WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.840
David, this is Evolutionary Psychology the Podcast.

00:00:01.920 --> 00:00:03.120
You're David Pinsoff.

00:00:03.360 --> 00:00:06.000
I'm your Dave Petrozuski.

00:00:07.920 --> 00:00:11.120
This is Evolution, this is Evolutionary Psychology the Podcast, Actual Evolutionary

00:00:11.200 --> 00:00:14.560
Psychology by Actual Evolutionary Psychologists.

00:00:30.130 --> 00:00:32.290
Uh today we have Jen Bird Craven.

00:00:32.370 --> 00:00:37.810
She is uh at the intersection scientifically of the mind and the endocrine system, and that

00:00:37.810 --> 00:00:39.330
is uh what we talked about today.

00:00:39.730 --> 00:00:45.730
Yeah, we talked all about the nuances of stress and cortisol and what it

00:00:45.730 --> 00:00:50.210
does to the mind and body and the evolutionary origins of stress, its functions.

00:00:50.450 --> 00:00:53.340
Um, this was a big learning experience for me.

00:00:53.420 --> 00:00:57.580
I feel like I learned a lot about how stress works, how the endocrine system works.

00:00:57.900 --> 00:00:58.060
Yeah.

00:00:58.140 --> 00:00:59.820
Why do we need an endocrine system?

00:00:59.900 --> 00:01:00.540
Why do we need a brain?

00:01:00.700 --> 00:01:01.420
Why do we have stress?

00:01:01.580 --> 00:01:02.060
Why is it bad?

00:01:02.140 --> 00:01:02.860
Why does it feel bad?

00:01:02.940 --> 00:01:03.980
Is it all bad?

00:01:04.140 --> 00:01:05.660
Uh all these things.

00:01:05.820 --> 00:01:08.220
And yeah, I I certainly learned a lot too.

00:01:08.300 --> 00:01:14.220
I feel like this is some of these episodes we are experts, and some I feel like we're we're

00:01:14.220 --> 00:01:16.710
bumbling uh idiots.

00:01:17.270 --> 00:01:22.070
And I actually really enjoy the latter category because I learn a lot and I feel like this

00:01:22.070 --> 00:01:23.990
was that latter category for me at least.

00:01:24.390 --> 00:01:24.710
Totally.

00:01:24.790 --> 00:01:29.350
Yeah, it was great to just expand my knowledge on a hugely important topic, which is

00:01:29.350 --> 00:01:29.990
stress.

00:01:31.670 --> 00:01:37.350
So if you feel stressed or not at all, um uh and if you have uh opinions about

00:01:37.350 --> 00:01:43.030
stress or know somebody who is stressed or wants to be less stressed, or

00:01:43.190 --> 00:01:45.270
does anybody want to be more stressed?

00:01:45.680 --> 00:01:47.280
Uh maybe maybe some people.

00:01:47.440 --> 00:01:49.200
They're just too chill and they gotta figure out.

00:01:49.520 --> 00:01:51.200
Actually, I wanted to ask I wanted to ask Jen.

00:01:51.280 --> 00:01:55.200
Jen, if you're listening, I forgot to wanted to ask you, is there anybody who doesn't have

00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:55.520
stress?

00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:57.920
Like like there's people who are born without pain.

00:01:58.160 --> 00:02:01.680
I wonder if there's people who are born without stress, and I wonder what that does.

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.640
Yeah, that would be fascinating to look at.

00:02:04.720 --> 00:02:05.280
Yeah, I've no idea.

00:02:05.440 --> 00:02:06.560
Well we can circle back to that.

00:02:06.640 --> 00:02:10.960
Maybe we can have Jen back on and we're work we can get somebody in the comments saying, I

00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:13.040
don't have stress, and here's what my life is like.

00:02:13.310 --> 00:02:13.550
Yeah.

00:02:13.630 --> 00:02:19.390
Well, kick back, relax, um, avoid activating your stress response and enjoy this

00:02:19.390 --> 00:02:20.910
episode with Jet Bird Craven.

00:02:21.470 --> 00:02:26.430
Is as I understand it, you study not only psychology, but something called the

00:02:26.430 --> 00:02:27.950
endocrine system.

00:02:28.430 --> 00:02:28.750
I do.

00:02:29.150 --> 00:02:34.440
Um, we really haven't had uh an endocrine person on.

00:02:34.600 --> 00:02:40.600
We've we've sort of touched on it very lightly, but what is that and

00:02:40.600 --> 00:02:43.960
why do we have it instead of just a brain?

00:02:44.280 --> 00:02:44.920
Right.

00:02:45.240 --> 00:02:47.240
Um, that's a great question, actually.

00:02:47.320 --> 00:02:50.200
Um, so the endocrine system is is super old.

00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:54.760
Um, we share it with, you know, um almost all other um vertebrates um and things like that.

00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:00.990
And um it, you know, it essentially works alongside neurotransmitters and things like

00:03:00.990 --> 00:03:02.750
that to motivate our behavior.

00:03:02.830 --> 00:03:07.390
Um, and so I'm interested in, you know, sort of what motivates us and how can we sort of

00:03:07.390 --> 00:03:08.350
assess that.

00:03:08.510 --> 00:03:13.790
Um, and the endocrine system is a beautiful system to be able to tell us what organisms are

00:03:13.790 --> 00:03:15.470
prioritizing in the moment.

00:03:15.630 --> 00:03:20.910
Um, and it's also a ton easier to measure than um brain activity um and things like that.

00:03:21.070 --> 00:03:27.000
So do you feel like people who study the mind from a

00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:32.760
computational perspective overlook the motivation and embodiment

00:03:32.760 --> 00:03:33.080
element?

00:03:33.480 --> 00:03:39.240
Because I've noticed as we sort of have technology and computing technology,

00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:45.000
it really emphasizes the information processing part of the picture.

00:03:45.400 --> 00:03:49.090
But then it all almost makes everything else feel like magic.

00:03:49.330 --> 00:03:49.730
Right.

00:03:50.130 --> 00:03:53.890
Is that have you noticed this at all or felt come up against this?

00:03:54.130 --> 00:03:57.330
I have a little bit, particularly in like in reviews um and things like that.

00:03:57.410 --> 00:04:02.450
Um when we send things to more general journals, um, it's you know it come it comes up and

00:04:02.450 --> 00:04:06.850
uh and also just even in teaching and things like that too with other, you know, students

00:04:06.930 --> 00:04:08.290
um and that sort of thing.

00:04:08.450 --> 00:04:13.240
So um and it is really, you know, sort of, you know, people don't uh in my opinion, I'm

00:04:13.240 --> 00:04:17.480
biased, um, but they don't pay enough attention to these, you know, sort of older systems

00:04:17.480 --> 00:04:20.920
that are informing these newer information processing systems.

00:04:21.480 --> 00:04:25.480
So we're taking a brain-centric perspective, and really the endocrine system got there

00:04:25.480 --> 00:04:26.040
first in a way.

00:04:26.520 --> 00:04:27.480
Maybe as a way of putting it.

00:04:27.720 --> 00:04:27.800
Okay.

00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:28.200
Right.

00:04:28.280 --> 00:04:28.440
Yeah.

00:04:28.520 --> 00:04:28.760
Absolutely.

00:04:29.080 --> 00:04:29.560
That's interesting.

00:04:29.880 --> 00:04:31.800
I mean, I have a a a a deeper question.

00:04:31.880 --> 00:04:37.190
It's okay if you don't know the the answer to it, but it seems like a brain naively would

00:04:37.190 --> 00:04:37.670
be enough.

00:04:37.830 --> 00:04:42.870
Like if you need to motivate behavior, you have neurons, they're connected to our muscles,

00:04:43.030 --> 00:04:46.630
they're connected to our hearts, they're connected to our lungs.

00:04:46.870 --> 00:04:50.310
Um, they can send a message to say, Hey, get going.

00:04:50.630 --> 00:04:55.990
Uh, you know, make the heart go faster, make the muscles tense up, get out of that

00:04:55.990 --> 00:04:56.470
situation.

00:04:56.710 --> 00:04:57.990
Seems like the brain is enough.

00:04:58.150 --> 00:05:01.940
Why do why do you need this whole complicated endocrine system.

00:05:02.580 --> 00:05:04.500
Yeah, that's a that's a great question actually.

00:05:04.980 --> 00:05:08.580
And you know, it's important to remember that a lot of this starts in the brain.

00:05:08.980 --> 00:05:13.060
And so like, you know, the hypothalamus, pituitary glands, and things like that, you know,

00:05:13.300 --> 00:05:15.540
we tend to think of like puberty is a great example.

00:05:15.700 --> 00:05:18.340
We tend to think of puberty on the level of the gonads, right?

00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:19.380
That's not what's happening.

00:05:19.460 --> 00:05:24.980
It's the pituitary that's signaling down to the gonads to start producing, you know, their

00:05:25.220 --> 00:05:25.460
stuff.

00:05:25.540 --> 00:05:30.310
And so I think that you know having it integrated with the limbic system and uh things like

00:05:30.310 --> 00:05:34.710
that allows you to, you know, sort of be more flexible in your behavior, perhaps.

00:05:34.790 --> 00:05:38.230
Um, but it's also you remember brains are expensive, right?

00:05:38.310 --> 00:05:42.470
Um, and so if we could sort of, you know, have this on a you know, sort of um more simple

00:05:42.470 --> 00:05:46.790
level, um then that might, you know, sort of solve the problem without having to recruit um

00:05:46.790 --> 00:05:47.190
the brain.

00:05:47.350 --> 00:05:51.750
It's really when we, you know, sort of run up against challenges that we can't, you know,

00:05:51.830 --> 00:05:56.470
sort of just operate on the autonomic nervous system anyway that we then start recruiting

00:05:56.470 --> 00:05:58.150
higher, higher processes.

00:05:58.600 --> 00:06:02.600
Can I ask too, like, you know, if I think about from the perspective of development,

00:06:02.760 --> 00:06:08.680
development is a chemical soup process where genes are contingently orchestrating

00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:10.920
the building of stuff.

00:06:11.160 --> 00:06:16.200
Um, is is it that, you know, the the brain is sort of

00:06:16.200 --> 00:06:19.560
neurochemical and can change the structure?

00:06:19.640 --> 00:06:24.490
So, like, you know, if electricity is in the right place at the right time, that can cause

00:06:24.490 --> 00:06:27.050
chemical changes and structural changes.

00:06:27.130 --> 00:06:33.050
But is the idea that the endocrine system is sort of like analogous

00:06:33.050 --> 00:06:38.810
to development, that it can do a better job of continuing

00:06:38.810 --> 00:06:40.810
development, right?

00:06:40.970 --> 00:06:44.650
Like, I mean, I think people I have a I even I have a cartoonish view of development as

00:06:44.730 --> 00:06:50.540
like, you know, once you're uh a certain once you're sort of an adult, you're done

00:06:50.540 --> 00:06:55.820
developing, but that's not an adaptationist way to think about the contingent

00:06:56.060 --> 00:06:58.380
building of the phenotype.

00:06:58.940 --> 00:07:03.820
Is is that is that also true that the endocrine system is sort of this

00:07:04.140 --> 00:07:08.780
ontagenetic developmental chemical building process?

00:07:08.940 --> 00:07:11.450
Is that a a metaphor that's appropriate or not?

00:07:11.850 --> 00:07:12.970
Yeah, I think so.

00:07:13.530 --> 00:07:19.450
And you know, it stimulates gene expression or not, can silence genes and

00:07:19.450 --> 00:07:20.010
that sort of thing.

00:07:20.090 --> 00:07:24.490
And so even, you know, prenatally, one of the system that I'm most familiar with and I work

00:07:24.490 --> 00:07:27.130
with the most is the HBA axis, right?

00:07:27.450 --> 00:07:32.460
And so that can actually, you know, modify based on mother's stress levels, can modify

00:07:32.460 --> 00:07:37.980
fetuses, um, you know, gene expression in a number of different areas, um, metabolism, um,

00:07:38.140 --> 00:07:41.500
you know, um, just you know, essential stress response um and things like that.

00:07:41.660 --> 00:07:44.860
And then that process just sort of continues across development.

00:07:44.940 --> 00:07:50.940
Um, obviously, you know, with puberty being sort of this massive reorganization and you

00:07:50.940 --> 00:07:55.500
know, sort of sensitive period of that, then you have, you know, um a lot of these um

00:07:55.500 --> 00:08:00.690
endocrine systems sort of recruiting higher level processes um to be able to is coordinate

00:08:00.690 --> 00:08:02.450
behavior and you know adapt.

00:08:02.770 --> 00:08:02.930
Yeah.

00:08:03.090 --> 00:08:05.570
Stress sounds really interesting and I'm sure we're going to get into that.

00:08:05.650 --> 00:08:11.330
I have another dumb question, um, which maybe again like to with David's

00:08:11.330 --> 00:08:16.690
caveat of like if if if we don't, if this is a a too big question, but why do we have

00:08:16.690 --> 00:08:17.490
puberty?

00:08:17.810 --> 00:08:22.460
Like why, why don't we just build um The adults.

00:08:22.860 --> 00:08:25.580
Why do we have extended childhood?

00:08:25.900 --> 00:08:27.260
Yeah, that's a great question.

00:08:28.220 --> 00:08:33.900
You know, and humans are unique in that we have a period of childhood that the other

00:08:33.900 --> 00:08:34.620
apes don't have.

00:08:34.700 --> 00:08:38.700
They just go from infancy to juvenile period to adulthood adulthood.

00:08:38.860 --> 00:08:44.540
And then you also have, you know, adolescence is unique among humans, and

00:08:44.700 --> 00:08:47.260
particularly, you know, that growth period and things like that.

00:08:47.340 --> 00:08:51.810
And so I think that, you know, just drawing from like Barry Boggan's work um and some other

00:08:51.810 --> 00:08:55.410
things, childhood essentially is a feeding adaptation, right?

00:08:55.570 --> 00:09:01.170
Um and to be able to, you know, sort of um free mother up from lactation

00:09:01.410 --> 00:09:05.010
um and things like that, that frees her up to produce other offspring.

00:09:05.170 --> 00:09:10.530
And then you sort of outsource um that, you know, care of that little, you know, immature

00:09:10.690 --> 00:09:16.540
to, you know, um fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, others in their community, and

00:09:16.700 --> 00:09:17.420
that sort of thing.

00:09:17.500 --> 00:09:21.820
And during that time, they're learning about the social environment.

00:09:21.980 --> 00:09:26.380
And humans are, as you guys know, just incredibly complex.

00:09:26.540 --> 00:09:31.580
And our culture and you know, even social groups change so quickly from generation to

00:09:31.580 --> 00:09:35.580
generation that you can't really have a system that's very static.

00:09:36.140 --> 00:09:41.310
And, you know, from the beginning, you need to have a system that's plastic and able to

00:09:41.310 --> 00:09:46.510
sort of modify these neural neural systems according to the appropriate

00:09:46.510 --> 00:09:47.390
context.

00:09:48.510 --> 00:09:54.510
So is it is it that building sort of a complete sexually

00:09:54.510 --> 00:09:59.230
mature adult right at childhood would be too costly in terms of energy?

00:09:59.310 --> 00:10:05.230
And that if you're a baby, you want to be as uh as you don't want to be

00:10:05.230 --> 00:10:09.100
too demanding of your uh parents' time and energy.

00:10:09.260 --> 00:10:14.300
And if you had complicated sexual equipment to maintain, that would just be an extra drain

00:10:14.300 --> 00:10:15.100
on your family.

00:10:15.260 --> 00:10:20.860
And you want to try to be as cost effective as possible in this early period and save that

00:10:20.860 --> 00:10:26.140
energy intensive sexual maturation for later when you have uh perhaps

00:10:26.140 --> 00:10:30.380
accumulated more embodied capital and you are able to make those expenditures.

00:10:30.620 --> 00:10:32.430
Is that right basically the idea?

00:10:32.750 --> 00:10:34.030
Yeah, that's essentially the idea.

00:10:34.190 --> 00:10:35.790
And then it also allows for learning.

00:10:36.190 --> 00:10:41.310
It allows for, you know, sort of fine-tuning these systems to the particular cultural

00:10:41.310 --> 00:10:46.030
context, not only learning about technology, but learning about people, how they work, you

00:10:46.030 --> 00:10:47.390
know, who's aligned with who.

00:10:47.710 --> 00:10:50.110
You know, kids start tracking status and things like that.

00:10:50.190 --> 00:10:55.070
And there's some evidence to suggest that that is better, you know, sort of fine tuned

00:10:55.070 --> 00:11:01.020
under the protective umbrella of parents and others, um, versus you know sort

00:11:01.020 --> 00:11:01.980
of getting right to it.

00:11:02.300 --> 00:11:03.500
You might get it wrong.

00:11:04.220 --> 00:11:09.740
And particularly because you know our groups are are so incredibly complex socially.

00:11:10.220 --> 00:11:14.620
And from a biological perspective, the idea of a morph, which is like a subtype or a

00:11:14.620 --> 00:11:17.340
version of a body, I guess is sort of the broadest way.

00:11:17.420 --> 00:11:22.300
So I guess the idea is that we have age morphs and is it that

00:11:22.860 --> 00:11:28.370
we're Are there, I mean, I mean obviously there's like you know

00:11:28.450 --> 00:11:32.930
developmental morphs where there's like a butterfly and a chrysalis and a caterpillar

00:11:32.930 --> 00:11:34.290
before the butterfly.

00:11:34.530 --> 00:11:39.650
Um, are our age morphs weird um compared to other species?

00:11:40.050 --> 00:11:41.330
They are, they're very weird.

00:11:41.570 --> 00:11:45.570
Um, and that we, you know, we have a new a number of unique life history factors.

00:11:45.650 --> 00:11:47.650
So, you know, I mentioned childhood and adolescence.

00:11:47.730 --> 00:11:48.770
We also have menopause.

00:11:48.850 --> 00:11:53.820
So we have you know women living two, three decades longer, um, you know, past their um

00:11:53.820 --> 00:11:55.100
reproductive um periods.

00:11:55.260 --> 00:11:56.220
What is what is that about?

00:11:56.300 --> 00:11:57.340
You know, um, what is that for?

00:11:57.500 --> 00:12:02.380
And if you understand childhood in in a unique way, you can understand menopause uh to some

00:12:02.380 --> 00:12:02.620
extent.

00:12:02.780 --> 00:12:07.500
So mother grandmothers that are, you know, sort of helping to provision and also helping to

00:12:07.500 --> 00:12:13.260
teach um, you know, these complex social um systems, um, again, sort of you know, frees mom

00:12:13.340 --> 00:12:14.620
up to reproduce again.

00:12:14.700 --> 00:12:19.650
So, you know, overall reproductive success is higher and that sort of thing.

00:12:19.730 --> 00:12:25.090
But it um it is, you know, it's it's a beautifully designed system in in a lot of ways, but

00:12:25.090 --> 00:12:30.290
also suggests that our evolutionary history was really strong with social selection.

00:12:30.770 --> 00:12:35.250
And you know, those that were, you know, a little bit more savvy and social skills did a

00:12:35.250 --> 00:12:36.210
lot a lot better.

00:12:36.520 --> 00:12:36.760
Yeah.

00:12:36.920 --> 00:12:42.760
I what I'm hearing you say, and just to make explicit, maybe for listeners, is that there's

00:12:42.760 --> 00:12:48.360
been arguments that we are foraging niches extractive, which is like we make a living.

00:12:48.520 --> 00:12:52.680
We're not like koala bears where you just eat a eucalyptus trees, leaves, whatever.

00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:58.840
We we we are we extract really difficult high process things like the

00:12:58.840 --> 00:13:04.360
process demand things, like and uh and then also socially we're very uh

00:13:04.530 --> 00:13:07.010
arms racy to put it simply.

00:13:07.250 --> 00:13:12.290
Um, and so both things sort of are an arms race of ever increasing complexity.

00:13:12.450 --> 00:13:17.170
So, in some sense, we have a really hard job, and so it requires a lot of help, a lot of

00:13:17.170 --> 00:13:17.730
learning.

00:13:18.530 --> 00:13:23.730
Yeah, I think that is that a fair sort of summary, or at least like that's the one that's

00:13:23.730 --> 00:13:26.690
sort of why we're complicated, right?

00:13:26.770 --> 00:13:30.530
Like there's it, it's we're very biased to think intelligence is a good thing, but in some

00:13:30.530 --> 00:13:34.700
sense, from a biological perspective, it's very costly because of time and energy.

00:13:34.780 --> 00:13:40.300
And it's really we we we are we're sort of an unfortunate

00:13:40.300 --> 00:13:45.660
possibility space in organism space from a Dawkins perspective, in the sense of we have to

00:13:45.660 --> 00:13:49.580
be complicated because of the way we make a living, I guess.

00:13:49.900 --> 00:13:50.540
Right, right.

00:13:50.620 --> 00:13:51.100
Absolutely.

00:13:51.340 --> 00:13:51.580
Yeah.

00:13:51.660 --> 00:13:56.780
And you know, they're just things that don't translate very well in a canalized form from

00:13:56.780 --> 00:13:57.900
generation to generation.

00:13:57.980 --> 00:14:01.580
You know, um, you know, foraging, you mentioned, is a is a great example of that.

00:14:01.660 --> 00:14:03.930
Um, we forage in a lot of different niches.

00:14:04.250 --> 00:14:07.450
Um, and you know, eating the wrong thing could kill you.

00:14:07.610 --> 00:14:12.410
Um you have to learn how to process, you know, um different kinds of foods and um things

00:14:12.410 --> 00:14:16.650
like that, and all that is you know um happening through this developmental process.

00:14:16.970 --> 00:14:17.210
Right.

00:14:17.370 --> 00:14:21.850
So you can't build into the germline the information about how to make a living.

00:14:22.010 --> 00:14:25.850
So it's setting up these more open parameter systems, yeah.

00:14:26.170 --> 00:14:26.900
Yes, absolutely.

00:14:27.060 --> 00:14:30.900
And you certainly can't build in, you know, sort of, you know, mating systems and, you

00:14:30.900 --> 00:14:34.340
know, peer networks and, you know, all of those sorts of cultural things.

00:14:34.580 --> 00:14:35.060
Yeah.

00:14:35.620 --> 00:14:41.380
Is is a a a fruitful way of thinking about this in terms of the economics of energy uh

00:14:41.460 --> 00:14:46.740
and the endo endocrine system is you can think of them as kind of economic planners of, you

00:14:46.740 --> 00:14:50.500
know, uh channeling energy toward particular activities at particular life stages.

00:14:50.660 --> 00:14:55.290
So when you're in childhood, the best thing you want to do is invest energy in just eating

00:14:55.290 --> 00:14:55.850
and learning.

00:14:55.930 --> 00:14:57.290
Like that's that's your job.

00:14:57.450 --> 00:15:02.410
And then uh once you've eaten enough and learned enough, it's time to start competing for

00:15:02.410 --> 00:15:02.890
mates.

00:15:03.050 --> 00:15:07.930
And that and then you want to channel all the energy into sexually developing and competing

00:15:07.930 --> 00:15:11.450
for mates and entering you know so status games, whatever.

00:15:11.690 --> 00:15:16.810
Uh and then you know, once you get older, you have kids, um, you want to channel energy

00:15:16.810 --> 00:15:18.330
into investing in those kids.

00:15:18.490 --> 00:15:22.940
Uh for women, if you start to have grandkids, you might want to uh uh channel effort away

00:15:22.940 --> 00:15:26.940
from mating competition and into investing in the grandkids.

00:15:27.020 --> 00:15:33.020
Uh and behind each of these shifts in energy uh throughout the lifespan um are the

00:15:33.180 --> 00:15:39.100
uh the the endocrine mechanisms that uh uh that channel uh energy allocation in different

00:15:39.100 --> 00:15:39.500
directions.

00:15:39.660 --> 00:15:43.900
Is that uh a fair way of of describing the the evolutionary logic of it?

00:15:44.330 --> 00:15:45.050
Yes, absolutely.

00:15:45.210 --> 00:15:45.690
That's perfect.

00:15:45.770 --> 00:15:50.730
Um and the endocrine system really gives us an idea of how that energy is being distributed

00:15:50.810 --> 00:15:53.530
and and to what extent, you know, in in different domains.

00:15:53.690 --> 00:15:57.370
Um so that's why I love it is is that it really gives you an idea of what you know what is

00:15:57.370 --> 00:16:00.730
motivating that organism in that, you know, particular moment in time.

00:16:00.970 --> 00:16:01.130
Yeah.

00:16:01.290 --> 00:16:05.450
And I remember when I was a kid, uh I think it was like elementary school, there was like a

00:16:05.450 --> 00:16:05.770
poster.

00:16:05.850 --> 00:16:09.450
I have like a very vivid memory of it where I talked about the different stages of life.

00:16:09.760 --> 00:16:13.280
And I don't know, I don't know what source this was, but it was it was something like the

00:16:13.280 --> 00:16:17.600
equivalent of like, you know, it was like childhood play, like parenting, be productive.

00:16:17.760 --> 00:16:21.040
And I remember thinking, how do people know that?

00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:26.560
Like, I think my my implicit like kid model was sort of like I was maybe I was being blank

00:16:26.560 --> 00:16:29.040
slatey about it, but I was sort of like, How is it possible?

00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:33.840
I didn't have the vocabulary to say what I'm gonna say now, but what my question was was

00:16:34.310 --> 00:16:39.990
how is it possible that this the human uh lifespan is reliably

00:16:40.150 --> 00:16:44.870
developing enough that people can predict people's motivations at different times in their

00:16:44.870 --> 00:16:45.350
life?

00:16:45.590 --> 00:16:51.350
Um, and I think that that's I I imagine scientifically in the history of the sciences that

00:16:51.430 --> 00:16:53.990
that is a phenomenon to be explained.

00:16:54.150 --> 00:17:00.080
And I wonder, you know, I and and maybe this is a getting the segue into how you

00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:01.040
got into this.

00:17:01.200 --> 00:17:05.520
But I can imagine one way to approach or how to get into the endocrine system or an

00:17:05.520 --> 00:17:11.200
evolutionary approach to the endocrine system is to look at phenomena like reliably

00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:16.080
occurring different phases of life and start to ask well, why would that exist?

00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:16.880
Right.

00:17:17.120 --> 00:17:22.080
And another way is to sort of say, given an adaptive problem, what might not we be looking

00:17:22.080 --> 00:17:22.320
for?

00:17:22.400 --> 00:17:23.760
Or what might be missing?

00:17:23.840 --> 00:17:25.280
And you can kind of do both.

00:17:25.600 --> 00:17:31.530
How did you get interested in doing an endocrine informed psychology

00:17:31.530 --> 00:17:34.410
and marrying those two from an evolution perspective.

00:17:35.050 --> 00:17:40.490
And maybe this is relevant to the answer, but I'm also curious, sort of in that continuum

00:17:40.490 --> 00:17:45.450
of phenomenon first versus adaptive problem first,

00:17:46.490 --> 00:17:52.170
is is that is, you know, along that continuum, how is that informing that broader story of

00:17:52.170 --> 00:17:54.330
how you got interested in the endocrine system?

00:17:54.520 --> 00:17:54.680
Yeah.

00:17:54.920 --> 00:17:56.120
Yeah, that's a great question.

00:17:56.680 --> 00:18:01.000
So I really, you know, came through through this through through development.

00:18:01.320 --> 00:18:04.920
Not, you know, a lot of people, you know, sort of come at this through the mating context,

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:05.320
right?

00:18:05.400 --> 00:18:07.400
Um, and they get into interested in that.

00:18:07.640 --> 00:18:12.760
And um I think, you know, one of the things that I was really fascinated with as an even

00:18:12.760 --> 00:18:16.840
undergraduate student is the fact that that, you know, like you just mentioned, there is

00:18:16.840 --> 00:18:18.920
such universals in human development.

00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:21.160
Um, language is a is a perfect example of that.

00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:22.680
So we're exposed to different languages.

00:18:22.760 --> 00:18:25.090
Obviously, that the output is different.

00:18:25.490 --> 00:18:29.650
But if you look at kids across the world, they are reliably, you know, their first word

00:18:29.650 --> 00:18:31.330
comes about, you know, one year old.

00:18:31.410 --> 00:18:35.810
And you know, all of these things are very reliably sort of patterned.

00:18:36.050 --> 00:18:40.930
And then discovered that, you know, this marker of, you know, sort of where you're

00:18:40.930 --> 00:18:44.530
motivated happens to be, you know, really found in the endocrine system.

00:18:44.850 --> 00:18:49.100
That you can, it's a, you know, sort of different than like heart rate and and and things

00:18:49.100 --> 00:18:54.460
like that it's a much more sort of um broad measure of um sort of where is this individual

00:18:54.460 --> 00:19:00.460
attending um and uh that sort of thing so one of the the um things that you know

00:19:00.540 --> 00:19:05.260
and I could sort of explain um so you know some of the work that I've done in in my lab but

00:19:05.260 --> 00:19:10.910
also um related to you know drawing from from other folks um so Laura Stroud is a

00:19:10.910 --> 00:19:14.910
researcher that does just, you know, sort of biopsy um type stuff and doesn't really come

00:19:14.910 --> 00:19:18.670
at it from this, you know, sort of more evolutionarily informed perspective.

00:19:18.830 --> 00:19:24.590
Um, but um, one of the findings that um I was fascinated with early is there's sex

00:19:24.590 --> 00:19:29.470
differences in um, you know, particularly, you know, we're we all get stressed over a lot

00:19:29.470 --> 00:19:34.190
of the same things, but there's some things that men are more much more likely to at least

00:19:34.270 --> 00:19:38.500
show a stress response on if you ask them, it's essentially the same, but they show a

00:19:38.500 --> 00:19:41.060
stress response and then uh it's different for women.

00:19:41.460 --> 00:19:46.100
Um, and what's interesting about this is that doesn't show up, that different doesn't show

00:19:46.100 --> 00:19:47.220
up until puberty.

00:19:47.540 --> 00:19:51.780
So when you do, you know, kids on the in these paradigms, um, you don't see any sex

00:19:51.780 --> 00:19:56.820
differences, all of a sudden puberty comes in line, and you start seeing um these different

00:19:56.820 --> 00:20:01.620
responses in the stress response system, not in the in in um, you know, testosterone or

00:20:01.620 --> 00:20:03.300
estrogen and you know things like that.

00:20:03.540 --> 00:20:08.990
So they're tending to different um different aspects of their social

00:20:08.990 --> 00:20:09.870
environment.

00:20:10.190 --> 00:20:14.590
And, you know, a lot of these things are, you know, a lot of times people say, well, isn't

00:20:14.590 --> 00:20:15.710
that socialized, right?

00:20:16.270 --> 00:20:22.270
But it's, you know, we see it pretty reliably developing across different cultures and,

00:20:22.350 --> 00:20:25.790
you know, um, you know, replicated across time.

00:20:26.590 --> 00:20:31.950
So for example, men are more likely to show a stress response and boys,

00:20:32.190 --> 00:20:37.120
adolescent boys, over you know, these public achievement stressors, right?

00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:43.200
Anything that can, you know, sort of impact your status publicly, a public performance, you

00:20:43.200 --> 00:20:47.920
don't do well, that's that's going to initiate a really um really nice stress response.

00:20:48.160 --> 00:20:53.520
Women also show that, um, and and adolescent girls, um, but not to the extent that men do.

00:20:53.680 --> 00:20:59.120
Women are much more reactive to social rejection, um even very, very subtle forms of social

00:20:59.120 --> 00:20:59.520
rejection.

00:20:59.680 --> 00:21:04.490
And so um you could, you know, get people in a lab um and you have two confederates and

00:21:04.490 --> 00:21:08.490
they start talking to each other more so than the actual participant.

00:21:08.650 --> 00:21:12.730
So even that, they're not being rude, they're not, you know, physically rejecting her and

00:21:12.730 --> 00:21:16.090
things like that, just this beautiful nice stress response to that.

00:21:16.170 --> 00:21:17.370
Um people do not like it.

00:21:17.530 --> 00:21:22.040
The men in the situation, again, you know, will show some stress response, but not not to

00:21:22.040 --> 00:21:22.680
the extent.

00:21:22.840 --> 00:21:25.160
Um and those things are adaptively patterned.

00:21:25.400 --> 00:21:29.080
If you think about it right around you know adolescence, what you should be attending to,

00:21:29.240 --> 00:21:33.560
what men should be attending to is their public status, their explicit these status

00:21:33.560 --> 00:21:35.960
competitions and things like that.

00:21:36.040 --> 00:21:40.520
That should motivate their behavior to attend to these things, you know, sort of um be able

00:21:40.520 --> 00:21:43.850
to fix things, fix mistakes and those sorts of things.

00:21:43.930 --> 00:21:44.890
And the same thing for women.

00:21:44.970 --> 00:21:49.530
So social rejection has really big consequences starting in adolescence and then in

00:21:49.530 --> 00:21:50.170
adulthood.

00:21:50.490 --> 00:21:52.330
And so you should be attending to those things.

00:21:52.410 --> 00:21:57.130
And again, this motivates you to repair to some extent.

00:21:57.770 --> 00:22:01.770
Just to push on the social rejection versus public representation.

00:22:08.720 --> 00:22:13.520
has there been work sort of unpacking what exactly is the

00:22:13.520 --> 00:22:14.800
representation?

00:22:15.120 --> 00:22:16.800
Like I don't maybe, maybe not.

00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:22.880
I mean, because I I can think about it sort of as it's all status in at a at a sort of more

00:22:22.880 --> 00:22:24.240
abstract level.

00:22:24.640 --> 00:22:28.480
And and I think too, you mentioned that you know it's the socialization.

00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:34.010
There's been like a history of sort of there's been lazy evolutionizing and

00:22:34.330 --> 00:22:38.810
anti-evolutionizing in the past where it's sort of like, well, here's a behavior, is it

00:22:38.810 --> 00:22:39.770
learned or innate?

00:22:39.850 --> 00:22:40.010
Right.

00:22:40.170 --> 00:22:45.050
And I think the the the we're all doing the more complicated second wave thing of sort of

00:22:45.130 --> 00:22:50.730
there's some evolved representations, and there might be sex differences or even not about

00:22:50.970 --> 00:22:56.720
certain things being more problematic or putting more motivation behind, or this is sort of

00:22:56.720 --> 00:22:59.840
the north star of the control system, you know?

00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:02.880
And so I'm just wondering like they sound both like status.

00:23:02.960 --> 00:23:08.960
And I actually can't even uh tell apart maybe maybe it's sort of

00:23:08.960 --> 00:23:13.840
like a common knowledge versus I like I don't actually can't even reverse engineer exactly

00:23:13.840 --> 00:23:19.520
what's different between like I intuitively I get public uh status versus

00:23:19.670 --> 00:23:21.190
social rejection.

00:23:21.590 --> 00:23:26.870
But I can't actually I couldn't tell you a rope what the robotic software level difference

00:23:26.870 --> 00:23:28.230
between those two things are.

00:23:28.310 --> 00:23:28.470
Yeah.

00:23:28.710 --> 00:23:28.950
Right.

00:23:29.030 --> 00:23:29.190
Yeah.

00:23:29.270 --> 00:23:32.390
And you actually bring up a really great point is that they are both status.

00:23:32.550 --> 00:23:37.430
It's just, you know, sort of, you know, how we in psychology are used to measuring status

00:23:37.510 --> 00:23:38.310
um versus not.

00:23:38.390 --> 00:23:42.870
So we're not really, you know, used to having this more evolutionarily informed um aspect

00:23:42.870 --> 00:23:48.480
of like, you know, status for women is you know sort of this social acceptance and and sort

00:23:48.480 --> 00:23:52.560
of you know how you're valued in the group same thing for men it just is expressed it you

00:23:52.560 --> 00:23:56.880
know quite differently and so um these stressors that I was talking about are more like

00:23:56.880 --> 00:24:02.560
achievement stressors so as an example um you know participant comes in and they're asked

00:24:02.560 --> 00:24:08.160
to solve an unsolvable math problem um or memorize um a you know difficult passage like

00:24:08.160 --> 00:24:12.320
Paradise Lost or something like that and then repeat it um to the experimenter and then

00:24:12.320 --> 00:24:16.950
they see a confederate do quite well Um, so they're outperformed, um, essentially.

00:24:17.190 --> 00:24:22.150
And um, I think, you know, particularly for like skills, you know, you want to demonstrate

00:24:22.150 --> 00:24:26.950
that you're a skilled um member of your coalition, a valued potentially valued member of

00:24:26.950 --> 00:24:27.910
your coalition.

00:24:28.070 --> 00:24:31.990
Um, and and what that does is that just very publicly says, No, you're not.

00:24:32.150 --> 00:24:35.030
Uh so um I I I that's a great point.

00:24:35.110 --> 00:24:36.630
And that they're really both status.

00:24:36.710 --> 00:24:36.950
I see.

00:24:37.190 --> 00:24:38.390
Um it's just how it's expressed.

00:24:38.630 --> 00:24:41.670
And also, I guess it would be an opportunity for like aggression.

00:24:42.280 --> 00:24:47.320
because I also think like sometimes male aggression is sort of oafish in in public, right?

00:24:47.480 --> 00:24:49.160
Or it's sort of like, oh, you're stupid, right?

00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:50.600
Like and and yeah.

00:24:50.760 --> 00:24:53.000
So um it's interesting, but it's interesting, yeah.

00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:58.120
Like the burden would be to sort of um unpack exactly what the representation is.

00:24:58.280 --> 00:25:03.000
I'm guessing we're gonna bump up against that a lot because I imagine, because I would also

00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:07.880
like to ask about stress, is a lot of the constructs you've inherited and we've all

00:25:07.880 --> 00:25:13.590
inherited are not coming from an adaptationist or even selection pressure

00:25:13.750 --> 00:25:15.190
or adaptive problem first.

00:25:15.750 --> 00:25:21.350
And I and there's often sort of a uh instinct blindness or essentialism

00:25:21.670 --> 00:25:26.950
about it where it's intuitive, but that's a problem because then we don't really unpack

00:25:26.950 --> 00:25:27.590
what it is.

00:25:28.310 --> 00:25:32.500
Um so yeah, I mean is that true?

00:25:32.660 --> 00:25:33.540
You're saying yes.

00:25:33.620 --> 00:25:35.220
Is that absolutely yeah?

00:25:35.380 --> 00:25:40.340
Um and you know that much more so, obviously, in in sort of mainstream psychology than you

00:25:40.340 --> 00:25:41.300
know, um in our field.

00:25:41.380 --> 00:25:43.300
We we think a little bit differently about things.

00:25:43.460 --> 00:25:45.860
But um yeah, that's that's one thing that I come across a lot.

00:25:46.180 --> 00:25:46.340
Okay.

00:25:46.500 --> 00:25:52.340
I mean, maybe then this is a lead into then what is stress or is it even a thing?

00:25:52.660 --> 00:25:57.570
Um and it it's an intuitive and obvious and we all experience it.

00:25:57.650 --> 00:26:02.450
But then yes, can you disabuse us of the instinct blindness of stress?

00:26:02.690 --> 00:26:03.490
Yeah, absolutely.

00:26:03.650 --> 00:26:09.490
Well, and you bring a good a good point in that um oftentimes we're really poor reporters

00:26:09.490 --> 00:26:10.690
of our own stress.

00:26:10.930 --> 00:26:15.570
Um, so um there's a lot of you know things that are happening sort of under underneath um

00:26:15.730 --> 00:26:18.760
underneath the hood, so to speak, um, that we're not aware of.

00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:22.760
Um, and um adolescents in particular are really horrible.

00:26:22.920 --> 00:26:26.840
Um, reporters of of you know, sort of, you know, how stressed you feel, rated on one to

00:26:26.840 --> 00:26:28.440
ten, you know, um, that sort of thing.

00:26:28.680 --> 00:26:33.720
So uh and in terms of being bad at reporting this, is are you are you talking to about a

00:26:33.720 --> 00:26:38.680
disconnect between self reports of how stressed a person is versus a physiological

00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:39.160
response?

00:26:39.240 --> 00:26:39.400
Yes.

00:26:39.640 --> 00:26:43.400
Such that a person might say that they're not very stressed, but physiologically they're

00:26:43.400 --> 00:26:45.320
revealing uh indicators of stress.

00:26:45.480 --> 00:26:46.440
Is that what you're talking about?

00:26:46.750 --> 00:26:47.790
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

00:26:48.030 --> 00:26:49.870
More more commonly, it's the other way around.

00:26:49.950 --> 00:26:54.910
Um, so those like I'm very stressed, and and then you don't really see any physiological

00:26:54.910 --> 00:26:55.710
indicator of that.

00:26:55.870 --> 00:26:56.910
So interesting.

00:26:57.070 --> 00:26:58.110
Um yeah, yeah.

00:26:58.270 --> 00:27:02.910
But I I to answer your question of what is stress, you know, you can go way back to, you

00:27:02.910 --> 00:27:05.390
know, Hansele and, you know, things like that.

00:27:05.470 --> 00:27:10.360
And and, you know, essentially, you know, when the demands exceed the resources, you're

00:27:10.360 --> 00:27:14.440
going to experience, you know, sort of a disruption in homeostasis and you know, um, that

00:27:14.440 --> 00:27:14.920
sort of thing.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:21.000
So that basic definition is actually um really useful to build on, you know.

00:27:21.080 --> 00:27:26.680
Um obviously humans are much more complex than that, um, but um that's that's sort of you

00:27:26.680 --> 00:27:30.120
know the foundation um that I that I you go from.

00:27:30.440 --> 00:27:34.840
Um and it's also important to, you know, sort of differentiate the two different stress

00:27:34.840 --> 00:27:35.240
responses.

00:27:35.320 --> 00:27:38.680
So the autonomic nervous system versus the HPA axis.

00:27:38.950 --> 00:27:44.630
Um, so autonomic nervous system more into the, you know, sort of current stress, acute

00:27:44.630 --> 00:27:45.110
stress.

00:27:45.270 --> 00:27:49.510
Um, the HBA axis is more recruited when that doesn't work.

00:27:49.670 --> 00:27:54.790
Um, so um, you know, you're experiencing a stressor and whatever you're doing, um, maybe

00:27:54.790 --> 00:27:56.790
what you did last time isn't working this time.

00:27:56.870 --> 00:28:01.510
And so then you recruit the sort of more expensive system um that's going to produce

00:28:01.510 --> 00:28:07.420
cortisol that um can, you know, is associated with sort of reorganizing um

00:28:07.420 --> 00:28:08.380
neural networks.

00:28:08.540 --> 00:28:14.300
And so to some extent, I really don't like the word stress um because a lot of times what

00:28:14.300 --> 00:28:20.220
we're measuring is more like arousal, um, attention, focus, you know, um, those

00:28:20.220 --> 00:28:25.820
sorts of things, not necessarily, you know, sort of the what lay people um perceive as

00:28:25.820 --> 00:28:26.220
stress.

00:28:26.970 --> 00:28:31.690
Could could you have in theory a a positively valenced stress?

00:28:31.850 --> 00:28:35.850
Absolutely such that maybe maybe you found a really great mate and you're really excited

00:28:35.930 --> 00:28:40.730
and you can't stop thinking about the person uh and uh and it just fills you with energy.

00:28:41.210 --> 00:28:44.890
Would that be a kind of stress and would it show up physiologically as a stress response?

00:28:45.210 --> 00:28:45.610
It does.

00:28:45.770 --> 00:28:46.730
Um it sure does.

00:28:46.890 --> 00:28:51.530
Um so yeah the those people that are in the early stages of a romantic love when they're uh

00:28:51.530 --> 00:28:55.610
interacting with their partner, they they um show pretty nice stress response.

00:28:55.820 --> 00:29:01.260
Um also kids, um, for example, like you know, the day before Christmas, um, right, um, they

00:29:01.260 --> 00:29:07.260
might be, you know, and pr there's you know uh anticipating um this great event um

00:29:07.340 --> 00:29:11.180
and that sort of thing a lot of times they'll they'll um show pretty high cortisol levels

00:29:11.340 --> 00:29:11.980
but they're happy.

00:29:12.140 --> 00:29:15.900
You know the affect is is excitement and um that sort of thing.

00:29:16.300 --> 00:29:17.030
That's fascinating.

00:29:17.110 --> 00:29:21.270
I mean, it suggests one way in which our intuitive notion, our full concept of stress is

00:29:21.510 --> 00:29:24.550
wrong in many ways, that it doesn't necessarily always need to be negative.

00:29:24.630 --> 00:29:28.470
What it is is basically the body mobilizing energy to deal with something.

00:29:28.630 --> 00:29:32.070
And it could be mobilizing energy to deal with a bad thing or a good thing.

00:29:32.310 --> 00:29:32.550
Right.

00:29:32.710 --> 00:29:34.310
Um that's that's really interesting.

00:29:34.710 --> 00:29:35.670
It's kind of magical.

00:29:35.750 --> 00:29:41.280
I mean, in a way that it's obvious when you because we experience it, but it's sort of a

00:29:41.520 --> 00:29:47.520
system that's saying, like it's predicting based on informational cues in many cases, it's

00:29:47.680 --> 00:29:53.200
it's detecting a situation, and then it's creating in

00:29:53.200 --> 00:29:58.960
planning for future responses, um, and

00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:02.240
somehow knows what is more likely to be needed in the future.

00:30:02.610 --> 00:30:04.450
That's just sort of a magical thing, right?

00:30:04.690 --> 00:30:05.650
Yeah, yeah, it is.

00:30:05.730 --> 00:30:10.130
And it's, you know, sort of again happening all, you know, on the level of the brain to

00:30:10.130 --> 00:30:10.690
some extent.

00:30:10.850 --> 00:30:16.770
But yeah, and it's it's interesting in a way that we, yeah, uh the HPA access

00:30:16.930 --> 00:30:21.330
and cortisol in particular, the function of it is not necessarily, I mean, it does

00:30:21.330 --> 00:30:25.010
definitely mobilize, you know, resources and energy and things like that.

00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:29.880
it's also associated with destabilization of neural networks, um, particularly if you're

00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:31.160
under chronic stress.

00:30:31.320 --> 00:30:35.960
Um, and that, you know, a lot of times in in, you know, sort of mainstream psychology, they

00:30:35.960 --> 00:30:39.000
say, oh no, the stress, you know, the stress response system is dysregulated.

00:30:39.080 --> 00:30:40.200
We need to fix this.

00:30:40.520 --> 00:30:45.160
It's actually an adaptive process because what what the the cues that are coming in is what

00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:46.360
you're doing isn't working.

00:30:46.600 --> 00:30:47.240
Change.

00:30:48.040 --> 00:30:52.440
You know, find some different neural networks, find some different ways of approaching um

00:30:52.440 --> 00:30:53.240
the situation.

00:30:53.570 --> 00:30:53.730
Yeah.

00:30:53.890 --> 00:30:58.370
I think one of the themes of this podcast has been respecting phenomena.

00:30:58.530 --> 00:31:04.530
And this sounds very much like a uh to almost channel David here, like stress is bad,

00:31:04.690 --> 00:31:04.930
right?

00:31:05.090 --> 00:31:07.250
Like uh it's a bad it's bad stuff.

00:31:07.410 --> 00:31:08.530
We don't want bad stuff.

00:31:08.690 --> 00:31:14.690
And so anything associated with stress, we so deregulation, it sounds bad,

00:31:14.770 --> 00:31:14.930
right?

00:31:15.010 --> 00:31:17.810
It sounds like a tangle or something.

00:31:18.210 --> 00:31:22.610
But I is there, yeah, it sounds like what you're what I'm what I'm hearing you saying is

00:31:22.610 --> 00:31:28.060
that we should appreciate not only is it sort of not just in too many negatives,

00:31:28.300 --> 00:31:33.980
not only is it um maybe not just entropic, it might be smart.

00:31:34.220 --> 00:31:39.900
And we should at least respect and better understand what's going on first before we sort

00:31:39.900 --> 00:31:44.940
of in a patronizing way sort of say, well let's let's make sure we never get to stress, we

00:31:44.940 --> 00:31:46.540
never get to deregulation.

00:31:46.860 --> 00:31:47.180
Right.

00:31:47.340 --> 00:31:47.580
Right.

00:31:47.740 --> 00:31:48.620
Absolutely.

00:31:48.970 --> 00:31:50.570
So what is going on?

00:31:51.450 --> 00:31:52.090
Yeah.

00:31:52.410 --> 00:31:55.210
Uh or or maybe I mean maybe that's too broad of a thing.

00:31:55.290 --> 00:31:59.530
I mean I it seems like a lot of your work has been looking at very particular things, which

00:31:59.530 --> 00:32:01.050
is probably how the systems work.

00:32:01.210 --> 00:32:03.690
There's no general stress response.

00:32:03.850 --> 00:32:09.770
Um can you give us maybe an example or um uh and maybe that's part of the story is

00:32:09.770 --> 00:32:12.250
that maybe you're arguing with people who think stress is general.

00:32:12.410 --> 00:32:12.810
I don't know.

00:32:12.890 --> 00:32:14.250
Like yeah, can you yeah?

00:32:14.740 --> 00:32:15.060
Yeah.

00:32:15.220 --> 00:32:20.660
Um well I guess you know, most familiar to me is I I've done a lot of work um with uh

00:32:20.660 --> 00:32:26.340
female friends and um a a paradigm that is um trying to mimic sort of a

00:32:26.340 --> 00:32:31.060
naturalistic um you know sort of playoff that that happens a a lot with, you know, sort of

00:32:31.140 --> 00:32:36.740
um and particular this is to some extent um you know um limited to age, but not not

00:32:36.740 --> 00:32:37.220
exactly.

00:32:37.380 --> 00:32:43.300
So um with um what I've focused on in the lab is um processes related to co-rumination, for

00:32:43.300 --> 00:32:43.780
example.

00:32:43.860 --> 00:32:47.330
Um So you have friends that are coming together and they're discussing a problem that's

00:32:47.330 --> 00:32:51.890
outside of the dyad, but that is important to at least one member of the dyad.

00:32:52.450 --> 00:32:58.370
What is most interesting to me is that the friend whose problem it is not hers

00:32:58.850 --> 00:33:01.090
will also mount a stress response.

00:33:01.810 --> 00:33:05.170
And it's actually pretty consistent with her friends.

00:33:05.570 --> 00:33:10.860
And so what that tells me is what's going on there is part of it is not

00:33:10.860 --> 00:33:15.820
necessarily only to deal with our own, you know, sort of um scenarios, our own challenges

00:33:15.900 --> 00:33:17.100
and things like that.

00:33:17.340 --> 00:33:22.860
It's um to some extent to sort of, you know, uh prioritize another's um

00:33:23.100 --> 00:33:25.260
priorities, um, if that makes sense.

00:33:25.340 --> 00:33:26.940
And that what what does that do then?

00:33:27.100 --> 00:33:31.180
That helps bond you to that other person, you become, you know, sort of um, you know,

00:33:31.340 --> 00:33:36.570
loyalty increases, the relationship quality increases, even while the stress response is is

00:33:36.650 --> 00:33:38.010
is doing its thing.

00:33:38.250 --> 00:33:43.850
Um, and so um I you know, I think to some extent we can, you know, sort of look at it that

00:33:43.850 --> 00:33:44.090
way.

00:33:44.250 --> 00:33:49.370
Um, and the it it was sort of surprising to some people that that you know both friends

00:33:49.370 --> 00:33:50.970
mounted a stress response on this.

00:33:51.050 --> 00:33:54.970
But if you think about it, what you're doing is coordinating and you're, you know, um also

00:33:55.050 --> 00:33:56.730
this is informative to you, right?

00:33:56.970 --> 00:34:01.600
Um sort of helping your friends solve their particular problem, maybe you can, you know, um

00:34:01.600 --> 00:34:05.360
be faster, more effective um at solving that social problem in the future.

00:34:05.600 --> 00:34:09.440
Yeah, it's interesting because it reminds me too of again, this is sort of instinct

00:34:09.440 --> 00:34:14.480
blindness where you can imagine a simple model is you only have a real

00:34:14.480 --> 00:34:17.840
physiological reaction to things that involve you.

00:34:18.080 --> 00:34:22.190
But then of course, like, you know, like September 11th, like people have huge courtesy,

00:34:22.350 --> 00:34:24.110
you know, like super stress response.

00:34:24.190 --> 00:34:28.190
There's all kinds of, we know in popular culture, there's sort of like this is a disturbing

00:34:28.190 --> 00:34:28.430
video.

00:34:28.510 --> 00:34:30.030
Don't watch it if you do, you know.

00:34:30.190 --> 00:34:33.390
Like we, we, we are just swimming in emotional reactions.

00:34:33.470 --> 00:34:39.390
And arguably all most of our emotional reactions are third-party uh observations,

00:34:39.550 --> 00:34:39.870
right?

00:34:39.950 --> 00:34:41.630
Um, fortunately, probably.

00:34:41.790 --> 00:34:47.790
Um, so yeah, that's a really nice point to just sort of uh disabuse the the cartoonish view

00:34:47.870 --> 00:34:53.660
that sort of the the physiological stuff is really just for first person you know right

00:34:53.820 --> 00:34:57.820
yeah absolutely that's why we enjoy movies right that's why we enjoy you know sort of

00:34:57.820 --> 00:35:01.500
reading stories and things like that as you're vicariously you know sort of going through

00:35:01.500 --> 00:35:04.460
this um with this character without taking the risk yourself.

00:35:04.860 --> 00:35:10.770
So there's a stress response in response to this friend who so what

00:35:10.850 --> 00:35:15.490
what can you yeah so can you kind of continue what do you think is going on with that

00:35:15.490 --> 00:35:21.010
stress response what's that for even in that particular situation yeah um I think you know

00:35:21.090 --> 00:35:25.250
if you think about it the the other way so um for example you're talking with your friend

00:35:25.410 --> 00:35:29.730
and um your friend is just you know sort of apathetic and they're just you know looking

00:35:29.730 --> 00:35:34.440
away they're not really you know sort of engaged um that's not a good ally right?

00:35:34.520 --> 00:35:36.280
Um, that's not a good coalition partner.

00:35:36.440 --> 00:35:38.280
Um, and you know, um that sort of thing.

00:35:38.360 --> 00:35:42.760
So by showing that you're sort of, you know, you're engaged in this process, um, you're,

00:35:42.840 --> 00:35:47.560
you know, sort of um trying to unpack this with them, um, you know, maybe speculate um

00:35:47.560 --> 00:35:52.280
about the causes and consequences of this, you know, um system um and things like that,

00:35:52.520 --> 00:35:57.720
that um at least, you know, from some of the uh measures that we have, it's associated with

00:35:57.720 --> 00:36:00.030
them feeling closer afterwards.

00:36:00.350 --> 00:36:05.070
So they feel it it may be, you know, in part a sort of bonding situation.

00:36:05.310 --> 00:36:08.350
And um, I mean, you know, and we've all experienced that before.

00:36:08.430 --> 00:36:10.990
Like if we all experience the same stressor, right?

00:36:11.070 --> 00:36:13.870
Um, everybody feels a bit closer together.

00:36:14.030 --> 00:36:16.110
I was just talking to my graduate students about that.

00:36:16.190 --> 00:36:19.710
They're going through their quant sequence together and they feel very, you know, very

00:36:19.710 --> 00:36:24.510
bonded now that they're all nice and stressed and had to do their mentor and uh those sorts

00:36:24.510 --> 00:36:24.830
of things.

00:36:24.910 --> 00:36:30.020
And so you feel, you know, it's it's almost like um, you know, fitness interdependence um

00:36:30.180 --> 00:36:31.220
in a lot of ways.

00:36:31.300 --> 00:36:33.380
You're sort of you know showcasing that.

00:36:34.420 --> 00:36:35.780
So yeah, go ahead.

00:36:36.180 --> 00:36:39.460
It's it seems like w what what you're saying is I I buy this logic of fitness

00:36:39.460 --> 00:36:44.180
interdependence that if if our fates are intertwined, then what's bad for you is is bad for

00:36:44.180 --> 00:36:45.940
me and what's good for you is is good for me.

00:36:46.020 --> 00:36:49.700
I mean the simplest example of that would just be with kinship or you know, what's good for

00:36:49.700 --> 00:36:50.580
my daughter is good for me.

00:36:50.740 --> 00:36:52.500
When my daughter's happy, I'm I'm happy.

00:36:52.660 --> 00:36:57.910
But the same is true um with close friends, with close allies, there's

00:36:57.910 --> 00:36:59.030
interdependence there.

00:36:59.350 --> 00:37:03.030
But also, it seems like what you're saying is that part of the stress response may be a

00:37:03.030 --> 00:37:05.590
kind of costly signaling of interdependence.

00:37:05.750 --> 00:37:09.750
That if you tell me about your problems and I don't have a stress response and I'm blase

00:37:09.750 --> 00:37:13.590
about it and don't really react, I don't really pay attention, I look bored, I shrug it

00:37:13.590 --> 00:37:15.430
off, that's going to be a really bad sign.

00:37:15.990 --> 00:37:20.950
But if I uh am just as amped up as you are about the thing that you're dealing with and I'm

00:37:20.950 --> 00:37:25.140
just disturbed by it and appear to be having a stress response, then that is a costly and

00:37:25.140 --> 00:37:30.500
honest signal that I feel as if we are interdependent and that our faiths are

00:37:30.500 --> 00:37:31.380
intertwined.

00:37:31.460 --> 00:37:36.020
And in in this sense, the cost would be paid in terms of the energy I'm burning to have

00:37:36.020 --> 00:37:37.460
this stress response.

00:37:37.700 --> 00:37:40.900
Um is is that an accurate way of describing how you're thinking about it?

00:37:41.460 --> 00:37:42.500
Yes, absolutely.

00:37:42.740 --> 00:37:42.980
Yeah.

00:37:43.130 --> 00:37:46.490
And so it's a yeah, it's a it's a signal that, hey, I'm invested in you.

00:37:46.570 --> 00:37:48.010
Um, I am your ally.

00:37:48.170 --> 00:37:52.490
Um, and uh and and that's that's really important, particularly, you know, in some

00:37:52.490 --> 00:37:53.290
relationships.

00:37:53.690 --> 00:37:58.010
If stress is important, why do we feel like stress is bad?

00:37:58.330 --> 00:38:04.140
Why is it unpleasant to be I mean, I mean, as David pointed out, maybe the uh there's

00:38:04.140 --> 00:38:08.780
a version of stress that is, you know, like, oh, I'm madly in love, and I'm around, you

00:38:08.780 --> 00:38:08.860
know.

00:38:08.940 --> 00:38:13.340
I mean, I think maybe maybe arousal uh is the folk category, right?

00:38:13.500 --> 00:38:17.420
To um so maybe arousal is stress from a scientific perspective.

00:38:17.500 --> 00:38:22.380
But anyway, like why do we have at least half of arousal is quite negative and we call that

00:38:22.380 --> 00:38:22.620
stress?

00:38:23.100 --> 00:38:28.140
Why do we experience it as negative if it's so helpful from a functional perspective?

00:38:28.750 --> 00:38:32.750
Well, you know, I think if you think about like the emotion of fear, for example, like we

00:38:32.750 --> 00:38:36.270
don't like fear, we don't want to do, you know, um, we don't want to be afraid.

00:38:36.430 --> 00:38:40.270
Um, but it's really important that we have the capacity to do that, right?

00:38:40.350 --> 00:38:45.070
Um, and it's really important that, you know, and to some extent, you know, you can look at

00:38:45.070 --> 00:38:47.630
things like, you know, why do we watch horror movies?

00:38:47.790 --> 00:38:51.150
Um, why do we want to make ourselves we are deliberately scaring ourselves?

00:38:51.230 --> 00:38:53.200
Um, what is What is that about?

00:38:53.760 --> 00:38:57.520
And I I think, you know, and there's individual differences and tolerance for that and you

00:38:57.520 --> 00:38:58.320
know that sort of thing.

00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:02.320
But I think, you know, what that's showing is just it's a motivational system, you know.

00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:08.400
Um, and um when we are experiencing the more negatively valent stress, um, that

00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:13.840
motivates us to, you know, sort of terminate whatever is causing it, um, or move away from

00:39:13.840 --> 00:39:15.600
it, or you know, um, that sort of thing.

00:39:15.680 --> 00:39:17.360
But it's it's quite informative.

00:39:17.680 --> 00:39:23.490
Is it is is what you're saying that the design itself of the system that's

00:39:23.490 --> 00:39:29.410
detecting the current state of the system or the organism is not sufficient to deal

00:39:29.410 --> 00:39:30.770
with the challenge.

00:39:31.330 --> 00:39:36.530
That this detection of the discrepancy creates a um

00:39:37.410 --> 00:39:43.410
the motivation to change that into is is that it it tags that the current state is

00:39:43.410 --> 00:39:45.810
all of a sudden unpleasant, right?

00:39:45.970 --> 00:39:51.860
And that's part of the manifestation of all the engaged systems that are

00:39:51.860 --> 00:39:55.300
moving towards changing, if that makes sense.

00:39:55.380 --> 00:39:56.260
I mean, it's very abstract.

00:39:56.340 --> 00:39:56.740
I'm I don't know.

00:39:57.060 --> 00:39:58.260
Yeah, no, no, absolutely.

00:39:58.340 --> 00:40:02.820
But yeah, it's you know, it's adaptively calibrating your behavior to the context.

00:40:03.460 --> 00:40:09.300
Do people put them like I feel like this is there's also a mismatch thing where if

00:40:09.300 --> 00:40:15.230
you can avoid stressful situations, It seems like we would be designed to do

00:40:15.230 --> 00:40:20.590
so, but in an evolutionary environment, the range of sort of stressful situations we can

00:40:20.590 --> 00:40:26.430
avoid is maybe less, or maybe we have more control

00:40:26.430 --> 00:40:28.190
now to avoid stressful situations.

00:40:28.270 --> 00:40:34.160
Like I'm thinking, a good example of this is there's good research on anxiety or

00:40:34.160 --> 00:40:39.600
stress and kids' play, where if you have kids that are

00:40:39.600 --> 00:40:45.440
avoiding anxiety-inducing play or stressful situations like difficult things

00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:50.400
physically or socially, it can actually backfire and stunt development.

00:40:50.640 --> 00:40:50.880
Yes.

00:40:51.520 --> 00:40:56.240
Obviously there's a middle Goldilocks thing, like you don't want kids to be, you know,

00:40:56.550 --> 00:41:02.550
going through barbed wire or um being bullied to the point of you know abuse or something.

00:41:02.870 --> 00:41:08.790
But but you don't want to cover kids in pillows and just have them re see smiley faces

00:41:08.790 --> 00:41:10.710
and happy stories all the time either.

00:41:11.190 --> 00:41:16.950
Um so I wonder, is there a mismatch in terms of our the controllability of avoiding

00:41:16.950 --> 00:41:17.270
stress?

00:41:17.430 --> 00:41:19.270
Maybe even for adults that may be unhealthy.

00:41:19.350 --> 00:41:19.750
I don't know.

00:41:19.830 --> 00:41:20.070
Yeah.

00:41:20.320 --> 00:41:21.760
Yeah, no, absolutely it is.

00:41:21.840 --> 00:41:26.080
And I think, you know, uh adults try to do that for their children, right?

00:41:26.240 --> 00:41:29.680
Um, and and you know, you're right, it does cause problems.

00:41:29.840 --> 00:41:34.160
And so, you know, from developmental perspective, you want moderate stressors.

00:41:34.240 --> 00:41:39.920
Um, and you want to experience some stressors that are initially uncontrollable, um, that

00:41:39.920 --> 00:41:42.080
then move to the more controllable category.

00:41:42.160 --> 00:41:43.120
That's really the point, right?

00:41:43.200 --> 00:41:47.570
Is with coping skills and and things like that is this I can't control, but now I can

00:41:47.570 --> 00:41:48.610
control my reaction to it.

00:41:48.770 --> 00:41:50.690
I know what how to how to handle it.

00:41:50.930 --> 00:41:56.770
And um kids that don't have those experiences grow up to um have overactive stress

00:41:56.770 --> 00:42:01.250
response systems because it wasn't sort of inoculated during development.

00:42:01.410 --> 00:42:06.850
Um and so then they just, you know, the they are hyper reactive um to

00:42:07.170 --> 00:42:08.370
literally everything.

00:42:08.530 --> 00:42:12.290
Um so parents can, you know, if they bubble wrap their children, um, they're actually

00:42:12.290 --> 00:42:14.120
harming them by doing that.

00:42:14.280 --> 00:42:18.680
And we're starting to see that more and more because of, like you said, our ability to be

00:42:18.680 --> 00:42:22.920
able to protect and to, you know, sort of control our environments.

00:42:23.480 --> 00:42:28.520
What we're seeing is that kids are not able to really deal with some of these challenges

00:42:28.840 --> 00:42:33.560
that they're experiencing or just, you know, just normal, typical, not like you were

00:42:33.560 --> 00:42:37.170
talking about like bullying and things like that, but just normal, typical, like, you know,

00:42:37.250 --> 00:42:40.290
how do I respond to that comment from my friend?

00:42:40.370 --> 00:42:45.170
Um, you know, um without getting, you know, sort of upset and looking in the truer and, you

00:42:45.170 --> 00:42:46.370
know, um that sort of thing.

00:42:46.610 --> 00:42:46.850
Right.

00:42:47.010 --> 00:42:52.450
So sort of this is interesting because it it it gets into things like autonomy and feelings

00:42:52.450 --> 00:42:55.090
of re efficacy and responsibility.

00:42:55.410 --> 00:43:01.100
And the system sort of learns number one, I've learned how to deal with it in this k

00:43:01.340 --> 00:43:01.820
situation.

00:43:01.900 --> 00:43:07.740
Maybe the situation in an abstracted form uh will um uh will occur

00:43:07.740 --> 00:43:08.060
again.

00:43:08.140 --> 00:43:13.020
And then there's the meta thing of oh, I was stressed, I felt like I couldn't solve a

00:43:13.020 --> 00:43:13.340
problem.

00:43:13.740 --> 00:43:16.140
Um, but then I I was able to figure it out.

00:43:16.220 --> 00:43:20.540
Right, or there's a so it it it I'm just sort of fleshing out what you've already said that

00:43:20.540 --> 00:43:25.180
you sort of inoculate or learn that you can handle situations, yeah.

00:43:26.090 --> 00:43:26.410
Right.

00:43:26.570 --> 00:43:32.410
I mean we we talked about this a bit in the episode with um Colton Scribble Curiosity

00:43:32.570 --> 00:43:36.010
and how we sort of learn how to self-regulate the more we expose ourselves.

00:43:39.370 --> 00:43:45.130
Um and the and the way I was tr trying to understand it was um there is uh

00:43:45.210 --> 00:43:50.090
a challenge in terms of burning the right amount of energy to deal with the challenge that

00:43:50.090 --> 00:43:50.890
you're facing.

00:43:51.050 --> 00:43:55.520
And that may be when there's a lot of uncertainty Uh uh, and you and you're dealing with

00:43:55.520 --> 00:43:59.840
something for the first time and you don't really know what's going to happen, our body

00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:02.800
errs on the side of overproducing energy.

00:44:03.040 --> 00:44:08.480
And then the more we encounter that situation again and again, and we get and we learn more

00:44:08.480 --> 00:44:12.480
about it and the types of things that are likely to happen, our body gets better at

00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:16.080
producing the right amount of energy and it's less likely to overproduce.

00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:20.230
And so what what we we might intuitively understand that is like learning how to

00:44:20.230 --> 00:44:21.270
self-regulate.

00:44:21.750 --> 00:44:27.670
But I think if you go into the nuts and bolts, it's uh it may be more insightfully

00:44:27.670 --> 00:44:32.470
viewed as the body learning more and more about this situation uh and and learning the

00:44:32.470 --> 00:44:38.240
appropriate level of of energy that is needed to to deal with this with

00:44:38.240 --> 00:44:38.560
threat.

00:44:38.640 --> 00:44:42.720
And in the beginning, it may overproduce, you know, because you know it's it's more costly

00:44:42.720 --> 00:44:44.880
to underproduce than than overproduce.

00:44:44.960 --> 00:44:48.640
Um but uh as as you learn more and more, you get the balance right.

00:44:48.880 --> 00:44:52.000
Um anyway, that that was the s the sort of hypothesis that we were throwing out with with

00:44:52.000 --> 00:44:52.400
Colton.

00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:54.400
I'm sure I'm curious if if you find that plausible.

00:44:54.880 --> 00:44:55.040
Yeah.

00:44:55.200 --> 00:44:56.480
Yeah, it's very plausible.

00:44:56.640 --> 00:45:00.640
Um and it's you know it's it's also related to sort of what I was talking about earlier,

00:45:00.720 --> 00:45:06.320
with cortisol being responsible for destabilization of neural networks, um, but also

00:45:06.320 --> 00:45:07.120
reconnection.

00:45:07.310 --> 00:45:12.270
Um, and so what on a neural level, what that looks like is now you have this synaptic

00:45:12.430 --> 00:45:17.550
pathways um to be able to quickly and and um easily, you know, sort of um deal with that

00:45:17.550 --> 00:45:20.270
particular threat, um, whereas you didn't before.

00:45:20.350 --> 00:45:26.030
Um and had you not, you know, had you not had that reaction, you wouldn't have had you know

00:45:26.110 --> 00:45:30.190
the energetic resources to be able to sort of you know disconnect those ineffective neural

00:45:30.190 --> 00:45:32.510
networks and reconnect more effective ones.

00:45:34.140 --> 00:45:38.700
I wanna get your take on on something that still puzzles me and that I find kind of

00:45:38.700 --> 00:45:42.380
mysterious as about stress.

00:45:42.620 --> 00:45:48.460
And it seems to me that there are that stress is kind of poor this

00:45:48.460 --> 00:45:53.020
is maybe this is an illusion and maybe it really is well designed, or if if this is a an

00:45:53.020 --> 00:45:54.460
example of mismatch.

00:45:54.700 --> 00:45:59.950
But it seems like for a lot of the things that stress us out, we don't really need to burn

00:45:59.950 --> 00:46:00.750
a lot of energy.

00:46:00.830 --> 00:46:04.270
And in fact, in many cases, it could be counterproductive to burn a lot of energy.

00:46:04.510 --> 00:46:09.710
So if I'm stressed out about a math test that I'm gonna take tomorrow, it seems like I

00:46:09.710 --> 00:46:13.310
don't really need a lot of energy to deal with that challenge.

00:46:13.470 --> 00:46:17.790
I don't, you know, I'm not gonna be running a marathon, I'm not gonna be um fighting with

00:46:17.790 --> 00:46:18.830
anybody physically.

00:46:19.150 --> 00:46:23.980
All I need to do is just remember the damn information and then regurgitate that

00:46:23.980 --> 00:46:25.180
information on the test.

00:46:25.340 --> 00:46:29.900
Uh it seems like you know, burning a bunch of energy is just not going to help me deal with

00:46:29.900 --> 00:46:30.540
that challenge.

00:46:30.700 --> 00:46:35.500
In fact, it could uh impair my ability to deal with that challenge insofar as it prevents

00:46:35.500 --> 00:46:39.820
me from sleeping uh and actually, you know, retaining and consolidating the information

00:46:39.820 --> 00:46:44.140
that I've learned uh and and and being cognitively capable the next day.

00:46:44.610 --> 00:46:48.530
It seems like there are a lot of examples like that where our body is burning a lot of

00:46:48.530 --> 00:46:53.090
energy to deal with a challenge that is fundamentally cognitive rather than physical.

00:46:53.490 --> 00:46:57.250
And yet the the body is treating it as if it were physical.

00:46:57.730 --> 00:47:00.130
And to me that seems kind of maladaptive.

00:47:00.210 --> 00:47:05.490
It seems like the body should be good at uh estimating when it's necessary to burn energy

00:47:05.490 --> 00:47:06.050
and when it isn't.

00:47:06.210 --> 00:47:09.810
It should be stingy with with uh investments of energy.

00:47:09.970 --> 00:47:11.640
Do you am I missing something here?

00:47:11.720 --> 00:47:14.200
Is there is there hidden design here that I'm not seeing?

00:47:14.280 --> 00:47:16.200
Is this a an example of mismatch?

00:47:16.360 --> 00:47:18.200
Uh wha what what what is your take on this?

00:47:18.600 --> 00:47:20.200
No, I think that that's a great point.

00:47:20.280 --> 00:47:22.200
Um it to so it's both.

00:47:22.280 --> 00:47:24.360
Um to some extent it is mismatch.

00:47:24.440 --> 00:47:28.040
Um I think, but what you just described is sort of, you know, um very consistent with like

00:47:28.040 --> 00:47:33.800
Sopolsky's view um of the human stress response anyway, as being just basically like just

00:47:33.800 --> 00:47:35.320
overshooting all the time.

00:47:35.950 --> 00:47:41.070
And we're, you know, sort of misinterpreting these social situations as as being really

00:47:41.070 --> 00:47:42.030
impactful.

00:47:42.750 --> 00:47:48.590
I think I would argue that, you know, being, you know, sort of, you

00:47:48.590 --> 00:47:54.350
know, way super stressed over a math test is probably not a great use of

00:47:54.910 --> 00:47:55.630
your resources.

00:47:55.790 --> 00:48:01.150
But what you're what we're cueing on are these much more, you know, sort of older sort of

00:48:01.150 --> 00:48:06.140
perspectives of, you know, the way that others view me is important.

00:48:06.700 --> 00:48:12.620
And it's important as far as what skills I'm bringing to the group, how valuable I am

00:48:12.620 --> 00:48:14.060
as a coalition member.

00:48:14.620 --> 00:48:20.380
And so these social evaluative sort of threats are, you know, you know, should be,

00:48:20.540 --> 00:48:23.740
should reliably activate the stress response system.

00:48:23.820 --> 00:48:24.780
Now, do we overshoot?

00:48:24.940 --> 00:48:25.580
Absolutely.

00:48:25.980 --> 00:48:26.460
We do.

00:48:26.620 --> 00:48:32.540
So I, you know, we've done a study with um students in uh speech classes, um, for example.

00:48:32.700 --> 00:48:36.970
They they um you know know, mount this beautiful stress response and also an immune

00:48:36.970 --> 00:48:39.930
response to giving a stress in front of their class.

00:48:40.090 --> 00:48:43.930
Now, nobody, I mean, you know, I haven't heard of anybody, at least at my university, of

00:48:43.930 --> 00:48:48.650
like, you know, throwing daggers or anything like that at people that either, you know, do

00:48:48.650 --> 00:48:51.290
well or don't do well, you know, um in their speeches.

00:48:51.450 --> 00:48:56.650
But I think what that's cueing on is this sort of, you know, what others think of me is

00:48:56.650 --> 00:48:59.850
important um and my performance is important.

00:49:00.540 --> 00:49:05.180
And so what the stress response system is doing there is motivating you to prepare,

00:49:05.340 --> 00:49:07.980
motivating you to better your skill set.

00:49:08.060 --> 00:49:13.660
Um so if you think about, for example, um, you know, if you weren't if you weren't stressed

00:49:13.660 --> 00:49:15.980
about the math test, um, would you study?

00:49:16.140 --> 00:49:20.940
You know, um, does this, you know, sort of motivate you towards or away from important

00:49:20.940 --> 00:49:21.500
outcomes?

00:49:21.740 --> 00:49:21.980
Yeah.

00:49:22.220 --> 00:49:27.810
Um uh I'm I I could I'm gonna make a comment about Robert Sapolsky, but I'm not gonna do

00:49:27.810 --> 00:49:27.970
that.

00:49:28.130 --> 00:49:33.010
So um uh but what I'm gonna push back against the idea that we're overstressed too much,

00:49:33.250 --> 00:49:38.130
which is if you imagine the and I don't know if this is true, but if you imagine like the

00:49:38.130 --> 00:49:41.410
correct design of the system, there's there's two principles.

00:49:41.570 --> 00:49:46.690
One is there's sort of an error management perspective where if the whole point of stress

00:49:46.690 --> 00:49:52.440
is the situations detected where there are not sufficient resources to deal with

00:49:52.440 --> 00:49:58.120
it, it's necessarily by definition, there's the a curve a state

00:49:58.120 --> 00:50:04.040
initially of activating more than had been

00:50:04.040 --> 00:50:09.960
previously, and that is probably activating more systems than even will

00:50:09.960 --> 00:50:10.760
be in the future.

00:50:10.920 --> 00:50:14.590
So, for example, I'm learning how to rock climb.

00:50:15.310 --> 00:50:19.390
The moment I get to a difficult situation, I get really stressed and scared.

00:50:20.190 --> 00:50:26.030
Now, though, a lot of that stress and scared response is an error in the sense of

00:50:26.350 --> 00:50:32.270
when I become a really good rock climber, what that stress and scared response

00:50:32.270 --> 00:50:38.220
eventually causes me to do is a subset of all the systems that get

00:50:38.220 --> 00:50:42.300
turned on when I'm initially as a beginner scared and stressed.

00:50:42.540 --> 00:50:45.660
But the issue is I don't know that yet.

00:50:45.820 --> 00:50:49.980
And so there is definitionally like a turning on more of many systems.

00:50:50.060 --> 00:50:55.340
So you would think, even just baked into the design, it's going to look overactivated to

00:50:55.340 --> 00:51:00.300
the extent it's turned on, because the whole point of turning it on is to go through and

00:51:00.300 --> 00:51:02.490
test do we need the system?

00:51:02.650 --> 00:51:03.450
Yes or no.

00:51:03.610 --> 00:51:09.530
And until the job of the stress system is to like wake everybody up

00:51:09.530 --> 00:51:13.690
in the mind and sort of go through and be like, are you going to be useful in this

00:51:13.690 --> 00:51:14.010
situation?

00:51:14.170 --> 00:51:15.210
Yes or no.

00:51:15.690 --> 00:51:21.050
And the process of waking everybody up is gonna look unefficient and

00:51:21.050 --> 00:51:25.690
overblown because that's the point, is you don't know who's gonna be relevant or not.

00:51:25.850 --> 00:51:29.050
And the second thing is, um, and I'm curious what you think about that.

00:51:29.130 --> 00:51:34.700
And the second thing is you could also imagine a good design feature would be to scale

00:51:35.340 --> 00:51:36.940
to the variation.

00:51:37.180 --> 00:51:42.940
So I think an a concrete way to put this would be yeah, why are kids worried about math

00:51:42.940 --> 00:51:45.020
tests if they were in combat?

00:51:45.340 --> 00:51:48.460
They would think like worrying about the math test would be stupid.

00:51:48.940 --> 00:51:54.750
But you would imagine that, yeah, if you put a person in combat, it would rescale to what

00:51:54.750 --> 00:51:56.670
is the most important thing right now.

00:51:56.990 --> 00:51:58.750
But that's a design feature, right?

00:51:58.830 --> 00:52:04.830
Like it's like it we shouldn't be designed to sort of say, well, what's the range of stress

00:52:04.830 --> 00:52:06.750
every human on earth is experiencing?

00:52:06.830 --> 00:52:10.590
And then I should put myself objectively on that scale.

00:52:10.830 --> 00:52:15.600
No, if I'm a rich brat and like the worst thing that can happen to me is like my filet

00:52:15.600 --> 00:52:17.200
mignon isn't made the way I want it.

00:52:17.360 --> 00:52:20.960
I mean it sucks socially and like morally we can like poo poo that.

00:52:21.200 --> 00:52:25.600
But like it seems like a well evolved design system to sort of be like, look at the range

00:52:25.600 --> 00:52:30.480
of likely things and then like the things that are the worst, you have that system.

00:52:30.560 --> 00:52:31.840
Why wouldn't you use that system?

00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:35.680
So like I actually would push back against that it's a bad design.

00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:40.830
I can you can see why people would moralize that, but it it strikes me as actually a really

00:52:40.830 --> 00:52:46.030
good design to sort of just um use up the variation that the system is

00:52:46.030 --> 00:52:48.510
experiencing um in that way.

00:52:48.830 --> 00:52:49.950
Yeah, no, absolutely.

00:52:50.030 --> 00:52:52.510
And that's you know, I do disagree with Sabolski on that.

00:52:52.590 --> 00:52:54.350
Um, that it's you know, um, this bad design.

00:52:54.510 --> 00:52:55.950
It's it's perfectly well designed.

00:52:56.030 --> 00:53:00.030
Um, that's exactly what you would expect, is to, like you said, sort of recruit all of

00:53:00.030 --> 00:53:02.110
these systems in a novel situation.

00:53:02.350 --> 00:53:07.310
Um, and you know, when we experience novelty, then that's you know, sort of all systems go.

00:53:07.520 --> 00:53:12.160
um, when it's a more familiar or habituated you know sort of context, um, then you know

00:53:12.240 --> 00:53:15.920
there's there's less need to sort of re you know recruit all of these um different

00:53:15.920 --> 00:53:16.480
resources.

00:53:16.640 --> 00:53:16.800
Yeah.

00:53:16.960 --> 00:53:20.240
And I mean I will I I will say like as a parent, you know, I'm all the time with my son.

00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:21.840
I'm like, oh you don't have to react this strongly.

00:53:22.000 --> 00:53:23.920
So like I, you know, I take my science hat off.

00:53:24.080 --> 00:53:25.600
But I can see I can see both sides.

00:53:25.680 --> 00:53:25.840
Yeah.

00:53:26.320 --> 00:53:26.480
Yeah.

00:53:26.560 --> 00:53:26.720
Yeah.

00:53:26.800 --> 00:53:27.200
Absolutely.

00:53:27.360 --> 00:53:32.880
But you know, I on yeah, on some to some extent there, you know, this these mismatches um

00:53:33.040 --> 00:53:36.170
do, you know, sort of um there there's a point there, right?

00:53:36.250 --> 00:53:40.090
Um, and that, you know, yes, we, you know, we it's probably adaptive to get at least a

00:53:40.090 --> 00:53:44.010
little stressed over the mass test, um, because that's that's gonna lead to some important

00:53:44.010 --> 00:53:45.050
outcomes later.

00:53:45.210 --> 00:53:51.050
Um, but at the same time, we have the ability now to socially compare ourselves to groups

00:53:51.050 --> 00:53:56.250
that are, you know, uh infinitely more um larger than um in our evolutionary past.

00:53:56.410 --> 00:53:59.770
And so I think that that then sometimes can create a mismatch.

00:54:00.010 --> 00:54:00.250
Yeah.

00:54:00.410 --> 00:54:05.860
I think a lot of advertising or uh in the marketplace of sort of

00:54:05.860 --> 00:54:06.420
attention.

00:54:06.500 --> 00:54:10.580
The people some people have called this sort of what is it like an attention market, where

00:54:10.820 --> 00:54:15.220
really what's being um sought is people's time and attention now.

00:54:15.700 --> 00:54:21.620
That's evolutionarily recurrent stressors are really, as

00:54:21.620 --> 00:54:24.340
you would expect, really good at capturing attention.

00:54:24.500 --> 00:54:27.870
You know, like one thing I always think about is I remember what the Weather Channel used

00:54:27.870 --> 00:54:29.310
to be like and what it's like now.

00:54:29.630 --> 00:54:33.870
And I like if I look at the Weather Channel website, I'm like convinced that like there's

00:54:33.870 --> 00:54:36.590
going to be like apocalypse any day now.

00:54:36.750 --> 00:54:39.070
And you know, 15 years ago it wasn't like that.

00:54:39.230 --> 00:54:44.350
And I just view that as sort of a result of this market of needing people's attention.

00:54:44.670 --> 00:54:49.790
And one can make an argument that a lot of news and a lot of political discourse is like

00:54:49.790 --> 00:54:50.430
that too.

00:54:50.590 --> 00:54:56.500
So I actually I I wonder, um, or I would imagine the stress system or understanding its

00:54:56.500 --> 00:55:02.260
inputs is actually going to be really important for understanding um these larger issues of

00:55:02.260 --> 00:55:08.180
what social representations or content gets um public or people

00:55:08.180 --> 00:55:09.140
find interesting even.

00:55:09.380 --> 00:55:09.620
Uh-huh.

00:55:09.700 --> 00:55:10.900
Oh yeah, absolutely.

00:55:11.060 --> 00:55:15.300
Um yeah, don't tell um some of those companies at Instagram and and things like that.

00:55:15.380 --> 00:55:17.780
They could definitely recruit Well, they're already doing it.

00:55:17.860 --> 00:55:21.380
Yeah, but I would think the basic science would correct against it and be like, look,

00:55:21.460 --> 00:55:24.070
they're actually using our endocrine system against us.

00:55:24.390 --> 00:55:27.190
Um and and that's part of why they're doing what they're doing.

00:55:27.350 --> 00:55:28.630
They probably don't know that they're doing it.

00:55:28.710 --> 00:55:30.470
That's just they're just A B testing, right?

00:55:30.790 --> 00:55:31.830
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:55:31.990 --> 00:55:35.830
But that's, you know, that's and you know, on social media, that's why, you know, sort of,

00:55:35.910 --> 00:55:39.990
you know, things are sensationalized and and you know, this rage, like we we pay attention

00:55:39.990 --> 00:55:41.430
to things that are enraging, right?

00:55:41.670 --> 00:55:43.270
Why would why are we doing that to ourselves?

00:55:43.350 --> 00:55:44.310
It's ridiculous.

00:55:44.580 --> 00:55:49.620
Um, and a lot of times these are things that don't impact us on a day-to-day basis.

00:55:49.780 --> 00:55:54.340
Um, but we are still, you know, sort of recruiting this, you know, absolute rage at these

00:55:54.340 --> 00:55:58.420
people and spend hours online, you know, arguing with strangers who we'll never meet and

00:55:58.420 --> 00:56:02.420
we'll never, you know, sort of have, you know, these um interdependent um relationships

00:56:02.420 --> 00:56:02.740
with.

00:56:02.900 --> 00:56:08.020
Um, but I think it's a it's just a design of the human mind of, you know, when this content

00:56:08.020 --> 00:56:10.420
is in front of me, um, so it must be important.

00:56:11.650 --> 00:56:12.290
It's interesting.

00:56:12.370 --> 00:56:16.290
I mean, when I when I think about stress, I I usually think about it in terms of its

00:56:16.290 --> 00:56:17.330
effects on the body.

00:56:17.410 --> 00:56:22.210
Um, you know, your heart races, your muscles tense up, your blood pressure increases.

00:56:22.450 --> 00:56:27.570
Um, but I haven't it's hard for me to wrap my hand around, you know, the fact that it might

00:56:27.570 --> 00:56:29.250
also impact the brain.

00:56:29.490 --> 00:56:35.280
Um is there thing are there things that the brain can do when

00:56:35.280 --> 00:56:40.880
it gets a jolt of energy from a stress response that it could not have otherwise done?

00:56:41.120 --> 00:56:44.400
Does stress uh change cognition?

00:56:44.560 --> 00:56:46.560
Does it change neural processing?

00:56:46.720 --> 00:56:52.320
Uh is is in some ways do we need energy to cognitively deal with the challenge as well as

00:56:52.320 --> 00:56:53.840
physically deal with the challenge?

00:56:54.190 --> 00:56:54.990
Yes, absolutely.

00:56:55.150 --> 00:56:56.910
I mean, it regulates attention, right?

00:56:56.990 --> 00:57:00.830
Um it regulates arousal and attention towards, you know, one stimuli over another.

00:57:00.990 --> 00:57:04.030
You know, how do you prioritize all the stimuli in your environment?

00:57:04.190 --> 00:57:07.310
Um, that's that's part of what what does that um overall.

00:57:07.470 --> 00:57:11.470
So, um, and yeah, it it definitely gets this bad name because a lot of times we we have

00:57:11.470 --> 00:57:14.350
this icky feeling um when we feel that way.

00:57:14.430 --> 00:57:19.340
Um, but again, it's it's you know, it's really sort of, you know, working with these neural

00:57:19.340 --> 00:57:24.540
systems um to in in order to sort of you know help us attend to things that were you know

00:57:24.780 --> 00:57:30.780
recurrently threatening um perhaps or recurrently rewarding as well um yeah that's yeah no

00:57:31.420 --> 00:57:36.700
oh yeah David go ahead yeah I I'm just curious like what so like why why the brain needs

00:57:36.700 --> 00:57:38.620
energy to pay attention.

00:57:38.860 --> 00:57:44.510
Like in theory you could imagine the brain just you know just you know uh turns on the the

00:57:44.510 --> 00:57:49.070
attention networks and focuses on focuses on on this particular type of information in

00:57:49.070 --> 00:57:53.550
theory that shouldn't require any more energy than being distracted or unfocused.

00:57:53.950 --> 00:57:58.910
And yet it's it seems to be related to how energized you are and how focused you are.

00:57:59.070 --> 00:58:04.800
Is there something about attention that requires energy or is that or is energy intensive?

00:58:04.960 --> 00:58:08.640
I mean, just riffing about it, well, I'm thinking about it right now, like it could be that

00:58:08.640 --> 00:58:14.560
it takes energy to suppress systems that would otherwise uh take your attention away.

00:58:14.800 --> 00:58:19.760
Like um, you know, for example, if your stomach is empty and you're hungry if you're

00:58:19.760 --> 00:58:22.480
digesting or something, like that could just pull your attention away.

00:58:22.560 --> 00:58:26.160
And it takes some energy to shut down uh the that system.

00:58:26.470 --> 00:58:26.870
The process.

00:58:27.190 --> 00:58:30.470
You know, your your your feel your cravings, your appetites, your, you know, the the

00:58:30.470 --> 00:58:32.870
feelings going on in your stomach, like your digestive system.

00:58:32.950 --> 00:58:36.310
Like I know stress has effects on appetite and digestion.

00:58:36.470 --> 00:58:42.230
And it could be that the reason why attention requires energy is because it takes energy

00:58:42.230 --> 00:58:45.030
to to shut things down and suppress them.

00:58:45.270 --> 00:58:48.070
Did you do you buy that logic or is there something else going on in the relationship

00:58:49.030 --> 00:58:49.830
stress and attention?

00:58:50.390 --> 00:58:51.190
Yeah, absolutely.

00:58:51.430 --> 00:58:55.590
You have to inhibit things that are at least in the in the moment not immediately

00:58:55.590 --> 00:58:55.910
important.

00:58:56.180 --> 00:58:56.420
right?

00:58:56.580 --> 00:59:01.540
Um, and um that does take quite a bit of energy and you know, sort of prefrontal cortex

00:59:01.540 --> 00:59:05.860
activity um to be able to sort of, you know, uh again, sort of, you know, decide which

00:59:06.020 --> 00:59:07.300
which is a priority.

00:59:07.460 --> 00:59:11.780
Um, let's let's not worry about digestion right now, um, because you know, there's a spare

00:59:11.940 --> 00:59:17.780
coming or, you know, um, whatever, or, you know, I have to I have to give uh a a talk um

00:59:17.940 --> 00:59:18.980
and uh that sort of thing.

00:59:19.060 --> 00:59:24.470
So I need to allocate my my energy resources and and you know, neural networks cost cost a

00:59:24.470 --> 00:59:28.710
lot um they cost a lot of calories they're very expensive um so if you just think about it

00:59:28.710 --> 00:59:34.470
on a you know sort of cellular level um they're requiring energy to to fire even inhibition

00:59:34.550 --> 00:59:40.470
it's it's not just excitatory processes it's inhibitory processes also it it might also be

00:59:40.470 --> 00:59:46.140
the reverse um too which is that if there's a detection of an important

00:59:46.140 --> 00:59:51.420
situation, like a bear, or I'm about to give a talk, there's a lot of energy allocated to

00:59:51.500 --> 00:59:54.220
like just neck down stuff because it's important.

00:59:54.700 --> 01:00:00.700
But it's that the that's co-occurring with then the strong shift down in attention.

01:00:00.940 --> 01:00:06.940
And the idea is that such a strong shift or focus and attention is co-occurring with the

01:00:06.940 --> 01:00:12.810
detection of such an important situation that it uh um that

01:00:12.970 --> 01:00:16.490
that shutdown in attention is worthwhile, right?

01:00:16.810 --> 01:00:21.530
So, so it might just be like it's sort of like Rob Kurzman's idea of like, why do we have

01:00:21.530 --> 01:00:22.730
an experience of mental effort?

01:00:22.810 --> 01:00:27.210
It's not that there's any more calories used up by something that feels effortful or not,

01:00:27.290 --> 01:00:28.490
but there's an opportunity cost.

01:00:28.570 --> 01:00:30.010
And so that should be detected.

01:00:30.170 --> 01:00:34.170
So it might be that like we're aware of a real shutdown in attention.

01:00:34.410 --> 01:00:39.080
Like, oh my God, I, you know, I was performing on stage and I wasn't even aware of the

01:00:39.080 --> 01:00:42.840
crowd, you know, like I was just in the zone, or like, you know, I saw the bear and I

01:00:42.840 --> 01:00:43.960
didn't even think about what I was doing.

01:00:44.120 --> 01:00:50.040
Like we have this experience, but I but it but I wonder if it isn't that it it is

01:00:50.040 --> 01:00:55.800
more energetic, it's just that it's only in those situations that are really

01:00:56.120 --> 01:01:01.930
important that that are evolved psychology really directs attention very strongly,

01:01:02.170 --> 01:01:05.130
those also sometimes require energy too.

01:01:05.210 --> 01:01:08.970
But it's not that it's actually an energetic requirement.

01:01:09.130 --> 01:01:14.650
It's just that it's an important enough situation that it's worth reducing attention and

01:01:14.650 --> 01:01:15.770
most of the time it's not.

01:01:15.850 --> 01:01:21.290
And we're just aware that it's sort of weird um that our attention has been narrowed so

01:01:21.290 --> 01:01:21.450
much.

01:01:21.610 --> 01:01:22.810
Does that I don't know if that makes sense?

01:01:22.970 --> 01:01:24.330
Is that does make sense?

01:01:24.410 --> 01:01:25.530
Um to some extent.

01:01:25.610 --> 01:01:30.820
It's it's sort of a um, you know, yeah, uh going at it from from a slightly different

01:01:30.820 --> 01:01:31.060
angle.

01:01:31.140 --> 01:01:34.900
But yeah, it's uh we're using the same amount of energy, it's just how it's allocated.

01:01:35.060 --> 01:01:39.860
Um and most of the time we're not you we're not really aware of how our energy is is

01:01:39.860 --> 01:01:44.340
allocated unless we have this, you know, sort of system that is making it more more

01:01:44.340 --> 01:01:45.220
apparent to us.

01:01:45.940 --> 01:01:47.300
I want to throw another hypothesis out.

01:01:47.460 --> 01:01:53.170
I mean, could it be that um the restructuring of our

01:01:53.170 --> 01:01:55.090
neural networks is energy intensive.

01:01:55.570 --> 01:02:00.850
You mentioned earlier that stress can affect uh brain networks and can uh damage certain

01:02:00.850 --> 01:02:01.970
neural pathways.

01:02:02.210 --> 01:02:07.330
Um could it be that, you know, if I'm in a really important situation that I need to pay

01:02:07.330 --> 01:02:12.930
really close attention to and remember every single detail of it and totally uh revise my

01:02:12.930 --> 01:02:18.760
plans and strategies uh and and you know into the future, then I'm gonna have to

01:02:18.760 --> 01:02:21.480
restructure my brain a lot during that moment.

01:02:21.640 --> 01:02:23.480
Uh, and that itself requires energy.

01:02:23.560 --> 01:02:25.080
I have to construct new neural networks.

01:02:25.160 --> 01:02:30.440
I have to take in this information and uh, you know, uh store every detail of it so that I

01:02:30.440 --> 01:02:36.040
can use it later on, and so that I can use it to totally reorient uh my behavioral

01:02:36.040 --> 01:02:37.720
strategies going into the future.

01:02:37.880 --> 01:02:43.880
And so, could it be that the restructuring of brain networks and the retention of

01:02:43.880 --> 01:02:49.310
the information and the and the use of that information to guide long-term

01:02:49.310 --> 01:02:51.630
behavior is itself energy intensive.

01:02:51.710 --> 01:02:56.830
And that might explain the link between stress and attention.

01:02:57.310 --> 01:02:58.750
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

01:02:58.990 --> 01:03:03.470
And, you know, um, that's the thing, is that you we can look at that one way as like, you

01:03:03.470 --> 01:03:07.710
know, if you think about a stressful situation or maybe, you know, um social evaluative,

01:03:07.790 --> 01:03:11.390
maybe not you're you don't feel super stressed, but you're you know very roused and you

01:03:11.390 --> 01:03:13.230
know, very attentive to the situation.

01:03:13.390 --> 01:03:17.260
Um, afterwards you feel hungrier than you would have otherwise, right?

01:03:17.340 --> 01:03:22.460
Um and so it it there is that sort of process of of sort of, you know, I I expended some

01:03:22.460 --> 01:03:23.340
calories somehow.

01:03:23.500 --> 01:03:25.340
Um you did something.

01:03:25.580 --> 01:03:25.740
Yeah.

01:03:25.900 --> 01:03:30.060
And I like I don't this is all anecdotal, but like, you know, after I'm done teaching, for

01:03:30.060 --> 01:03:34.940
example, I'll just be like compulsive for an hour, you know, like in a way that if I hadn't

01:03:34.940 --> 01:03:37.100
been, you know, or just like I feel like I need a break.

01:03:37.260 --> 01:03:42.460
I just need to like and I don't know what I don't know what that is, and I don't know if

01:03:42.460 --> 01:03:46.430
there's like a good account of that, but I I feel like people talk about that a lot.

01:03:46.510 --> 01:03:49.790
We're like, you know, oh, or I didn't realize how stressed I was, but now that I'm coming

01:03:49.790 --> 01:03:51.790
down, I just need to relax for a while.

01:03:52.110 --> 01:03:55.710
Like, I mean, you can see how people have this like hydraulic model of things, but I mean

01:03:55.790 --> 01:03:57.070
clearly there's something to that, right?

01:03:57.150 --> 01:04:02.910
Like so I um, yeah, there there's still mysteries there in terms of describing sort of what

01:04:03.150 --> 01:04:05.070
what that means at a computational level.

01:04:05.230 --> 01:04:06.350
Like why do people have that?

01:04:06.510 --> 01:04:09.100
It's certainly a real thing at every scale, right?

01:04:09.180 --> 01:04:14.700
Like people come out of a super high stressful abusive relationship and they just like they

01:04:14.700 --> 01:04:20.060
have to unwind and they're, you know, like every scale of whether it's teaching for an hour

01:04:20.140 --> 01:04:24.380
or a year-long stressor or multi-year stressor or whatever.

01:04:24.540 --> 01:04:25.980
Um, it's interesting.

01:04:26.140 --> 01:04:30.460
And I feel like sometimes people poo-poo that hydraulic model thing, but I think there's

01:04:30.460 --> 01:04:33.210
something to it, but I don't know what would be going on there.

01:04:33.290 --> 01:04:33.530
Yeah.

01:04:33.770 --> 01:04:34.010
Yeah.

01:04:34.090 --> 01:04:35.450
No, I do think there's something to it.

01:04:35.530 --> 01:04:36.970
I don't think we understand it very well.

01:04:37.050 --> 01:04:40.650
And I think that goes back to, you know, sort of what you mentioned earlier is this mind

01:04:40.730 --> 01:04:41.450
blindness, right?

01:04:41.530 --> 01:04:44.490
A lot of this is happening, you know, on a very implicit level.

01:04:44.650 --> 01:04:49.210
Um, we really only bring it to explicit awareness when it's absolutely necessary.

01:04:49.530 --> 01:04:49.930
Yeah.

01:04:50.170 --> 01:04:51.370
It's really interesting.

01:04:51.690 --> 01:04:57.220
Um, some of this stuff starts to touch on things like you know um

01:04:57.540 --> 01:05:03.460
school performance or obesity or discounting the future, sort of

01:05:03.460 --> 01:05:09.380
things that as we as citizens or as social institutions sort of train

01:05:09.380 --> 01:05:15.300
people, we run up against the fact that people have adverse social situations,

01:05:15.460 --> 01:05:16.580
they get stressed.

01:05:16.740 --> 01:05:21.220
And then we're dealing with phenotypes that vary in how designed for a stressful

01:05:21.220 --> 01:05:22.420
environment they are.

01:05:22.580 --> 01:05:28.430
And I know some of your research has sort of touched on things like social adversity, and

01:05:28.670 --> 01:05:32.350
obviously it's a big political or social issue, as you would expect, right?

01:05:32.590 --> 01:05:38.590
Um can you talk maybe at least or give some uh flavors of what what those some

01:05:38.590 --> 01:05:43.070
of those areas of research are, what you've discovered that might be surprising to people,

01:05:43.150 --> 01:05:45.070
or just people who don't know the work?

01:05:45.470 --> 01:05:45.870
Yeah.

01:05:46.110 --> 01:05:51.760
Um, so it's interesting um to to me um that development has any sort of

01:05:51.760 --> 01:05:54.400
signature on, you know, the adult phenotype.

01:05:54.800 --> 01:05:59.600
And so just, you know, sort of starting from that perspective is why would we, why would we

01:05:59.600 --> 01:06:04.320
sort of, you know, calibrate our our, you know, attentional systems, our stress response

01:06:04.320 --> 01:06:09.040
systems and things like that in a childhood environment, you know, to something that's,

01:06:09.280 --> 01:06:10.800
that's um going to happen later.

01:06:10.960 --> 01:06:14.560
And, you know, there there's debate in the field about, you know, sort of the predicted

01:06:14.560 --> 01:06:20.170
value of childhood versus adult environment in our evolutionary past or even today and

01:06:20.330 --> 01:06:21.050
things like that.

01:06:21.290 --> 01:06:25.930
But one of the things that we found most is that all adversity isn't the same.

01:06:26.490 --> 01:06:30.010
And so, you know, sort of I'm talking about, you know, like if you're just in a low

01:06:30.010 --> 01:06:32.090
resource environment, yes, that's adverse.

01:06:32.250 --> 01:06:33.130
Um, that's not fun.

01:06:33.210 --> 01:06:34.490
Nobody wants to be there.

01:06:34.730 --> 01:06:39.770
But that doesn't leave the same signature on the stress response system as, say, an

01:06:39.770 --> 01:06:45.660
unpredictable social environment And so kids that are coming from, you know, sort

01:06:45.660 --> 01:06:51.500
of these more, I don't know, I don't want to use a value judgment, but chaotic is

01:06:51.740 --> 01:06:53.500
a lot of times the term that's used.

01:06:53.580 --> 01:06:56.300
These, you know, homes that are, you know, unpredictable, basically.

01:06:56.460 --> 01:07:00.700
Um they um maybe, you know, parents are unpredictable in their behavior, the resources are

01:07:00.700 --> 01:07:06.530
unpredictable, um, you know, those sorts of things, they seem to show a stress response

01:07:06.530 --> 01:07:09.090
system that's calibrated to that unpredictability.

01:07:09.410 --> 01:07:13.650
But what that does is that then pulls back, you know, you mentioned, you know, sort of

01:07:13.650 --> 01:07:19.410
future orientation that pulls that back to be able to, you know, develop that as a skill or

01:07:19.410 --> 01:07:24.770
something that is even worth developing, you know, your energy towards and because

01:07:25.250 --> 01:07:30.610
become much more, you know, sort of present focus, reward focus on you know what what's

01:07:30.610 --> 01:07:32.290
happening um in the immediate.

01:07:32.690 --> 01:07:34.740
Yeah, that makes sense given the design of the system.

01:07:34.820 --> 01:07:39.140
You're basically what you're saying, if if I understand correctly, is that if the whole

01:07:39.140 --> 01:07:44.580
point of the stress system is uh what's currently happening, you're not prepared for.

01:07:44.740 --> 01:07:49.700
And if the environment is non-stationary, meaning it's moving constantly moving, you're

01:07:49.700 --> 01:07:52.900
basically just telling the stress system you're gonna have to be active a lot.

01:07:53.350 --> 01:07:57.110
It's not rational to expect that the way the environment is today is gonna be like, you

01:07:57.110 --> 01:07:59.110
know, it's I'm just it's obvious I'm saying out loud.

01:07:59.190 --> 01:08:02.230
But yeah, no, it makes sense that that would that would be the case.

01:08:02.390 --> 01:08:08.310
Um, and I guess in a world where um, you know, if you wanna be a good worker in the

01:08:08.310 --> 01:08:14.070
widget factory and you want to be a good, even just collaborative partner, it's ideal to

01:08:14.070 --> 01:08:19.660
have somebody who whose calibrational settings are at

01:08:19.660 --> 01:08:24.620
least stable or not discounting the future to the extent that discounting the future means

01:08:24.620 --> 01:08:30.620
they might be more likely to want to exploit you for good or fair or not fair reasons.

01:08:30.700 --> 01:08:36.220
Like you can see where um social friction arises or value judgments come up from the people

01:08:36.220 --> 01:08:41.180
who have the luxury of not discounting the future sort of look down upon discounting the

01:08:41.180 --> 01:08:41.580
future.

01:08:43.180 --> 01:08:43.820
Yeah, for sure.

01:08:45.020 --> 01:08:45.430
Go ahead.

01:08:45.670 --> 01:08:45.910
Yeah.

01:08:46.150 --> 01:08:52.070
I mean it it it it's making me think of a a metaphor of like if you're on a a sailboat and

01:08:52.070 --> 01:08:56.870
there's really tumultuous and unpredictable weather such that there could be a storm at at

01:08:56.870 --> 01:09:01.510
any time, you're gonna want to have all hands on deck, you know, for most of that time just

01:09:01.510 --> 01:09:04.790
in case there's a huge tidal wave or there's a huge storm and you need to you know throw

01:09:04.790 --> 01:09:06.150
water out of the boat, right?

01:09:06.310 --> 01:09:09.160
But if you can perfectly predict the weather.

01:09:09.320 --> 01:09:13.160
Even if it's really bad weather, even if you know there's going to be a storm at this exact

01:09:13.160 --> 01:09:17.320
time for three hours, you can just sleep and then you can just be prepared for that storm.

01:09:17.720 --> 01:09:21.720
And so it's not really the storms per se that that are going to make you have the all hands

01:09:21.800 --> 01:09:22.760
on deck response.

01:09:22.920 --> 01:09:27.160
It's the unpredictability of when the storm is going to come that the n necessitates the

01:09:27.160 --> 01:09:28.760
all hands on deck response.

01:09:29.150 --> 01:09:31.230
Yeah, that's a that's a fantastic analogy.

01:09:31.310 --> 01:09:32.270
Um really really great.

01:09:32.430 --> 01:09:36.510
And one of the things that we see too, um, and some of my research has shown is those, you

01:09:36.510 --> 01:09:41.790
know, individuals from these really unpredictable environments, they don't get stressed

01:09:41.790 --> 01:09:45.870
over, you know, that we can send them through the trier social stress task, um, and they

01:09:45.870 --> 01:09:47.310
don't show any response.

01:09:47.470 --> 01:09:53.230
Um and a lot of it is because their systems are calibrated to um at least in our sample,

01:09:53.440 --> 01:09:55.200
they there was a lot of neighborhood violence.

01:09:55.280 --> 01:10:00.240
There was a lot of, you know, just unpredictability even in their young adult environment.

01:10:00.960 --> 01:10:04.960
And uh so this, you know, yeah, I can come in and you know do some math problems for you,

01:10:05.040 --> 01:10:05.520
no problem.

01:10:05.600 --> 01:10:10.480
Um that's not going to really impact my uh you know sort of survivability.

01:10:10.640 --> 01:10:15.680
Um but and you know sort of consistent with that we looked at their diurnal stress

01:10:15.680 --> 01:10:16.080
response.

01:10:16.160 --> 01:10:19.680
So we you know have an initial stress response in the morning and then it usually sort of

01:10:19.680 --> 01:10:20.800
declines throughout the day.

01:10:21.070 --> 01:10:25.470
with these individuals, it was it was sort of the opposite and that they got they ramped it

01:10:25.470 --> 01:10:26.830
up towards the end of the day.

01:10:27.070 --> 01:10:31.070
Um initially when I got that finding I couldn't really understand what was going on.

01:10:31.150 --> 01:10:34.590
Uh right it was like, you know, again, are are their systems just broken?

01:10:34.830 --> 01:10:36.590
Are they, you know, uh what are they doing?

01:10:36.750 --> 01:10:41.950
But if you look at their context, when are the things that are most likely um that are

01:10:41.950 --> 01:10:45.900
going to be bad to for you to happen in the evenings, right?

01:10:45.980 --> 01:10:50.140
Um if you if you're living in these, you know, sort of more violent neighborhoods, um, and

01:10:50.220 --> 01:10:55.020
you know, things like that, that's that's when, you know, um you're you need to be um sort

01:10:55.020 --> 01:10:55.580
of vigilant.

01:10:55.660 --> 01:10:56.540
You need to be aware.

01:10:56.620 --> 01:11:01.660
Um and so yeah, your your um analogy with a sailboat is is absolutely perfect for that.

01:11:01.980 --> 01:11:02.220
Yeah.

01:11:02.380 --> 01:11:02.700
Yeah.

01:11:02.940 --> 01:11:08.780
Um it it also it reminds me of of um some of the work that Daniel Nettle's done on obesity

01:11:08.780 --> 01:11:11.180
and the unpredictability of food.

01:11:11.340 --> 01:11:17.210
Um and what he's argued is that um the tendency of the body to store energy in

01:11:17.210 --> 01:11:22.330
the form of fat for the future is or may be caused by an

01:11:22.330 --> 01:11:27.770
unpredictability in the available food sources, such that if you're constantly skipping

01:11:27.770 --> 01:11:32.250
meals or if you're uncertain about where your next meal is going to come from, or if if at

01:11:32.250 --> 01:11:37.660
any moment you could just run out of food, then it becomes a really good bet for you to

01:11:37.660 --> 01:11:42.540
store energy on your body in the form of fat just in case food is going to be unavailable

01:11:42.540 --> 01:11:44.620
or insecure in the future.

01:11:44.780 --> 01:11:50.620
Uh, and so he has uh run uh a counter to this mismatch story that the reason

01:11:50.620 --> 01:11:54.540
why um we have this obesity problem is because we just can't control ourselves and we we

01:11:54.540 --> 01:11:55.740
shove the Twinkies in our mouth.

01:11:56.060 --> 01:11:59.820
But he's actually argued that there's actually more logic and sophistication to this

01:11:59.820 --> 01:12:04.770
system, that it's responding to reliable cues of uncertainty and food insecurity, and it's

01:12:04.770 --> 01:12:09.490
adaptively storing energy on the body for those kinds of ecological contexts.

01:12:09.810 --> 01:12:13.330
I'm curious if if there is any other research to back that up about the relationship

01:12:13.330 --> 01:12:16.930
between stress and eating and fat storage and obesity.

01:12:17.170 --> 01:12:17.250
Yeah.

01:12:17.570 --> 01:12:18.210
No, there is.

01:12:18.690 --> 01:12:22.690
And you know, also it's very consistent with you know future discounting and and and things

01:12:22.690 --> 01:12:22.930
like that.

01:12:23.010 --> 01:12:27.440
So childhood obesity, you know, we we see kids that are more impulsive, they're less able

01:12:27.440 --> 01:12:30.240
to wait for long-term rewards, you know, um, those sorts of things.

01:12:30.400 --> 01:12:35.040
The entire system is is sort of calibrated to the here and now, um, you know, because

01:12:35.360 --> 01:12:37.600
later, um, we'll worry about that later, right?

01:12:37.760 --> 01:12:40.960
Um to survive this moment um in particular.

01:12:41.200 --> 01:12:45.840
And um, you can even draw from, you know, like the studies with the Dutch hunger winner um

01:12:45.920 --> 01:12:46.800
and and things like that.

01:12:46.960 --> 01:12:51.520
So those um, you know, mothers when they were pregnant experienced um malnutrition, a lot

01:12:51.520 --> 01:12:54.310
of unpredictability, and things like that.

01:12:54.390 --> 01:12:56.470
And they followed them afterwards.

01:12:56.950 --> 01:13:01.270
And those kids were more prone to developing obesity, more prone to developing heart

01:13:01.270 --> 01:13:05.830
issues, you know, um, and those sorts of things because the signal that they got was, you

01:13:05.830 --> 01:13:07.350
know, there's not enough food.

01:13:07.430 --> 01:13:11.910
Um, and you need to, you know, really downregulate your metabolism um in order to take

01:13:11.910 --> 01:13:14.150
advantage of the calories that you do receive.

01:13:15.030 --> 01:13:15.350
Yeah.

01:13:15.560 --> 01:13:20.520
It's an it's an interesting thing too, and this comes up uh buses back to the magic point

01:13:20.680 --> 01:13:26.520
where I the the fact that our endocrine system interacts with our

01:13:26.520 --> 01:13:28.120
brain is really interesting.

01:13:28.280 --> 01:13:33.640
I mean, again, it's sort of stupid that I think that's interesting, but but it is because

01:13:33.880 --> 01:13:38.170
somehow our brains know how resources are unpredictable, right?

01:13:38.330 --> 01:13:42.650
Or I mean, so it for example, you might say, well, like maybe, you know, if my how often am

01:13:42.650 --> 01:13:43.050
I hungry?

01:13:43.130 --> 01:13:45.370
That feels like a very physiological thing.

01:13:45.530 --> 01:13:47.610
But there's a lot of things like social cues.

01:13:47.690 --> 01:13:49.850
There's probably a lot of cues of like how often do I see food?

01:13:49.930 --> 01:13:52.730
And if you don't believe that, well, like look at all the social reactions.

01:13:52.890 --> 01:13:55.850
Like, you know, you're not getting punched a lot, you know.

01:13:56.090 --> 01:14:00.720
And even if you are, like it matters whether or not somebody was like intending it or not.

01:14:00.880 --> 01:14:06.160
But a lot of things are just very abstract social or inner information processing cues of

01:14:06.240 --> 01:14:09.040
like what's the level of violence or conflict.

01:14:10.080 --> 01:14:15.440
And somehow this is having an effect not only in our brains, but also the rest of our body.

01:14:15.920 --> 01:14:21.920
It's a really fascinating idea that very abstract cues can have a

01:14:21.920 --> 01:14:27.290
very concrete, even developmental or kind of calibrational effect on us, like how much

01:14:27.290 --> 01:14:29.450
we're likely to store fat, for example.

01:14:30.010 --> 01:14:30.250
Right.

01:14:30.330 --> 01:14:30.810
Absolutely.

01:14:31.050 --> 01:14:34.570
Well, and that's, I think, you know, reflects the fact that we don't really, you know, not

01:14:34.570 --> 01:14:38.650
only do we not understand the brain as well as we think we do, um, but we particularly

01:14:38.650 --> 01:14:42.890
don't understand development and the developing brain like we think we do.

01:14:43.290 --> 01:14:48.570
Or as much as we think we do, kids are, you know, encoding much more information than we

01:14:48.570 --> 01:14:49.610
give them credit for.

01:14:49.880 --> 01:14:50.200
Yeah.

01:14:50.440 --> 01:14:54.600
Um, to just I would this is something I just bring it back to stress for a second.

01:14:54.920 --> 01:14:59.320
Um, have you thought about stress differently because of this work?

01:14:59.560 --> 01:15:04.120
So for example, like if somebody's listening and they're like, well, how can I help my kids

01:15:04.120 --> 01:15:04.920
be less stressed?

01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:10.920
Or like if somebody I care about is stressed, um, is there a reaction that's sort of the a

01:15:10.920 --> 01:15:12.600
better thing to do, a worse thing to do?

01:15:12.680 --> 01:15:14.440
Does it really depend on what the stressor is?

01:15:14.600 --> 01:15:18.230
Because I know like that's always, you know, we don't want our kids to be stressed, but

01:15:18.230 --> 01:15:22.630
then as you said, we want them to gr build the muscles of dealing with that.

01:15:22.870 --> 01:15:27.430
Um, do you think differently about stress, or like do you if does anybody ever ask you for

01:15:27.510 --> 01:15:32.790
like you know advice, maybe quote unquote, uh, or like how to approach

01:15:33.110 --> 01:15:35.430
stress among people we care about?

01:15:36.150 --> 01:15:36.470
Yeah.

01:15:37.000 --> 01:15:37.800
Yeah, for sure.

01:15:37.880 --> 01:15:39.400
Um, yeah, I get that question a lot.

01:15:39.560 --> 01:15:43.960
And um I think, you know, a lot of it really depends on on what the stressor is, you know,

01:15:44.040 --> 01:15:47.560
um, and then also, you know, what, you know, potential impact.

01:15:47.640 --> 01:15:51.960
And and, you know, we can talk about how good we are at at you know, sort of um forecasting

01:15:51.960 --> 01:15:56.920
this, but what potential impact that might have, you know, um on the individual as well.

01:15:57.080 --> 01:16:01.640
I think, you know, just taking kids, for example, um, a lot of you know, parents want to

01:16:01.640 --> 01:16:04.910
protect them from any sort of any sort of adversity, right?

01:16:04.990 --> 01:16:07.310
Um, or any sort of negative outcome.

01:16:07.630 --> 01:16:12.350
And um, you know, I could take, you know, homework uh as an example of that.

01:16:12.430 --> 01:16:15.710
Like, you know, parents sometimes will, you know, make sure that their kids do that, you

01:16:15.710 --> 01:16:20.030
know, homework, or um if they didn't turn it in, oh, can they, you know, can they turn it

01:16:20.030 --> 01:16:21.710
in, you know, for a grade now?

01:16:21.950 --> 01:16:22.910
And that sort of thing.

01:16:23.630 --> 01:16:29.360
I had with my oldest son, his teacher was actually shocked at a parent teacher

01:16:29.360 --> 01:16:31.760
conference because I told her, I said, I want you to fail him.

01:16:31.920 --> 01:16:33.600
I he didn't turn this stuff in.

01:16:33.760 --> 01:16:39.600
Um, so fail him because otherwise you don't ever learn to sort of mobilize those resources

01:16:40.000 --> 01:16:41.840
to be able to, you know, sort of make that happen.

01:16:42.000 --> 01:16:46.160
And then they become student college students that ask for extensions and, you know, um

01:16:46.320 --> 01:16:47.200
those sorts of things.

01:16:47.360 --> 01:16:52.650
But on, you know, sort of a bigger level to and particularly now, it's really difficult, I

01:16:52.650 --> 01:16:57.450
think, for parents to understand or to know what is a threat versus what isn't a threat,

01:16:57.530 --> 01:16:57.770
right?

01:16:57.850 --> 01:17:01.610
Um, and that's what you know, a lot of parents make the mistake of, you know, sort of like

01:17:01.610 --> 01:17:06.330
not letting their kids play outside, um, not letting them, you know, sort of experience

01:17:06.330 --> 01:17:10.170
some of these things on their own and having to, you know, deal with challenges of, you

01:17:10.170 --> 01:17:14.170
know, how do I cross the creek or you know, um, you know, those sorts of things, or how do

01:17:14.170 --> 01:17:18.460
I stay away from people that might be dangerous or situations that might be dangerous?

01:17:18.700 --> 01:17:21.020
And um, so they they keep them inside.

01:17:21.180 --> 01:17:22.300
Well, what are they doing inside?

01:17:22.380 --> 01:17:26.140
They're going on the internet and they're getting all sorts of, you know, um things that

01:17:26.140 --> 01:17:28.780
they shouldn't be exposed to and, you know, um that sort of thing.

01:17:28.860 --> 01:17:33.500
But parents perceive that uh as um, you know, being safer um and that sort of thing.

01:17:33.580 --> 01:17:37.500
So perception is a big, you know, um component to this, a big key to it.

01:17:38.230 --> 01:17:42.230
But I think, you know, sort of with other relationships, you know, um, that you might care

01:17:42.230 --> 01:17:45.990
about, I think it really depends a lot on, you know, the particular stressor.

01:17:46.150 --> 01:17:49.030
But what people are looking for is a coping mechanism, right?

01:17:49.110 --> 01:17:51.270
Um, of of how do I feel better about this?

01:17:51.430 --> 01:17:54.390
How do I solve this, you know, um particular problem.

01:17:54.630 --> 01:17:59.670
And to the extent that you can form an allyship or, you know, whatever, um, and and sort of

01:17:59.670 --> 01:18:02.470
helping them out, I think would would be um better about that.

01:18:02.630 --> 01:18:06.960
But um, like you mentioned before, it's it's difficult to sort of, you know, particularly

01:18:06.960 --> 01:18:09.920
in this day and age, to determine what what should I be stressed about.

01:18:10.000 --> 01:18:15.280
Um, you know, so for example, should we, you know, should we be worried about, you know, um

01:18:15.680 --> 01:18:18.480
how, you know, how much our colleagues are making, right?

01:18:18.560 --> 01:18:22.400
Um there's there's um people that will go in and look at, you know, salaries and um things

01:18:22.400 --> 01:18:22.960
like that.

01:18:23.200 --> 01:18:24.640
I would recommend no.

01:18:24.800 --> 01:18:28.790
Uh Than not being something.

01:18:28.870 --> 01:18:33.030
But what that's reflecting is that's reflecting a motivation towards, you know, um, towards

01:18:33.190 --> 01:18:34.070
status driving.

01:18:34.150 --> 01:18:39.830
Um and so if you could redirect that in a way that is, you know, um more controllable, then

01:18:39.830 --> 01:18:42.310
you're gonna see the stress response system damn down.

01:18:43.110 --> 01:18:48.630
So part of it is that the status or not, yeah, well, status is the example, but the stress

01:18:48.630 --> 01:18:54.280
system, in addition to our current situation, it's also a

01:18:54.280 --> 01:18:57.320
function of what the plans and goals are.

01:18:57.720 --> 01:19:02.920
So the same situation might not be stressful to one person versus another because of where

01:19:02.920 --> 01:19:07.240
their mental representations of where they're trying to get to are.

01:19:08.520 --> 01:19:09.160
Yeah.

01:19:09.640 --> 01:19:10.680
That's interesting.

01:19:10.840 --> 01:19:11.480
Yeah.

01:19:12.810 --> 01:19:13.370
Cool.

01:19:14.970 --> 01:19:20.250
Well, I think we're about uh getting to that time in the episode where we uh ask our

01:19:20.250 --> 01:19:25.770
canonical question, which is uh is there anything that we should have asked you or that we

01:19:25.770 --> 01:19:28.570
should have talked about that we have missed?

01:19:29.530 --> 01:19:31.690
Uh let me think about that for a second.

01:19:31.930 --> 01:19:35.700
Um sorry to stress you out.

01:19:35.940 --> 01:19:36.340
Yeah, no.

01:19:36.660 --> 01:19:40.980
No, because yeah, I know I know because there's lots of like specific studies you've done

01:19:41.060 --> 01:19:43.460
um too that we haven't really talked about.

01:19:43.700 --> 01:19:45.380
But I mean people can look on your website too.

01:19:45.460 --> 01:19:49.620
But yeah, if there's anything or yeah, any any question at all or anything that you're

01:19:49.620 --> 01:19:54.340
either currently working on or um you know, really yeah, yeah.

01:19:54.710 --> 01:19:55.030
Yeah.

01:19:55.270 --> 01:19:58.870
I think most of my current work, I have, you know, a couple different areas.

01:19:59.030 --> 01:20:03.990
Um, and um one thing that I think that people don't know enough about, or I don't know

01:20:03.990 --> 01:20:09.830
enough about, uh, we don't know enough about as a field, is, you know, um to say so I got

01:20:09.830 --> 01:20:13.910
into sex differences talking, you know, understanding sex differences sort of through this

01:20:13.910 --> 01:20:19.670
stress response um system interest um and uh that sort of thing, but also an interest about

01:20:19.670 --> 01:20:21.430
parenting and fatherhood.

01:20:22.440 --> 01:20:27.480
And so I think that that's you know sort of an area that that people we don't know enough

01:20:27.480 --> 01:20:27.800
about.

01:20:28.280 --> 01:20:32.840
We don't know enough about how fathers uniquely impact kids' development.

01:20:33.080 --> 01:20:38.520
And one of the ways that we think that may um be happening is actually through dads are

01:20:38.520 --> 01:20:43.720
more likely to, for example, you know, do rough and tumble play with their kids and you

01:20:43.720 --> 01:20:44.920
know um things like that.

01:20:45.090 --> 01:20:47.890
That's sort of a it's a low level, but it's a risk.

01:20:47.970 --> 01:20:52.050
Um and it's allowing kids to sort of, you know, get experience with, you know, sort of

01:20:52.050 --> 01:20:56.690
getting really aroused and coming right to that edge of aggression and pulling back and

01:20:56.930 --> 01:20:57.730
those sorts of things.

01:20:57.890 --> 01:21:02.290
And so um just you know sort of building from that, I don't I don't think that we know

01:21:02.290 --> 01:21:03.010
enough about that.

01:21:03.090 --> 01:21:07.650
And I wish more researchers would would sort of you know get in line with um sort of

01:21:07.650 --> 01:21:11.300
understanding what you know what is going on with human fatherhood.

01:21:11.380 --> 01:21:13.620
Um why why are dads even investing in all?

01:21:13.700 --> 01:21:16.980
And I realize there's a lot of, you know, there's variability in that investment.

01:21:17.060 --> 01:21:20.180
Um, but why are you for why are you spending all your energy that way?

01:21:20.340 --> 01:21:24.660
Um not even, you know, why are you not um, you know, seeking more mates, but just, you

01:21:24.660 --> 01:21:28.420
know, why are you not just, you know, um spending your energy making more money or, you

01:21:28.420 --> 01:21:32.500
know, having more fun, doing um things that why are we motivated um in that way?

01:21:32.660 --> 01:21:36.850
So um so yeah, that's that's you know one area that I'm sort of dabbling in.

01:21:37.010 --> 01:21:42.210
But interestingly, um, it's really difficult to get dads to participate um in research.

01:21:43.650 --> 01:21:48.530
Um, even though we know that they're doing all of these things, um, we we can't quite, you

01:21:48.530 --> 01:21:50.930
know, sort of um get it on an observational level.

01:21:51.090 --> 01:21:52.290
Um, so yeah, yeah.

01:21:52.530 --> 01:21:53.090
That's fantastic.

01:21:53.170 --> 01:21:57.330
Yeah, no, you're preaching to the choir as you're talking to two dads uh of young kids

01:21:57.330 --> 01:22:02.260
right now, and uh yeah, no, parenting psychology and dad um yeah psychology that's

01:22:02.260 --> 01:22:07.620
fantastic we should do like a special issue in eHB or something even if it's totally yeah I

01:22:07.620 --> 01:22:11.860
mean I I'm curious what you think about uh a change I noticed in myself after becoming a

01:22:11.860 --> 01:22:12.180
dad.

01:22:12.580 --> 01:22:18.420
Um I am now after becoming a dad much more likely to cry during movies um like movies that

01:22:18.420 --> 01:22:23.940
I saw before like I remember I saw Moana before becoming a dad and then after and I did not

01:22:24.090 --> 01:22:27.050
you know, have much of an emotional response when I first saw it.

01:22:27.130 --> 01:22:29.770
And then after becoming dead, I was like bawling during the entire movie.

01:22:29.930 --> 01:22:31.290
Like Yep.

01:22:31.450 --> 01:22:33.530
Uh your child changed your brain.

01:22:33.930 --> 01:22:34.970
Yeah, changed my brain.

01:22:35.130 --> 01:22:36.250
I uh it's it's it's weird.

01:22:36.330 --> 01:22:39.130
I don't know how to explain like why why crying during movies?

01:22:39.210 --> 01:22:43.050
I don't know what that's about, but um it's an interesting response I've noticed in myself.

01:22:43.450 --> 01:22:46.890
Yeah, I think that reflects, you know, just more empathetic sensitivity.

01:22:47.050 --> 01:22:49.260
Um and you know, you guys know this.

01:22:49.340 --> 01:22:54.380
And, you know, when I tell my college students that get very upset and worried about it is,

01:22:54.460 --> 01:22:59.820
you know, when you're a father, when you become a father, if you are investing, you

01:22:59.820 --> 01:23:02.540
experience a little decline in testosterone, right?

01:23:02.780 --> 01:23:06.460
So testosterone is negatively associated with empathy.

01:23:06.860 --> 01:23:11.660
And so it's probably, you know, an adaptive calibration there to become more sensitive to

01:23:11.660 --> 01:23:16.930
these social cues, particularly um, you know, of this individual that you're um should be

01:23:16.930 --> 01:23:18.370
really highly invested in.

01:23:19.010 --> 01:23:23.090
You can tell them that it's fantastic to experience a decrease in testosterone.

01:23:23.250 --> 01:23:27.570
As somebody who I feel like I had an excess of testosterone and I was like miserable, like

01:23:27.810 --> 01:23:30.610
falling out of my skin and I had it out of the kid and I'm like, this is awesome.

01:23:30.770 --> 01:23:34.370
I'm like I'm very glad to have less testosterone in my system.

01:23:34.690 --> 01:23:34.930
Yeah.

01:23:36.050 --> 01:23:41.820
Like it's it's a um you know parenting the parenting and uh the what what

01:23:41.820 --> 01:23:47.340
dads are doing and we've had some people on like Karen Kramer or Shina Lu Levy,

01:23:47.900 --> 01:23:52.940
this this idea that uh this second or third wave

01:23:52.940 --> 01:23:58.860
evolutionary approach to even even though we have to reproduction

01:23:58.860 --> 01:24:04.630
is important, the idea that investment in the social and

01:24:04.630 --> 01:24:10.630
physical capital of offspring really makes a big difference on their success and

01:24:10.630 --> 01:24:11.510
their status, right?

01:24:11.590 --> 01:24:16.870
Like we don't question the idea that investing in my own

01:24:16.870 --> 01:24:22.790
generation's resources and status is good fitness from a fitness perspective.

01:24:22.950 --> 01:24:28.550
But there used to be sort of this cartoonish idea that, well, if we just have kids,

01:24:28.950 --> 01:24:30.420
then that's all that matters.

01:24:30.500 --> 01:24:32.260
And like the number of kids is all that matters.

01:24:32.340 --> 01:24:37.540
But if you just follow the logic for yourself, then it's also it matters how many resources

01:24:38.420 --> 01:24:39.060
your kids have.

01:24:39.220 --> 01:24:41.220
It matters what their social status is.

01:24:41.380 --> 01:24:44.820
It's just as much of an arms race their generation as it was for yours.

01:24:45.060 --> 01:24:50.100
And if you just accept that consistent logic, then it immediately becomes a thing of yeah,

01:24:50.180 --> 01:24:55.860
you're not going to just necessarily always just invest in mating or maximizing the number

01:24:55.860 --> 01:24:56.420
of offspring.

01:24:56.660 --> 01:25:02.290
There's also what's the level of investment in that in the next generation

01:25:02.450 --> 01:25:04.930
because they're in an arms race just as much as you are.

01:25:05.330 --> 01:25:06.050
Yeah, absolutely.

01:25:06.130 --> 01:25:06.290
Yeah.

01:25:06.370 --> 01:25:07.730
And what's going to pay off, right?

01:25:07.810 --> 01:25:12.450
Um, and paying off is is on you know, really developing, you know, socio competitive

01:25:12.450 --> 01:25:17.570
competencies um in your kid because their status is going to impact, you know, future

01:25:17.570 --> 01:25:18.450
generations as well.

01:25:18.690 --> 01:25:18.850
Yeah.

01:25:19.010 --> 01:25:24.530
I've actually I've always felt as a coalition slash alliance researcher myself, I've always

01:25:24.530 --> 01:25:30.060
thought that the time course of alliances and the fact that

01:25:30.380 --> 01:25:35.900
you as an adult currently your alliance structure will

01:25:35.900 --> 01:25:41.820
fundamentally may or may not survive the future because there's new there's new the kids

01:25:41.820 --> 01:25:47.020
are gonna grow up I've always thought that was also under emphasized that that the this

01:25:47.260 --> 01:25:52.700
there must be a psychology of worrying about that of wanting to affect that and I think

01:25:52.700 --> 01:25:57.870
that's also something that hasn't been um uh as as emphasized as it needs to be.

01:25:58.190 --> 01:25:58.910
Absolutely.

01:25:59.150 --> 01:25:59.710
Yeah.

01:25:59.950 --> 01:26:05.870
I think history, uh, people uh just this stupid aside, but like I always wonder like why we

01:26:05.870 --> 01:26:08.830
teach history the first the way we do and when we do.

01:26:09.070 --> 01:26:12.910
Because I don't know about you guys, but I feel much more interested in history the older I

01:26:12.910 --> 01:26:13.070
get.

01:26:13.150 --> 01:26:15.310
But I was taught history very early.

01:26:15.740 --> 01:26:20.060
And I actually wonder if it's a readout of like the evolved psychology being like we have

01:26:20.060 --> 01:26:23.660
to indoctrinate the kids early to our history.

01:26:23.980 --> 01:26:29.020
And it's the expression of wanting our current social narrative to extend.

01:26:29.100 --> 01:26:33.580
And it's probably not well designed for what kids actually are interested in.

01:26:34.380 --> 01:26:35.340
But it's yeah, yeah.

01:26:35.950 --> 01:26:36.190
Yeah.

01:26:36.270 --> 01:26:42.270
No, there's a huge demand for, you know, teaching kids the values that the parents hold.

01:26:42.430 --> 01:26:46.990
Like I see so many children's books that are, you know, preaching these political messages.

01:26:47.150 --> 01:26:50.350
And, you know, I agree with the political message, but still I find it interesting that

01:26:50.350 --> 01:26:55.630
there's such a demand for, you know, inculcating kids uh into these values at such a young

01:26:55.630 --> 01:26:55.790
age.

01:26:55.870 --> 01:27:00.510
I think it does speak to this um adaptive problem of ensuring that the kids don't grow up

01:27:00.510 --> 01:27:05.230
to, you know, uh shake up the the political alliance structure uh that was built, you know.

01:27:05.550 --> 01:27:05.630
Right.

01:27:05.960 --> 01:27:07.800
Yeah, that's some of it's pretty explicit.

01:27:07.880 --> 01:27:11.800
Like I've seen uh like I grew up in a religious background.

01:27:11.960 --> 01:27:16.680
I remember looking, this was years ago, like like for example, like people staying in a

01:27:16.680 --> 01:27:21.480
religion, like it's very explicit and well known that if you don't get kids early, they

01:27:21.480 --> 01:27:24.840
don't stay in it or uh or get in it at all.

01:27:25.000 --> 01:27:27.880
Like there's very much uh an age time course.

01:27:28.440 --> 01:27:28.680
Right.

01:27:29.130 --> 01:27:29.290
Okay.

01:27:29.530 --> 01:27:29.930
Yeah.

01:27:30.170 --> 01:27:32.970
Um, well, well, Jen, thank you so much for coming on.

01:27:33.050 --> 01:27:33.850
It was a pleasure.

01:27:34.090 --> 01:27:39.930
I feel like I uh it was the perfect combination of I feel like I am a clearer

01:27:39.930 --> 01:27:45.130
thinker about really important fundamental things, but it also is opening up a whole bunch

01:27:45.130 --> 01:27:47.130
of mysteries and questions.

01:27:47.450 --> 01:27:52.410
But I think that's that's the lovely beauty of taking an evolutionary perspective is that

01:27:52.570 --> 01:27:57.530
sort of the the things we take for granted are actually strange and we just get clarity on

01:27:57.530 --> 01:27:57.690
that.

01:27:58.020 --> 01:27:58.660
Right, right.

01:27:58.740 --> 01:27:59.380
Absolutely.

01:27:59.620 --> 01:27:59.940
Yeah.

01:28:00.580 --> 01:28:01.860
Thank you so much.

01:28:04.420 --> 01:28:06.900
David, this was not a stressful episode at all.

01:28:07.220 --> 01:28:10.180
No, in fact, it was quite relaxing and enjoyable.

01:28:10.420 --> 01:28:12.100
I I I yeah, agreed.

01:28:12.340 --> 01:28:17.460
Um, if you feel the same, then please uh like and subscribe, social media,

01:28:17.620 --> 01:28:18.500
Patreon.

01:28:18.900 --> 01:28:24.580
Um, and uh David, I just want to reiterate how lovely the music is for this podcast.

01:28:24.890 --> 01:28:25.210
Thank you.

01:28:25.290 --> 01:28:25.770
I appreciate it.

01:28:25.850 --> 01:28:26.730
That's very sweet to hear.

01:28:26.890 --> 01:28:27.050
Yeah.

01:28:27.130 --> 01:28:29.130
Um, can you remind me how do you do it again?

01:28:29.290 --> 01:28:32.250
Do you use a you don't keyboard or no keyboard?

01:28:32.570 --> 01:28:33.530
Uh mouse.

01:28:33.690 --> 01:28:34.970
So I use Logic Pro.

01:28:35.210 --> 01:28:35.530
Okay.

01:28:35.690 --> 01:28:41.610
Um and you can just click a note and then drag it up or down to raise or lower the pitch

01:28:41.690 --> 01:28:45.530
and I'd copy and paste the notes and put them where I want and amazing.

01:28:45.610 --> 01:28:46.090
Yeah.

01:28:46.330 --> 01:28:46.490
Yeah.

01:28:46.650 --> 01:28:47.370
It's a lot of fun.

01:28:47.770 --> 01:28:48.250
That's cool.

01:28:48.410 --> 01:28:52.970
It's called being a composer with on your computer is it's wonderful.

01:28:53.050 --> 01:28:54.250
It's you don't yeah.

01:28:59.100 --> 01:29:00.300
What kind of guitar do you have?

01:29:00.700 --> 01:29:01.900
I have an acoustic guitar.

01:29:02.460 --> 01:29:05.580
Mainly because I used to have an electric guitar and it was too annoying for my wife to

01:29:05.660 --> 01:29:05.900
play.

01:29:05.980 --> 01:29:08.060
So but she likes the sound of acoustic guitar.

01:29:08.460 --> 01:29:09.420
Headphones, headphones.

01:29:09.660 --> 01:29:10.380
You can plug in.

01:29:12.060 --> 01:29:13.100
What kind of acoustic guitar do you have?

01:29:14.700 --> 01:29:15.260
Oh, it's right here.

01:29:15.340 --> 01:29:15.980
I didn't even know.

01:29:16.060 --> 01:29:16.780
That's fantastic.

01:29:16.860 --> 01:29:17.500
Oh, it's beautiful.

01:29:17.660 --> 01:29:18.620
What what what brand is it?

01:29:19.020 --> 01:29:19.660
Is it fender?

01:29:20.060 --> 01:29:20.540
I have no idea.

01:29:20.620 --> 01:29:21.500
I'm I'm on a guitar.

01:29:22.540 --> 01:29:24.430
Uh could look in the whole sun hole.

01:29:24.510 --> 01:29:24.670
Yeah.

01:29:24.750 --> 01:29:24.910
Yeah.

01:29:24.990 --> 01:29:25.070
Yeah.

01:29:25.230 --> 01:29:25.390
Okay.

01:29:25.550 --> 01:29:26.350
Yep, it's a fender.

01:29:26.510 --> 01:29:28.110
Yeah, I'm not a guitar person.

01:29:28.190 --> 01:29:30.590
I don't know a lot about guitars, but I just enjoy playing them.

01:29:30.750 --> 01:29:30.990
Okay.

01:29:31.070 --> 01:29:31.950
So fantastic.

01:29:32.110 --> 01:29:32.510
Well, great.

01:29:32.590 --> 01:29:36.430
Well, maybe next maybe next week, maybe next out for a weekend, you can we can get a little

01:29:36.430 --> 01:29:39.630
bit of David on the acoustic guitar or maybe bonus episode.

01:29:39.950 --> 01:29:40.510
Ooh, yeah.

01:29:40.670 --> 01:29:44.910
I mean, maybe we'll do that if we like if we get a lot of support from our listeners.

01:29:45.230 --> 01:29:45.550
Oh, nice.

01:29:45.790 --> 01:29:48.240
But if we Yeah, that'll be a nice incentive for you guys.

01:29:48.560 --> 01:29:52.960
Well, we have to do our homework and think about what incentive to dangle in front of us.

01:29:53.600 --> 01:29:54.800
Yeah, live performance.

01:29:54.960 --> 01:29:57.200
Yeah, and David Pins off on the guitar.

01:29:57.440 --> 01:29:58.880
Oh, I like this song request.

01:29:58.960 --> 01:29:59.840
Oh wow, this is amazing.

01:30:00.000 --> 01:30:02.480
Yeah, I'll leave I'll I'll write a song about whatever you want.

01:30:02.720 --> 01:30:04.320
How's that for incentive?

01:30:04.640 --> 01:30:07.840
Well, now we have to think about when we have the incentive down, now we have to think

01:30:07.840 --> 01:30:09.360
about what we want from people.

01:30:10.080 --> 01:30:10.560
Hmm.

01:30:10.640 --> 01:30:14.550
Uh well, you can give us some money on Patreon.

01:30:14.710 --> 01:30:18.790
You can say some nice things about us on social media, leave us a kind review.

01:30:19.030 --> 01:30:20.390
I think that's about it, right?

01:30:20.550 --> 01:30:22.550
That is, but it's pretty um vague.

01:30:22.630 --> 01:30:26.870
Like you have to like if somebody's like, well, what do I have to do personally to be able

01:30:26.870 --> 01:30:30.470
to be the one to tell David here's what the song should be?

01:30:30.710 --> 01:30:35.960
Like donate this amount of money, or like, you know get this I don't don't we have to have

01:30:36.680 --> 01:30:41.800
how about this after your kind review after your kind words on social media after your

01:30:41.800 --> 01:30:46.520
Patreon donation just say this one's for you David I want that song

01:30:47.480 --> 01:30:52.760
sounds good all right for whoever whoever gets to that first okay all right uh

01:30:53.080 --> 01:30:58.120
interesting okay good um I like this direction okay uh and this is how we become a

01:30:58.120 --> 01:31:01.720
bluegrass band okay all right um have everybody have a good week and we'll we'll see you

01:31:01.720 --> 01:31:03.570
with Charles Darwin Um okay.

01:31:03.730 --> 01:31:07.330
Uh with the AI ghost of Charles Darwin's throwback.

01:31:07.890 --> 01:31:12.690
We should get we should get an AI to be to like you know read all of Charles Darwin's works

01:31:12.770 --> 01:31:16.050
and just be Charles Darwin and then just interview him on the podcast.

01:31:16.450 --> 01:31:17.650
That is weird.

01:31:18.130 --> 01:31:19.970
That would be pretty bizarre to do, actually.

01:31:20.050 --> 01:31:21.010
But it might be interesting.

01:31:21.090 --> 01:31:21.410
I don't know.

01:31:21.570 --> 01:31:22.930
I feel ambivalently about that.

01:31:23.010 --> 01:31:23.490
I don't know.

01:31:23.810 --> 01:31:24.370
That's great.

01:31:25.010 --> 01:31:26.050
It's an idea.

01:31:26.370 --> 01:31:31.700
I feel really uh yeah, I feel that's I I'm confident that it is an idea.

01:31:31.940 --> 01:31:32.820
That's a little stressful.

01:31:33.460 --> 01:31:33.780
Okay.

01:31:34.020 --> 01:31:34.580
All right.

01:31:34.900 --> 01:31:36.900
Uh okay, David.

01:31:36.980 --> 01:31:41.380
Um I'll see you next week and maybe we'll uh maybe we'll have Charles Darwin and you on the

01:31:41.380 --> 01:31:42.500
guitar next week.

01:31:43.140 --> 01:31:45.140
Maybe he'll accompany me on uh on my son.

01:31:45.540 --> 01:31:47.060
On the steel guitar for whatever reason.

01:31:50.820 --> 01:31:51.780
I don't know why.

01:31:51.940 --> 01:31:53.970
Um right, everybody.

01:31:54.050 --> 01:31:55.250
Have a good have a good week.