Beat Your Genes Podcast

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld.   Question 1: How do I get back to being happy with so much violence and negativity swirling around in the news and in the world? No matter what has been going on in my life, I have always tended to be happy and optimistic, but recently it feels like everything seems pretty bleak in the world and i...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld.   In today's show, we discuss   staying a virgin until marriage, and what to consider when having second thoughts before marrying.   1. I am a 32 year old female, Catholic and I want to wait until marriage to have sex. Not 10 paid dates, but marriage. However, it seems that nowadays no one is willi...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld.   In Today's show, we discuss a listener's struggle with being attracted to men her own age, and then Dr. Lisle discusses a question about whether 10 paid dates strategy is outdated.    To listen to past episodes that discuss 10 paid dates, check out episodes 18, 22, 35, 96, 151, 164, and 284. Toda...

A visionary physician and author, beloved husband, father, grandfather, brother, mentor and friend, Dr. McDougall died peacefully in his sleep at his home on Saturday, June 22nd, at the age of 77. Dr. McDougall leaves behind a profound legacy and in today's show, Dr. Lisle shares some stories and memories of Dr. McDougall. Follow us: YT: @beatyourgenes X: @beatyourgenes Insta: @Beatyourgenespodcas...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld.   In Today's show, Dr. Lisle discusses the overlap of Big Five traits in normal human behavior and how to understand the conceptual framework rather than getting bogged down in formulaic thinking.   Our next question has to do with anti-anxiety medications and whether they are ever worth taking.  ...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld. Today's topics are about people who seek and only feel relief if they have deep understanding about certain subjects, a parent who appears worn out from an estranged adult child, and a young man unsure about a long-term relationship. Listener Questions: Throughout my life, I continue to encounter p...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD, discuss the following listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld. 1. What do you make of the common description that narcissistic/highly disagreeable people "wear a mask." Do high disagreeables go around actively and purposefully fooling people about their true feelings and intentions any more than other people do?...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses a listener question with host, Nathan Gershfeld. In episode 328 dr lisle answered a questioner who was frustrated about their lower income relative to friends. One aspect of that question was that life isn't always about making money or climbing dominance hierarchies. In fact the very same instincts to keep pursing more can lead you to being unh...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss twin studies, behavioral genetics, and the logic of evolutionary psychology with host, Nathan Gershfeld Paper mentioned :  https://tinyurl.com/j3c7tbt7 Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Watch this episode on Youtube!   @BeatYourGenes Host: Nathan Gershfeld                               Interviewee: Doug Lisle, P...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discuss the following listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld 1.  I'm a 29 year old economics major and I'm frustrated because I see friends who have gone into investment banking, big law or medicine on track to make 5-10x my yearly salary. I'm making a decent living on 60k a year but I feel like an idiot for choosing my major and now it feels too...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld Today's question:  Is psychology doomed to remain a pseudoscience based on the crowd of people who self select to go into psychology? Im a university student and it from what i can tell, the vast majority of my peers and lecturers have no interest questions like why...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD & social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD   discuss the following situation with host, Nathan Gershfeld: I cheated on my husband three years ago while traveling for work.   It was a one-night stand and we didn't exchange numbers or keep in contact.   I don't even know his last name.   Until last month, I've never told anyone about this event.   At the time I chea...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld: 1. Help! My son just turned 8. He has acquired part of his personality from my mother- he can be loud and will overreact or get really angry about things. This includes being told he needs to stop an activity because we are leaving the house, etc. I am trying to he...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD   discusses the following listener questions with host, Nathan Gershfeld: 1.  I'm trying to decide whether to go back to work a year after my second child, or to stay home with her till preschool. I have heard you say on your podcast 'it doesn't matter who raises your kids' which I understand to be a reference to twin studies that show that parents have v...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions: 1.  Can all personality types be equally happy if they apply diligent effort to worthwhile goals? ie all other things being equal, would a low conscientiousness individual be as happy as a high conscientiousness individual if they both applied their version of diligent effort an...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions: 1. I have a friend who is very active in fighting for workers' rights. In fact he has a high level job in one of my country's major trade unions. He often organises protests, and is always the first person on the frontline with the megaphone. On a personal level, he is quite ove...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener question: Why do people love formulaic media and entertainment? Most of the pop music that dominates the charts is nearly identical. It uses the same four chords in the same progression with similar melodies and lyrical themes. Most of the blockbuster films that gross massive amounts of mo...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD, social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD, and Nathan Gershfeld, DC discuss the following listener questions:  I am curious about the work of David Sinclair from Harvard about his anti-aging research. He makes some pretty fantastic claims. He does, for example, advocate for a plant-based diet, but then talks quite a bit about supplements, including prescription dr...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions: 1. If I am understanding what you have said in the past about decision making and free will, the main thing that changes/influences our behavior is new information. So, we really don't have "free will" in our decision making like we think? If this is true, does it mean that -- i...

Social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following topics: I loved your last podcast about Buddhism and other perspectives in psychology. I'd love to hear more of your perspectives on spirituality such as how you would describe the personality profiles of popular gurus Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle. They both claim to have been in close to catatonic states of misery/depression, suicidal and the...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses the following listener questions: 1. I have read "Blueprint" many times and am still learning so much from that book. It is obvious to me how much of who we are and what we do is heritable. So, what do you do when no one else gets that? Or knows that? Recently I was having coffee with good friends and they were discussing a mother of one of them...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions: Do the realizations of Buddhism hold any credibility through an evolutionary psychological lens? Does suffering really come from unfulfilled desires? Why would we evolve to have an unsatiable drive of desires which leaves us suffering? Why is psychology the only field in which e...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions: A while back, you mentioned that when someone is financially strained, they can behave as though they are 10 IQ points lower than they actually are. Can you expand on that? In addition, if someone is obscenely wealthy, would you expect that they also would behave differently - m...

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD and social scientist, Jen Howk, PhD discuss the following listener questions:   1. How does one go about getting an objective personality test? I have a friend that constantly mentions that they are cursed with being highly conscientious and very agreeable. However most others in our friend group find them not very conscientious, and highly disagreeable....

Evolutionary psychologist, Doug Lisle, PhD discusses the following questions:  I find snobbish behavior fascinating (sometimes irritating, sometimes amusing), but I don't really understand the evolutionary basis of it. What are the basic motivations behind and effects of snobbish behavior? Is it insecurity and an attempt to hijack unearned or unwarranted status, a combination of personality traits...