yeah.

1087
01:03:54,520 --> 01:03:58,680
But but I but I but then I wonder too with the extent to which I mean it makes it so we're

1088
01:03:58,680 --> 01:04:03,640
a wonderful uh set of people then to try to study this and measure this because we can

1089
01:04:03,640 --> 01:04:05,160
endlessly counterfactual, right?

1090
01:04:05,240 --> 01:04:09,960
If you had people for whom uh there aren't alternatives, right, you would expect no regret

1091
01:04:10,170 --> 01:04:13,690
if there aren't viable alternatives or very quick regret, right?

1092
01:04:13,770 --> 01:04:16,810
You'd you'd flash the the counterfactual, right?

1093
01:04:16,890 --> 01:04:18,970
And you'd be like, well, that was the only other option.

1094
01:04:19,130 --> 01:04:19,850
I'm good.

1095
01:04:20,090 --> 01:04:20,410
Right.

1096
01:04:20,490 --> 01:04:20,650
Yeah.

1097
01:04:20,970 --> 01:04:26,090
But but we are we are people who for whom that could just you could get caught in that

1098
01:04:26,090 --> 01:04:26,970
forever, right?

1099
01:04:27,050 --> 01:04:30,650
Um on certain of these very high cost decisions that we make.

1100
01:04:30,890 --> 01:04:33,770
And so we might be the people then to study these in this stuff in.

1101
01:04:34,380 --> 01:04:40,220
Would you then predict that um you'd see um a correlation between mate

1102
01:04:40,220 --> 01:04:45,980
value and mating regret, such that if I'm a higher mate value person, I have more

1103
01:04:45,980 --> 01:04:49,100
counterfactual mating opportunities that I could have pursued.

1104
01:04:49,340 --> 01:04:54,380
Whereas if I'm uh and so if I commit to any one of those paths, then there are going to be

1105
01:04:54,380 --> 01:04:58,140
more potential paths that I could have taken and and more potential for me to feel regret.

1106
01:04:58,300 --> 01:05:01,740
But if I'm a low mate value person and I then there's really just like is this person or

1107
01:05:01,740 --> 01:05:06,310
nothing, then uh I'm much less likely to feel regret in that case because there weren't any

1108
01:05:06,310 --> 01:05:07,590
c other counterfactuals.

1109
01:05:07,750 --> 01:05:09,190
Maybe I might feel disappointed.

1110
01:05:09,510 --> 01:05:13,510
But but the but regret is is not gonna uh necessarily come into play.

1111
01:05:13,590 --> 01:05:15,110
Would would you make that prediction?

1112
01:05:15,430 --> 01:05:17,510
That's uh I I think I might.

1113
01:05:17,910 --> 01:05:21,910
And that's a nice one because it's not, you know, on its face, I don't think it's what

1114
01:05:21,910 --> 01:05:23,350
people people would think, right?

1115
01:05:23,510 --> 01:05:27,270
They'd be like, oh the people who have options shouldn't be regretful, right?

1116
01:05:27,430 --> 01:05:29,640
But that's precisely what it's predicting.

1117
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:31,640
They have so many options, right?

1118
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:34,760
That they have real viable alternatives.

1119
01:05:34,920 --> 01:05:39,480
Um, and that might be a little bit how I I think about it, as as that part of meat value of

1120
01:05:39,560 --> 01:05:41,880
of your potential alternatives, right?

1121
01:05:41,960 --> 01:05:44,680
Your alternative options, your alternative choices.

1122
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:46,280
Um yeah, that's cool.

1123
01:05:46,520 --> 01:05:46,600
Yeah.

1124
01:05:46,760 --> 01:05:51,370
So, David, like that would be uh so a strong uh example of that would be something like

1125
01:05:51,370 --> 01:05:55,930
you're in a very small scale social world and you commit to a partner and then you're

1126
01:05:55,930 --> 01:06:00,410
transported to another social world soon after where there's a lot more options that your

1127
01:06:00,650 --> 01:06:03,610
evolved psychology is like, oh, this would have been a better person.

1128
01:06:03,850 --> 01:06:06,090
And so then you sort of feel regret.

1129
01:06:06,650 --> 01:06:07,290
Yeah.

1130
01:06:08,570 --> 01:06:09,450
That's interesting.

1131
01:06:09,690 --> 01:06:14,490
I mean, I'm wondering if if there may be something, some kind of interaction between mate

1132
01:06:14,490 --> 01:06:17,930
value and gender in predicting these gender differences.

1133
01:06:18,400 --> 01:06:22,560
Um, because you know, I I've been reading statistic statistics on, you know, like these

1134
01:06:22,560 --> 01:06:26,240
hookup apps, like men are way more common on these hookup apps than women.

1135
01:06:26,400 --> 01:06:30,720
Um, and there are just, you know, more men competing on the even just the regular dating

1136
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:34,400
apps, I think, they're just more men just like looking for a mate than than women.

1137
01:06:34,560 --> 01:06:39,440
Um, and so it could be that women just have more options just by virtue of being a woman.

1138
01:06:39,990 --> 01:06:45,350
And that might be contributing to this to this uh gender difference in regret uh because

1139
01:06:45,350 --> 01:06:47,030
women just have more sexual options.

1140
01:06:47,190 --> 01:06:50,070
There are more willing men who are willing to have sex with them.

1141
01:06:50,150 --> 01:06:54,310
Uh and committing to any one of them is going to lead to more regret because they have more

1142
01:06:54,310 --> 01:06:54,630
options.

1143
01:06:54,790 --> 01:06:58,310
But you know, for uh for a man, that that might be a different case.

1144
01:06:58,470 --> 01:07:02,150
Um I don't know if i if if if you thought about that or if that makes sense to you.

1145
01:07:02,710 --> 01:07:03,270
Makes sense to me.

1146
01:07:03,350 --> 01:07:06,870
And I mean I think it's also I mean, I do think there's something there, and this is in the

1147
01:07:06,870 --> 01:07:12,080
kind of literature on regret about the there are probably more costs potentially to women,

1148
01:07:12,160 --> 01:07:15,440
you know, whatever the outcome, if we're talking casual sex, let's say, yeah.

1149
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:18,080
Um, there's potentially right more costs for women.

1150
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:23,440
And so that also sets it up there when, oh, you know, for men the the costs often are just

1151
01:07:23,440 --> 01:07:24,960
going to just be low, right?

1152
01:07:25,200 --> 01:07:29,040
So whatever the alternatives are weren't going to be more costly, right?

1153
01:07:29,200 --> 01:07:33,120
So that explains I I think there's something there, certainly.

1154
01:07:33,280 --> 01:07:37,770
Um, but I think your point also, you know, toggling that too, that that might, that that

1155
01:07:37,770 --> 01:07:39,050
might also, that would also make sense.

1156
01:07:39,130 --> 01:07:41,290
That would also fit in that model as well.

1157
01:07:41,530 --> 01:07:46,570
Um, there's the other piece of it too for women that to the extent that

1158
01:07:46,810 --> 01:07:52,810
there's any reputational concerns, right, for having engaged in casual sex, right?

1159
01:07:53,210 --> 01:07:59,080
Um whether or not she it was actually costly.

1160
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:05,000
Um, if it's a casual sexual relationship that didn't turn into a long-term relationship,

1161
01:08:05,080 --> 01:08:08,760
uh, this is in your world of sort of the the the propaganda, right?

1162
01:08:08,840 --> 01:08:11,560
It's it might benefit her to say she regretted it, right?

1163
01:08:11,640 --> 01:08:11,960
Yeah.

1164
01:08:12,360 --> 01:08:18,280
Um, even if, right, to as a as a signaling to others, oh, that's not

1165
01:08:18,280 --> 01:08:21,160
the type of thing that I do or that I like doing, right?

1166
01:08:21,320 --> 01:08:21,480
Yeah.

1167
01:08:21,720 --> 01:08:24,910
And so I've thought about that too with the existing literature on this, right?

1168
01:08:24,990 --> 01:08:26,430
To this sex difference, right?

1169
01:08:26,510 --> 01:08:31,470
Is it is it a a difference in what I'm thinking here, this functional side of things,

1170
01:08:31,630 --> 01:08:36,910
versus a difference in what people will say about their casual sexual experiences that that

1171
01:08:36,990 --> 01:08:38,110
of course I regretted it.

1172
01:08:38,190 --> 01:08:38,350
Right.

1173
01:08:38,430 --> 01:08:38,910
Oh, right.

1174
01:08:38,990 --> 01:08:39,150
Yeah.

1175
01:08:39,230 --> 01:08:42,830
If if I'm reporting this some way, I'm going to say that it was, it was because that's not

1176
01:08:42,830 --> 01:08:43,390
what I do.

1177
01:08:43,470 --> 01:08:43,710
Right.

1178
01:08:43,950 --> 01:08:44,190
Right.

1179
01:08:44,350 --> 01:08:44,590
Yeah.

1180
01:08:44,750 --> 01:08:44,910
Yeah.

1181
01:08:45,150 --> 01:08:49,310
In the same way that you know a criminal is incentivized to say that he regrets the crime

1182
01:08:49,310 --> 01:08:51,080
he committed to the parole board, right?

1183
01:08:51,160 --> 01:08:52,600
Even if he doesn't actually regret it.

1184
01:08:52,680 --> 01:08:54,840
You know, he has an incentive to say that he regrets it.

1185
01:08:55,000 --> 01:08:59,080
And it could be that if women face greater reputational costs for having uh you know

1186
01:08:59,240 --> 01:09:03,800
short-term casual sex, um, then then they're they're facing the same incentive as the

1187
01:09:03,800 --> 01:09:05,800
criminal of you know talking to the parole board.

1188
01:09:05,960 --> 01:09:09,400
They want to say that they really regret it and they'll they'll be different uh in the

1189
01:09:09,400 --> 01:09:09,800
future.

1190
01:09:09,880 --> 01:09:13,400
Uh and that could be that those kind of social reputational incentives might be might be

1191
01:09:13,400 --> 01:09:14,440
driving this as well.

1192
01:09:15,630 --> 01:09:15,870
Yeah.

1193
01:09:15,950 --> 01:09:20,190
And so that's that's a tough thing in this to try to tease out to the for for testing some

1194
01:09:20,190 --> 01:09:20,910
of this, right?

1195
01:09:21,070 --> 01:09:26,750
Is that if I'm if the the adaptation I'm arguing, you know, the design of the

1196
01:09:26,750 --> 01:09:29,230
adaptation as what I sort of described, right?

1197
01:09:29,310 --> 01:09:34,430
I have to be able to get at that separate from uh, you know, especially in this realm, how

1198
01:09:34,430 --> 01:09:39,070
people might be motivated to represent their feelings about the outcome, right?

1199
01:09:39,470 --> 01:09:40,030
It's interesting.

1200
01:09:40,270 --> 01:09:40,510
Yeah.

1201
01:09:41,000 --> 01:09:46,280
You could also make a lot of interesting predictions on um the receiver end of the

1202
01:09:46,280 --> 01:09:46,680
equation.

1203
01:09:46,840 --> 01:09:50,520
So how do I view someone who feels regret versus disappointment?

1204
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:55,560
So if I'm you know evaluating someone as a mate and they regret the the casual sex that

1205
01:09:55,560 --> 01:10:00,120
they had versus they were disappointed in the casual sex they had, what inferences am I am

1206
01:10:00,120 --> 01:10:01,960
I likely to draw about that person in either case?

1207
01:10:02,120 --> 01:10:06,190
It may be that um I'm I'm gonna be more interested in in mating with the person if they

1208
01:10:06,190 --> 01:10:07,710
feel regret versus disappointment.

1209
01:10:07,870 --> 01:10:11,630
Maybe disappointment is is a bad thing for them to feel because that maybe that suggests

1210
01:10:11,630 --> 01:10:14,590
that they have really high standards that I'm not going to meet.

1211
01:10:14,750 --> 01:10:18,990
Uh and so maybe if if they felt disappointed about that, maybe that's you know more of a

1212
01:10:18,990 --> 01:10:20,430
cost or more of a downside for me.

1213
01:10:20,510 --> 01:10:22,750
But if they feel regret, then maybe that's maybe that's good.

1214
01:10:22,830 --> 01:10:26,990
Maybe they'll be um maybe they'll they're motivated to behave differently with me.

1215
01:10:27,150 --> 01:10:32,980
Um and so the type of inferences we draw based on the emotions that people feel uh is also

1216
01:10:32,980 --> 01:10:34,740
an interesting thing to look at.

1217
01:10:35,220 --> 01:10:36,180
Yeah, that's interesting.

1218
01:10:36,260 --> 01:10:36,500
Yeah.

1219
01:10:36,580 --> 01:10:39,860
I don't know of, I mean, certainly I think there's some literature that has asked, you

1220
01:10:39,860 --> 01:10:44,740
know, that gets at what people want to know about past partners, but I I don't know that

1221
01:10:44,740 --> 01:10:47,060
any of it's gotten at this kind of thing, right?

1222
01:10:47,220 --> 01:10:52,290
Um and and drawing those kind of, you know, your, you know your disappointment in your

1223
01:10:52,290 --> 01:10:57,810
regret of of those relationships and what people are then intuiting from that that's that's

1224
01:10:57,810 --> 01:11:02,930
cool yeah there's a song lyric Love Hurts right um and I don't know if that's about the

1225
01:11:02,930 --> 01:11:07,490
breakup I assume it is like there's a whole you know there's this really strong feeling I

1226
01:11:07,490 --> 01:11:12,290
mean I'm I'm I'm almost probabilistically most people have experienced a romantic breakup

1227
01:11:12,370 --> 01:11:15,410
whether it's you know dating or or marriage or or whatever.

1228
01:11:15,570 --> 01:11:21,520
Um but uh you know, I wonder, and I don't know, Carrie, you can tell me if there's work on

1229
01:11:21,520 --> 01:11:25,280
this, but you know, there's also the question of what is that pain or grief doing, you

1230
01:11:25,280 --> 01:11:30,000
know, like from the perspective of like somebody dying, that's sort of uh it's

1231
01:11:30,000 --> 01:11:32,880
recalibrating that this person's no longer there.

1232
01:11:33,040 --> 01:11:37,840
And so all of the sort of settings in me need to be changed that this person isn't there.

1233
01:11:38,000 --> 01:11:42,160
You know, it's an it's a provoking an opportunity to maybe coordinate with other people

1234
01:11:42,160 --> 01:11:43,360
about that too.

1235
01:11:43,520 --> 01:11:49,310
Um, obviously, because there is love and sexual

1236
01:11:49,310 --> 01:11:54,750
arousal involved in a romantic relationship, that's all doing this calibrational work.

1237
01:11:54,830 --> 01:11:59,870
And so when it goes wrong, you have a breakup, it's undoing some of those calibrations.

1238
01:12:00,030 --> 01:12:04,350
But I also wonder if some of the work it's doing too is also going to affect then like

1239
01:12:04,350 --> 01:12:06,910
disappointment and regret, too, right?

1240
01:12:07,070 --> 01:12:12,910
In the sense of if you're disappointed because you sort of had too high of expectations.

1241
01:12:13,150 --> 01:12:17,360
I mean, there's some sense in which you know a breakup is sort of like the ultimate

1242
01:12:17,360 --> 01:12:18,320
disappointment.

1243
01:12:18,480 --> 01:12:22,080
Um uh maybe not regret, but but depending.

1244
01:12:22,160 --> 01:12:27,360
But but it's sort of like it's it's like hyper disappointment in the sense of it's it's uh

1245
01:12:27,440 --> 01:12:31,040
it's almost leading to this like depressive state where there's recalibration.

1246
01:12:31,840 --> 01:12:35,830
Well, and I think when you look in the breakups literature, there's so there's there,

1247
01:12:35,910 --> 01:12:40,310
there's the sudden breakups versus the it's been long time coming coming breakups, right?

1248
01:12:40,470 --> 01:12:42,950
And there's you know kind of everything in between that, right?

1249
01:12:43,270 --> 01:12:49,270
Um, and uh there's sort of different different pieces of this, but I I

1250
01:12:49,270 --> 01:12:55,270
had one um unpublished master's thesis from a student that where we looked at this idea

1251
01:12:55,510 --> 01:13:00,700
of um um sort of the opposite of mate retention behaviors, but mate disengagement

1252
01:13:00,700 --> 01:13:01,260
behaviors.

1253
01:13:01,660 --> 01:13:01,980
Right.

1254
01:13:02,220 --> 01:13:06,140
And it was from this sort of person, I wasn't quite there with this disappointment idea or

1255
01:13:06,140 --> 01:13:11,740
anything, but but this idea of, you know, if if you're in a

1256
01:13:11,740 --> 01:13:14,460
position where you would like to end this relationship, right?

1257
01:13:14,620 --> 01:13:19,740
Just ending it abruptly, right, is going to be costly for lots of people for lots of

1258
01:13:19,740 --> 01:13:19,900
reasons.

1259
01:13:19,980 --> 01:13:23,100
Like it might benefit you because you get out of it sooner, but there's costs.

1260
01:13:23,340 --> 01:13:25,900
The people who do the breakup are seen as worse.

1261
01:13:26,050 --> 01:13:28,450
Um, so there's you know kind of data on that.

1262
01:13:28,690 --> 01:13:32,210
Um, and then you also have this person that you you might have shared investments with and

1263
01:13:32,210 --> 01:13:33,250
that you do care about, right?

1264
01:13:33,330 --> 01:13:37,330
That like it will cause this extra harm and cost to, right, if it is sudden.

1265
01:13:37,410 --> 01:13:42,290
And so there might be some, you know, behaviors that you do, things you do to to slowly

1266
01:13:42,290 --> 01:13:42,770
ramp down.

1267
01:13:42,930 --> 01:13:47,410
So instead of the ramping up of the, but it's the that slowly ramping it down so that when

1268
01:13:47,410 --> 01:13:53,170
that dissolution happens, it's not as as much of a recalibration they're gonna have to do,

1269
01:13:53,250 --> 01:13:53,490
right?

1270
01:13:53,570 --> 01:13:57,140
It's already been that you've things have become disentangled, right?

1271
01:13:57,700 --> 01:14:02,660
Um and versus the ones where does that is it comes out of nowhere, right?

1272
01:14:02,820 --> 01:14:07,700
That's when I would expect that that str that that you know that depression that I mean

1273
01:14:07,780 --> 01:14:12,180
those things to happen because you're right, somebody is going from I thought we were

1274
01:14:12,180 --> 01:14:18,100
highly intertwined here, but now I'm not, versus there was that that dialing

1275
01:14:18,100 --> 01:14:21,060
down of everything um before that separation.

1276
01:14:21,300 --> 01:14:21,940
Yeah.

1277
01:14:23,150 --> 01:14:23,870
Interesting.

1278
01:14:24,110 --> 01:14:24,510
Yeah.

1279
01:14:24,670 --> 01:14:30,110
I mean, uh it seems like, you know, anger might come into play as well, where if you're,

1280
01:14:30,190 --> 01:14:33,870
you know, breaking up with someone out of the blue or ghosting them or whatever, it's

1281
01:14:33,870 --> 01:14:39,470
almost kind of like they're um they're not treating you fairly or properly, that they're

1282
01:14:39,470 --> 01:14:44,430
not respecting your uh they're not respecting you adequately or or treating you with um a

1283
01:14:44,430 --> 01:14:47,800
welfare trade-off ratio that is sensitive to your needs.

1284
01:14:47,960 --> 01:14:51,800
So if if I'm, you know, leading you on and then totally blowing you off, I'm imposing a

1285
01:14:51,800 --> 01:14:53,720
cost on you for a really low benefit to me.

1286
01:14:53,800 --> 01:14:57,800
Like maybe I I, you know, I learned that you know you're not for me and that's the benefit

1287
01:14:57,800 --> 01:14:58,040
I get.

1288
01:14:58,120 --> 01:14:59,320
It's a pretty small benefit.

1289
01:14:59,480 --> 01:15:03,320
But it's a huge cost on you uh for me to get that small benefit.

1290
01:15:03,400 --> 01:15:06,040
And that might trigger the anger system as well.

1291
01:15:07,320 --> 01:15:08,040
That would make sense.

1292
01:15:08,120 --> 01:15:08,280
Yeah.

1293
01:15:08,360 --> 01:15:11,080
And I think that's, I mean, it's it's pretty consistent there.

1294
01:15:11,160 --> 01:15:15,210
Um, I think with the the literature I do know on breakups, you know, anger is one of the

1295
01:15:15,210 --> 01:15:18,650
things that that certainly like the people who are dumped, right?

1296
01:15:18,730 --> 01:15:20,170
Um, absolutely feel.

1297
01:15:20,330 --> 01:15:22,890
Um, and this is how I would expect it to toggle though, right?

1298
01:15:22,970 --> 01:15:26,490
That to the extent that there had been ramping down, right?

1299
01:15:26,570 --> 01:15:32,410
Um, although I don't know, because it still might be, you know, you're not that's that WTR

1300
01:15:32,410 --> 01:15:36,170
signaling is still that you aren't valuing me the way that I thought I should have been

1301
01:15:36,170 --> 01:15:36,810
valued.

1302
01:15:37,050 --> 01:15:42,940
Um, but yeah, uh, and then you know, the guilt on the side of the the the breaker

1303
01:15:43,020 --> 01:15:48,700
upper right um you know uh how much that is them you know to the

1304
01:15:48,700 --> 01:15:52,860
extent that i would imagine that if they've done these ramping things down they should feel

1305
01:15:52,860 --> 01:15:58,140
less guilty than if they cut it off right really you know out of nowhere for this other

1306
01:15:58,140 --> 01:16:02,220
person interesting yeah I mean it's a different I mean the the the challenge of breaking up

1307
01:16:02,220 --> 01:16:06,670
with someone is a pretty huge adaptive challenge that there are a lot of different

1308
01:16:06,670 --> 01:16:07,710
strategies you could take.

1309
01:16:07,790 --> 01:16:10,430
And just that as a topic, I think, is really understudied.

1310
01:16:10,510 --> 01:16:14,750
But it seems like a really fraught situation with uh that that can be really risky.

1311
01:16:14,830 --> 01:16:18,430
Like if you do a poor job of breaking up with someone, you could like make an enemy.

1312
01:16:18,510 --> 01:16:22,910
Uh, and that's really bad for you to have an enemy in your social world, especially if they

1313
01:16:22,910 --> 01:16:26,510
could turn other people against you, if it damages your reputation, uh, if they come after

1314
01:16:26,510 --> 01:16:29,310
you, uh, you know, either verbally or or physically or whatever.

1315
01:16:29,470 --> 01:16:34,620
It's a really fraught situation to break up with someone and and handling that uh well, I

1316
01:16:34,620 --> 01:16:37,900
think pro would have plausibly been a a selection pressure.

1317
01:16:38,140 --> 01:16:41,740
Um and so yeah, I I I I think that's a really interesting topic.

1318
01:16:41,980 --> 01:16:46,860
Yeah, Karen Perilou has a paper from I don't know, twenty ten ish.

1319
01:16:46,940 --> 01:16:47,180
I don't know.

1320
01:16:47,260 --> 01:16:51,340
It's but that is about, you know, the the the um some of this stuff.

1321
01:16:51,500 --> 01:16:55,420
This, you know, how people perceive uh the person who does the breaking up versus the

1322
01:16:55,420 --> 01:16:59,420
person who's broken up with, and it talks about these different costs to to being the

1323
01:16:59,420 --> 01:17:00,220
dumper, right?

1324
01:17:00,300 --> 01:17:04,770
And and doing uh and especially if you're yeah, especially if your social networks are

1325
01:17:04,770 --> 01:17:07,490
intertwined with the person you're breaking up with that could have huge social

1326
01:17:07,490 --> 01:17:10,930
ramifications if you do a poor job uh of ending that relationship.

1327
01:17:11,250 --> 01:17:13,090
Social networks, the kin networks, right?

1328
01:17:13,250 --> 01:17:14,770
Depending on how that's worked, right?

1329
01:17:14,850 --> 01:17:17,890
And how long you've been together and how intertwined all of that is, right?

1330
01:17:18,370 --> 01:17:21,010
The ramifications are could be quite costly.

1331
01:17:21,090 --> 01:17:26,460
And so that um, you know, the that was w again in this unpublished master's thesis that

1332
01:17:26,700 --> 01:17:28,140
maybe at some point it will see the light of day.

1333
01:17:28,220 --> 01:17:29,900
But this is sort of what we were looking at, right?

1334
01:17:29,980 --> 01:17:35,420
Was these different potential strategies and tactics that people might have to to do this

1335
01:17:35,420 --> 01:17:36,540
breaking up, right?

1336
01:17:36,700 --> 01:17:41,260
Um, and some of it was uh, you know, the withdrawing of investment.

1337
01:17:41,340 --> 01:17:45,900
Um, but some of it was also like doing things to make yourself seem like less of a good

1338
01:17:45,900 --> 01:17:49,190
partner to be with, like so that they wouldn't, right?

1339
01:17:49,270 --> 01:17:53,350
It's like, oh, if I'm no longer representing my like, you know, if if I am if I'm now

1340
01:17:53,350 --> 01:17:56,550
schlubby and like I wouldn't be somebody you want to be with, right?

1341
01:17:56,630 --> 01:17:59,990
Then like then you are disinte, you know, you're less interested, right?

1342
01:18:00,070 --> 01:18:01,910
And I could functionally do that, right?

1343
01:18:02,150 --> 01:18:05,110
And then some of it was you know inflicting costs on the partner, things like that.

1344
01:18:05,270 --> 01:18:11,160
So there's the different uh different sort of uh categories we had of these potential

1345
01:18:11,160 --> 01:18:13,000
ways to to disentangle yourself.

1346
01:18:13,080 --> 01:18:17,320
And we did find that they were um the use of those was associated with relationship

1347
01:18:17,320 --> 01:18:17,880
satisfaction.

1348
01:18:17,960 --> 01:18:22,360
So people who were lower in relationship satisfaction were doing more of those things.

1349
01:18:22,760 --> 01:18:28,440
And that was sort of consistent with our idea that this might be this this uh mate mate

1350
01:18:28,440 --> 01:18:31,800
ejection sort of strategies that were happening.

1351
01:18:32,290 --> 01:18:32,610
Right.

1352
01:18:32,770 --> 01:18:38,290
It's almost like, you know, withdrawing from the relationship abruptly is imposing a huge

1353
01:18:38,290 --> 01:18:39,090
cost on you.

1354
01:18:39,250 --> 01:18:43,490
But if I make the relationship itself undesirable for you, then it's no longer a cost to

1355
01:18:43,490 --> 01:18:43,570
you.

1356
01:18:43,650 --> 01:18:45,970
It's actually a benefit for you to leave the relationship.

1357
01:18:46,130 --> 01:18:49,810
So you're you're transforming something that would have otherwise been really uh anger

1358
01:18:49,810 --> 01:18:53,570
inducing into something that, you know, might be sad or disappointing, but not necessarily

1359
01:18:53,570 --> 01:18:58,290
anger inducing because it's it's no longer a cost for or as big of a cost for them to end

1360
01:18:58,290 --> 01:19:01,330
the relationship if you yourself are a less desirable partner.

1361
01:19:01,800 --> 01:19:03,080
Um that's interesting.

1362
01:19:03,320 --> 01:19:08,200
I mean, and it could be, you know, it it may explain some of these like fights between

1363
01:19:08,200 --> 01:19:10,200
couples that aren't really about anything.

1364
01:19:10,440 --> 01:19:14,920
You know, like uh, you know, if if I'm you know dissatisfied with the relationship, I want

1365
01:19:14,920 --> 01:19:19,080
to ramp it down, I might just be more, you know, grumpy and annoying and like pick fights

1366
01:19:19,080 --> 01:19:23,650
about about the dishes or whatever, just to make the relationship more unpleasant as a way

1367
01:19:23,650 --> 01:19:25,010
of kind of ramping down.

1368
01:19:25,090 --> 01:19:30,050
Uh and it could be that these these these kind of fights about mundane irrelevant things

1369
01:19:30,050 --> 01:19:35,490
are are really not about the irrelevant thing itself, but about, you know, uh some deeper

1370
01:19:35,570 --> 01:19:37,730
uh dissatisfaction with the relationship.

1371
01:19:38,050 --> 01:19:38,290
Yeah.

1372
01:19:38,370 --> 01:19:42,610
And if you do it well enough, you get them to break up with you and then there they

1373
01:19:42,610 --> 01:19:44,290
experience the costs of being the dumper.

1374
01:19:44,370 --> 01:19:44,610
Yeah.

1375
01:19:44,770 --> 01:19:49,090
And when that was, you know, what the what the underlying goal was the whole time.

1376
01:19:49,410 --> 01:19:49,970
Yeah.

1377
01:19:50,380 --> 01:19:51,180
Really interesting.

1378
01:19:51,420 --> 01:19:51,740
Yeah.

1379
01:19:51,980 --> 01:19:54,300
There's also uh this thing about breakups.

1380
01:19:54,380 --> 01:19:58,460
It reminds me of sort of like adolescence too, where there's like all this thing with even

1381
01:19:58,460 --> 01:20:01,340
prior to like any relationship, there's sort of like who are you dating?

1382
01:20:01,500 --> 01:20:03,020
No, who broke up with who?

1383
01:20:03,180 --> 01:20:08,700
It's almost like practice for um for for these social costs of who

1384
01:20:08,860 --> 01:20:13,740
likes who, what are the social costs and benefits of that being common knowledge, who broke

1385
01:20:13,740 --> 01:20:14,220
up with who.

1386
01:20:14,380 --> 01:20:16,380
And some of it is like hallucinated, right?

1387
01:20:16,460 --> 01:20:20,450
Where like, you know, the trope is sort of the girls especially like the guys don't even

1388
01:20:20,450 --> 01:20:22,770
know and they're like, Oh, well, no, you sat next to me.

1389
01:20:22,850 --> 01:20:25,330
So we were and now you're not gonna talk to me.

1390
01:20:25,410 --> 01:20:28,690
And it's like the girls talking to the girls like doing their, you know, three dimensional

1391
01:20:28,690 --> 01:20:31,330
social chess and the guys are like, you know, playing yo yo.

1392
01:20:31,570 --> 01:20:33,730
I mean, yeah, but but that's sort of a trope.

1393
01:20:33,810 --> 01:20:35,490
And I I don't know if there's been research on that.

1394
01:20:35,890 --> 01:20:37,410
My middle school flashbacks.

1395
01:20:37,570 --> 01:20:42,140
Um well, I was gonna say for the, you know, some of this this lifespan mating idea.

1396
01:20:42,220 --> 01:20:45,900
I think, you know, for ethical reasons, we start at 18 often.

1397
01:20:45,980 --> 01:20:46,220
Yeah.

1398
01:20:46,620 --> 01:20:51,100
Um, but but and there have been some studies that have looked at a little bit of sort of

1399
01:20:51,100 --> 01:20:55,980
like attraction and these things in in people under the age of 18, but but for very

1400
01:20:55,980 --> 01:21:00,860
reasonable ethical reasons, we right, you know, we we start at 18, but we are we're missing

1401
01:21:00,860 --> 01:21:03,990
out, I think, on a lot of of this, right?

1402
01:21:04,150 --> 01:21:08,550
How much of that is sort of practice for later, how much of that is establishing some of

1403
01:21:08,550 --> 01:21:12,950
these things like social value or mate value or these sorts of things early on, right?

1404
01:21:13,190 --> 01:21:13,350
Right.

1405
01:21:13,510 --> 01:21:15,430
Um, and and how to navigate that.

1406
01:21:15,510 --> 01:21:19,750
Um, and and yeah, why is it so insane in seventh grade, right?

1407
01:21:19,910 --> 01:21:24,950
Why is why does that seem to reach a peak that of of exactly what you're talking about,

1408
01:21:25,110 --> 01:21:25,270
right?

1409
01:21:25,430 --> 01:21:28,230
Oh, they sat next to who and they're on, right?

1410
01:21:28,310 --> 01:21:29,030
And all that.

1411
01:21:29,220 --> 01:21:34,820
Um, I think it's uh to me, I think a good um some good evolutionary work on on that uh

1412
01:21:34,980 --> 01:21:36,020
would be really interesting.

1413
01:21:36,100 --> 01:21:41,380
It it's the challenge though of of studying some of those things in in children, right?

1414
01:21:41,860 --> 01:21:45,060
Um but it's uh it it it's cool questions.

1415
01:21:45,220 --> 01:21:45,460
Yeah.

1416
01:21:45,700 --> 01:21:45,860
Yeah.

1417
01:21:45,940 --> 01:21:49,700
And also, I mean, just even aside from the I mean I'm not sure how much of that is even

1418
01:21:49,770 --> 01:21:51,850
sexual, like a lot of it is just sort of fictive.

1419
01:21:51,930 --> 01:21:54,890
Like, again, it's almost like the the play, but there's this other part too.

1420
01:21:54,970 --> 01:21:59,610
When you're talking about regret and disappointment, we we are all parents here.

1421
01:21:59,770 --> 01:22:03,130
Like, this is also a problem um for kids.

1422
01:22:03,290 --> 01:22:05,690
Like, kids are disappointed all the time.

1423
01:22:06,090 --> 01:22:07,370
And it makes complete sense.

1424
01:22:07,450 --> 01:22:11,290
Like, it follows from this idea that, like, you don't know what the world is like.

1425
01:22:11,500 --> 01:22:17,420
So, like this this thing of like this wild emotions of like elation or disappointment, it

1426
01:22:17,420 --> 01:22:23,180
makes sense that kids especially are feeling these a lot precisely

1427
01:22:23,180 --> 01:22:25,420
because you don't know what the world is like.

1428
01:22:26,460 --> 01:22:29,100
Well, and it's it's so this is that's such a great point.

1429
01:22:29,260 --> 01:22:31,900
Um my daughter's two and a half, right?

1430
01:22:32,060 --> 01:22:34,270
So we're yes, Yeah, yeah.

1431
01:22:34,430 --> 01:22:35,870
The emotions all the time.

1432
01:22:36,110 --> 01:22:41,470
But I I'll think about times where she is very upset about something because we didn't do

1433
01:22:41,470 --> 01:22:43,870
this thing the same way we did it the last time.

1434
01:22:44,110 --> 01:22:47,630
And it's really because her expectations have been set by that one instance.

1435
01:22:47,710 --> 01:22:47,950
Yeah.

1436
01:22:48,110 --> 01:22:48,350
Right.

1437
01:22:48,750 --> 01:22:51,710
She, I mean, as those priors are being built, right?

1438
01:22:51,870 --> 01:22:52,750
That was the one.

1439
01:22:52,910 --> 01:22:56,350
And so it is all hinged on when we do this thing, we do it this way.

1440
01:22:56,670 --> 01:23:00,910
And when we don't do it that way, right, that I mean it's it's so not been met.

1441
01:23:00,990 --> 01:23:06,800
And because she doesn't have the uh the wealth of experiences to toggle the expectation

1442
01:23:06,800 --> 01:23:08,960
of what happens when we leave the house and go to the store.

1443
01:23:09,120 --> 01:23:09,280
Right.

1444
01:23:09,920 --> 01:23:10,960
I mean that one we've done a lot.

1445
01:23:11,040 --> 01:23:15,520
But like you can think of others where it's it's we've done it once or a few times and and

1446
01:23:15,520 --> 01:23:19,680
really that's that expectation is set by that one thing and that's what they say is well,

1447
01:23:19,760 --> 01:23:21,120
we didn't do it this way.

1448
01:23:21,280 --> 01:23:22,480
We had to do it this way.

1449
01:23:22,560 --> 01:23:27,130
And and you we might not have even realized as parents that that was part of what we did

1450
01:23:27,130 --> 01:23:28,170
that time, right?

1451
01:23:28,730 --> 01:23:33,210
But that really in their mind that they they hooked on to that as the thing that happens

1452
01:23:33,210 --> 01:23:35,690
when we do this that they liked for some reason, right?

1453
01:23:35,850 --> 01:23:37,610
Or at least they just expected it, right?

1454
01:23:37,690 --> 01:23:42,330
They just expected it to be that way because because that's that's what they expected, and

1455
01:23:42,330 --> 01:23:45,690
then this outcome we did didn't match that expectation, right?

1456
01:23:45,770 --> 01:23:50,300
Um, and then yeah, Or the flip side when you do something that they find hilarious because

1457
01:23:50,380 --> 01:23:54,060
and they they didn't know where that was gonna come from, and then they're just giddy with

1458
01:23:54,060 --> 01:23:54,460
excitement.

1459
01:23:54,540 --> 01:23:59,340
Um they're like, I didn't know the world had ice cream and it's incredible, you know, like

1460
01:23:59,420 --> 01:24:01,100
it's just you know, yeah, exactly.

1461
01:24:01,420 --> 01:24:03,900
Yeah, my daughter had the first bite of a cake pop yesterday.

1462
01:24:04,540 --> 01:24:06,860
That was Gary Why.

1463
01:24:07,100 --> 01:24:07,660
No, exactly.

1464
01:24:07,740 --> 01:24:10,060
It's like I did not know the world included this.

1465
01:24:10,220 --> 01:24:14,540
Um that also suggests that I mean, I don't know what the developmental research on

1466
01:24:14,540 --> 01:24:15,900
disappointment is.

1467
01:24:16,490 --> 01:24:18,010
And I should look into this.

1468
01:24:18,090 --> 01:24:22,970
But it strikes me that like a very humane area of research, if there's not a lot, would be

1469
01:24:22,970 --> 01:24:23,130
this.

1470
01:24:23,290 --> 01:24:27,530
Because I mean, you know, if there are these humans that are constantly disappointed or

1471
01:24:27,770 --> 01:24:31,690
possibly like have these expectations that are really volatile because they're so

1472
01:24:31,690 --> 01:24:36,170
inexperienced and lack this common sense knowledge that we take for granted as adults, like

1473
01:24:36,250 --> 01:24:37,530
I think that would be really important to know.

1474
01:24:37,610 --> 01:24:41,130
It's also important for parents to understand, you know, just remember like they don't have

1475
01:24:41,130 --> 01:24:42,650
the same expectations.

1476
01:24:42,810 --> 01:24:48,160
So I'd imagine a lot of kids crying, that's the disappointment machine right there.

1477
01:24:49,040 --> 01:24:52,880
Well, and it I mean at least I mean, at least the sort of parenting advice you see about

1478
01:24:52,880 --> 01:24:53,600
routines.

1479
01:24:54,160 --> 01:24:57,840
I mean, this this helps explain why that is so important to them.

1480
01:24:58,080 --> 01:25:02,320
Because then it's it it matches their expectations of what's gonna happen once you've

1481
01:25:02,320 --> 01:25:06,560
established routines, then they know this is this is and you'll have less of that

1482
01:25:06,560 --> 01:25:11,150
volatility because you're not constantly doing things outside of a an expected pattern.

1483
01:25:11,310 --> 01:25:11,630
Yeah.

1484
01:25:11,870 --> 01:25:12,430
Um yeah.

1485
01:25:12,990 --> 01:25:17,710
In your work on looking at these emotions, are there like any, because David talked a

1486
01:25:17,710 --> 01:25:20,270
little bit about like status or people's mate value.

1487
01:25:20,430 --> 01:25:24,830
Are there like individual differences in how people are prone to like being regretful or

1488
01:25:24,830 --> 01:25:26,030
disappointed?

1489
01:25:26,990 --> 01:25:29,870
I mean, so there's some that they've looked at.

1490
01:25:29,950 --> 01:25:32,270
I the broader literature, I'm not sure.

1491
01:25:32,460 --> 01:25:37,740
Um, at least within the the EP stuff on like casual sexual regret.

1492
01:25:37,900 --> 01:25:41,740
Um, they've looked at different, you know, predictors, right?

1493
01:25:41,900 --> 01:25:45,660
Um, so like, you know, like religiosity and things like that, where you know, they're more

1494
01:25:45,660 --> 01:25:49,340
regretful of casual sex, and you can fit that into a framework of there's potentially more

1495
01:25:49,340 --> 01:25:50,060
costs, right?

1496
01:25:50,220 --> 01:25:51,900
Um, social costs there.

1497
01:25:52,220 --> 01:25:54,700
Um, social sexual orientation, right?

1498
01:25:54,860 --> 01:25:58,620
So if people are more inclined to casual sex, they regret casual sex less.

1499
01:25:58,780 --> 01:25:59,970
That makes sense.

1500
01:26:00,130 --> 01:26:02,610
Um, so there's there's some of those within that literature.

1501
01:26:02,770 --> 01:26:06,130
I don't know the broader literature though, on the individual differences side of it.

1502
01:26:06,210 --> 01:26:10,210
Um yeah, just anecdotally, it's like just anecdot now that we're talking about, I just

1503
01:26:10,290 --> 01:26:13,730
there's people I know who are more regret prone than others.

1504
01:26:13,810 --> 01:26:16,850
They'll make a decision and oh, it must have been it was a horrible decision.

1505
01:26:16,930 --> 01:26:18,850
And some people just sort of like, whatever, you know.

1506
01:26:19,010 --> 01:26:21,410
And it would be interesting to sort of unpack why that would be.

1507
01:26:21,730 --> 01:26:21,890
Yeah.

1508
01:26:21,970 --> 01:26:26,370
I mean, I had a in my all my notes in my thinking on this, I've got a prediction that is a

1509
01:26:26,370 --> 01:26:31,560
little bit about um to the extent that if you're more intelligent or you could simulate

1510
01:26:31,560 --> 01:26:33,400
more counterfactors, right?

1511
01:26:33,880 --> 01:26:36,200
I would expect you to have more regret, right?

1512
01:26:36,360 --> 01:26:42,200
If you're more imaginative or creative, I think I've written like that five different

1513
01:26:42,200 --> 01:26:42,520
ways.

1514
01:26:42,680 --> 01:26:46,920
Like because yeah, you could sit there and you could all day long think of all the

1515
01:26:46,920 --> 01:26:50,830
different things you could have done versus somebody who can't do that as well, right?

1516
01:26:50,990 --> 01:26:52,590
I think it should be less regretful, right?

1517
01:26:52,670 --> 01:26:53,790
So I had that idea in there.

1518
01:26:53,870 --> 01:26:55,230
I had a great idea.

1519
01:26:55,310 --> 01:26:55,470
Yeah.

1520
01:26:55,550 --> 01:27:00,030
The counterfactual thing uh is the miserable counterfactual thinker.

1521
01:27:00,110 --> 01:27:02,110
Like I think we're all good counterfactual thinkers.

1522
01:27:02,190 --> 01:27:04,830
That's what makes us good evolutionary psychologists.

1523
01:27:04,910 --> 01:27:05,950
But yeah, no, for sure.

1524
01:27:06,030 --> 01:27:06,270
Yeah.

1525
01:27:06,590 --> 01:27:06,750
Yeah.

1526
01:27:06,990 --> 01:27:09,390
Constantly imagining all the ways things could be better.

1527
01:27:11,070 --> 01:27:12,270
That's the curse.

1528
01:27:12,590 --> 01:27:18,180
Well, and you might get the a combination there of being that creative or imaginative or or

1529
01:27:18,180 --> 01:27:18,900
whatever it is.

1530
01:27:19,060 --> 01:27:23,300
But then also if you are less likely to seek, want to discuss that with others for some

1531
01:27:23,300 --> 01:27:23,860
reason, right?

1532
01:27:23,940 --> 01:27:27,940
If that's like an individual difference dimension, we're introverted about it, or you don't

1533
01:27:28,420 --> 01:27:31,860
then it's just worse because you're just in your mind and you don't get the feedback from

1534
01:27:31,860 --> 01:27:33,220
anybody saying, That's silly.

1535
01:27:33,300 --> 01:27:35,220
That's that never would have happened.

1536
01:27:35,380 --> 01:27:38,900
You know, that counterfactual you've suggested is just really improbable.

1537
01:27:39,220 --> 01:27:40,180
Don't worry about that.

1538
01:27:40,340 --> 01:27:40,660
Right.

1539
01:27:41,810 --> 01:27:43,250
Kept it all in there, right?

1540
01:27:43,330 --> 01:27:46,210
Then it's just you in your mind forever.

1541
01:27:46,690 --> 01:27:46,930
Right.

1542
01:27:47,730 --> 01:27:50,530
It could go, it could go the other way, though, because you could be using your

1543
01:27:50,530 --> 01:27:54,050
counterfactual reasoning to simulate how worse things could have been.

1544
01:27:54,130 --> 01:27:58,290
And maybe you're you're imagining all the worst case scenarios in all the ways that the

1545
01:27:58,610 --> 01:28:01,730
world could be more dangerous and awful than than you thought.

1546
01:28:01,890 --> 01:28:05,490
And so in some cases, maybe uh it would lead to the opposite.

1547
01:28:05,650 --> 01:28:10,440
You know, you're happy with your decision because you're you're not uh you know running you

1548
01:28:10,440 --> 01:28:13,960
know from the monster in terror you're you know all all the horrible things that could have

1549
01:28:13,960 --> 01:28:15,800
happened didn't so you're you're happier.

1550
01:28:15,960 --> 01:28:19,320
Um so that would probably be a a moderating variable as well.

1551
01:28:19,480 --> 01:28:22,520
Like what kinds of counterfactual scenarios are you likely to entertain?

1552
01:28:22,680 --> 01:28:26,680
If you're constantly imagining happy counterfactual scenarios, that could paradoxically

1553
01:28:26,680 --> 01:28:27,480
make you feel worse.

1554
01:28:27,640 --> 01:28:31,640
And if you're, you know, imagining the worst case scenarios that could paradoxically make

1555
01:28:31,640 --> 01:28:32,440
you feel better.

1556
01:28:33,000 --> 01:28:33,880
Yeah that's a good thing.

1557
01:28:33,960 --> 01:28:34,520
Yeah sorry go ahead.

1558
01:28:34,760 --> 01:28:40,610
Oh no I was gonna say the you know, when I've thought about that regret dimension, um most

1559
01:28:40,610 --> 01:28:44,530
of the literature on it is just regret to like no regret, like you don't experience, but it

1560
01:28:44,530 --> 01:28:48,930
seems like relief if there's a if there's a dimension like the disappointment election,

1561
01:28:49,090 --> 01:28:49,250
right?

1562
01:28:49,330 --> 01:28:50,770
It's like yeah, regret to relief.

1563
01:28:50,850 --> 01:28:55,250
And if you're doing that imagining of like, yeah, man, if I had done that, yeah, I'd done

1564
01:28:55,250 --> 01:28:56,770
the other thing, that would have been terrible.

1565
01:28:56,930 --> 01:29:01,010
That it's it's relief might be the other anchor on that dimension.

1566
01:29:01,300 --> 01:29:01,540
Yeah.

1567
01:29:01,860 --> 01:29:05,620
It's also I there was a study done where I think it was like British subways.

1568
01:29:05,780 --> 01:29:10,820
I don't like, don't quote me on the specifics, but they removed the advertisements from the

1569
01:29:10,820 --> 01:29:11,540
subway.

1570
01:29:12,100 --> 01:29:17,380
And uh it was a it was a very subtle manipulation, but they actually like found that

1571
01:29:17,380 --> 01:29:21,780
people's well being slightly ticked up from removing the advertisements.

1572
01:29:21,860 --> 01:29:26,100
Because I mean like one of the one of the like the tropes of advertising is it's creating

1573
01:29:26,090 --> 01:29:29,690
unmet wants, you know, like that's kind of the job of advertising, right?

1574
01:29:29,770 --> 01:29:34,090
Is to sort of make you feel like a discrepancy between your current state and the desired

1575
01:29:34,090 --> 01:29:34,330
state.

1576
01:29:34,490 --> 01:29:36,330
That's what motivates you to do something.

1577
01:29:36,570 --> 01:29:42,410
Um, and this comes back to this like relationship propaganda, then, where I

1578
01:29:42,410 --> 01:29:47,690
wonder at this point of if you're positively always evaluating something, it's gonna make

1579
01:29:47,690 --> 01:29:49,610
you feel worse about your own situation.

1580
01:29:49,770 --> 01:29:53,280
If you're but if you're comparing counterfactuals that are worse than yours, then you're

1581
01:29:53,280 --> 01:29:54,000
going to feel better.

1582
01:29:54,160 --> 01:29:58,720
So this actually suggests that if people are constantly consuming sort of like worse

1583
01:29:58,720 --> 01:30:02,080
relationship material, they're going to feel better about their relationship.

1584
01:30:02,160 --> 01:30:05,840
But if they're consuming more positive, they're going to feel worse about it too.

1585
01:30:06,000 --> 01:30:06,640
Yeah.

1586
01:30:07,440 --> 01:30:09,520
That yeah, that prediction totally makes sense.

1587
01:30:09,600 --> 01:30:09,840
Yeah.

1588
01:30:10,000 --> 01:30:15,270
Um, and I will say, as as in in my one source that uh

1589
01:30:15,910 --> 01:30:19,590
people I think in my research world all the time they're like, go look at like one of the

1590
01:30:19,590 --> 01:30:23,110
relationship subreddits and just see what people are saying about this, right?

1591
01:30:23,670 --> 01:30:28,150
Those are great sources for like situations where you're like, Man, I'm my situation's

1592
01:30:28,150 --> 01:30:28,950
fantastic.

1593
01:30:29,990 --> 01:30:31,350
We read about this.

1594
01:30:32,550 --> 01:30:33,990
It's it's really, yeah.

1595
01:30:34,320 --> 01:30:38,480
It'd be a great couples therapy strategy, just like go on our relationships.

1596
01:30:38,800 --> 01:30:39,040
Yeah.

1597
01:30:39,360 --> 01:30:40,720
Read the horror stories.

1598
01:30:42,080 --> 01:30:43,600
Stop arguing about the dishwasher.

1599
01:30:43,680 --> 01:30:44,400
Just read this.

1600
01:30:44,640 --> 01:30:44,960
Yeah.

1601
01:30:45,760 --> 01:30:45,920
Yeah.

1602
01:30:46,080 --> 01:30:50,560
It's like the um what it is like you feel people feel happier when they volunteer and work

1603
01:30:50,560 --> 01:30:52,400
with like people who are worse off than them.

1604
01:30:52,560 --> 01:30:56,160
It's like they should just do couples therapy where they just do the therapy for couples

1605
01:30:56,160 --> 01:30:57,360
who are worse off than them.

1606
01:30:57,680 --> 01:30:58,000
Wow.

1607
01:30:58,150 --> 01:30:59,510
We're gonna pair you with this cover.

1608
01:30:59,910 --> 01:31:00,470
Exactly.

1609
01:31:00,710 --> 01:31:04,150
Although it only works half for half of the people because the other well, it depends.

1610
01:31:04,230 --> 01:31:04,870
Yeah, I don't know.

1611
01:31:04,950 --> 01:31:05,510
Yeah.

1612
01:31:07,590 --> 01:31:07,830
Yeah.

1613
01:31:07,990 --> 01:31:12,150
The poor the poor couple that you use as the as the comparison.

1614
01:31:12,710 --> 01:31:14,150
This is where we just get actors in.

1615
01:31:14,390 --> 01:31:14,630
Right.

1616
01:31:14,710 --> 01:31:14,950
Exactly.

1617
01:31:15,590 --> 01:31:17,110
They're confederates, they're whatever.

1618
01:31:17,190 --> 01:31:17,270
Right.

1619
01:31:20,470 --> 01:31:24,950
Well, actually, I wonder some of reality TV, like you know, might be this too, right?

1620
01:31:25,030 --> 01:31:26,470
It's just consuming.

1621
01:31:26,740 --> 01:31:32,500
obviously there's lots of there's lots of sort of um psychological sugar quote unquote

1622
01:31:32,580 --> 01:31:38,420
in like in in that in in um uh reality tv but i wonder if like seeing worse

1623
01:31:38,420 --> 01:31:44,340
relationships also just sort of is like oh okay that drama i can turn it off and

1624
01:31:44,340 --> 01:31:48,500
i don't have that drama yeah it's interesting the drawing to it right because you know you

1625
01:31:48,500 --> 01:31:53,250
look in the the popular cultural representations of things, there's the world of romance

1626
01:31:53,250 --> 01:31:58,930
novels and um Hallmark movies, and you know, all those things that are the very

1627
01:31:58,930 --> 01:32:01,170
positive side of it that people seem to be drawn to.

1628
01:32:01,250 --> 01:32:05,570
But then exactly what you're saying: the you know, there's the reality TV version of the

1629
01:32:05,650 --> 01:32:10,610
where it is, there's that drama and the dysfunction, and people are equally or more, I'm

1630
01:32:10,610 --> 01:32:11,250
not sure, right?

1631
01:32:11,410 --> 01:32:12,370
Drawn to watching that.

1632
01:32:12,530 --> 01:32:15,220
Both seem to attract right the attention.

1633
01:32:15,300 --> 01:32:19,140
Um, I don't know if one more than the other, but they both of them are represented, I

1634
01:32:19,140 --> 01:32:19,300
think.

1635
01:32:19,540 --> 01:32:19,780
Yeah.

1636
01:32:19,860 --> 01:32:24,100
And if you look like even classic literature, I mean a lot of it has the negative too, you

1637
01:32:24,100 --> 01:32:24,260
know.

1638
01:32:24,340 --> 01:32:28,820
Like, I mean, nowadays it's sort of like it's seen as lowbrow to have the sort of really uh

1639
01:32:28,900 --> 01:32:31,460
negative part, but I think like it's always sort of in there.

1640
01:32:31,700 --> 01:32:32,100
Mm-hmm.

1641
01:32:32,420 --> 01:32:33,700
All of Jane Austen.

1642
01:32:34,180 --> 01:32:34,500
Yeah.

1643
01:32:35,140 --> 01:32:37,300
It's a it's a journey to get to the end there.

1644
01:32:37,540 --> 01:32:37,860
Yes.

1645
01:32:38,020 --> 01:32:38,660
Yeah.

1646
01:32:39,250 --> 01:32:45,250
Um this uh the this intersection of mating and emotions, um, is

1647
01:32:45,250 --> 01:32:48,370
there, you know, is this a relatively new thing?

1648
01:32:48,530 --> 01:32:51,490
I mean, it seems so obvious, but is this sort of new?

1649
01:32:51,810 --> 01:32:53,650
It is, I think it is sort of new.

1650
01:32:53,810 --> 01:32:59,650
I think I think in when thinking about emotions in the mating world before, people

1651
01:32:59,650 --> 01:33:00,610
talked about love.

1652
01:33:01,040 --> 01:33:01,360
right?

1653
01:33:01,680 --> 01:33:04,400
And attraction arousal, right?

1654
01:33:04,560 --> 01:33:06,320
That those ideas came up.

1655
01:33:06,480 --> 01:33:07,680
Jealousy, certainly.

1656
01:33:07,840 --> 01:33:13,760
But jealousy was probably the only one that I think was sort of well worked

1657
01:33:14,080 --> 01:33:18,560
from that adaptive problem perspective, really thinking about the design and design

1658
01:33:18,560 --> 01:33:22,000
features and and and coming coming from that.

1659
01:33:22,240 --> 01:33:27,730
But it it it is not something that there had been a ton of.

1660
01:33:28,050 --> 01:33:33,650
And for what is there, I think it um uh it's not quite

1661
01:33:33,650 --> 01:33:34,610
nuanced yet, right?

1662
01:33:34,770 --> 01:33:38,530
It isn't sort of really, I think there's been a lot of fantastic work on emotions that has

1663
01:33:38,530 --> 01:33:43,810
happened in the last you know 15 or so years from you know an EP perspective about really

1664
01:33:44,050 --> 01:33:48,980
how to do really good research, um, thinking about what emotions are, right?

1665
01:33:49,220 --> 01:33:53,860
And you know, what the adaptive problem is and and what the design, you know, of that

1666
01:33:53,860 --> 01:33:58,740
emotion uh would look like if it did evolve to solve that adaptive problem, right?

1667
01:33:58,820 --> 01:34:00,420
And then how do you study that, right?

1668
01:34:00,580 --> 01:34:06,020
How do you design studies to really demonstrate evidence for those

1669
01:34:06,020 --> 01:34:07,860
hypothesized design features?

1670
01:34:08,100 --> 01:34:12,590
I think in you know, some of these emotions we've talked about, and you know, anger and

1671
01:34:12,590 --> 01:34:16,910
shame and these ones where where people have really developed these beautiful research

1672
01:34:16,910 --> 01:34:17,550
programs.

1673
01:34:17,950 --> 01:34:22,350
And I think uh that's one thing I I'm really interested in for the sort of the future of

1674
01:34:22,350 --> 01:34:28,110
mating research is is taking some of that um either for those emotions or these other

1675
01:34:28,110 --> 01:34:33,710
emotions that really are relevant in a mating context and building out um research programs

1676
01:34:33,710 --> 01:34:35,870
in the same way with those same principles.

1677
01:34:36,030 --> 01:34:41,360
I think is absolutely a cool next step for good stuff um and some

1678
01:34:41,360 --> 01:34:46,240
low-hanging fruit for graduate students or people thinking about developing theses and

1679
01:34:46,240 --> 01:34:46,400
right.

1680
01:34:46,640 --> 01:34:49,040
I mean I think there's there's good stuff to be done there.

1681
01:34:49,360 --> 01:34:50,480
Yeah, I I love that.

1682
01:34:50,560 --> 01:34:56,480
And that's it's also um, you know, there's a lot of these emotions are very um

1683
01:34:56,960 --> 01:34:58,000
positive and negative.

1684
01:34:58,080 --> 01:35:02,800
I mean it seems sort of trite to say, but like a lot of human experience is is brought up

1685
01:35:02,800 --> 01:35:03,360
in these emotions.

1686
01:35:03,440 --> 01:35:08,710
And it's a very humane thing to sort of respect understanding them.

1687
01:35:08,790 --> 01:35:13,190
And it's sort of weird how much, and I think for the strategic reasons we've avoided them,

1688
01:35:13,350 --> 01:35:18,950
but it's very inhumane in the same way it was sort of inhumane to worry about, you know,

1689
01:35:19,030 --> 01:35:20,950
like you know, they didn't what?

1690
01:35:21,030 --> 01:35:26,950
They didn't give kids um uh anti what is it called I can't think of any

1691
01:35:26,950 --> 01:35:27,430
words today.

1692
01:35:27,510 --> 01:35:31,350
What is it called when you like um uh give people like they can't feel pain?

1693
01:35:31,430 --> 01:35:33,400
Um anesthetic, Yes.

1694
01:35:33,560 --> 01:35:37,880
Like they didn't give give like babies anesthetic for for just be you know, because like

1695
01:35:37,960 --> 01:35:40,920
the doctors weren't even like thinking about kids like, oh whatever kids don't feel things.

1696
01:35:41,000 --> 01:35:46,760
And so you know it's very inhumane to not think about the evolved design of all of

1697
01:35:46,760 --> 01:35:47,240
life.

1698
01:35:47,480 --> 01:35:52,840
And I think like to the extent that psychology has been sort of high and mighty about

1699
01:35:53,630 --> 01:35:55,390
biological things like mating.

1700
01:35:55,550 --> 01:36:00,430
It's also missed out on like addressing what is a fairly if we don't have a science of it,

1701
01:36:00,510 --> 01:36:05,390
we can be pretty inhumane about like people's needs and their feelings about like, you

1702
01:36:05,390 --> 01:36:07,150
know, am I attached to somebody?

1703
01:36:07,310 --> 01:36:08,270
Do I feel secure?

1704
01:36:08,430 --> 01:36:09,550
Do I feel loved?

1705
01:36:09,790 --> 01:36:12,830
Um, it's weird that we don't have a better science of that.

1706
01:36:12,910 --> 01:36:18,060
And I think it's a real um problem to sort of be ignoring it um

1707
01:36:18,300 --> 01:36:22,860
scientifically um and it's it's really sad in a way um

1708
01:36:24,940 --> 01:36:30,700
yeah i mean it it's it's hard to imagine any emotion that is not relevant to mating

1709
01:36:30,780 --> 01:36:36,540
it's sort of the the domain where all of our emotions apply you know you yeah like I I

1710
01:36:36,540 --> 01:36:40,380
can't really think of an ex I mean maybe I don't know even hunger like you know you eat

1711
01:36:40,380 --> 01:36:44,460
with your your mate and you prepare food with your mate and you know there could you can be

1712
01:36:44,460 --> 01:36:47,950
hangry if if they're the dinner's not ready or or or whatever.

1713
01:36:48,270 --> 01:36:50,990
Eventual discussion of where are we gonna have dinner tonight and Yeah, exactly.

1714
01:36:51,230 --> 01:36:53,390
Like that's a huge huge th huge part of relationships.

1715
01:36:53,470 --> 01:36:57,070
If you don't like the other person's cooking or or they're they're cooking more than you or

1716
01:36:57,070 --> 01:36:57,550
vice versa.

1717
01:36:57,630 --> 01:37:01,870
You know, like lots of stuff like I I can't think of any emotion that that isn't relevant.

1718
01:37:02,030 --> 01:37:05,870
I mean it's it's if you think about it it's it's the central adaptive challenge of of being

1719
01:37:05,870 --> 01:37:10,990
an organism is to reproduce and a mating a mateship is the context where that happens.

1720
01:37:11,150 --> 01:37:14,820
It seems like all of our emotions should be relevant to that thing.

1721
01:37:15,140 --> 01:37:20,100
Um and so I I think it's a really interesting and and and useful direction to take it where

1722
01:37:20,180 --> 01:37:21,300
you know what are all these other emotions?

1723
01:37:21,460 --> 01:37:25,220
What are the what are ways in which we we're we're afraid or guilty or or ashamed or or

1724
01:37:25,220 --> 01:37:29,460
proud um or embarrassed or whatever in the context of a relationship.

1725
01:37:29,540 --> 01:37:35,540
Um and it seems like all of those things, you know, happen uh to varying degrees um in

1726
01:37:35,540 --> 01:37:37,220
a in a romantic relationship.

1727
01:37:37,460 --> 01:37:38,740
So yeah, absolutely.

1728
01:37:38,820 --> 01:37:43,010
And and also there's the ones that are going to be unique to that, right?

1729
01:37:43,250 --> 01:37:46,610
So, you know, people talk about sexual arousal, that kind of thing, but also, you know,

1730
01:37:46,690 --> 01:37:47,730
parental love, right?

1731
01:37:47,970 --> 01:37:52,450
So if if and that sort of family unit being created, right?

1732
01:37:52,690 --> 01:37:56,690
Uh, and the psychology regulating that and those feelings towards that little little

1733
01:37:57,490 --> 01:37:59,410
genetic vehicle that's terrorizing you.

1734
01:37:59,570 --> 01:38:01,330
But you also love so much, right?

1735
01:38:01,490 --> 01:38:07,460
That um all of that that only right uh comes online or or or happens,

1736
01:38:07,620 --> 01:38:07,940
right?

1737
01:38:08,020 --> 01:38:10,420
Um, in in those inmateships, right?

1738
01:38:10,580 --> 01:38:13,460
So um I think it's it's you're absolutely right.

1739
01:38:13,540 --> 01:38:15,380
It's all of the things plus, right?

1740
01:38:15,540 --> 01:38:19,140
Ones that you couldn't study in another con, you know, another type of relationship, but

1741
01:38:19,220 --> 01:38:21,140
but really matter for that type of relationship.

1742
01:38:21,460 --> 01:38:25,140
This is really interesting because we started this conversation saying there's too much

1743
01:38:25,140 --> 01:38:28,260
mating work, but we're actually arriving at there's not enough.

1744
01:38:28,420 --> 01:38:32,820
And or precisely what it is is that the way we've compartmentalized mating and the approach

1745
01:38:32,820 --> 01:38:36,250
we've taken to it has been it's really its own little thing.

1746
01:38:36,490 --> 01:38:36,730
Yeah.

1747
01:38:36,810 --> 01:38:42,090
And what we're landing on is that actually it should be everywhere and diffused throughout.

1748
01:38:42,170 --> 01:38:44,970
So it's really just that there should be more but different, right?

1749
01:38:45,050 --> 01:38:46,890
And just sort of integrated with everything.

1750
01:38:46,970 --> 01:38:47,130
Yeah.

1751
01:38:47,370 --> 01:38:47,770
I like that.

1752
01:38:47,930 --> 01:38:50,090
More but different but integrated with everything.

1753
01:38:50,490 --> 01:38:52,730
But it's it's it's you're absolutely right.

1754
01:38:52,810 --> 01:38:55,370
It's it's what it's what brings me back to still, right?

1755
01:38:55,450 --> 01:38:56,570
I mean, I'm tenured.

1756
01:38:56,730 --> 01:38:59,920
I, you know, I'm I'm I've got my job.

1757
01:39:00,080 --> 01:39:01,120
I could switch, right?

1758
01:39:01,200 --> 01:39:03,600
I could say I'm not doing any more meaning research.

1759
01:39:03,680 --> 01:39:08,160
I'm gonna deep dive in something else in EP and I'm gonna make that my thing instead,

1760
01:39:08,240 --> 01:39:08,480
right?

1761
01:39:08,560 --> 01:39:11,040
Like I I do, I'm I'm very, very fortunate.

1762
01:39:11,120 --> 01:39:13,920
I have the freedom I could choose to do that if I wanted to.

1763
01:39:14,160 --> 01:39:17,280
But somehow it it just I just keep coming back to it, right?

1764
01:39:17,360 --> 01:39:21,760
I just the questions that I come up with and building on what I've already done or thinking

1765
01:39:21,760 --> 01:39:23,930
through end up and it's for this reason, right?

1766
01:39:24,010 --> 01:39:28,170
I I think about what can we be doing better and what is what are the next things we should

1767
01:39:28,170 --> 01:39:32,170
be learning and how should we be advancing our our science in this world.

1768
01:39:32,330 --> 01:39:37,690
Um uh but but yeah for all for all the the the ways in which it's dominated the

1769
01:39:37,690 --> 01:39:40,170
conversation about EP in some spaces, right?

1770
01:39:40,250 --> 01:39:41,930
It's it's it's for good reason.

1771
01:39:42,010 --> 01:39:47,520
Um it's interesting because it is sort of yeah it's it's I I'm not a mating person, but I

1772
01:39:47,520 --> 01:39:49,040
also, I mean, I'm colleagues with Dan.

1773
01:39:49,120 --> 01:39:50,160
I see him all the time.

1774
01:39:50,320 --> 01:39:55,440
And I feel like the the thing of sort of like apologetically, I'm a mating researcher,

1775
01:39:55,600 --> 01:39:55,920
right?

1776
01:39:56,000 --> 01:39:59,760
It like kind of comes up a little bit, but it sounds like again, we're coming kind of for a

1777
01:39:59,840 --> 01:40:03,840
circle where it's sort of like to not only not be apologetic about it, but to sort of say,

1778
01:40:04,000 --> 01:40:07,840
Yeah, I'm a mating researcher and this is why it's awesome and important, and here's the

1779
01:40:07,840 --> 01:40:08,880
way to do it.

1780
01:40:10,080 --> 01:40:10,720
Yes.

1781
01:40:10,950 --> 01:40:12,230
I like that.

1782
01:40:14,390 --> 01:40:17,750
Uh Carrie, is there anything that we should have asked you?

1783
01:40:18,950 --> 01:40:20,150
I don't think so.

1784
01:40:20,310 --> 01:40:22,790
Uh that was that was good conversation.

1785
01:40:22,950 --> 01:40:23,590
I enjoyed that.

1786
01:40:23,750 --> 01:40:25,110
We hit on lots of good topics.

1787
01:40:25,190 --> 01:40:25,510
So yeah.

1788
01:40:25,830 --> 01:40:27,830
Did you want to talk any more about cooperation?

1789
01:40:27,910 --> 01:40:30,710
Because you said you've been thinking a lot about like cooperation in the in that

1790
01:40:30,710 --> 01:40:31,190
relationship.

1791
01:40:31,270 --> 01:40:35,830
Is there anything about that that you we we hadn't hit on that you've been thinking about?

1792
01:40:36,150 --> 01:40:37,430
We we mostly hit on it.

1793
01:40:37,590 --> 01:40:43,320
I think um the the only other piece oh I I recently reread the Bankers

1794
01:40:43,480 --> 01:40:49,160
Paradox paper um about irreplaceability right um and that and so it was just

1795
01:40:49,160 --> 01:40:54,680
another another piece in that puzzle of when we're thinking about these mating

1796
01:40:54,680 --> 01:40:59,960
relationships right like a bunch of this logic applies right from other cooperative

1797
01:40:59,960 --> 01:41:04,710
relationships and so that was that was a piece there from that literature on friendships,

1798
01:41:04,870 --> 01:41:05,030
right?

1799
01:41:05,190 --> 01:41:08,710
Um, that oh, and but in best friends and close friends and tight, it's that

1800
01:41:08,710 --> 01:41:14,630
irreplaceability that um and being irreplaceable and and a lot of that logic, uh

1801
01:41:14,790 --> 01:41:19,670
the same predictions, right, apply and like how to, you know, attract a good partner,

1802
01:41:19,750 --> 01:41:19,910
right?

1803
01:41:19,990 --> 01:41:21,350
A romantic partner, right?

1804
01:41:21,510 --> 01:41:27,110
Um and so I think some of it is in thinking in a nuanced way about mating as its own thing

1805
01:41:27,190 --> 01:41:32,540
is is some of that defining like, well, you know, how is it, you know, it is the extreme

1806
01:41:32,540 --> 01:41:36,060
cooperative relationship, but then what are the features that make it extreme or unique or

1807
01:41:36,060 --> 01:41:36,620
different, right?

1808
01:41:36,780 --> 01:41:40,700
And then how does that change your predictions from what you would predict from different

1809
01:41:40,700 --> 01:41:41,820
cooperative relationships?

1810
01:41:41,980 --> 01:41:44,220
Or are you just going to predict the same thing, right?

1811
01:41:44,300 --> 01:41:48,060
That it's, but it's just the same thing with even higher consequences, right?

1812
01:41:48,460 --> 01:41:53,420
And I think some of that thinking, I think, really helps explain what goes on in mateships

1813
01:41:53,740 --> 01:41:58,310
more as like fitting on that cooperative relationships continuum necessarily than like its

1814
01:41:58,310 --> 01:42:00,150
own domain, its own separate thing.

1815
01:42:00,790 --> 01:42:03,510
So like just to just to make it concrete to see if I'm understanding.

1816
01:42:03,590 --> 01:42:07,830
So like an example might be like one thing that's unique about mating, unlike another

1817
01:42:07,830 --> 01:42:11,030
cooperative relationship, is it can create children, right?

1818
01:42:11,270 --> 01:42:17,110
Uh and so like so one idea would be that sort of one of the Q structures of a relationship

1819
01:42:17,110 --> 01:42:19,830
would just be like, do we have children together or not?

1820
01:42:19,990 --> 01:42:23,830
And that would just have consequences on sort of settings.

1821
01:42:24,000 --> 01:42:26,960
Uh is that the kind of Yes, that kind of thing.

1822
01:42:27,040 --> 01:42:30,640
And then once you have children, right, the consequences that, you know, the well-being of

1823
01:42:30,640 --> 01:42:34,560
those children and all those things have, I mean, that's an additional that might sort of

1824
01:42:34,560 --> 01:42:39,120
trump some of these other considerations that in a cooperative relationship where that's

1825
01:42:39,120 --> 01:42:41,200
not part of your shared investments, right?

1826
01:42:41,360 --> 01:42:46,320
That that it, you know, these other things can matter more or matter in different ways that

1827
01:42:46,390 --> 01:42:47,910
once there are those kids there, right?

1828
01:42:47,990 --> 01:42:51,270
I mean, that's that that swamps could swamp a lot, right?

1829
01:42:51,430 --> 01:42:57,030
Um, and so that um so it's the even before, but then you know, once they're there, um that

1830
01:42:57,190 --> 01:42:59,350
that might really uh influence things.

1831
01:42:59,670 --> 01:43:00,070
Yeah.

1832
01:43:00,390 --> 01:43:00,630
Yeah.

1833
01:43:00,790 --> 01:43:02,390
Research is me search, but I agree.

1834
01:43:02,550 --> 01:43:06,230
One of the themes of this podcast is there's not enough work on parenting psychology.

1835
01:43:06,520 --> 01:43:06,920
Totally.

1836
01:43:07,000 --> 01:43:07,160
Yeah.

1837
01:43:07,320 --> 01:43:11,160
And of course it's, you know, it's something that like I think I acknowledged before I had

1838
01:43:11,160 --> 01:43:14,360
a kid, but then like once I had a kid, I was like, oh yeah, no, there's not enough.

1839
01:43:14,520 --> 01:43:14,600
Yeah.

1840
01:43:15,880 --> 01:43:20,680
It just really and and I think sometimes people ask, especially they ask meeting

1841
01:43:20,680 --> 01:43:25,400
researchers this all the time, um, about like, oh, since you knew all this, like, aren't

1842
01:43:25,400 --> 01:43:26,600
you a really great mater?

1843
01:43:26,680 --> 01:43:28,360
You know, like don't you apply it, right?

1844
01:43:28,520 --> 01:43:33,730
So you can find a really great mates or you can whatever, like you know, the amount we have

1845
01:43:33,730 --> 01:43:37,330
conscious access to it, the amount you in a moment can do any of that, right?

1846
01:43:37,410 --> 01:43:38,450
I don't, I don't really think so.

1847
01:43:38,530 --> 01:43:44,530
But I have found much more with parenting in those moments of like thinking exactly

1848
01:43:44,530 --> 01:43:44,850
like this.

1849
01:43:45,010 --> 01:43:47,650
Like, you are losing your shit right now, little kid.

1850
01:43:47,810 --> 01:43:50,290
Oh, like this is how disappointment works in you.

1851
01:43:51,090 --> 01:43:51,330
Right.

1852
01:43:51,650 --> 01:43:57,330
Like in it in it in it feeling, I think, uh, I think a lot of the parenting

1853
01:43:57,330 --> 01:44:02,800
angst people feel about, oh, my child is, you know, oh, I've made them sad, or oh, and I'm

1854
01:44:02,800 --> 01:44:03,920
not feeling guilty about it.

1855
01:44:04,000 --> 01:44:04,240
Right.

1856
01:44:04,320 --> 01:44:08,480
I I a little bit don't, I mean, maybe this is me being a bad parent, but I more am like,

1857
01:44:08,720 --> 01:44:14,000
no, like you're this little being in your evolved psychology is calibrating and it's doing

1858
01:44:14,000 --> 01:44:15,280
this, and that's good.

1859
01:44:15,520 --> 01:44:21,120
And of course, I'm making sure you're safe and you're fed and you, you know, we're strongly

1860
01:44:21,120 --> 01:44:25,840
attached and all that, but like I, you know, I just want your little evolved psychology to

1861
01:44:25,840 --> 01:44:28,960
like figure these things out and calibrate the world in this way, right?

1862
01:44:29,120 --> 01:44:33,930
Um, and I think that has had, I think I've been more conscious of that like in the

1863
01:44:33,930 --> 01:44:38,890
parenting realm than I ever was in like or am in like the the mating realm.

1864
01:44:38,970 --> 01:44:39,290
I don't know.

1865
01:44:39,450 --> 01:44:42,570
Yeah yeah David I don't know how you feel about that but I feel the same way too of sort of

1866
01:44:42,650 --> 01:44:46,330
maybe it's also knowing the cross-cultural literature where I sort of much more emphasis on

1867
01:44:46,330 --> 01:44:51,290
autonomy than sort of like the ambient norms here at least of sort of like you know the

1868
01:44:51,290 --> 01:44:53,370
really helicopter like I have to move their limbs for them.

1869
01:44:53,450 --> 01:44:57,780
It's like no no no in in like a hunter gatherer or hunter fortier, you know, like for

1870
01:44:57,940 --> 01:45:01,620
evolved history, kids were basically I mean not on their own, but you know, you get much

1871
01:45:01,620 --> 01:45:02,420
more so, right?

1872
01:45:02,580 --> 01:45:07,140
And so that that sense of like you respect that they're an evolved creature, like you said,

1873
01:45:07,220 --> 01:45:10,100
Carrie, and they can they're they're they got they're doing their own thing.

1874
01:45:10,500 --> 01:45:10,900
They are.

1875
01:45:11,060 --> 01:45:11,300
Yeah.

1876
01:45:11,460 --> 01:45:15,140
I think every time I talk to anthropologists about which is one of my favorite things to

1877
01:45:15,140 --> 01:45:15,620
talk to them.

1878
01:45:15,700 --> 01:45:17,220
I don't they can just tell me about it.

1879
01:45:17,940 --> 01:45:18,180
Exactly.

1880
01:45:18,260 --> 01:45:19,220
It's the win-win.

1881
01:45:19,380 --> 01:45:25,070
It's the they do the they do the dangerous, sweaty, um oh my god,

1882
01:45:25,230 --> 01:45:27,470
the the the yeah, the you know the stories.

1883
01:45:27,630 --> 01:45:31,790
I don't know, the things, but but the you know, so many of them I've heard them refer to

1884
01:45:31,870 --> 01:45:33,870
like the bands of roving children, right?

1885
01:45:34,030 --> 01:45:36,430
Like the kids just roam in the packs, right?

1886
01:45:36,510 --> 01:45:41,230
And it'll be from the time they can they can keep up with the pack, they're with the pack

1887
01:45:41,310 --> 01:45:42,510
and then they're right.

1888
01:45:42,590 --> 01:45:45,870
And it's and they they are just autonomously doing these things.

1889
01:45:45,950 --> 01:45:49,150
There's eyes on the little ones to, you know, hopefully make sure they don't fall off the

1890
01:45:49,150 --> 01:45:50,030
cliff or whatever, right?

1891
01:45:50,190 --> 01:45:55,960
But and that I agree that in thinking about that version of childhood versus

1892
01:45:56,120 --> 01:46:00,040
uh, you know, uh for reasons our child, you know, the the version of childhood for our

1893
01:46:00,040 --> 01:46:02,920
children is different and and there's lots of great things about that.

1894
01:46:03,000 --> 01:46:08,600
Um, but I it really influences, I think, also some of my concerns that I don't have,

1895
01:46:08,760 --> 01:46:09,080
right?

1896
01:46:09,400 --> 01:46:14,120
About uh what I need to be doing as a parent that I think um I wouldn't have if I I I

1897
01:46:14,120 --> 01:46:17,240
wouldn't be able to think of it that way if I weren't an evolutionary psychologist.

1898
01:46:19,470 --> 01:46:20,110
Yeah.

1899
01:46:20,430 --> 01:46:21,710
Totally agree.

1900
01:46:22,190 --> 01:46:27,630
Well, we did not, I I am not at all uh regretting or disappointed by this

1901
01:46:27,630 --> 01:46:28,350
conversation.

1902
01:46:28,670 --> 01:46:28,990
No.

1903
01:46:29,230 --> 01:46:30,670
Yeah, I feel the opposite.

1904
01:46:30,830 --> 01:46:32,030
What is the opposite of regret?

1905
01:46:32,110 --> 01:46:32,750
Is there?

1906
01:46:33,230 --> 01:46:35,470
I think relief is what I would put on the other end.

1907
01:46:35,630 --> 01:46:36,750
I don't know what I'm relieved.

1908
01:46:37,070 --> 01:46:37,710
You said elation.

1909
01:46:37,870 --> 01:46:39,150
It was you said elation too.

1910
01:46:39,390 --> 01:46:43,620
So yeah, disappointment elation is sort of in the literature on like the other end.

1911
01:46:43,700 --> 01:46:46,820
If when you see people talk about something on the other end, it's like disappointment

1912
01:46:46,820 --> 01:46:47,860
versus elation.

1913
01:46:48,260 --> 01:46:50,260
Regret, they just talk about like regret or no regret.

1914
01:46:50,340 --> 01:46:52,500
But I sort of think relief might be the other side of it.

1915
01:46:52,660 --> 01:46:54,340
Like if you realize being glad.

1916
01:46:54,500 --> 01:46:57,780
Oh, sorry, didn't it be like the opposite, like if you had done the other thing, it would

1917
01:46:57,780 --> 01:46:58,260
have been much worse.

1918
01:46:58,340 --> 01:47:00,020
Oh, I'm really Oh, I see.

1919
01:47:00,180 --> 01:47:00,660
Oh, I see.

1920
01:47:00,740 --> 01:47:02,500
See, oh I see, see, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1921
01:47:02,820 --> 01:47:03,220
Yeah, yeah.

1922
01:47:03,700 --> 01:47:07,380
Or even just like it wouldn't have been like a catastrophe if I did the other thing, but

1923
01:47:07,380 --> 01:47:09,630
the thing I did was like is really good.

1924
01:47:09,710 --> 01:47:11,390
And I'm I really made the right choice.

1925
01:47:11,470 --> 01:47:12,990
And I'm really glad I made that choice.

1926
01:47:13,150 --> 01:47:14,910
I don't know if we even have a word for that.

1927
01:47:15,230 --> 01:47:16,670
It's like satisfaction.

1928
01:47:17,070 --> 01:47:18,750
Satisfaction, maybe?

1929
01:47:18,990 --> 01:47:19,630
I don't know.

1930
01:47:19,790 --> 01:47:21,870
Well, whatever that word is, I'm feeling it.

1931
01:47:22,030 --> 01:47:23,310
This was a very fun conversation.

1932
01:47:23,790 --> 01:47:24,750
This is a great conversation.

1933
01:47:24,910 --> 01:47:25,150
Thank you.

1934
01:47:25,390 --> 01:47:26,990
Thank you, Carrie, for being with us.

1935
01:47:27,150 --> 01:47:31,470
We have to get uh we have to get some, maybe we should get a like a have a Valentine's Day

1936
01:47:31,470 --> 01:47:32,830
special about love or something.

1937
01:47:32,990 --> 01:47:34,110
We can unpack love more.

1938
01:47:34,400 --> 01:47:34,640
Oh yeah.

1939
01:47:34,800 --> 01:47:36,080
Get a panel of us, right?

1940
01:47:36,320 --> 01:47:36,640
Exactly.

1941
01:47:36,720 --> 01:47:37,440
No, this is the thing.

1942
01:47:37,520 --> 01:47:38,000
Yeah, yeah.

1943
01:47:38,080 --> 01:47:38,320
Yeah.

1944
01:47:38,800 --> 01:47:39,360
That'd be fun.

1945
01:47:39,600 --> 01:47:40,080
Fantastic.

1946
01:47:40,240 --> 01:47:42,000
Well, thank you so much for coming on.

1947
01:47:42,080 --> 01:47:46,960
And uh um I hope everybody has a uh a non-disappointing week.

1948
01:47:47,280 --> 01:47:47,680
Mm-hmm.

1949
01:47:47,760 --> 01:47:50,480
With no regrets and uh lots of love.

1950
01:47:55,920 --> 01:47:59,920
Uh David, I have no regrets uh about this episode.

1951
01:48:00,270 --> 01:48:00,830
Me neither.

1952
01:48:00,910 --> 01:48:02,670
In fact, I was the opposite of disappointed.

1953
01:48:02,750 --> 01:48:04,910
I was elated by this fun conversation.

1954
01:48:04,990 --> 01:48:09,470
And if you're feeling elated by what you've just heard, uh, what can you do, Dave?

1955
01:48:09,870 --> 01:48:12,910
Uh you can check out Carrie Getz's work.

1956
01:48:13,070 --> 01:48:15,150
You can leave us a kind review.

1957
01:48:15,390 --> 01:48:21,150
You can uh pay us a visit on Patreon and um you know leave a

1958
01:48:21,150 --> 01:48:22,910
few coins here or there.

1959
01:48:23,150 --> 01:48:28,510
Um and uh yeah you can just generally support the podcast and um

1960
01:48:29,500 --> 01:48:31,340
uh I don't know what anything else?

1961
01:48:31,420 --> 01:48:32,620
Did I did I leave anything else?

1962
01:48:33,500 --> 01:48:35,340
You know, talk about us on social media.

1963
01:48:35,420 --> 01:48:35,820
Recommend us.

1964
01:48:36,220 --> 01:48:36,460
That's right.

1965
01:48:36,620 --> 01:48:37,180
Social media.

1966
01:48:37,340 --> 01:48:37,660
Yeah.

1967
01:48:38,060 --> 01:48:38,300
Yeah.

1968
01:48:38,460 --> 01:48:42,940
You know, uh your enthusiasm and support is the fuel that keeps us going.

1969
01:48:43,100 --> 01:48:47,020
So if you if you if you like what you're hearing and you want this to keep going, please uh

1970
01:48:47,020 --> 01:48:48,620
give us the support we need.

1971
01:48:49,020 --> 01:48:51,100
And and recommend guests.

1972
01:48:51,470 --> 01:48:52,270
Yeah, that too.

1973
01:48:52,350 --> 01:48:56,830
Reach out to us if you have i ideas for for episodes or guests, let us know.

1974
01:48:56,910 --> 01:48:58,190
We're very open to suggestions.

1975
01:48:58,510 --> 01:49:00,990
I would have loved to have Charles Darwin on this podcast.

1976
01:49:01,470 --> 01:49:02,750
Oh, that would have been amazing.

1977
01:49:02,910 --> 01:49:07,070
Maybe we should get like an AI simulation of Charles Darwin and interview him.

1978
01:49:07,390 --> 01:49:08,670
Can you do that?

1979
01:49:09,150 --> 01:49:10,270
I mean, I think.

1980
01:49:10,430 --> 01:49:11,950
I mean they did it with George Carlin.

1981
01:49:12,110 --> 01:49:16,030
They had a whole AI stand up special of George Carlin.

1982
01:49:16,270 --> 01:49:17,710
The title is actually hilarious.

1983
01:49:17,790 --> 01:49:20,000
The title was I'm glad I'm Dead.

1984
01:49:20,480 --> 01:49:21,680
That that's pretty good.

1985
01:49:22,960 --> 01:49:24,160
That's pretty George Carlin.

1986
01:49:24,320 --> 01:49:25,440
I mean, that's Carlin esque.

1987
01:49:25,520 --> 01:49:27,600
I think that that's I'm glad I'm dead.

1988
01:49:27,680 --> 01:49:29,200
Actually, that is exactly what he would say.

1989
01:49:29,280 --> 01:49:29,520
Yeah.

1990
01:49:29,840 --> 01:49:30,320
Yeah, it is.

1991
01:49:30,400 --> 01:49:31,680
So that was pretty impressive.

1992
01:49:32,000 --> 01:49:32,400
All right.

1993
01:49:32,480 --> 01:49:38,000
Well, yeah, if you uh all right, well let's let's uh let's we'll re we'll revisit that for

1994
01:49:38,000 --> 01:49:38,160
later.

1995
01:49:38,240 --> 01:49:38,400
Okay.

1996
01:49:38,480 --> 01:49:40,080
So maybe we'll have Charles Darwin on.

1997
01:49:40,470 --> 01:49:41,110
Yeah, who knows?

1998
01:49:41,270 --> 01:49:43,830
Maybe if AI keeps advancing, maybe maybe it'll happen.

1999
01:49:44,150 --> 01:49:45,750
Yeah, before the takeover.

2000
01:49:46,470 --> 01:49:49,670
Did you post the thing AI Dumerism is uh bullshit?

2001
01:49:50,150 --> 01:49:51,030
Yeah, it's it's on my yeah.

2002
01:49:51,110 --> 01:49:54,550
If you want to read about how AI is not going to kill us all, I have a post called AI

2003
01:49:54,550 --> 01:49:55,750
Dumerism is bullshit.

2004
01:49:56,150 --> 01:49:58,310
You should read it before AI kills us all.

2005
01:49:58,870 --> 01:50:04,870
Yeah, that would be good, just to um prepare yourself for what is for what is not going to

2006
01:50:04,870 --> 01:50:05,110
happen.

2007
01:50:05,430 --> 01:50:10,460
I mean, just imagine the shot of like somebody's screen as like a terminator like foot is

2008
01:50:10,460 --> 01:50:11,420
like crashing on the screen.

2009
01:50:11,500 --> 01:50:12,940
That's like it ends up.

2010
01:50:13,100 --> 01:50:16,780
I hope if if somebody is listening in Hollywood, please make that happen.

2011
01:50:16,940 --> 01:50:21,260
It'd make an AI movie and have David's uh That would be great.

2012
01:50:21,420 --> 01:50:22,540
That would be that would be wonderful.

2013
01:50:22,700 --> 01:50:23,820
Honestly, that would be better.

2014
01:50:23,900 --> 01:50:27,900
I'm I feel like if I'm gonna be wrong, I would love to be wrong in such a spectacular way.

2015
01:50:28,700 --> 01:50:29,180
Exactly.

2016
01:50:29,260 --> 01:50:32,140
If you're gonna do something, do it, do it, do it in a spectacular way.

2017
01:50:32,220 --> 01:50:33,340
And that includes being wrong.

2018
01:50:33,420 --> 01:50:33,660
Yes.

2019
01:50:33,900 --> 01:50:34,140
Yeah.

2020
01:50:34,300 --> 01:50:34,620
Exactly.

2021
01:50:34,780 --> 01:50:37,340
Well, on that note, uh enjoy your week and we'll see you next week.

2022
01:50:37,470 --> 01:50:38,750
Yep, see you next week.