Nate

1.  If evolutionary psychology considers parental investment theory and the investment in kin as essential why do so many people in the West keep animals. 

2.  I used to get really upset when my partner watched . I have relaxed and now feel like it’s not the worst thing he can do and will not end my relationship so I shouldn’t get upset. What do you think?

3.  Can a person’s placing on the agreeability continuum be situational? I believe I am more or less disagreeable depending on the dynamics of different relationships. Is there anything a disagreeable person like me can do to Beat My Genes and become a nicer person.

4.  Previously, you’ve mentioned the thing that matters for a woman’s pair bond value is her physical attractiveness, and that the female is objectively 1 rating more attractive than the male, who comes with resources. I know a few couples where the male is significantly more attractive than the female, and in which the female has greater resources to offer than the male. This sort of pair bonding relationship should not happen according to you. What’s going on here? 

5. What can people do to defeat decision fatigue and overcome the allure of Netflix? I have a project that I’ve been slowly working on, but after work I’m too tired to work on it, and on weekends I’m so overwhelmed by decision fatigue about whether to do more pressing errands (cooking, creating a budget, shopping, etc) or devote time to my project that I end up neglecting everything.

6.  You explained male homosexuality from an evolutionary psychology perspective, but what about female homosexuality?

7.  Other than being the best renditions of our respective selves, what can one do to build up their perceived status in the village?

Listener questions:

1.  How does evolutionary psychology explain a person who is an “enabler”? What am I getting out of it, why am I doing it and why do I feel so responsible for his happiness – to the extent that it harms us both?

2. Dr. Lisle talks often about the ‘cost/benefit analysis’ of human behavior. Is this a defined algorithm (i.e., are the factors & coeffcients/weighting factors) & what are these factors/coefficients? Do these factors/coefficients change over time & under different conditions?

3. So… I recently read an article published in JAMA Psychiatry (april 2016), named “Patterns of Nonrandom Mating Within and Across 11 Major Psychiatric Disorders”

 It basically points out that people with a given disorder has a very higher chance of mating with someone with THAT particular disorder than other people do, as well as a higher chance of mating with someone with any other disorder rather than mating with healthy people. Also, each disorder has its own preferences.

What do you think is happening? Are people with mental illness for some reason biased to choosing mates with mental illness? If so, why?

4.  I’m almost at the end of a three year accredited psychology degree in Australia. My question is, why is there a complete absence of evolutionary psychology in the curriculum here? 

5. I’m intelligent and have a lot of intellectual and life ambitions, but I’m also somewhat lazy and not particularly “gritty.” I have a history that goes back to childhood of starting big and ambitious life projects and then abandoning them the instant things get a bit tough. I’d love to hear some advice grounded in evolutionary psychology on how I should be going about to tackle this