love

In today’s show, we go over the following questions: 1. I think that you are absolutely right when you say that happiness comes from esteem, earned in the right way from the people that matter. It’s really beautiful to me how that works. But on the other hand, I occasionally meet women who impress me a great deal, strictly based on their DNA- i.e., above-average looks, brains, and personality. Or, as you might expect, even just well above average looks. So my question is, how can attraction be such a profound emotional experience when so much of it is purely on the basis of DNA, and nothing that has been done to earn it? And in fact people are more impressed with someone when it appears that they are not trying? Is how we feel about ourselves based on what we earn, but how we feel about others mostly just a matter of their DNA? 2. How does IQ affect relationships? Specifically, a male having a greater IQ than his female partner, at what point would this cause problems in the relationship and how? 3. I am a recently single 30 year old male, and I’ve been hitting the online dating apps once again. With my more finely tuned evolutionary lense thanks to your podcast, I’ve noticed something interestin.  It seems as though most of us, while we want to put our best foot forward in order to increase our chance of success, we still can’t help but leak potentially market-limiting queues. Is it simply that we are programmed to be honest so that we don’t end up wasting our time with people who wouldn’t find these market-limiting interests appealing? Is this a simple energy conservation cost-benefit analysis?

Today’s questions: 1. Does the myelin sheath development also apply to more purely mental abilities like reading and comprehension, or the ability to imagine and come up with inventive solutions to a problem?  For example, how much can learning and practice be helpful in growing infants and children? Will a baby that is spoken to for 5 hours a day learn to speak significantly faster than one exposed to only an hour of language a day? Or are parents kidding themselves when they spend so much effort to give their child an edge in cognitive development? 2. I’m a private person: I cringe when people air their dirty laundry or have what to me are very private conversations in the facebook comment section. I don’t signal affiliation or loyalty the way most people do, and tend to minimize advertising even when it would be seemingly beneficial: I recall declining someone wanting to write an article about me back in high school because “it’s nobody’s business”. I realize I’ll always be like this, but the way you and Geoffrey Miller talk about advertising opened it a new perspective. Do you think I’m missing out, and if so, how could I improve where it matters? 3. How do scientists go about measuring genes? How do they identify and associate them with human behavior? Is this something they can see with Petri dishes and a microscope? What would a behavioral scientists day look like?

In today’s show, the Drs answer the following listener questions: 1.I was married to a man for 3 years who was a recovering drug and alcohol addict.  In any case, we have recently divorced. There is another man who I have known for about 20 years. We have recently reconnected and are exploring the beginnings of a relationship.I am noticing a heavy drinking behavior in the man in the new relationship. Its hard to tell because right now we are long distance and only see each other on weekends. So am I attracted to addicts?  2. I often hear the term “control” thrown around in pop psychology and fiction. It often turns up in dialogue like one person asking why the other did something stupid or self-destructive and the answer being “I just really needed to feel in control, just for a minute”. Or there is the notion that people will calm down when given (the illusion of) control.  3. I’m male, early twenties, been on a whole plant food diet for about 1,5 years. Arguments I can handle (I’m pretty disagreeable), but my family has been emotionally blackmailing me, having what amount to interventions with my mother crying, them saying I’m wasting away and will one day find myself in an ambulance. I’m 5’9 about 132 pounds. I lost about 20 pounds early on and have not lost any more for over a year. I have always had low muscle mass, even when working out -I’ve come to think I’m just naturally low on that bell curve. But for a year I’ve finally been able to do proper push-ups, pulls-ups and the like and generally feel fine. I feel distanced from my family and have come to dread spending time with them. What can I do?