PsycHacks

As a psychologist, I'm often asked the question as to whether people can change. And since people are always in a constant state of change, I take this question to mean: "is radical personality transformation possible?" And my answer is: yes! However, it is typically only possible once people hit bottom. In today's episode, I make the case that my favorite musical, "Les Miserables," is actually a...

Most men have approach anxiety. There are many recent contributors to this anxiety -- such as the fear of being "cancelled" for their attraction -- but the root causes of this fear are much deeper. In today's episode, I make the case that -- on an unconscious level -- female rejection is tantamount to the judgment that a man does not deserve to exist because his genetics don't merit perpetuation....

One way or another, men pay to access the opportunity for sex with women. And it is often the case that the more transactional the relationship becomes, the less men actually pay. This is because the value of the time, energy, money, and opportunity spent in less transactional relationships is generally greater than the value of the money spent in more transactional relationships. However, the hig...

The rates of sex and marriage -- especially among young adults -- have fallen to historically unprecedented lows and show no signs of stopping. Why is this happening? My theory is that most people don't really want relationships. Rather: they want what relationships can get them. And if they can get those things more easily, more cheaply, and more safely in other places than relationships, they wi...

Men and women love differently. Feminine love is consumptive: it wants as much of you inside of her as possible. However, when it is actually successful in its objective, it grows disinterested in that which it was once fascinated. It falls to men to hold the line against this consumption for the good of both parties, which will require them to occasionally disappoint their women. Those who fail t...

On a first date, too many men snatch defeat from the jaws of success. In today's episode, I discuss why a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and why many guys talk their way out of a sexual opportunity. In their desire to impress women, men come off as boring, boorish, and self-centered. However, by learning the importance of maintaining women's fantasies intact, they'll be able to turn their...

A few weeks ago, PsycHacks passed an important milestone in the history of the channel: 100,000 subscribers! In the busyness of everyday life, this moment passed without much fanfare. However, I thought it would be appropriate to really acknowledge the event and appreciate its significance. In today's episode, I talk about some of my experiences behind the scenes and my intentions of the future. L...

The divorce rate in the Western world is terrifying. How have we arrived at the point where a marriage is more likely to end in divorce than not? It's a complicated question, but I'd like to offer a contributing factor that is often overlooked, namely: that marriage -- as a fundamentally humble institution -- was not designed to support all of the additional weight it has taken on in recent histor...

I don't often talk about the empirical literature on this channel. This is because -- having conducted some research in my time -- I understand how easy it is to lie under the guise of objectivity. Without a thorough grounding in statistics, modeling, and research design, it is next to impossible to evaluate the merit of any given study, and experiments can be custom-tailored to their desired outc...

I was thrilled to be able to sit down recently with Rog Ager of Collative Learning (link below). To my mind, Rob is one of the most brilliant film analysts putting out content on the Internet, a feat he accomplishes without being esoteric or pedantic. Over the course of our conversation, we discuss the field of semiotics, the use of archetypical symbols in the work of Stanley Kubrick, and -- one o...

Awareness of some of the realities of female mating and dating behavior -- including hypergamy -- is at an all-time high. However, many men still entertain misconceptions about this information. In today's episode, I will address two of the most prevalent: the belief that hypergamy directly benefits women, and the belief that being high-value creates effortless sexual opportunity. These two miscon...

Learning to love yourself is extremely important, because where you go, there you are. If your self is cruel and self-loathing, you can exist in the midst of peace and pleasure without benefitting in the slightest. In today's episode, I will give you three simple steps to overcome self-hatred and move in the direction of self-love. They do not require expensive therapy sessions, and you can put th...

I was very excited to be able to sit down with Chazz Ellis a few weeks ago. Chazz has remained one of my favorite content creators on YouTube, ever since I began following his work many years ago. His down-to-earth, no-nonsense approach to dating and relationships is both practical and enlightening. In this conversation, we discuss dating geoarbitrage, the importance of game, and the realities of...

There is a contemporary crisis in masculinity. Whereas 100 years ago, everyone seemed to take it for granted what it meant to be a man, today the topic is rife with dissention and speculation. Unfortunately, much of the advice men hear today pertains to what I call "performative masculinity": a suite of behaviors that can be learned to communicate masculinity socially. While there is nothing wrong...

Monkey branching is the phenomenon in which one person swings from one relationship to the next, with little to no time between the two. If both men and women can do this, why is the behavior so much more common in men than it is in men? Much like in business, the largest jumps in position and compensation generally occur when workers move between companies (rather than when they remain within the...

It is a much-lamented fact that time seems to move faster as we age. However, what accounts for this phenomenon? In today's episode, I discuss my pet theory on the subject, namely: the perception of the rate of time is inversely correlated with the expenditure of cognitive resources. This means that time seems to move slower when we engage in bottom-up processing, and faster when we engage in top-...

The myth of the natural is just that: a myth. Success with women is not something some men are born with -- it is something that some men choose to cultivate. However, the process of developing this suite of skills is painful and expensive. What would sufficiently motivate a man to do so? The truth is that most players are nice guys who were hurt one too many times and decided to do something abou...

If you've dated women, at some point in your life you've probably heard her say the phrase: "I don't want to waste my time." The idea here is that the woman is challenging the relationship on the basis that she is not getting enough of what she wants, when she wants it. Furthermore, men who do not provide value on women's timelines are considered "time-wasters," and become the target of a good dea...

Success in any game does not depend on gratitude. This means that you cannot hope to secure a positive outcome on the basis of the good you've already done, or the value you've already provided. This will be a bitter pill for many to swallow. On the other hand, what does consistently associate with positive outcome is power: the ability to implement future rewards and punishments. If you can no lo...

Men and women face unique challenges with respect to being able to love. In this episode, I will address each of these challenges in turn. The issue with women is that their love -- while pure -- tends to get mixed up with a bunch of other impurities. Consequently, women need to filter their transmission of love until it is unadulterated. On the other hand, the issue with men is that life demands...

Making men angry at women is a business -- and it's big business of social media platforms, like YouTube. For this reason, it's very important for the young men who are the primary demographic of these channels to take what they learn there with a grain of salt. In this episode, I dissect the interconnected system of creators, consumers, and platforms, explaining how they all more or less conspire...

Many folks today lament the current state of affairs between men and women, especially with respect to mating and dating. It wasn't always like this, right? So how exactly did we end up here? In this episode, I present an answer to this question from an unlikely place: Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Interspersed throughout the dazzling visuals and top-notch fight scenes is a profound...

A fulfilling life is a supremely good thing. To attain it, a person must have vision -- imagination plus granularity -- and a person must have want -- the synthesis of will and desire. In this episode, I will discuss how to cultivate both of these capacities. I also stress the importance of planning for a continuous stream of average Tuesdays, as opposed to a sporadic discontinuity of peak experie...

The biggest risk a man can take is not taking a risk. If a man does not stand out, the world will pass him by. This is because, if a man is indistinguishable from his environment, then he is functionally wallpaper: field not focus. Once of the easiest ways a man can stand out is in his visual presentation, which he can think of as his branding. In this episode, I will walk you through several exam...

The most significant difference between masculine and feminine communication pertains to their respective goals. Whereas masculine communication is interested in the accurate transmission of information, feminine communication is devoted to the transmission of experience, in the sense of felt subjectivity. By means of analogy: masculine communication is like a language without vowels, and feminine...