Love and Regret with Cari Goetz
2025-12-02 13:00:00.000 +00:00

I'm David Pinsoff. I'm David Petrozowski. And this is Evolutionary Psychology, the podcast where uh actual evolutionary psychology is being done by actual evolutionary psychologists. David, today we are talking about love. Yes, love and the propaganda of love and regrets about love, disappointments, really all the emotions that the human is capable of experiencing are felt in the context of love or a loving relationship or the end of a loving relationship. Uh this was a really sweeping uh vast conversation where we covered all these topics and more with uh a really fun guest. And who is that guest, Dave? Carrie Getz. Carrie Getz. Whatever Carrie wants, Carrie Getz. She made that joke. Um reminder of how to pronounce her last name.

Yes. Yeah. Uh but this was this was uh such a fun conversation. Uh it's my favorite type of conversation where we get to just, you know uh talk about whatever topic catches our fancy in the moment and and sort of discover new insights and ideas while while the conversation is happening. And so um I think you'll have a fun time listening to this conversation. Yeah I don't think you'll regret or be disappointed and you might love the episode. Yes all of the above. All right. Enjoy. Enjoy Okay I found the record button. Today we have Carrie Getz, who is professor at um uh Cal State San Bernardino. Bernardino. I have uh uh I had it on the tip of my tongue, but I wanted to make sure. There's a lot of Cal State campuses, it's okay.

Yeah. Um where how big is that campus? Oh, we have about 18 to 20,000 students, sort of depending on what enrollment looks like. So we're kind of mid-size. We're not one of the big giant, giant campuses. So like Cal State Fullerton, those are closer to UC size. You know, Cal State Long Beach, I think those are like 40, 50. Um, but then there's some much smaller Cal State campuses. So we're kind of in the middle. Well, we can cut all this out. UCSB is smaller than Fullerton, I think, by a lot. Actually, oh really? Yeah, Fullerton's huge. Yeah, Fullerton's huge. Yeah. How big is UCLA, David? Do you know? I have no idea. It's at le it's at least one. Um so uh we are here on a podcast about evolutionary psychology, so

I guess we should start talking about that. I guess. Okay. Yeah, I guess. What is that thing? What is that anyway? I don't know. Um I wanna I want to actually carry, you can choose. There's two options for you. So choose your own adventure. Um uh either your research or mating psychology and its state in Evpsych. Oh. I mean, we can weave between them. Yeah. Um, but um, I like the bigger picture starting point, the, you know, mating psychology, you know, and it's yeah. You know. Let me let me let me tee this up a little bit and then you can completely reject it like a politician if you want and answer the question you wish you had been asked, which is um we had Dan Conroy Beam on, and he is the he's really there's there hasn't been a lot of mating

people on the this. And I think a lot of people when they come to EpSec, they come about it through the mating stuff, especially if they take it like an undergrad class. And I think a lot of people who are outside of Ev Psych think about um the mating stuff. And if you look online, you see a lot of stuff about mating. Um and if you hear other people talking about evolutionary psychology, it's often about mating. Right. um yeah what is your take on that either sort of socially or scientifically and what's your take on it um in terms of like has that been is that good for the science yeah what do you think yeah um i i my thoughts on this uh question i think go back and forth all the time um there's

times when i think we can really highlight the contributions right, that research on human mating from an evolutionary perspective have made, you know, in general to psychological science and understanding of human nature and human behavior and cognition. And then also for getting evolutionary psychology out there as a perspective and an important approach that people can be taking to these questions. But then, you know, there's the flip side of that. It's it's in some ways it's to our own detriment. Um, it's in many ways because the questions of human mating are in some way the first introduction or sometimes sort of the poster child for evolutionary psychology, it is seen as that's what evolutionary psychology is.

It is these questions about human mating. Uh, many of them that have um are about um hypothesizing about and demonstrating sex differences. Uh, and and that you know, the field for many people is that um, or their perception of the field is that. Uh, and even when I teach, right, um, I actually, you know, as I've gone on through time, have tried to structure my classes to really just de-emphasize uh that work. And it's because I'm taking the perspective of thinking about evolutionary psychology as you know, all the different types of questions it can answer, and thinking about human nature in totality and all the different domains, you know, there is research in. But if I was taking the perspective of trying to teach students about um sort of like

the the research into evolutionary psychology proportionally, right? If if I was going to spend the same proportion in class as the proportion of published literature, right? Then yeah, we might spend 50% of the time on mating studies because there's just a lot of studies out there that focus on that. Um, and I think it also I've talked a lot. Um this is your you can talk as much as you want. I it's the way to our own detriment, right? Is that I think we're um because it's the focus there, it it, you know, it we don't there's so many other important questions that evolutionary psychologists are working on that aren't in that domain and they aren't seen or understood uh or known as part of this discipline and part of this perspective.

Uh, and that's one of the the issues. Um, I think also because it's so those findings, some of them can be flashy or eye-catching, they can be easily misinterpreted, uh, they can be then I think used by people in ways that aren't necessarily what the researcher was intending or what the researcher would have concluded from their own research. And that causes another problem for us. Um, our big our EPPR problem in many cases comes, I think, from mating research, right? So, so it's I absolutely am a mating researcher. It's what I do, right? I'm like, I'm, you know, trying to answer these questions, but at the same time, I I very much recognize I think some of the problems it's caused for us as a as a science.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I I think I I would be inclined to agree with uh everything you said. Um I think in a in addition to the overemphasis on mating in general, even within the category of mating, I feel like there's a lopsided focus on certain topics to the detriment of other topics. So within the field of mating psychology, uh, I think there's an overemphasis on research on sex differences and in particular research on attraction and on the early stages of a relationship, as opposed to the long uh middle part of a relationship and all of the cooperative uh dynamics and conflicts that might arise, and maintaining a relationship, which is really hard, um, Deciding whether you want to stay in it or leave it.

Eventually, you know, rearing offspring, which is the ultimate purpose for our relationships, there's very little research on parenting despite its outsized impact on our fitness. And so I think even within the field of mating psychology, there's a lopsided focus that's that's not quite encompassing the full human experience. Yeah. And, you know, everywhere in psychology, there's uh criticisms of our uh especially in psychology, right? That we, you know, study undergrads, right? But I think this is a particular issue for mating research, right? Especially the undergrads we study, you know, if we're if a lot of research is coming from very traditional undergraduates. So, you know, mean age of 20 and they don't have kids, uh, and they're, you know,

away from home and making these decisions with, you know, no input from anybody, um, you know, what the outputs of those decisions, right? Um, they they tell us something, right? They absolutely tell us something, right? That is valuable data. Um, but the extent to which we've then backtracked that to say, well, oh, this is you know, telling us these specific things about human nature is a little questionable because we haven't captured a bunch of this other stuff related to human mating. Uh, and stuff that probably would have described the mating lives of most people through humanity. They they most of the time when making mating decisions, they probably already would have had kids. Um, they, you know, would be going, uh, you know, uh navigating, staying or leaving a

relationship or finding a new partner after uh death or splitting up or you know, all these different sorts of things later in life that aren't captured by many of our studies on on mating and attraction, even the ones on attraction and the ones on preferences and the ones that are on sex differences that we have don't uh get at all of that that stuff that you just talked about, which if we're thinking about mating across the lifetime, a larger proportion of your mating decisions would have made been made in those contexts. Um and we aren't we aren't studying those um as much as as we could be. Yeah, I think those are hard to study too. I mean I was just yeah for a completely different reason.

It's so funny if you poke on anything like everything you could the whole universe is in mating psychology. Like the whole problem with i as as we've talked about in other episodes, and David, I think you mentioned this, is that um if you count publications um and that's your criteria for people sort of being good scientists, then you sort of you just get what's easy to measure and what's the easiest thing to measure. You know, you don't go out and actually measure like real world families or things, right? Unless you're an anthropologist. So you have undergrads. You're you're also, I mean, the other thing too is you're also uh the consumers of our science are also undergrads. So it's even worse because we're not teaching 40 year olds or 80-year-olds.

We're not studying 40-year-olds and 80-year-olds. We're both studying, but also teaching early, like late teenagers and early 20-year-olds who are kind of weird in that they're not parents yet because of our very, very late um altrucial or you know, we're very we're altrucial to very late um in this culture. Um and so uh yeah, I think it's it's an example of it's a combination of where our science happens to be done that we're teaching and uh around these younger kids. But it's also I think a problem of if you have to just collect a lot of data um and and crank out a lot of papers, then yeah, you're not gonna be going far afield from you know who's just down the hall, basically. Absolutely. The incentive structures of our science play a role here.

Because yeah, that, you know, these other types of things, it's it's it's hard data to get and it's complicated. Um, all of those different pieces, right? If you if you can have it, you know, isolated down to um, you know, these folks who don't vary a lot on certain dimensions, right? Yeah, you can get at certain things more purely, but that not varying on those other dimensions might really matter. Um, but on the plus side, right? So this is one of the the great things about you know evolutionary social sciences is that we aren't just the you know psychologists here studying undergrads, right? Um, so I think about the work from you know Brooks Shelza and like Elizabeth Pillsworth and and people who I think about as part of our broader evolutionary social science community

who who look at these similar questions in folks who are very different than than the ones that I am often studying. And I think that's, you know, that's that's some of the power of our field, is that that is part of it. I think when I when I teach undergrads, it's one of the, you know, I teach an evolutionary psychology class in a psychology department in a psychology major. It's it's mostly psych majors taking the class and you know, trying to explain to them, like, well, we're called evolutionary psychology, but but to me, this evidence from this anthropologist and this study is more informative in my work and speaks more and is more similar to what I do than this research that came from this other person

who's also called a psychologist who's who's studying attraction or something, right? From a social psychology perspective or something. Um, and and trying to get that across about how all of I I see that as part of my um my discipline, right? Um, is I think unique for them. I I think that's that's different than what they uh see in some of the other classes that they'll take. Yeah. And I think too, I mean, you know, I study undergrads, you study undergrads. David's, well, David, I don't know, do you study undergrad? Occasionally, I guess. No, no. I mean, I don't mean like I just mean, you know, I think you're typical participants of that. And I think like it's also easy because we're academics and we like to self-flagellate.

Like there's, and as you said, Carrie, um, there's a lot of really important work done in insights on undergraduate or 20 year old or early mating psychology. And that just wouldn't exist without this approach. And so I don't, I don't think we should uh throw that baby out with the bathwater either, for sure. And I think we should be very proud of that. And maybe this is getting into a little bit of your research, but what um you mentioned, you know, this thing that this anthropologist studied, what to your mind is sort of the core baby um of the uh and not the bathwater of the mating literature. Um, and sort of if you could wave a magic wand and sort of have people actually understand what it is that you're trying to do um in the mating research, you know, what would

what is that? Um, you know, is it is it for example, you know, that it's not just flashy effects, but it's actually sort of design mindedness or or you know, that kind of thing? Like what what do you think what do you think people aren't getting? And if you could just sort of like pick 'em up by the scruff of the collar and be like, you stupid YouTube podcaster, don't do this, do this other thing. What's that other thing they should be doing? If they're listening, if they're playing or not, but maybe they're listening. Tell them what to do. Um it's certainly it's the the design-mindedness. Um, it's it's at the heart of it the you know, thinking of the mind as this collection of adaptations, right?

And and that these decisions or the outputs that we observe, right? The feelings we feel, the things we're attracted to, the motivations we might experience, right? Uh in the mating realm, but of course in all the other realms, but at least in the mating realm, which are really important to us. We spend a lot of time thinking about these things and talking about these things to each other, um, about, you know, who we're interested in and what we like and uh our relationships and how we feel about them. Those occupy a lot of our conscious thought, right? Um, and so it's so important for that reason because it occupies so much of our conscious thought. Um, but I think the the the biggest thing I when I teach a lot of this

stuff for students and and when I talk about in my research, um, is how much of the what is happening under the hood to result in that stuff that we're conscious of is stuff that we're not consciously aware of, right? That we don't have, um, and we're probably we're designed probably to not have good access to what's the information that we're actually taking in and how that information is being weighted or toggled uh or used by our mind to then produce that outward feeling of, oh, I think that person's hot, right? Or oh, I don't want to, you know, that's not the kind of person that I would want to be with. Um, and actually going on under there is stuff that we probably we don't have access to.

Uh and we might slap explanations on top of it. Oh, I like this person for this reason, right? But those those are explanations that might not map on to the actual functional reality of what is leading to the desire, right? And I think Communicating that and helping people understand that, I think is probably one of the most important things for our meeting research. Because a lot of the misconceptions come from the idea that if we're arguing there's some sex difference for functional reasons, is that people have conscious access to the the that functional reason. And then that they're consciously doing that for that functional reason, right? And I think that's a lot of where the misinformation and misconceptions about mating

research in evolutionary psychology come from, not appreciating that distinction. Yeah. So I hear what I'm hearing you say is there's really two things that Evpsych has done. Number one is it's provided data or knowledge about something people care about a lot, which is mating. And that really was very absent, right, from the literature. I mean, it's sort of there's this trope that a lot of people want to go into psychology and they read a textbook and they think it's going to be about jealousy and, you know, lust and disappointment and envy and jealousy. And it's starting to be, but it's usually about like perception. No, no offense to perception. But you know, it's about perception and reasoning and logic.

And you're like, where, where is my experience as a human being? And I think like one of the things I'm hearing you say is like the one of the really uh important things has been to study that stuff, but not in a way that's just sort of like cataloging people's experiences, but but genuinely a science of here are actual evolved systems and mechanisms and a way to sort of study this stuff. But then the other thing you're saying is that this thing that most of us go through when we're trained, which is to really, and it's a multi-year process, it was for me, is to understand that the way we naturally think about ourselves, which is sort of like there's a little person in the head, and we consciously sort of make our decisions.

And maybe there's some non-conscious effects that sort of make me want to have a piece of chocolate or, you know, say, oh, I should sleep with this person even though I don't want to. You know, those little things poking on the little person in us. But otherwise, that's sort of the model. And the thing that we get trained out of is that no, all of us is a mechanical system. There's a software level description of you and I and the little person in our head. And then just as you said, then therefore, when we're talking about um why uh the evolved psychology of mating is the way it is, we're not talking about it being inevitable, we're not talking about being conscious or not. We're just saying, like, this is the way it works.

And it's sort of we're agnostic as to whether or not or we might have a principal reason to suspect people aren't aware of it. So it's a very different um sort of way of thinking. And if you don't have that way of thinking, then it sounds like people might sort of blame people um for the way that they're built, or I don't know, what what what to what do you think is the consequence of giving thinking it's conscious? Is that what um there's blame people for the way they're built. There's also the attaching sort of um to the extent that there's um so let's say it's sex differences in meat preferences. We'll pick the big one. Um right that uh oh okay you know that if if if men place a greater premium on physical attractiveness, well then they're just shallow, right?

Or if women place a greater premium on resources, well then they're a bunch of gold diggers, right? So it's that sort of um value judgment, I guess, that is applied to some of that because the thinking behind those preferences is, oh, that you're functionally can you're consciously conniving about those, right? Oh, well, I need this or I want that, you know, for these reasons, right? And that's what then leads to that kind of value judgment about those differences. And that's just a sex difference. It's the big sex differences example. But you could think of a lot of this for for lots of mating psychology in in the world of jealousy, right? Uh in the world of, you know, anything right that we might think about.

Um that it it it allows for that as opposed to if you're having that more complex way of thinking about it, you can appreciate when there's those differences or when we might predict people will feel a certain way or another way without uh needing to then attach that value judgment to it. Yeah. It's interesting. Um I I certainly buy this this logic that there's a lot of instinct blindness where we we're not fully aware of all the complex computations that are going on underneath the hood before we even feel something like attraction or jealousy. But it seems to me that there's a there's a disconnect between other forms of instinct blindness and the instinct blindness related to mating. So if if I'm if I'm talking about, say, perception or proprioception or the way I balance,

you could you could really delve into all the complex computations in my vestibular system and really blow my mind about you know all the complexity there. And I'm totally not aware of it. I'm just walking around and effortlessly balancing, but there are like these, you know, hundreds of tiny computers in my head that are just registering my position in space, and it's amazing. And when you tell me that, I'm not going to feel threatened or uncomfortable, right? I might even be interested. But as soon as you start to get under the hood of my attractions, my mating psychology, then all of a sudden there is a sense of threat there. Because there it's not merely that we don't have access to it, it's that we often have

strategic reasons to actually conceal it. Um, because mating is a zero-sum game. You know, if two people mate with each other, those people are not available to be mated with to other people. And so because of this zero-sumness and this competitiveness and this rivalry in the mating domain, and also even within partners, there's the the temptation to defect in the prisoner's dilemma, um, uh to, you know, d take advantage of the other party's investment. Um uh uh so there are all these potential conflicts and you may not want to disclose your attractions, or if you're, you know, attracted to someone else, if you're in a relationship, or or what it is about the person that attracted you to them, that could be

threatening. If it's something that, you know, is not going to last a long time, uh, you might not want to disclose that to the person. You might want to make them think that you're going to be in it for the long haul uh when you might not be. And so because of there are all these um sort of undesirable or strategic things that are happening under the hood. When you start to poke at them and reveal them, people get really uncomfortable. And so I'm I'm wondering if if you buy that logic that there's just there's more to conceal in the mating domain than there is in, say, proprioception. Um and and if and if that's maybe underlying some of this uh reaction to evolutionary psychology. I think I think you're right.

That that sounds right to me. Um, certainly, and that's true for any psychology that's regulating sort of cooperative relationships in general, right? Um, more so than than right if you're thinking proprioception or some of those basic perception things, you know, the calculus my mind is doing to catch a ball, right? Like, cool, my mind's doing calculus, sweet, right? But there's no there's no threat there versus oh, um, you know, you ignored that person. Um, oh, well, that's because you know they had already offended somebody. I'm pretty sure they were an offensive person and that's why I ignored them. Not because there's some calculation going on that it would not benefit me to interact with

that person and I, right? Um, so there's the the broader any type of cooperative relationship. Um I think this statement's true for, but then mating relationships are you know like the ultimate cooperative relationship. Um and there's some thinking I've been doing along those lines lately of like that dimension of cooperative relationships and really thinking a lot about mating relationships as that, you know, because they've got the extra layers of shared investments if there's offspring, right? And in, you know, in our modern environment, especially all the other shared investments that happen in mating relationships, right? You know, these resource investments that are incredibly costly, buying house together,

right? You're doing all these things that um you're you're so intertwined. Um uh but yeah and so especially in those relationships right that the extent to which uh there would be motivation to do anything that would be beneficial to you but costly to the other person right um needs to be hidden, right? It's it benefits you for it to be hidden. And to to them and then maybe to yourself also. And so the layers of explanation that you might have that you're conscious you have conscious access to help help protect that, right? And yes, the suggestion then that there is that stuff under the hood that is providing the, you know, is the that that functional layer is is threatening right because if that gets

revealed right or if i start to have knowledge of it and i start to then question well what are my own motives right how much might that bleed through um what does that say then about how i can represent myself as as a person right um and my my thoughts about the kind of person I am um and so yeah I I I your thoughts make sense to me right that that's could be what's going on I don't know that I've seen anybody write it that way. That's interesting. Yeah. Well, can I uh further so this is something I've been thinking about. Uh uh I've been thinking about in what circumstances uh deception can be mutually beneficial to both the deceiver and the deceived. Um and it seems to me that um romantic relationships might be one such case where something

that is not quite true can nevertheless be beneficial for both parties to believe. So if someone's mate value, uh if a big part of a person's mate value is how committed they are to you, if how uh you know how much they're into you and how much they're committed to you for the long haul, um, and then that then that means that if I falsely broadcast a huge amount of commitment, that could increase your commitment to me and thereby increase your mate value to me. Uh And you can get into kind of a positive feedback loop there where you can start out with a lie like, I can say falsely that I'm, you know, you're you're the most beautiful person in the world, everyone else is hideous by comparison.

You know, there's just something uniquely about you that no one could ever replace. And uh I'm gonna be with you until the end of time, no matter what happens, you know, even if you uh become physically deformed or if you lose all your money, whatever. And we say these things, and they're false to a certain extent. Like our mating psychology is more strategic than that. Um, but because they create this positive feedback loop where it causes you to increase your commitment to me, which causes me to increase my commitment to you, which causes you to increase your commitment to me, we can sort of get into a symbiotic uh myth together. Uh and if we work together to build that myth, it actually does, you know, strengthen our

relationship. Uh and so there's there's something kind of paradoxical about you know commitment where you kind of have to fake it till you make it. Yep. Or or at least there might be like a kernel of of delusion at the heart of love. Um and it may be that when once we start to get under the hood of that delusion, it it can be threatening. Absolutely. Um, you know, and I think it's interesting, you know, data on things like arranged marriages, yeah, uh where you know it's explicit that the this commitment has been made prior to there being sort of these ideas of love, right? Or those those feelings there. But but but people have, you know, they've they've made that decision that this is where I'm doing this investment, right?

Um, and then you see, right, if you look at the data on that, there's plenty of those marriages that end up quite, you know, successful and happy, right? There's ones that don't, right? But it's it's and and the process you're talking about here, it's it's a very kind of explicit version of that, right? It's like we've decided that we're going, we're making this commitment, we're going to do this investment, and then that builds from there, um, which is you know the opposite direction from I think what many uh you know folks sort of in in you know the ontogeny we all developed in, right? Uh think of it as, as the, you know, falling in love with somebody first and then making those commitments.

Um, but I think the the fake it till you make it idea, and I, you know, I I get the feeling from some people I've talked to in sort of the relationships counseling world who are not evolutionarily informed really. But some of this is the sort of things that they they recommend to couples when they're struggling, right? That it is even if you're not feeling you still need, you know, doing these things for your partner, right? You know, having that time and doing those committed things because it it it does that. right um and so yeah I think I think you're right there that that deception about um on both ends right it can be beneficial to build you know create that cycle um that's really interesting yeah I love that idea that um about Carrie what you said about

this super highly cooperative thing and David this thing about um we sort of turn off our skepticism or our usual criticisms. There's uh Marvin Minsky had this book after the um uh Society of Mind, which was not nearly as well received. And and some of it was sort of out of his wheelhouse. He talked about things that like in development that I don't think are true. But there's some really good insights about it. It was his last book before he passed away. And one of it is about love. And his argument is that if you actually look at what a lot of people describe when they talk about being in love, is sort of like there's nobody I can't think of anyone else other than you. You know, I can't think of anything other than you.

Um, and his argument is a lot of it is sort of actually negatively framed, where where he's basically describing it as the usual critics in our head of sort of like this person's annoying. What else can I be doing with my time? Like, there's nothing I'd rather be doing than spend time with you. I can't think of anyone other than you. It's this sort of super signal of the usual sort of cost benefit transactional analysis I have with the world. I am pointing to you through this evolved commitment devices output and saying the usual things of like I'm gonna think about other stuff, I'm gonna do other stuff, I'm gonna even consider other stuff is all turned off. There's nothing I can think about other than you.

I can't imagine doing anything other than you. I never wanna be any with anyone other than you. You know, like it's just it's this beautiful readout of this just turning off all of the usual sort of cost benefit things. So it really reminded me, David, of what you were saying. Yeah, no, totally. Yeah. I I I I I buy that a lot. Um and and you know, it is romantic to turn off those cost benefit things. And and signaling that you've turned off your cost benefit calculators in your brain to your mate can increase their commitment to you, which increases your commitment to them. And yeah, I think that's a big part of what love is and how you build commitment with someone is, you know, it's it's a two way street and you gotta sometimes you gotta just get

into a positive feedback loop, um, even if it's founded on on something that's you know not not quite true or or more of a romantic myth, but still, you know, it can lead to something that becomes real. Um, you know, it might be true too. I mean, you can also just imagine like from a very alien and cynical perspective, you might just imagine you're sort of like, look, we have this organism and it can't stand the other organisms that's around because you know, like we it's just been designed to sort of like maximize its own benefits. But we have to get like two organisms together for long enough to like, you know, successfully produce and raise children. What are the things that I mean, we know this for disgust, for example, right?

Like one of the things about sexual and Carrie, you probably know much more about the primary literature than this, but just anecdotally, you know, or people always talk about in classes that when lust is turned on, or whatever, what is the technical term for lust? What would that be? Sexual arousal. Arousal. Yeah. Um, disgust is turned down. Like even the Deb Lieberman work, like if you're attracted to somebody, you're not as disgusted, right? Um, and that's clearly like the usual, like, well, that's just disgusting to like, you know, be around somebody or like deal with them. Those things get turned down in order to, you know, make kids. That makes sense. And so the idea is that's sort of just that same design principle, but then applied to lots

of stuff, which is just like if you're around somebody for a long time, is it generally annoying? And maybe what love is, this Minsky idea, is it's good reasons to turn down the things that would ordinarily bother you. And it's probably the same thing for love for your kid too, right? Like we're all parents. I mean, the things that my son does, if another person did it, it would just drive me crazy. And it's and it's tolerable, you know, and I love and I love my son to death. But you know, it's just that threshold just really gets down regulated. So I this this idea that love is changing thresholds on sort of what's intolerable, I think is is is a really interesting idea that I've not really seen much

literature on. Yeah. Um, you're making me think of so there's there's the piece of it for uh so it was a couple things you're both saying, but I I don't know if anybody's sort of empirically demonstrated if we've looked at sort of statements or things people say that they think convey, you know, that love and commitment, right? If the ones that do it the best are the ones that really do indicate exactly what you're saying, that you are forgoing other things or for giving up other options or or um you know not not interested in those other things and and other like fixed beneficial things right that but and that that but for you right and if that then uh those are perceived as as particularly indicative of particularly romantic right I mean

that that it might come feel that way right how interesting yeah and in some of that too it's it's you know, it's interesting with that kind of, you know, love commitment device kind of idea. Um, you know, a big thing that matters is is your alternatives, right? So it's this, and this is something people don't like to think about with the under the hood stuff, right? That, you know, as much as it's, you know, there there is that shared investment you have with this person that's built this relationship, right? Um, it is likely that we also, you know, have a sense of what our alternatives are, right? And that is stored and toggled away somewhere, right? Uh, and and in many cases, you know, it is it is not worth right, uh, you know, leaving the

current good thing one has, right, for what those potential alternatives are, but the way that that can fluctuate over time, um, depending on a partner, depending on partner's value, your value, the um potential of the alternatives you have, right? Um, that we we should expect relationships to to end, right? That for those reasons. And so for all the the the nice side of this, oh, things that are so romantic and love, it's so, right? There's a side of it too, I think, that learning and in researching in this world, uh, that, you know, it's not sad when relationships end, right? That we we should predict relationships and in that successful relationships might be one that lasts, you know, a certain amount of time, right?

Whether it's, you know, one year, two years, five years, 10 years, 15 years, whatever. But for very sort of reasonable reasons, right? That you we would expect, oh, that this is no longer the the cooperative relationship that it makes sense to be as deeply committed to, right? And that uh that then that that relationship ends, right? And we're we're very comfortable with that for the other types of you know, friendships end, we're okay with that. Uh business relationships end other types of partnerships, but you know, for romantic relationships, um, it is a much touchier thing, right? Um, the perceptions of people when they break up, actually breaking up, the the effects of that um become uh but but we should expect that people will end relationships, right?

And they will for these different reasons. So Yeah, we don't really think about like, you know, grief, right? We just think, well, you know, grief is a natural part. It should end and there's a function to it. I mean, or at least maybe nowadays, maybe before we were like, you shouldn't feel grief or something. I don't know. But uh, but yeah, no, the idea that sort of love, it almost feels like, and I don't know if this is cross-cultural, but it's almost like you're describing that there's sort of love propaganda. And I don't know if that's universal. Like I don't know if that's a function of uh, you know, you have a market of you need people to sort of like buy your candy bar, and so you got to show them something they're

interested in. And what are people interested in like violence and um mating? Because it's really it's opaque, it's difficult to know. You might learn a lesson horror too, you know, other things. But um, and so if there's a lot of love propaganda in in fiction or literature or what you're exposed to, it's all on the these are things that this would make it really great. Like you would predict ahead of time, like what would you make to make people want to watch it? It would be all about um how to make it work well. And if it worked well, it would it would it would last and be what you want, right? And so I wonder if this sort of like love propaganda gives us a really unrealistic view of what love is.

And that, and it sounds like what you're saying is sort of if we took a much more like sophisticated view of it and we think about what its function is, then might we might think about it differently and its time course differently. Yeah. And I also think so there's the love, I like the love propaganda idea. I think that that's that's interesting. Um, and absolutely, and from a very, very young age, right? That is that that the idealizing of all of that, right? Um, but then it's also other stuff about um our norms, uh, you know, religion, um, our our laws, right? How all of that works, that that does the same thing, right? So um, you know, certainly in if you're looking at like Christianity, right?

Like a lot of that, right? It's it's you're getting married and you're you're together and it in it in it makes that a that's a biblical thing, right? That's a you know, God is saying that's a good thing to do, right? Um so there's that, you know, on top of it as part of that love propaganda, right? Uh and then also just if you think about uh you know marriage and divorce and and and other uh the the ways we legally do it right um it gets complicated once you're intertwined with somebody for those you know those legal reasons right and then unintertwining is hard right in some cases depending on how intertwined people have become um and so that scaffolds on top for like why well no you just should be together forever right like

because that dissolution process would be really complicated uh and somebody often people some or both people end up losing out, losing a lot in the end for doing it that is very evolutionarily novel, right? Um, you know, the idea of splitting assets and and all of these things that have to happen um is is a lot that I I think, you know, it doesn't I I can't imagine how it would have existed for a lot of human evolutionary history, but it does now. And so it's more reasons to why just stay together, oh being staying together longer is better and and that's the right thing to do and the good thing to do when that might not you know comport with how the psychology is designed. Yeah. Yeah the moralization of of of sex in relationships is just so interesting.

And I mean I suspect David it's sort of for I mean you you alluded to it David about sort of the strategic um reasons for it but it's it's really weird um Yeah. That mating is a zero sum game and mates are a limited resource. And that uh you know if if I commit to someone as a mate, that takes me off the mating market and that could upset a lot of people because I'm such a handsome guy. Um but uh uh I think viewing um I th I uh viewing mating as a zero sum game, I think can offer a lot of insights and a lot of uncomfortable insights. Because I think one of the ways that we play the game is by concealing its zero sum aspects. You know, there's there's nothing less romantic than saying, Oh, um, you are the highest

value mate that I can currently get at my current vape mate value, um, due to these characteristics. and that is why I'm uh attracted to you. Uh there's nothing less romantic than than putting it in those terms. Um, and and yet that is basically what's going on. You're making a calculation about what your your value is on the market, what the other partner's value is on the market, what are the potential alternatives, and you're making the best uh uh calculation uh based on the circumstances. But if you were to actually say all that in a relationship, it would torpedo the relationship. David, here's a new suggestion about a new entrepreneurial idea. You could do Valentine's Day, Cards Against Humanity, Valentine's Cards.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Not a good idea. Not a yes, not a good idea. No, I mean I I'm thinking about writing a post called Love is Bullshit um on this stuff. Um maybe maybe releasing it on Valentine's Day. But I want to poke on David's idea and actually argue that maybe what Carrie was saying is more right, which is that we had Brook Brooke Shellza on. And it's not like even in a very like polygynous or you know, with a lot of um polygyny is that the right word when it's not gendered, when they're both I believe there's polygamy pol by polyandry. Polygamy, I think it's the broader term, right? Okay, polygamy. Okay, so I think it's a good thing. Okay, okay, thank you. Um for some reason I'm really questioning my like vocabulary today.

I don't know. It's okay. It's confusing. Yeah. Uh but anyway, even with Brooks Shelza, like I I kind of we didn't talk about this and we haven't posted the episode yet. It's probably gonna be coming out soon. We've already talked to her. But it was it's It struck me that I can think, Carrie, like your point about uh mateships being highly cooperative is actually really key to it because even even in the um in the in the Himba with a lot of polygyny, there's still sort of like this keeping it on the DL about who exactly the other you know partners are. And it really struck me that even though everybody sort of knows that everybody else is doing it and I'm doing it and you're doing it. And I and it struck me that I think a lot of that has to do with it's this common knowledge

thing, right? Of sort of like what's my value? And if I'm uh I am like investing in a partner, but somebody else is sleeping with that partner, but it becomes common knowledge, then that could lower my status or how much investment other people feel like they need to give me. Right. And so I think a lot of it has to do with the this quo this highly cooperative nature, as you talked about, Carrie, which is that everybody's sort of status of sort of how much cooperation do I deserve, how much esteem do I deserve, um, how much am I investing in this person? Um, if if it becomes common knowledge that sort of all of this stuff is is out in the open, then it strikes me that it sort of dissolves precisely because

everybody's worried that their market uh value decreases in the cooperative market. So everybody knows that other people are sort of like, you know, having sex with other people, but but why would that be hidden? And I and I think it has to do with like the signals of investment and how much like I might cooperate with you less if I think that other people know that you're not um, you know, being faithful to me in that relationship, right? But it but if it's if it's sort of opaque, then we all can sort of it's a stable equilibrium, even though it's sort of I don't know if that makes sense, but that's yeah. In in that, I mean the phenomena at least seems to also happen in like a society uh like ours, which is, you know, uh mostly monogamous, right?

Um, or at least on the surface of monogamous, right? Where people do have affairs, right? And there is sometimes, oh, kind of maybe annoying, but it's not until it becomes public that that's when the other partners, okay, now it's a problem, right? And it and it it could be for that exact logic that you're describing there, right? Now it's not just that I kind of knew, and maybe other people kind of knew, but now I know that they know, and they know that I know, and we all know all the common knowledge, right? That uh that everybody knows that you are investing some over here and it's not, and then I am over, but I am only you know over investing in you, and everybody knows there's this this investment differential in our partnership now, right?

And what does that say about me now? Exactly. You can infer the welfare trade-off ratio that you're willing to tolerate if it's common knowledge. So if I don't know you know, then it's ambiguous. But as soon as I know you know, and you know that you I know and you're still going along with it, then it's sort of a signal of, yep, this is the level of relationship I'm willing to tolerate. And it's solidified. There is ambiguity before. And so not wanting to know your partner's cheating on you is an example of like not wanting to know where it would be sort of you're making the best of a bad situation. And you're sort of like, if I don't pursue it, I don't even let my partner know that I know because I'm not letting them know I'm willing to tolerate it.

right? If I suspect it but I don't pursue it, then I can there's sort of plausible deniability that they didn't know and I still can expect better treatment. But if it becomes common knowledge, then I'm showing I'm willing to put up with worse treatment than they might think otherwise. And that that logic applies to third parties too. That's really interesting. I mean that suggests an interesting possibility that to me has not been studied at all, to my knowledge, which is when uh one partner may uh intentionally um choose not to know if their other partner is cheating or actively try to conceal that information and not want it to become uh common knowledge. Yeah. Uh for for that very reason.

It's better to, you know, um know but not know that I know. You know, to not for it to not be known that I that I am tolerating this level of exploitation. And that way I can continue um, you know, with the status quo uh without the reputational costs. It's a really interesting possibility. And and I don't in one of the papers I have with Dan Comrabeam, where he's probably the lead author, um, where we talk about relationship satisfaction, we get at this idea in some way. I'd have to go back and look exactly how, right? But it, but it's this idea, if we're thinking about relationship satisfaction as an adaptation and sort of the function that we lay out, right? Is it that it's, you know, motivating maintenance behavior, you know, to the extent that

this is a fitness, you know, the the benefits that weigh the cost, fair for saying this relationship, um, that should lead to high satisfaction and then behaviors that are are, you know, keeping you in the relationship and keeping the partner, right? Um, whereas, you know, to the extent that there's information or an assessment that, you know, leaving this relationship would be better, then you should have lower satisfaction and that might motivate the leaving, right? Um, and so there's a prediction here, right? That, you know, for the same person, right, this knowledge that your partner's cheating, right? Well, if for all the other reasons the benefits out the way the cost of staying and you

don't have other options, maybe you've got a lot of you know vehicles you're investing in, those kids, right? Um, and you, you know, leaving wouldn't, then you should still feel satisfied, right? Um, but another person, you know, in that same cheating relation, you know, the exact same cheating is going on, right, with a different array of a different landscape, right? They would might feel dissatisfaction. Um, and so we have it in there a little bit with that kind of idea about you know, a relationship satisfaction adaptation working in that way. That's really interesting. I also, I mean, not to just go slightly darker too. This also happens like in ex other exploitative or abusive relationships too, right?

Where somebody is sort of like, if somebody's like doing something terrible to me, there people did this weird thing, right? Where it's sort of like um they people don't if if I'm being abused, I don't want other people to know that, which is sort of weird. And especially from a modern perspective, like people look at that and they're like, What what is that victim doing? And there's sort of all this narrative that they've internalized their worthlessness or whatever. But this makes a different view of that, which is that um there's a calculation in their head that if other people know, I'm worried that they're actually, and I and I feel like I need to stay in this and I don't have outside options, then it's just my evolved psychology

saying I shouldn't let other people know this because I'm actually going to have worse treatment. Um, and so I actually think like that might not be true in some circumstances, but this actually would predict uh ways to, if that's true, then you might actually be able to formulate a way of actually getting people to sort of like report themselves being abused at higher rates if you kind of understand the psychology that's otherwise preventing that. That makes a lot of sense to me. Um, absolutely. Yeah. It and I wonder too, I'm a mating psychology researcher, so I always go to sex differences. Um it's uh you know, I if you look in the the intimate partner violence literature, so that's the term, you know, in the literature

is IPv, intimate partner um violence, and that'll include emotional abuse and physical abuse and those sorts of things, right? You see, you know, higher rates, you know, women reporting it more and uh women the I think actually being, you know, um the victims of IPV more than men. But there is this question of reporting, right? The extent are there that sex differences in reporting, right? And some of this, I wonder if there's men, it would be more costly to be perceived as a victim than it would be for women. And so to the extent that men, there's greater underreporting from men that it's because of this sort of argument you're making. Right. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. No, I I feel like the topic of strategic ignorance in in mating, I think, is really

understudied and interesting. Um I think people would uh a naive psychologist might frame it in terms of I'm protecting myself from negative feelings or or or whatever, but I think viewing it in a more functional game theoretic perspective is illuminating. Um speaking of which, I know you're thinking about um a really interesting topic in mating, which is regret and disappointment, uh, and trying to um disentangle what those two terms mean and try to approach it from more of a functional game theoretic perspective than we might have otherwise taken toward those topics. So, how how are you thinking about regret versus disappointment in the context of mating? In in what context might we feel regret about uh a mating decision versus disappointment?

And and what even is the difference between those two things? Yeah. So um I'll start a little bit with the difference in like the broader literature that's looked at regret and disappointment. Um, and and what at least has been identified in that broader literature, much of which is not sort of an evolutionary functional perspective, it's at least honed in on the circumstances in which people experience regret versus disappointment and and separating the two. And they they frame um regret as the thing you experience when so so both of them are emotions that you experience when um you've had to make a decision, right? And and pick a path, right? Where you didn't necessarily know what the outcome was was going to be, right?

Um, and regret is what happens when there's the outcome to your decision, and it is a worse outcome than what would have happened if you had made a different decision, if you had done something else, right? Um, and it might be that you actually know what the outcome would have been if you had done the other thing, right? But it might also be that you're sort of simulating what would have happened if you had done the other thing or what the possibilities are for what would have happened, because because you didn't do that thing, you don't necessarily know what would have happened, but that certainty can vary depending on what exact statisticision we're talking about. So so regret in a in relationships or or in a uh in after a sexual

encounter or something like that would be something like, well, uh, maybe you chose to have sex with somebody, and uh, you know, the alternative there might have been if you chose didn't have sex with them, and regret would be experienced if after having sex with them, whatever the outcome is, you're you're thinking it would have been better. The outcome would have been better if I had not had sex with this person, right? And I'm now experiencing regret. Um, disappointment is a different discrepancy. So it's the discrepancy between the outcome that happened and what your expectations were about that outcome. So, you know, a disappointment would be something more like, okay, I was, you know, thinking of having, you know, casual sex with somebody, right?

And I've sort of imagined what this might be like, whether I'm imagining what the actual encounter would be like, or I'm imagining what the consequences would be. Maybe, maybe this will be the beginning of a beautiful relationship, right? Um, that, you know, there's there's things that could happen from this that are third or great. Uh, and then you have sex with this person, and then that the outcome does not live up to those expectations. That's the experience of disappointment. And so you can see how in any given outcome, you could experience both, right? It could be that there's an outcome and it both doesn't live up to expectations and if you had made a different decision, it would have been better.

But you also could uniquely experience one or the other. Regret often comes with disappointment. That one's a little harder to separate, but you can absolutely have disappointment without having regret, right? It could be that an experience doesn't live up to the expectations, but it's not that there's some other outcome that you think would have been better, right? Than the outcome you experienced. And so there's this distinction exists in the literature, but again, it hasn't really built, you know, built into it. What what is there an evolved function here? What are we talking about for these different adaptive problems that that might be triggering this? Um, and this matters, right? It could just be that actually it is sort of the same functional program of the mind

producing these different things, but we have just picked up on different language for different pieces of it. Uh, and so, you know, there's there's the being careful about are these different emotions from an evolutionary perspective? But yeah, but what started me on this is there are studies on uh regret after casual sex uh in from an evolutionary psychological perspective. And those studies uh highlight a sex difference, and that tends to be a big focus of those studies. And what they look at for regret after casual sex is sort of two sides of it. There's um there's regret from having had casual sex. So action regret is what they call that. And then there's regret, inaction regret. So regret you might experience because you chose not to have casual sex and wishing that

you did. And what they tend to find is that women have greater action regret, right? Regret from casual sexual experiences engaged in than men, and men have greater inaction regret, these missed out experiences. But what I've been wondering in that literature, and in that literature, and a lot of things I'm doing is is have we conflated a little bit of regret and disappointment if they are different things, right? In that literature. And how much of sort of the story of casual sexual regret in women is less a story of regret and maybe more a story of disappointment? And that is some of what I'm trying to figure out now. Working with some students, I'm trying to figure out maybe, maybe how to study that.

And part of that really is thinking, you know, the EP, you know, first principles trying to figure out uh what are what are the functions here? Um and and yeah, uh it's it's yeah. So I'll st I'll stop there. Thoughts. Can you well so disappointment and regret. So you you set up nicely what their attributes are. So disappointment is it's different than what I expected. Regret is I should have done something different. And maybe this is obvious, but you mentioned that there hasn't been um uh evolutionary approach yet, and you're doing that. So what would why why do we have these emotions? Yeah. So you know, I'll start with disappointment. Disappointment, it seems like your sort of model of the world was wrong, right?

Like, because that's what your expectations are, right? And so so you experience something that has now given you new information about how the world works, right? Whatever that is, right? And so that needs to be updated, right? Like, and so that experience of disappointment, what seems to go along with it is um a little bit of like the stuff that's kind of in the depression world. Like people they they withdraw, um, they might do some ruminating on it, but they it's it's not that they wanna like go back and try again or they that seems to go along with that that disappointment path of feeling things. And so my my you know, initial thoughts there, it's it's along those lines, right? Of of that's giving you time to really assess, like, okay, so that's how the world works,

or this is how I need to reevaluate, you know, the landscape, right? Um, and it would be on this, you know, dimension of of maybe disappointment to elation, because you could imagine the the flip of it where the outcome was much better than your expectations. So still a discrepancy and your model, the world was still wrong, but it was wrong in the other direction, right? Oh, the world works this way. Cool. Right. So there's still an updating, but it's uh it's on that that that this was a beneficial thing, you know, and you you were gonna miss an opportunity if you, you know, you know, hadn't didn't realize that the world could work this way, right? Uh whereas regret, um, it's it's what I've been, you know, wondering, it's a little

tough because there's already some good work, I think, on things like shame and these other emotions that um, you know, the the function of those seems to be maybe when we've done some bad thing or guilt, right? Um, but those are all kind of in the social world, like when we've done something that will get us socially devalued or we'll have not valued somebody else well enough. I've been wondering a little bit if really the unique thing about regret is that we've made this decision, there's been an outcome. Uh, and at least my like anecdotal experience on this, that first flash of regret, right, is I'm not sure if this was the right decision. Right. And I'm actually wondering if there's something there with what real regret is, is that

it's sort of an initial like you have to figure out was this the right decision? Because you you either didn't have time to know in advance or you didn't just you couldn't have the information until you did the thing, right? Because the information just wasn't going to be there till you did the thing. And then part of what regret might function to do is to help you figure out what was that the right thing? Was that not the right thing? What were the other things I could have done? Uh sh you know, talking to people, the hey, hey, well, what do you think? You know, getting that feedback about was I right here, right? Was that the best decision I could have made? And to the extent you get the, you know, both feedback from simulating all the alternatives

or from seeking information or whatever it is, if you get the information back that, no, that you made the best decision you could under the circumstance, regret should dissipate, right? But to the extent you get the information that no, like an alternative would have been better, it might then turn into one of these other emotions, right? So if I've done something that I'm going to be socially devalued for, regret, and I now realize that that's that's what it is, right? That regret should transform into shame. If I've done something where I've realized, oh, I've made a decision now that screwed somebody else over that I shouldn't have screwed over, that regret will transform into guilt. Right.

And so it might regret might be that thing that to like feed into some of those other emotions, but it's that initial like having to figure out, oh, is that the right thing that I was supposed to do? And that might be the that unique thing about regret that hasn't been captured, I think, yet, um, from a functional perspective. And that's the kind of adaptive problem. Like you couldn't have known until you made the decision. And now you have the new information from having made the decision. And maybe you'll seek out some more information. Was it the right decision? And then now deploy other emotions functionally. I love that because it also explains what I I've never heard an explanation for is buyer's

regret. Right. Which is that once you've committed to something like an expensive house or like you know marrying somebody, you know, it's it's this registering of I've committed to a very high cost thing. And your carry, your description of what the function of regret is, it it perfectly explains why that would be, which is that it's it's not even that you've noticed a problem. It's that just just all the percolations of the full weight of the costs, and this is real. And I'm gonna buy this house, I'm gonna marry this person. All of a sudden there's like this this thing of like we feel like we're doing the stupid thing of like just running the counterfactuals of did I make a mistake? And that's actually a really good design per the design you're suggesting, which is it's

motivating search for information. Did are were there better alternatives for something like you don't get buyers' regret for like a pack of gum because it's so low cost? But this the I really like this idea that for high cost things, it's it's the hallucination or it's the auto generation of regret simply by virtue of just being so high cost. I love I like that a lot. And I I wonder too, you know, with with some of these high cost things, I, you know, I I think a lot in evolutionary mismatch terms these days, sometimes just because I'm so hyper aware of uh, you know, the world we live in and the people we're studying. And and, you know, are potential counterfactuals for some things now. I I mean they just can be endless.

And I think some of that is might be somewhat evolutionarily novel, right? That, you know, I'm not choosing between three potential mates. I choosing between an endless array of potential mates, right? I mean, I can run the I could get lost in running forever. What if I had picked this person or I picked this person or I picked this person or I had picked this person, right? And the same with the houses, right? Like I'm not picking between the two potential areas. I could have built my house, maybe, right? I don't know. Well, maybe in Santa Barb in Santa Barbara, it's just like the EA. It's like this is gonna be your house or nothing. Fair enough. But no, it's fair. Yeah, yeah, no, totally. But I mean fair enough.

Where I am too. We're we're perpetually absolutely not everywhere. No, no, no. But point taken. Yeah. But but I but I but then I wonder too with the extent to which I mean it makes it so we're a wonderful uh set of people then to try to study this and measure this because we can endlessly counterfactual, right? If you had people for whom uh there aren't alternatives, right, you would expect no regret if there aren't viable alternatives or very quick regret, right? You'd you'd flash the the counterfactual, right? And you'd be like, well, that was the only other option. I'm good. Right. Yeah. But but we are we are people who for whom that could just you could get caught in that forever, right? Um on certain of these very high cost decisions that we make.

And so we might be the people then to study these in this stuff in. Would you then predict that um you'd see um a correlation between mate value and mating regret, such that if I'm a higher mate value person, I have more counterfactual mating opportunities that I could have pursued. Whereas if I'm uh and so if I commit to any one of those paths, then there are going to be more potential paths that I could have taken and and more potential for me to feel regret. But if I'm a low mate value person and I then there's really just like is this person or nothing, then uh I'm much less likely to feel regret in that case because there weren't any c other counterfactuals. Maybe I might feel disappointed.

But but the but regret is is not gonna uh necessarily come into play. Would would you make that prediction? That's uh I I think I might. And that's a nice one because it's not, you know, on its face, I don't think it's what people people would think, right? They'd be like, oh the people who have options shouldn't be regretful, right? But that's precisely what it's predicting. They have so many options, right? That they have real viable alternatives. Um, and that might be a little bit how I I think about it, as as that part of meat value of of your potential alternatives, right? Your alternative options, your alternative choices. Um yeah, that's cool. Yeah. So, David, like that would be uh so a strong uh example of that would be something like

you're in a very small scale social world and you commit to a partner and then you're transported to another social world soon after where there's a lot more options that your evolved psychology is like, oh, this would have been a better person. And so then you sort of feel regret. Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, I'm wondering if if there may be something, some kind of interaction between mate value and gender in predicting these gender differences. Um, because you know, I I've been reading statistic statistics on, you know, like these hookup apps, like men are way more common on these hookup apps than women. Um, and there are just, you know, more men competing on the even just the regular dating

apps, I think, they're just more men just like looking for a mate than than women. Um, and so it could be that women just have more options just by virtue of being a woman. And that might be contributing to this to this uh gender difference in regret uh because women just have more sexual options. There are more willing men who are willing to have sex with them. Uh and committing to any one of them is going to lead to more regret because they have more options. But you know, for uh for a man, that that might be a different case. Um I don't know if i if if if you thought about that or if that makes sense to you. Makes sense to me. And I mean I think it's also I mean, I do think there's something there, and this is in the

kind of literature on regret about the there are probably more costs potentially to women, you know, whatever the outcome, if we're talking casual sex, let's say, yeah. Um, there's potentially right more costs for women. And so that also sets it up there when, oh, you know, for men the the costs often are just going to just be low, right? So whatever the alternatives are weren't going to be more costly, right? So that explains I I think there's something there, certainly. Um, but I think your point also, you know, toggling that too, that that might, that that might also, that would also make sense. That would also fit in that model as well. Um, there's the other piece of it too for women that to the extent that

there's any reputational concerns, right, for having engaged in casual sex, right? Um whether or not she it was actually costly. Um, if it's a casual sexual relationship that didn't turn into a long-term relationship, uh, this is in your world of sort of the the the propaganda, right? It's it might benefit her to say she regretted it, right? Yeah. Um, even if, right, to as a as a signaling to others, oh, that's not the type of thing that I do or that I like doing, right? Yeah. And so I've thought about that too with the existing literature on this, right? To this sex difference, right? Is it is it a a difference in what I'm thinking here, this functional side of things, versus a difference in what people will say about their casual sexual experiences that that

of course I regretted it. Right. Oh, right. Yeah. If if I'm reporting this some way, I'm going to say that it was, it was because that's not what I do. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. In the same way that you know a criminal is incentivized to say that he regrets the crime he committed to the parole board, right? Even if he doesn't actually regret it. You know, he has an incentive to say that he regrets it. And it could be that if women face greater reputational costs for having uh you know short-term casual sex, um, then then they're they're facing the same incentive as the criminal of you know talking to the parole board. They want to say that they really regret it and they'll they'll be different uh in the

future. Uh and that could be that those kind of social reputational incentives might be might be driving this as well. Yeah. And so that's that's a tough thing in this to try to tease out to the for for testing some of this, right? Is that if I'm if the the adaptation I'm arguing, you know, the design of the adaptation as what I sort of described, right? I have to be able to get at that separate from uh, you know, especially in this realm, how people might be motivated to represent their feelings about the outcome, right? It's interesting. Yeah. You could also make a lot of interesting predictions on um the receiver end of the equation. So how do I view someone who feels regret versus disappointment?

So if I'm you know evaluating someone as a mate and they regret the the casual sex that they had versus they were disappointed in the casual sex they had, what inferences am I am I likely to draw about that person in either case? It may be that um I'm I'm gonna be more interested in in mating with the person if they feel regret versus disappointment. Maybe disappointment is is a bad thing for them to feel because that maybe that suggests that they have really high standards that I'm not going to meet. Uh and so maybe if if they felt disappointed about that, maybe that's you know more of a cost or more of a downside for me. But if they feel regret, then maybe that's maybe that's good. Maybe they'll be um maybe they'll they're motivated to behave differently with me.

Um and so the type of inferences we draw based on the emotions that people feel uh is also an interesting thing to look at. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. I don't know of, I mean, certainly I think there's some literature that has asked, you know, that gets at what people want to know about past partners, but I I don't know that any of it's gotten at this kind of thing, right? Um and and drawing those kind of, you know, your, you know your disappointment in your regret of of those relationships and what people are then intuiting from that that's that's cool yeah there's a song lyric Love Hurts right um and I don't know if that's about the breakup I assume it is like there's a whole you know there's this really strong feeling I

mean I'm I'm I'm almost probabilistically most people have experienced a romantic breakup whether it's you know dating or or marriage or or whatever. Um but uh you know, I wonder, and I don't know, Carrie, you can tell me if there's work on this, but you know, there's also the question of what is that pain or grief doing, you know, like from the perspective of like somebody dying, that's sort of uh it's recalibrating that this person's no longer there. And so all of the sort of settings in me need to be changed that this person isn't there. You know, it's an it's a provoking an opportunity to maybe coordinate with other people about that too. Um, obviously, because there is love and sexual arousal involved in a romantic relationship, that's all doing this calibrational work.

And so when it goes wrong, you have a breakup, it's undoing some of those calibrations. But I also wonder if some of the work it's doing too is also going to affect then like disappointment and regret, too, right? In the sense of if you're disappointed because you sort of had too high of expectations. I mean, there's some sense in which you know a breakup is sort of like the ultimate disappointment. Um uh maybe not regret, but but depending. But but it's sort of like it's it's like hyper disappointment in the sense of it's it's uh it's almost leading to this like depressive state where there's recalibration. Well, and I think when you look in the breakups literature, there's so there's there,

there's the sudden breakups versus the it's been long time coming coming breakups, right? And there's you know kind of everything in between that, right? Um, and uh there's sort of different different pieces of this, but I I had one um unpublished master's thesis from a student that where we looked at this idea of um um sort of the opposite of mate retention behaviors, but mate disengagement behaviors. Right. And it was from this sort of person, I wasn't quite there with this disappointment idea or anything, but but this idea of, you know, if if you're in a position where you would like to end this relationship, right? Just ending it abruptly, right, is going to be costly for lots of people for lots of

reasons. Like it might benefit you because you get out of it sooner, but there's costs. The people who do the breakup are seen as worse. Um, so there's you know kind of data on that. Um, and then you also have this person that you you might have shared investments with and that you do care about, right? That like it will cause this extra harm and cost to, right, if it is sudden. And so there might be some, you know, behaviors that you do, things you do to to slowly ramp down. So instead of the ramping up of the, but it's the that slowly ramping it down so that when that dissolution happens, it's not as as much of a recalibration they're gonna have to do, right? It's already been that you've things have become disentangled, right?

Um and versus the ones where does that is it comes out of nowhere, right? That's when I would expect that that str that that you know that depression that I mean those things to happen because you're right, somebody is going from I thought we were highly intertwined here, but now I'm not, versus there was that that dialing down of everything um before that separation. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, uh it seems like, you know, anger might come into play as well, where if you're, you know, breaking up with someone out of the blue or ghosting them or whatever, it's almost kind of like they're um they're not treating you fairly or properly, that they're not respecting your uh they're not respecting you adequately or or treating you with um a

welfare trade-off ratio that is sensitive to your needs. So if if I'm, you know, leading you on and then totally blowing you off, I'm imposing a cost on you for a really low benefit to me. Like maybe I I, you know, I learned that you know you're not for me and that's the benefit I get. It's a pretty small benefit. But it's a huge cost on you uh for me to get that small benefit. And that might trigger the anger system as well. That would make sense. Yeah. And I think that's, I mean, it's it's pretty consistent there. Um, I think with the the literature I do know on breakups, you know, anger is one of the things that that certainly like the people who are dumped, right? Um, absolutely feel. Um, and this is how I would expect it to toggle though, right?

That to the extent that there had been ramping down, right? Um, although I don't know, because it still might be, you know, you're not that's that WTR signaling is still that you aren't valuing me the way that I thought I should have been valued. Um, but yeah, uh, and then you know, the guilt on the side of the the the breaker upper right um you know uh how much that is them you know to the extent that i would imagine that if they've done these ramping things down they should feel less guilty than if they cut it off right really you know out of nowhere for this other person interesting yeah I mean it's a different I mean the the the challenge of breaking up with someone is a pretty huge adaptive challenge that there are a lot of different

strategies you could take. And just that as a topic, I think, is really understudied. But it seems like a really fraught situation with uh that that can be really risky. Like if you do a poor job of breaking up with someone, you could like make an enemy. Uh, and that's really bad for you to have an enemy in your social world, especially if they could turn other people against you, if it damages your reputation, uh, if they come after you, uh, you know, either verbally or or physically or whatever. It's a really fraught situation to break up with someone and and handling that uh well, I think pro would have plausibly been a a selection pressure. Um and so yeah, I I I I think that's a really interesting topic.

Yeah, Karen Perilou has a paper from I don't know, twenty ten ish. I don't know. It's but that is about, you know, the the the um some of this stuff. This, you know, how people perceive uh the person who does the breaking up versus the person who's broken up with, and it talks about these different costs to to being the dumper, right? And and doing uh and especially if you're yeah, especially if your social networks are intertwined with the person you're breaking up with that could have huge social ramifications if you do a poor job uh of ending that relationship. Social networks, the kin networks, right? Depending on how that's worked, right? And how long you've been together and how intertwined all of that is, right?

The ramifications are could be quite costly. And so that um, you know, the that was w again in this unpublished master's thesis that maybe at some point it will see the light of day. But this is sort of what we were looking at, right? Was these different potential strategies and tactics that people might have to to do this breaking up, right? Um, and some of it was uh, you know, the withdrawing of investment. Um, but some of it was also like doing things to make yourself seem like less of a good partner to be with, like so that they wouldn't, right? It's like, oh, if I'm no longer representing my like, you know, if if I am if I'm now schlubby and like I wouldn't be somebody you want to be with, right?

Then like then you are disinte, you know, you're less interested, right? And I could functionally do that, right? And then some of it was you know inflicting costs on the partner, things like that. So there's the different uh different sort of uh categories we had of these potential ways to to disentangle yourself. And we did find that they were um the use of those was associated with relationship satisfaction. So people who were lower in relationship satisfaction were doing more of those things. And that was sort of consistent with our idea that this might be this this uh mate mate ejection sort of strategies that were happening. Right. It's almost like, you know, withdrawing from the relationship abruptly is imposing a huge

cost on you. But if I make the relationship itself undesirable for you, then it's no longer a cost to you. It's actually a benefit for you to leave the relationship. So you're you're transforming something that would have otherwise been really uh anger inducing into something that, you know, might be sad or disappointing, but not necessarily anger inducing because it's it's no longer a cost for or as big of a cost for them to end the relationship if you yourself are a less desirable partner. Um that's interesting. I mean, and it could be, you know, it it may explain some of these like fights between couples that aren't really about anything. You know, like uh, you know, if if I'm you know dissatisfied with the relationship, I want

to ramp it down, I might just be more, you know, grumpy and annoying and like pick fights about about the dishes or whatever, just to make the relationship more unpleasant as a way of kind of ramping down. Uh and it could be that these these these kind of fights about mundane irrelevant things are are really not about the irrelevant thing itself, but about, you know, uh some deeper uh dissatisfaction with the relationship. Yeah. And if you do it well enough, you get them to break up with you and then there they experience the costs of being the dumper. Yeah. And when that was, you know, what the what the underlying goal was the whole time. Yeah. Really interesting. Yeah. There's also uh this thing about breakups.

It reminds me of sort of like adolescence too, where there's like all this thing with even prior to like any relationship, there's sort of like who are you dating? No, who broke up with who? It's almost like practice for um for for these social costs of who likes who, what are the social costs and benefits of that being common knowledge, who broke up with who. And some of it is like hallucinated, right? Where like, you know, the trope is sort of the girls especially like the guys don't even know and they're like, Oh, well, no, you sat next to me. So we were and now you're not gonna talk to me. And it's like the girls talking to the girls like doing their, you know, three dimensional social chess and the guys are like, you know, playing yo yo.

I mean, yeah, but but that's sort of a trope. And I I don't know if there's been research on that. My middle school flashbacks. Um well, I was gonna say for the, you know, some of this this lifespan mating idea. I think, you know, for ethical reasons, we start at 18 often. Yeah. Um, but but and there have been some studies that have looked at a little bit of sort of like attraction and these things in in people under the age of 18, but but for very reasonable ethical reasons, we right, you know, we we start at 18, but we are we're missing out, I think, on a lot of of this, right? How much of that is sort of practice for later, how much of that is establishing some of these things like social value or mate value or these sorts of things early on, right?

Right. Um, and and how to navigate that. Um, and and yeah, why is it so insane in seventh grade, right? Why is why does that seem to reach a peak that of of exactly what you're talking about, right? Oh, they sat next to who and they're on, right? And all that. Um, I think it's uh to me, I think a good um some good evolutionary work on on that uh would be really interesting. It it's the challenge though of of studying some of those things in in children, right? Um but it's uh it it it's cool questions. Yeah. Yeah. And also, I mean, just even aside from the I mean I'm not sure how much of that is even sexual, like a lot of it is just sort of fictive. Like, again, it's almost like the the play, but there's this other part too.

When you're talking about regret and disappointment, we we are all parents here. Like, this is also a problem um for kids. Like, kids are disappointed all the time. And it makes complete sense. Like, it follows from this idea that, like, you don't know what the world is like. So, like this this thing of like this wild emotions of like elation or disappointment, it makes sense that kids especially are feeling these a lot precisely because you don't know what the world is like. Well, and it's it's so this is that's such a great point. Um my daughter's two and a half, right? So we're yes, Yeah, yeah. The emotions all the time. But I I'll think about times where she is very upset about something because we didn't do

this thing the same way we did it the last time. And it's really because her expectations have been set by that one instance. Yeah. Right. She, I mean, as those priors are being built, right? That was the one. And so it is all hinged on when we do this thing, we do it this way. And when we don't do it that way, right, that I mean it's it's so not been met. And because she doesn't have the uh the wealth of experiences to toggle the expectation of what happens when we leave the house and go to the store. Right. I mean that one we've done a lot. But like you can think of others where it's it's we've done it once or a few times and and really that's that expectation is set by that one thing and that's what they say is well,

we didn't do it this way. We had to do it this way. And and you we might not have even realized as parents that that was part of what we did that time, right? But that really in their mind that they they hooked on to that as the thing that happens when we do this that they liked for some reason, right? Or at least they just expected it, right? They just expected it to be that way because because that's that's what they expected, and then this outcome we did didn't match that expectation, right? Um, and then yeah, Or the flip side when you do something that they find hilarious because and they they didn't know where that was gonna come from, and then they're just giddy with excitement. Um they're like, I didn't know the world had ice cream and it's incredible, you know, like

it's just you know, yeah, exactly. Yeah, my daughter had the first bite of a cake pop yesterday. That was Gary Why. No, exactly. It's like I did not know the world included this. Um that also suggests that I mean, I don't know what the developmental research on disappointment is. And I should look into this. But it strikes me that like a very humane area of research, if there's not a lot, would be this. Because I mean, you know, if there are these humans that are constantly disappointed or possibly like have these expectations that are really volatile because they're so inexperienced and lack this common sense knowledge that we take for granted as adults, like I think that would be really important to know.

It's also important for parents to understand, you know, just remember like they don't have the same expectations. So I'd imagine a lot of kids crying, that's the disappointment machine right there. Well, and it I mean at least I mean, at least the sort of parenting advice you see about routines. I mean, this this helps explain why that is so important to them. Because then it's it it matches their expectations of what's gonna happen once you've established routines, then they know this is this is and you'll have less of that volatility because you're not constantly doing things outside of a an expected pattern. Yeah. Um yeah. In your work on looking at these emotions, are there like any, because David talked a

little bit about like status or people's mate value. Are there like individual differences in how people are prone to like being regretful or disappointed? I mean, so there's some that they've looked at. I the broader literature, I'm not sure. Um, at least within the the EP stuff on like casual sexual regret. Um, they've looked at different, you know, predictors, right? Um, so like, you know, like religiosity and things like that, where you know, they're more regretful of casual sex, and you can fit that into a framework of there's potentially more costs, right? Um, social costs there. Um, social sexual orientation, right? So if people are more inclined to casual sex, they regret casual sex less.

That makes sense. Um, so there's there's some of those within that literature. I don't know the broader literature though, on the individual differences side of it. Um yeah, just anecdotally, it's like just anecdot now that we're talking about, I just there's people I know who are more regret prone than others. They'll make a decision and oh, it must have been it was a horrible decision. And some people just sort of like, whatever, you know. And it would be interesting to sort of unpack why that would be. Yeah. I mean, I had a in my all my notes in my thinking on this, I've got a prediction that is a little bit about um to the extent that if you're more intelligent or you could simulate more counterfactors, right?

I would expect you to have more regret, right? If you're more imaginative or creative, I think I've written like that five different ways. Like because yeah, you could sit there and you could all day long think of all the different things you could have done versus somebody who can't do that as well, right? I think it should be less regretful, right? So I had that idea in there. I had a great idea. Yeah. The counterfactual thing uh is the miserable counterfactual thinker. Like I think we're all good counterfactual thinkers. That's what makes us good evolutionary psychologists. But yeah, no, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Constantly imagining all the ways things could be better. That's the curse. Well, and you might get the a combination there of being that creative or imaginative or or

whatever it is. But then also if you are less likely to seek, want to discuss that with others for some reason, right? If that's like an individual difference dimension, we're introverted about it, or you don't then it's just worse because you're just in your mind and you don't get the feedback from anybody saying, That's silly. That's that never would have happened. You know, that counterfactual you've suggested is just really improbable. Don't worry about that. Right. Kept it all in there, right? Then it's just you in your mind forever. Right. It could go, it could go the other way, though, because you could be using your counterfactual reasoning to simulate how worse things could have been.

And maybe you're you're imagining all the worst case scenarios in all the ways that the world could be more dangerous and awful than than you thought. And so in some cases, maybe uh it would lead to the opposite. You know, you're happy with your decision because you're you're not uh you know running you know from the monster in terror you're you know all all the horrible things that could have happened didn't so you're you're happier. Um so that would probably be a a moderating variable as well. Like what kinds of counterfactual scenarios are you likely to entertain? If you're constantly imagining happy counterfactual scenarios, that could paradoxically make you feel worse. And if you're, you know, imagining the worst case scenarios that could paradoxically make

you feel better. Yeah that's a good thing. Yeah sorry go ahead. Oh no I was gonna say the you know, when I've thought about that regret dimension, um most of the literature on it is just regret to like no regret, like you don't experience, but it seems like relief if there's a if there's a dimension like the disappointment election, right? It's like yeah, regret to relief. And if you're doing that imagining of like, yeah, man, if I had done that, yeah, I'd done the other thing, that would have been terrible. That it's it's relief might be the other anchor on that dimension. Yeah. It's also I there was a study done where I think it was like British subways. I don't like, don't quote me on the specifics, but they removed the advertisements from the

subway. And uh it was a it was a very subtle manipulation, but they actually like found that people's well being slightly ticked up from removing the advertisements. Because I mean like one of the one of the like the tropes of advertising is it's creating unmet wants, you know, like that's kind of the job of advertising, right? Is to sort of make you feel like a discrepancy between your current state and the desired state. That's what motivates you to do something. Um, and this comes back to this like relationship propaganda, then, where I wonder at this point of if you're positively always evaluating something, it's gonna make you feel worse about your own situation. If you're but if you're comparing counterfactuals that are worse than yours, then you're

going to feel better. So this actually suggests that if people are constantly consuming sort of like worse relationship material, they're going to feel better about their relationship. But if they're consuming more positive, they're going to feel worse about it too. Yeah. That yeah, that prediction totally makes sense. Yeah. Um, and I will say, as as in in my one source that uh people I think in my research world all the time they're like, go look at like one of the relationship subreddits and just see what people are saying about this, right? Those are great sources for like situations where you're like, Man, I'm my situation's fantastic. We read about this. It's it's really, yeah. It'd be a great couples therapy strategy, just like go on our relationships.

Yeah. Read the horror stories. Stop arguing about the dishwasher. Just read this. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the um what it is like you feel people feel happier when they volunteer and work with like people who are worse off than them. It's like they should just do couples therapy where they just do the therapy for couples who are worse off than them. Wow. We're gonna pair you with this cover. Exactly. Although it only works half for half of the people because the other well, it depends. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. The poor the poor couple that you use as the as the comparison. This is where we just get actors in. Right. Exactly. They're confederates, they're whatever. Right. Well, actually, I wonder some of reality TV, like you know, might be this too, right?

It's just consuming. obviously there's lots of there's lots of sort of um psychological sugar quote unquote in like in in that in in um uh reality tv but i wonder if like seeing worse relationships also just sort of is like oh okay that drama i can turn it off and i don't have that drama yeah it's interesting the drawing to it right because you know you look in the the popular cultural representations of things, there's the world of romance novels and um Hallmark movies, and you know, all those things that are the very positive side of it that people seem to be drawn to. But then exactly what you're saying: the you know, there's the reality TV version of the where it is, there's that drama and the dysfunction, and people are equally or more, I'm

not sure, right? Drawn to watching that. Both seem to attract right the attention. Um, I don't know if one more than the other, but they both of them are represented, I think. Yeah. And if you look like even classic literature, I mean a lot of it has the negative too, you know. Like, I mean, nowadays it's sort of like it's seen as lowbrow to have the sort of really uh negative part, but I think like it's always sort of in there. Mm-hmm. All of Jane Austen. Yeah. It's a it's a journey to get to the end there. Yes. Yeah. Um this uh the this intersection of mating and emotions, um, is there, you know, is this a relatively new thing? I mean, it seems so obvious, but is this sort of new? It is, I think it is sort of new.

I think I think in when thinking about emotions in the mating world before, people talked about love. right? And attraction arousal, right? That those ideas came up. Jealousy, certainly. But jealousy was probably the only one that I think was sort of well worked from that adaptive problem perspective, really thinking about the design and design features and and and coming coming from that. But it it it is not something that there had been a ton of. And for what is there, I think it um uh it's not quite nuanced yet, right? It isn't sort of really, I think there's been a lot of fantastic work on emotions that has happened in the last you know 15 or so years from you know an EP perspective about really

how to do really good research, um, thinking about what emotions are, right? And you know, what the adaptive problem is and and what the design, you know, of that emotion uh would look like if it did evolve to solve that adaptive problem, right? And then how do you study that, right? How do you design studies to really demonstrate evidence for those hypothesized design features? I think in you know, some of these emotions we've talked about, and you know, anger and shame and these ones where where people have really developed these beautiful research programs. And I think uh that's one thing I I'm really interested in for the sort of the future of mating research is is taking some of that um either for those emotions or these other

emotions that really are relevant in a mating context and building out um research programs in the same way with those same principles. I think is absolutely a cool next step for good stuff um and some low-hanging fruit for graduate students or people thinking about developing theses and right. I mean I think there's there's good stuff to be done there. Yeah, I I love that. And that's it's also um, you know, there's a lot of these emotions are very um positive and negative. I mean it seems sort of trite to say, but like a lot of human experience is is brought up in these emotions. And it's a very humane thing to sort of respect understanding them. And it's sort of weird how much, and I think for the strategic reasons we've avoided them,

but it's very inhumane in the same way it was sort of inhumane to worry about, you know, like you know, they didn't what? They didn't give kids um uh anti what is it called I can't think of any words today. What is it called when you like um uh give people like they can't feel pain? Um anesthetic, Yes. Like they didn't give give like babies anesthetic for for just be you know, because like the doctors weren't even like thinking about kids like, oh whatever kids don't feel things. And so you know it's very inhumane to not think about the evolved design of all of life. And I think like to the extent that psychology has been sort of high and mighty about biological things like mating. It's also missed out on like addressing what is a fairly if we don't have a science of it,

we can be pretty inhumane about like people's needs and their feelings about like, you know, am I attached to somebody? Do I feel secure? Do I feel loved? Um, it's weird that we don't have a better science of that. And I think it's a real um problem to sort of be ignoring it um scientifically um and it's it's really sad in a way um yeah i mean it it's it's hard to imagine any emotion that is not relevant to mating it's sort of the the domain where all of our emotions apply you know you yeah like I I can't really think of an ex I mean maybe I don't know even hunger like you know you eat with your your mate and you prepare food with your mate and you know there could you can be hangry if if they're the dinner's not ready or or or whatever.

Eventual discussion of where are we gonna have dinner tonight and Yeah, exactly. Like that's a huge huge th huge part of relationships. If you don't like the other person's cooking or or they're they're cooking more than you or vice versa. You know, like lots of stuff like I I can't think of any emotion that that isn't relevant. I mean it's it's if you think about it it's it's the central adaptive challenge of of being an organism is to reproduce and a mating a mateship is the context where that happens. It seems like all of our emotions should be relevant to that thing. Um and so I I think it's a really interesting and and and useful direction to take it where you know what are all these other emotions?

What are the what are ways in which we we're we're afraid or guilty or or ashamed or or proud um or embarrassed or whatever in the context of a relationship. Um and it seems like all of those things, you know, happen uh to varying degrees um in a in a romantic relationship. So yeah, absolutely. And and also there's the ones that are going to be unique to that, right? So, you know, people talk about sexual arousal, that kind of thing, but also, you know, parental love, right? So if if and that sort of family unit being created, right? Uh, and the psychology regulating that and those feelings towards that little little genetic vehicle that's terrorizing you. But you also love so much, right? That um all of that that only right uh comes online or or or happens,

right? Um, in in those inmateships, right? So um I think it's it's you're absolutely right. It's all of the things plus, right? Ones that you couldn't study in another con, you know, another type of relationship, but but really matter for that type of relationship. This is really interesting because we started this conversation saying there's too much mating work, but we're actually arriving at there's not enough. And or precisely what it is is that the way we've compartmentalized mating and the approach we've taken to it has been it's really its own little thing. Yeah. And what we're landing on is that actually it should be everywhere and diffused throughout. So it's really just that there should be more but different, right?

And just sort of integrated with everything. Yeah. I like that. More but different but integrated with everything. But it's it's it's you're absolutely right. It's it's what it's what brings me back to still, right? I mean, I'm tenured. I, you know, I'm I'm I've got my job. I could switch, right? I could say I'm not doing any more meaning research. I'm gonna deep dive in something else in EP and I'm gonna make that my thing instead, right? Like I I do, I'm I'm very, very fortunate. I have the freedom I could choose to do that if I wanted to. But somehow it it just I just keep coming back to it, right? I just the questions that I come up with and building on what I've already done or thinking through end up and it's for this reason, right?

I I think about what can we be doing better and what is what are the next things we should be learning and how should we be advancing our our science in this world. Um uh but but yeah for all for all the the the ways in which it's dominated the conversation about EP in some spaces, right? It's it's it's for good reason. Um it's interesting because it is sort of yeah it's it's I I'm not a mating person, but I also, I mean, I'm colleagues with Dan. I see him all the time. And I feel like the the thing of sort of like apologetically, I'm a mating researcher, right? It like kind of comes up a little bit, but it sounds like again, we're coming kind of for a circle where it's sort of like to not only not be apologetic about it, but to sort of say,

Yeah, I'm a mating researcher and this is why it's awesome and important, and here's the way to do it. Yes. I like that. Uh Carrie, is there anything that we should have asked you? I don't think so. Uh that was that was good conversation. I enjoyed that. We hit on lots of good topics. So yeah. Did you want to talk any more about cooperation? Because you said you've been thinking a lot about like cooperation in the in that relationship. Is there anything about that that you we we hadn't hit on that you've been thinking about? We we mostly hit on it. I think um the the only other piece oh I I recently reread the Bankers Paradox paper um about irreplaceability right um and that and so it was just

another another piece in that puzzle of when we're thinking about these mating relationships right like a bunch of this logic applies right from other cooperative relationships and so that was that was a piece there from that literature on friendships, right? Um, that oh, and but in best friends and close friends and tight, it's that irreplaceability that um and being irreplaceable and and a lot of that logic, uh the same predictions, right, apply and like how to, you know, attract a good partner, right? A romantic partner, right? Um and so I think some of it is in thinking in a nuanced way about mating as its own thing is is some of that defining like, well, you know, how is it, you know, it is the extreme

cooperative relationship, but then what are the features that make it extreme or unique or different, right? And then how does that change your predictions from what you would predict from different cooperative relationships? Or are you just going to predict the same thing, right? That it's, but it's just the same thing with even higher consequences, right? And I think some of that thinking, I think, really helps explain what goes on in mateships more as like fitting on that cooperative relationships continuum necessarily than like its own domain, its own separate thing. So like just to just to make it concrete to see if I'm understanding. So like an example might be like one thing that's unique about mating, unlike another

cooperative relationship, is it can create children, right? Uh and so like so one idea would be that sort of one of the Q structures of a relationship would just be like, do we have children together or not? And that would just have consequences on sort of settings. Uh is that the kind of Yes, that kind of thing. And then once you have children, right, the consequences that, you know, the well-being of those children and all those things have, I mean, that's an additional that might sort of trump some of these other considerations that in a cooperative relationship where that's not part of your shared investments, right? That that it, you know, these other things can matter more or matter in different ways that

once there are those kids there, right? I mean, that's that that swamps could swamp a lot, right? Um, and so that um so it's the even before, but then you know, once they're there, um that that might really uh influence things. Yeah. Yeah. Research is me search, but I agree. One of the themes of this podcast is there's not enough work on parenting psychology. Totally. Yeah. And of course it's, you know, it's something that like I think I acknowledged before I had a kid, but then like once I had a kid, I was like, oh yeah, no, there's not enough. Yeah. It just really and and I think sometimes people ask, especially they ask meeting researchers this all the time, um, about like, oh, since you knew all this, like, aren't

you a really great mater? You know, like don't you apply it, right? So you can find a really great mates or you can whatever, like you know, the amount we have conscious access to it, the amount you in a moment can do any of that, right? I don't, I don't really think so. But I have found much more with parenting in those moments of like thinking exactly like this. Like, you are losing your shit right now, little kid. Oh, like this is how disappointment works in you. Right. Like in it in it in it feeling, I think, uh, I think a lot of the parenting angst people feel about, oh, my child is, you know, oh, I've made them sad, or oh, and I'm not feeling guilty about it. Right. I I a little bit don't, I mean, maybe this is me being a bad parent, but I more am like,

no, like you're this little being in your evolved psychology is calibrating and it's doing this, and that's good. And of course, I'm making sure you're safe and you're fed and you, you know, we're strongly attached and all that, but like I, you know, I just want your little evolved psychology to like figure these things out and calibrate the world in this way, right? Um, and I think that has had, I think I've been more conscious of that like in the parenting realm than I ever was in like or am in like the the mating realm. I don't know. Yeah yeah David I don't know how you feel about that but I feel the same way too of sort of maybe it's also knowing the cross-cultural literature where I sort of much more emphasis on

autonomy than sort of like the ambient norms here at least of sort of like you know the really helicopter like I have to move their limbs for them. It's like no no no in in like a hunter gatherer or hunter fortier, you know, like for evolved history, kids were basically I mean not on their own, but you know, you get much more so, right? And so that that sense of like you respect that they're an evolved creature, like you said, Carrie, and they can they're they're they got they're doing their own thing. They are. Yeah. I think every time I talk to anthropologists about which is one of my favorite things to talk to them. I don't they can just tell me about it. Exactly. It's the win-win. It's the they do the they do the dangerous, sweaty, um oh my god,

the the the yeah, the you know the stories. I don't know, the things, but but the you know, so many of them I've heard them refer to like the bands of roving children, right? Like the kids just roam in the packs, right? And it'll be from the time they can they can keep up with the pack, they're with the pack and then they're right. And it's and they they are just autonomously doing these things. There's eyes on the little ones to, you know, hopefully make sure they don't fall off the cliff or whatever, right? But and that I agree that in thinking about that version of childhood versus uh, you know, uh for reasons our child, you know, the the version of childhood for our children is different and and there's lots of great things about that.

Um, but I it really influences, I think, also some of my concerns that I don't have, right? About uh what I need to be doing as a parent that I think um I wouldn't have if I I I wouldn't be able to think of it that way if I weren't an evolutionary psychologist. Yeah. Totally agree. Well, we did not, I I am not at all uh regretting or disappointed by this conversation. No. Yeah, I feel the opposite. What is the opposite of regret? Is there? I think relief is what I would put on the other end. I don't know what I'm relieved. You said elation. It was you said elation too. So yeah, disappointment elation is sort of in the literature on like the other end. If when you see people talk about something on the other end, it's like disappointment

versus elation. Regret, they just talk about like regret or no regret. But I sort of think relief might be the other side of it. Like if you realize being glad. Oh, sorry, didn't it be like the opposite, like if you had done the other thing, it would have been much worse. Oh, I'm really Oh, I see. Oh, I see. See, oh I see, see, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Or even just like it wouldn't have been like a catastrophe if I did the other thing, but the thing I did was like is really good. And I'm I really made the right choice. And I'm really glad I made that choice. I don't know if we even have a word for that. It's like satisfaction. Satisfaction, maybe? I don't know. Well, whatever that word is, I'm feeling it.

This was a very fun conversation. This is a great conversation. Thank you. Thank you, Carrie, for being with us. We have to get uh we have to get some, maybe we should get a like a have a Valentine's Day special about love or something. We can unpack love more. Oh yeah. Get a panel of us, right? Exactly. No, this is the thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That'd be fun. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And uh um I hope everybody has a uh a non-disappointing week. Mm-hmm. With no regrets and uh lots of love. Uh David, I have no regrets uh about this episode. Me neither. In fact, I was the opposite of disappointed. I was elated by this fun conversation. And if you're feeling elated by what you've just heard, uh, what can you do, Dave?

Uh you can check out Carrie Getz's work. You can leave us a kind review. You can uh pay us a visit on Patreon and um you know leave a few coins here or there. Um and uh yeah you can just generally support the podcast and um uh I don't know what anything else? Did I did I leave anything else? You know, talk about us on social media. Recommend us. That's right. Social media. Yeah. Yeah. You know, uh your enthusiasm and support is the fuel that keeps us going. So if you if you if you like what you're hearing and you want this to keep going, please uh give us the support we need. And and recommend guests. Yeah, that too. Reach out to us if you have i ideas for for episodes or guests, let us know.

We're very open to suggestions. I would have loved to have Charles Darwin on this podcast. Oh, that would have been amazing. Maybe we should get like an AI simulation of Charles Darwin and interview him. Can you do that? I mean, I think. I mean they did it with George Carlin. They had a whole AI stand up special of George Carlin. The title is actually hilarious. The title was I'm glad I'm Dead. That that's pretty good. That's pretty George Carlin. I mean, that's Carlin esque. I think that that's I'm glad I'm dead. Actually, that is exactly what he would say. Yeah. Yeah, it is. So that was pretty impressive. All right. Well, yeah, if you uh all right, well let's let's uh let's we'll re we'll revisit that for

later. Okay. So maybe we'll have Charles Darwin on. Yeah, who knows? Maybe if AI keeps advancing, maybe maybe it'll happen. Yeah, before the takeover. Did you post the thing AI Dumerism is uh bullshit? Yeah, it's it's on my yeah. If you want to read about how AI is not going to kill us all, I have a post called AI Dumerism is bullshit. You should read it before AI kills us all. Yeah, that would be good, just to um prepare yourself for what is for what is not going to happen. I mean, just imagine the shot of like somebody's screen as like a terminator like foot is like crashing on the screen. That's like it ends up. I hope if if somebody is listening in Hollywood, please make that happen. It'd make an AI movie and have David's uh That would be great.

That would be that would be wonderful. Honestly, that would be better. I'm I feel like if I'm gonna be wrong, I would love to be wrong in such a spectacular way. Exactly. If you're gonna do something, do it, do it, do it in a spectacular way. And that includes being wrong. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Well, on that note, uh enjoy your week and we'll see you next week. Yep, see you next week.