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Dr. Gad Saad: Why women, too, evolved to want sexual variety

Saad argues evolution shapes mating across cultures, not just men: women too crave sexual variety, and ignoring biology breeds violence inside the home.

Dr. Gad SaadguestSteven Bartletthost
Sep 9, 20242h 59mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:27

    Introduction

    1. GS

      Do you know, Stephen, who is the most dangerous individual that a woman will ever meet in her life? Her husband. And the overwhelming number one reason is because of-

    2. NA

      Dr. Gad Saad is a evolutionary psychologist.

    3. SB

      Renowned for his thought-provoking and challenging insights into the underlining principles-

    4. NA

      That shape decision-making, relationships, and societal trends.

    5. GS

      If you think that there is some knowledge that should not be pursued because it doesn't support your ideology, that's a grotesquely dangerous principle. So for example, the idea that monogamy is natural is not true. Men are much more likely to want more sexual partners. That's what's been found in many studies across many cultures. But the fact that I explained why it might make evolutionary sense to cheat doesn't mean I'm justifying it. But now here's the interesting part. Women too have evolved a very strong desire for sexual variety. You know when a woman is most likely to cheat? It's when they...

    6. SB

      In your book you talk about a mate desirability score.

    7. GS

      Yes. So usually we end up assorting on our mating value, which is taking all of our attributes and then saying, "What do you score?" So for example, the number one attribute that women seek is anything that's related to social status. Now, it wouldn't be good for an 87 to go with a 36. That's going to put a huge stressor on our relationship, but here's the good news. There are effective strategies that could improve my score, and let's break them down very simply. First...

    8. SB

      Dr. Gad, what are the ideas that you've shared that have got you in the most trouble?

    9. GS

      I'm gonna get hate mail for this. Buckle up.

    10. SB

      This is a sentence I never thought I'd say in my life. Um, we've just hit seven million subscribers on YouTube, and I wanna say a huge thank you to all of you that show up here every Monday and Thursday to watch our conversations. Um, from the bottom of my heart, but also on behalf of my team, who you don't always get to meet, there's almost 50 people now behind The Diary of a CEO that worked to put this together. So, from all of us, thank you so much. Um, we did a raffle last month and we gave away prizes for people that subscribed to the show up until seven million subscribers. And you guys loved that raffle so much that we're gonna continue it. So every single month we're giving away money can't buy prizes, including meetings with me, invites to our events, and £1,000 gift vouchers to anyone that subscribes to The Diary of a CEO. There's now more than seven million of you, so if you make the decision to subscribe today, you can be one of those lucky people. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Let's get to the conversation.

  2. 2:27 – 5:22

    What Drives Your Life Purpose?

    1. SB

      Dr. Gad Saad, what have you devoted your life to?

    2. GS

      Uh, the pursuit of truth and the defense of freedoms.

    3. SB

      And what does, what does that mean?

    4. GS

      So truth is, uh, what we hopefully can achieve, uh, through the scientific method. Of course, truth is provisional in that whatever we might have thought was true 300 years ago, we have the epistemological humility to say, "Oh, we were wrong. There's a new truth." But I do wake up every morning thinking that there are wonderful things to discover about human nature, given that I'm an evolutionary behavioral scientist. And so truth in that sense. Uh, liberty and freedom in that there should be nothing that is off-limits for people to do research on, to speak out on. So for example, you now hear a growing intrusion of the concept of forbidden knowledge, the idea that there's some research that because it might offend someone, it might marginalize a group, it shouldn't be pursued. I don't, I don't believe in that. So there is no research that is off-limits as long as the research that you're doing is pursued in an unbiased manner pursuant to the scientific method. So example, one of the ways that you can end your career very quickly as a social scientist if you do any research looking at group differences, certainly racial differences. Don't you dare do any research on that. Even sex differences is not a good idea. So if you do research on sex differences and it demonstrates that women are superior to men on some task, go ahead. You're a hero. Publish it. But if you do research that shows that men are superior to women on a task, you better file that in the drawer and keep your mouth shut forevermore because we don't want to be promulgating sexist patriarchal stereotypes. And so as someone who is an evolutionary psychologist who understands that humans are made up of two phenotypes called male and female, uh, it is expected that there are many things on which men and women are the same, some things that men do better than women, some things that women do better than men. It's called evolution. It's called biology. Well, one of the things where I first began seeing how idiotic otherwise very intelligent people can be called professors is in the negation of what I said right now, which is just admitting that there are innate and evolved sex differences is a dreadful thing to say in the social sciences. And so that's how I first had a kind of eureka moment. Houston, we have a problem. How could it be that these educated, sophisticated professors could negate something that on average a three-day-old newborn pigeon should be able to recognize? And so that's what, that's what sent me on my journey to eventually write The Parasitic Mind 30-plus years ago.

  3. 5:22 – 8:45

    What Does An Evolutionary Behavioural Scientist Do?

    1. GS

    2. SB

      So what is an evolutionary behavior scientist?

    3. GS

      Right. Great question. So, you can study behavior in many ways. So for example, behaviorism, which was something that was developed in the 1930s, argued that everything that we do is as a result of stimulus and response. So for example, Pavlovian conditioning is a form of behaviorism, right? You associate a unconditioned response, something that you already innately have. The dog salivates when he sees food. And now you condition him to, if they hear the bell, to associate that with the food. And now when I just ring the bell, he will salivate.

    4. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    5. GS

      And so the behaviorists of, you know, 70, 80, a hundred years ago-... argued that all learning was due to behaviorism. So there are many different schools of thought when it comes to what is the best framework for studying human behavior, and evolutionary behavioral scientists argues that you can't study human behavior if you don't root the framework of how you're going to tackle this in an understanding of how evolution would have shaped the human mind. Now this should sound as blatantly obvious, but again, for social scientists, that's Nazi talk, because social scientists believe that evolution applies to every single species on Earth except one, called human beings. Or if they believe that evolution applies to humans, it applies to explain why we have opposable thumbs. It applies to explain why we've evolved the respiratory system that we have. But don't you dare explain something above the neck called the human mind using evolution. I'm speaking now as those folks. They argue that we are cultural animals. We transcend our biology. So all that an evolutionary bi- behavioral scientist does is whatever he or she is studying, they try to look for the ultimate Darwinian signatures. I'm gonna give you two examples. This is from, uh, a book called Homicide by, uh, Martin Daly and Margo, uh, Margo Wilson, a husband and wife team who are two of the pioneers of evolutionary psychology. I first read that book as a first semester doctoral student at, uh, Cornell where it, it was an advanced social psychology course. About halfway through the semester, the professor, his name was Professor Dennis Regan, assigned this book to us. What they did in the book is apply an evolutionary framework to study patterns of criminality, and in a second now I'll, I'll unpack what that means. So there are certain patterns of crime that happen in exactly the same way for the exact same reasons irrespective of which culture it happens in and irrespective of time period, so it certainly can't be due to cultural factors. It can't be to era factors because it transcends all those things. So let me give you two examples from the book, and that was actually my eureka moment where I decided, "Ah, I will now take this evolutionary framework and apply it to consumer psychology, to psychology of decision making," which eventually is the field that I founded. So two examples. Example one, and forgive me if I put you on the spot. It's, it's, it's worthwhile to-

    6. NA

      Yeah.

    7. GS

      ... the... What do you think is the number one predictor of there being child abuse in

  4. 8:45 – 13:39

    The Top Predictor of Child Abuse in the Home

    1. GS

      a home?

    2. NA

      (inhales deeply) An absent parent?

    3. GS

      Okay. Ver- very, very reasonable answer.

    4. NA

      Yeah.

    5. GS

      And so usually in lecture one of when I'm teaching an evolution psychology course, I'll ask this question and I'll start putting all the students' answers, and they're all reasonable answers. If there is alcoholism in the home, if one of the parents had been abused in their past so that they, they, they mimic that behavior onto their children then, all reasonable. Well, what if I... And by the way, no one guesses what the real answer is. So then I say, "Well, guess what, guys? You just listed 25 reasonable predictors. The number one predictor is 100-fold more predictive than anything that's on that board." I- I've lectured this a million times. I'm getting goosebumps telling it to you right now. So let me explain what 100-fold means. In science when, let's say, you have... I wanna check the efficacy of a drug and I wanna compare it to a placebo, a sugar pill. Well, if it has a 1.2 odds ratio, meaning it's 20% more effective, so it's 1 to 1.2, that would be a big effect, 1 to 1.2. What I'm saying is 1 to 100. So it is astronomically greater effect than anything we would typically publish in science. Well, the number one reason, Steven, I've kept you in suspense long enough, is if there is a stepparent in the family. So there is 100-fold increase in child abuse if the home is not made up of two biological parents. This is why the fable of Cinderella is such a universal fable, because it speaks to an evolutionary principle. The nasty, uh, uh, stepmother is only differentially nasty to her stepdaughter. She's actually very, very nice to her two biological daughters. So now you would say, "Well, what would be the evolutionary explanation for that?" Well, we know in many, many species where you have very high parental investment, say for example, in lion prides. L- lions are the only feline group where they're a social group. M- most other, uh, felines are solitary. The, the only thing that the male does is the copulatory act and then there's noth- then he's off. Well, in lion pride, the males do invest heavily in their children. What ends up happening is there's two or three dominant males within a pride, and they kick out all the young males that are now coming up so that there's all these frustrated young males in the savanna that are now looking to take over pride. They will challenge the two, three dominant males, and for a very long time, those m- older males will rebuff the attacks. But father time eventually catch ups to you and you're left with two choices as the dominant male. You either leave and you end up, uh, uh, you know, having a slow death out alone in the wilderness, or they will kill you. Now when the new incoming lions come in, do you know what's the first thing they do? First on the agenda list, first thing they do is what?

    6. NA

      They attack the kids.

    7. GS

      Exactly. They kill off, in a complete systematic infanticide genocide, every single cub who by definition could not have been sired by them. Why? Because I'm going to spend a lot of energy and resources investing-... because we are a bi-parental species as a lion pride. I don't want, I don't want to be investing in another male's cubs, therefore I... Now, paradoxically, incredibly, after the females put up a big fight to try to stop those new incoming males, they end up losing the fight. First thing that happens after is the females go into estrus, meaning they become sexually receptive to the new males. So I joke with my students, in the human context, you put on Barry White music to get the ladies interested. You buy a beautiful gift. You pay attention. You wanna get the lady's attention in pride, in lion pride society? Kill her children.

    8. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    9. GS

      So that's one example of how we've evolved the calculus in our brains to not feel as happy investing in other chil- not, in other children than our own. Now, the next thing that ends up happening is some student will say, "Oh, but does that mean you are justifying through science, child abuse?" And of course the answer is no, right? An oncologist studies cancer. That doesn't mean he or she is for cancer (laughs) . That doesn't mean they are pro-cancer. It means that if you wanna understand cancer, you have to study it honestly. So if you want to tackle child abuse, and you now know that, that step-parenthood is the biggest predictor, that's, that's a valuable tidbit to have. So that's example one. Example two, do you

  5. 13:39 – 17:16

    The Most Dangerous Person a Woman Can Meet

    1. GS

      know, Steven, who is by far the most dangerous individual that a woman will ever meet in her life? Whether it's the Yanomamo tribe in the Amazon, whether it's the Hadza tribe in Central Africa, whether it's in ancient Greece 2,000 years ago, or whether it's in Detroit, Michigan 2,000 years from now, who is the most dangerous person by far that she will ever meet?

    2. SB

      Um (sighs) , uh, let me think about this.

    3. GS

      (laughs)

    4. SB

      Who's the most dangerous person she will ever meet?

    5. GS

      By orders of magnitude more than anybody else, and the minute that I'll say it, you'll go, "Oh, no kidding." But the fact-

    6. SB

      (laughs)

    7. GS

      ... that you don't exactly demonstrates my point, and that's why evolution is so important.

    8. SB

      I think the most dangerous person she will ever meet is another... (pauses)

    9. GS

      You're already off.

    10. SB

      Okay. I don't know.

    11. GS

      Her husband.

    12. SB

      I was gonna say, uh, I can't... I can't-

    13. GS

      (laughs)

    14. SB

      Okay. Okay.

    15. GS

      There you go.

    16. SB

      I was very close 'cause-

    17. GS

      (laughs)

    18. SB

      ... my brain went her f- my brain went her future husband.

    19. GS

      Right.

    20. SB

      Because I was thinking in the, in the courtship process, that's quite dangerous-

    21. GS

      Right.

    22. SB

      ... so...

    23. GS

      So whether it be her long-term partner or prospective long-term partner, right?

    24. SB

      Okay.

    25. GS

      So to your point, a husband is the most dangerous, and then the overwhelming number one reason that might drive him to domestic violence, all the way to homicide-

    26. SB

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    27. GS

      ... is suspected or realized infidelity. Okay?

    28. SB

      I'm a true crime addict and sev- it's, the stat is always, in these true crime shows that about sev- I think it's 70% of the time when a woman is, goes missing or is murdered, it's the husband.

    29. GS

      Exactly.

    30. SB

      Something crazy like that, so...

  6. 17:16 – 18:42

    Is Cheating Ever Justified?

    1. GS

    2. SB

      Before we get back to talking more broadly, just came to mind that, with that context in mind then, cheating is justifiable.

    3. GS

      Cheating, uh, in a romantic relationship?

    4. SB

      Yeah.

    5. GS

      So, uh, depends what you... Uh, when you say justifiable, you're falling into the trap of if you explain it scientifically, it's okay. We also have a moral compass that's due to an evolutionary mechanism. So one of the difficulties of life is how to navigate through the Darwinian strings that are pulling me in different directions, right? I've evolved a desire to gorge on fatty foods. But if I do that in an unrestrained manner, I become a sumo wrestler and I die of heart disease at 42. So I've also evolved the mechanism of self-control. So the fact that I explain why it might make evolutionary sense to cheat doesn't mean I'm justifying it.

    6. SB

      Yeah, no, and I, I think this is really important because we have to give people a toolkit to think about this conversation so that they don't assume everything that's being said is an endorsement of the thing.

    7. GS

      (laughs) Exactly. Exactly.

    8. SB

      It's just an ex- explanation of the thing through the lens of evolution.

    9. GS

      Perfect.

    10. SB

      And there are two very... And do you know what? Some people can't do that.... 'cause some people get so triggered by-

    11. GS

      Those people are called my colleagues.

    12. SB

      Oh, really? (laughs)

    13. GS

      (laughs) Yeah, that's right.

    14. SB

      So I just hope everyone listening now knows that everything here isn't an endorsement of a thing, it's an evolutionary explanation for a thing, and-

    15. GS

      Perfect.

    16. SB

      ... you know, I'm sure we're both full of biases, so nothing is ever that pure.

    17. GS

      Exactly.

    18. SB

      But, but we'll try and just hope that from here on out people understand

  7. 18:42 – 25:43

    Is Monogamy Really Natural?

    1. SB

      that. When I asked that question about cheating, what I'm trying to understand is, through an evolutionary perspective, is monogamy a normal thing?

    2. GS

      I'm off and running for the next 10 minutes. You ready?

    3. SB

      I'm, I'm ready.

    4. GS

      (laughs)

    5. SB

      Let me g- let me give a little bit of context here.

    6. GS

      Sure, please.

    7. SB

      So I've got a lot of male friends, and I see, in all honesty, the full spectrum of relationships. I've got... And this is kind of how I'll describe it. I've got a cohort of male friends that are absolutely faithful in great relationships, um, committed to their partners, and have exercised what I, I assume is a form of discipline to not go after any temptations that they might have. Love that group of friends, great. I have this middle group of friends that are struggling with all kinds of forces, everything from pornography to, um, to, to, to maybe dabbling. And then I have this other group of friends who I would categorize as the cheaters, who cheat almost uncontrollably on their partners, uncontrollably, and this is, um... The spectrum of friends here is about 20 people. Now, I look at that group of friends and I go, "Who is right?" (laughs)

    8. GS

      Right.

    9. SB

      Because morally I can say that the ones over here are hurting people, the cheaters are hurting people, you know, s- especially if they are, they are found in what they're doing, but who is right from an evolutionary perspective?

    10. GS

      Well, they all are in a sense, in that we all have the desire to stray, but we don't necessarily instantiate that desire through overt behavior. So-

    11. SB

      Men and women?

    12. GS

      Men... Yeah, so that's...

    13. SB

      All right.

    14. GS

      Very good. So usually, if I were to say, "Oh, men have evolved a desire for sexual variety," most people, even if they know nothing about evolution, would say, "Yeah, that, that makes sense." But now here's the interesting part, women too have evolved a very strong desire for sexual variety. Now, not to the same degree as men, so there have been studies that have been conducted across a bewildering number of cultures, and in every culture that's been documented, men are much more likely to want more sexual partners and so on, but that doesn't mean that women are Victorian chaste prudes. So now let me give you multiple lines of evidence that suggest that women are hardly the Victorian prudes that we might otherwise wish they were in a Victorian novel. You know when a woman is most likely to cheat situationally?

    15. SB

      I know 'cause I've read your work, so...

    16. GS

      Okay, fi-

    17. SB

      (laughs)

    18. GS

      Okay. So, so I'll say it or do you wanna say it?

    19. SB

      Well, it's when they're maximally fertile, isn't it?

    20. GS

      Very good-

    21. SB

      Yeah.

    22. GS

      ... you've done your homework.

    23. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    24. GS

      So when they are maximally fertile is when they're most likely to stray. Now, that strategy, by the way... And, and they're less likely to insist on contraception. You would think that if I'm cheating outside my marriage... I'm, I'm speaking as a woman now. If I'm cheating outside my marriage, I would want to increase the likelihood of wearing, I mean, using pr- protection because I don't wanna be pregnant. But if the strategy for why I'm cheating is because I'm shopping for superior genes, then it becomes incumbent that I don't use protection, right? So you seldom have a woman who will cheat with a guy who has... who is of lower phenotypic quality, genetic qua- So I, I would love to have Bill Gates as home as my long-term partner, but then I want the male Olympic swimmer as the guy behind the bushes. Now, if I can c- convince Bill Gates that the Olympic male swimmer actually looks a lot like Bill Gates, and, "It's really your sweetie. It's you, Billy. You're the one who..." Then I, I won the... As a woman, I've won the genetic, uh, lottery game. Okay? So it's not that women are not interested in sexual variety. So that's one. Here's another one. If you map out... This is from studies, I think it was in the early '80s. I don't have the exact reference, but it's easy to find.

    25. SB

      Sorry, just in your work you say that women are more likely to cheat with someone who has good genetic stock?

    26. GS

      Yeah.

    27. SB

      Is Bill Gates not got good genetic stock 'cause he's rich and smart?

    28. GS

      Uh, e- so, uh, yes. So the intelligence element is yes, maybe the drive element is yes, but the phenotype is a no. I mean-

    29. SB

      What's the phenotype?

    30. GS

      Phenotype is your physical manifestation, right?

  8. 25:43 – 29:09

    Why Do We Care for Our Families?

    1. GS

    2. SB

      So is this why I take care of my brother's kids in part because they, they're my nieces and nephews are?

    3. GS

      100%. As a matter of fact, I've done several scientific studies where I exactly do these kinds of tests, where I look at what is the pattern of investment in different family members as a function of their genetic relatedness to me. So R is something called the coefficient of genetic relatedness. So me and my brother, our R is .5.

    4. SB

      Yeah.

    5. GS

      Me and my identical twin, our R is one. Me and a random stranger, our R is zero. Me and my nephews and nieces, .25. Me and my parents, .5. Me and my grandparents, .25, okay?

    6. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    7. GS

      So we wanted to test whether the pattern of investments, in this case through gift giving, whether they correlate to the genetic relatedness between the giver and recipient. And as you might expect intuitively, even if you're not a fancy evolutionary psychologist, the greater the genetic relatedness, the larger the size of gift. I'm much more likely to give a bigger gift at my brother's wedding than I am to my second cousin, okay?

    8. SB

      Okay.

    9. GS

      And so we've evolved this calculus that allows us to mete out these investments in line with our genetic relatedness, which by the way you see across countless animal species. The likelihood of you coming out of your burrow to protect people who are in the burrow increases if whoever is in the burrow has greater genetic relatedness to you. So the other part in the 2018 paper that's gonna blow your mind, because that one you wouldn't intuitively have expected it. The f- the first finding you say, "Yeah, it makes sense I give more gifts to my brother than to my third cousin." So we wanted to check whether at an actual Israeli wedding, because they had data from actual 30, I think it was 30 weddings, so they had field data. They had the data of all of the, uh, attendees and the gifts that they gave. Uh, Uncle Mordechai gave $180. Rafika gave... Okay, so what we wanted to test is whether the mother's side or the father's side of the bride and groom, across all genetic relatedness coefficients, which side would give more? Now in the Middle East, it's a patriarchal society, but evolutionary theory would predict something differently, and let me explain why. So take for example your four grandparents, okay? There is maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, paternal grandfather. In terms of the genetic relatedness, they're each equally genetically related to you .25, quarter of their genes they share with you. But here's the second part. Genetic assuredness is not the same across the four. Your paternal grandfather has two layers of paternity uncertainty. Your maternal grandmother has zero generational, uh, paternal, uh, paternity uncertainty th- 'cause there is no maternity uncertainty. So therefore, you would predict that the paternal grandfather would invest the least in his grandchildren, the maternal grandmother would invest the most, and the two other grandparents in the middle. That's what's been found in many studies across many cultures.

    10. SB

      You might have to pl- explain paternity uncertainty.

    11. GS

      Paternity uncertainty means that when a child is born, you never know that he is your child, right? Uh, you, the mother always know that it's her child. She had the child,

  9. 29:09 – 34:53

    Why Do Children Resemble Their Fathers

    1. GS

      right? So we wanted to test whether the mother's side of both the bride and groom would give greater gifts than the father's side precisely because there is no such thing as maternity uncertainty, but there is such a thing as paternity uncertainty, and that's exactly what we found.

    2. SB

      So the women's family gave more presents?

    3. GS

      Exactly.

    4. SB

      Okay.

    5. GS

      Yeah. Th- thank you for summarizing that long rant.

    6. SB

      But, uh, why, why... Again, just to clarify why that is. Because they're trying to make sure that the male is invested?

    7. GS

      No, they're... Because the mother's side is simply more vested in investing in the, in either the bride or groom because they know that that is their infant.

    8. SB

      Ah, 'cause there's no uncertainty.

    9. GS

      There's no uncertainty.

    10. SB

      Got you.

    11. GS

      You got it?

    12. SB

      Yeah.

    13. GS

      Okay. So now can we close the loop-

    14. SB

      Yeah.

    15. GS

      ... on the sexual variety? So, so far I said that, uh, there's definitely evidence that women also have a sexual variety penchant by virtue of them cheating more when they are maximally fertile with a... And not insisting on, uh, contraception and all that. Here's another one. You do a mapping of across primates, so here come the bonobos, here come mountain gorillas, here come chimpanzees, here comes humans. So you put all the primates, and you do a, uh, calculation of the size of the testes-... of the males in that species as a function of female sexual promiscuity in that species. Are you with me?

    16. NA

      Yes.

    17. GS

      So, mountain gorillas, phenomenal beasts, 450 pounds, some of the most majestic males. They have a territorial, they're, they have a polygynous arrangement. There is one male, dominant male, that controls control to sexual access to many females. So based on what I just said, can you predict what the size of their testes are?

    18. NA

      They're gonna have small testes?

    19. GS

      Yes, because there isn't sperm war competition. Therefore, imagine how unbelievable it is that a fundamental male morphological attribute, the size of your testes, is an adaptive response to a female behavior in that species. Greater female promiscuity in that species, bigger testicles. So, mountain gorillas, very small testicles. Okay? Chimpanzees are just walking testicles. Their bodies just exist to support massive testes. Why? Because in chimp society, we say "Hello, sex," we say "Goodbye, sex," we fight, sex, post-fight, sex. So there is constant sex happening, so that the same female is being impregnated by multiple males. So the way that I fight against that is by developing bigger testes because then there are mechanisms where having bigger testes solves that problem. So now here comes Robin Baker, actually a British scientist who wrote a book called Sperm Wars, where he argued in his book, some have said it's contentious, others said that it's tight, that the morphology of sp- human sperm-

    20. NA

      The makeup of it.

    21. GS

      ... the makeup of it, is not simply the standard one that we're all used to seeing, which is there is a head with a tail, and they're all rushing to that mythical egg. Those are called fertilizers. He demonstrated in his research that there are two other types of sperm phenotypes within a man's ejaculate. There are the blockers that don't look like the fertilizer, and-

    22. NA

      De- defense.

    23. GS

      Defense, very good, and then there are the killers...

    24. NA

      Ooh.

    25. GS

      ... that go around hunting other men's sperm. Now, let's put it all together. Sperm is viable within the reproductive, uh, a woman's reproductive tract for about 72 hours. Therefore, for men to have evolved the chemical weaponry to have blockers and killers means that in our ancestral past, the likelihood of women having been with more than one man within a 72-hour period, whether willfully or through aggression, would've been high. Therefore, that's why you evolve that response. Now, here's where you can see what happens with ideology w- and, therefore, how, why I wrote Parasitic Mind. When I lecture this in front of radical feminists, they'll come up, "Dr. Saad, you're such a brilliant scientist." Why? Because the research that I just described demonstrates that women could be just as sexually vor- voracious as men, and that they've evolved a desire also for, you know, a sexual appetite. That corresponds with my women's studies and radical feminism classes. Therefore, when, from this side of my mouth, I say something that supports their ideology, I become a hero. If from this side of my mouth, I say, "Oh, but incidentally, across cultures, it's been studied across many, many cultures, men do have much greater desire for sexual variety," boo. So I can either go from hero to zero depending on whether what I just said supports your ideology or not. That's not how you adjudicate science. Science truth exists independently of whether it supports your ideology or not, hence eventually The Parasitic Mind, because you're parasitized by bad ideologies.

  10. 34:53 – 38:31

    What Are Your Most Controversial Beliefs?

    1. GS

    2. NA

      What are, what are the ideas that you've shared that have got you in the most trouble?

    3. GS

      So in my scientific work, humans are biological beings shaped by the dual forces of sexual and natural selection, boo, Nazi, boo, Nazi. Okay? I mean, people are coming around now because the beauty of science is that it's auto-corrective, right? I mean, some of the biggest works w- you, you now know that they're the biggest work by how much they were originally re- rejected. So many Nobel Prizes, the story's always the same. The scientist proposes an idea that is completely unorthodox, contrary to the prevailing whims of accepted science, and is constantly rejected until it's not. Very simple example, probably the thing that has saved human beings the most from death over the past 100 years, well, it's stuff related to hygiene issues, because a lot of times you'd have childhood mortality because of exposure to different pathogens. Well, the gentleman who came up with the idea of why so often women die during childbirth, do, do you know what the answer is?

    4. NA

      Um, because the doctor's not cleaned his hands or...

    5. GS

      Yes, (laughs) beautiful.

    6. NA

      Yeah.

    7. GS

      Well done, Steve. So, uh, it's Semmelweis who was a doctor who said, "What's happening here? Why are th- these women getting this post, uh, natal...... very devastating, uh, fever, and then within an a- a day or two, they're gone. And so he said, "Oh, wait a second. So the s- the surgeons have just worked on cadavers."

    8. SB

      What's a cadaver?

    9. GS

      Uh, like a dead, dead body, okay?

    10. SB

      Right.

    11. GS

      So, like, let's say they're, they're doing forensic pathology stuff, okay? And then they move straight to a gynecological intervention with the woman, so when he said, and he did the studies that, that showed, "Hey, here are women who we, we asked the guys to clean or didn't ask the guys to clean." It, and people laughed him out of town. He died in a sanitarium, in a mental institution. He, he was complete... Like, today, we, we erect statues of him, right? So, so to answer your first point, when I first started my career, when I said, "Oh, by the way, you can't study consumers without understanding their physiology, their hormones." People said, "What kind of bullshit is this? This is not a biology department. Get a grip. You should, you should, you should not be in the business school." I said, "Well, what do you mean?" "You think that you can, you think that when a consumer eats, they transcend their biology? It's outside of their biology?" Well, now, a lot of them are coming around, so that when I s- first promulgated this idea 30 years ago, I was a Nazi. Today, it's, "Dear Dr. Saad, it would be an honor if you'd come and give the plenary lecture at our university." Oh, but what happened 30 years ago when I was a bullshitter? Well, apparently, they caught on. So, so in my academic work, the mere fact of saying that we're biological beings was the most triggering thing. In my public engagement work that's not directly related to my science, well, it's a very long list, hence The Parasitic Mind, but certainly when I talk about things related, say, to Islam, that doesn't get me a lot of Islamic friends, unfortunately.

    12. SB

      You're Jewish, aren't you? For context.

    13. GS

      I'm Jewish, yes.

    14. SB

      Yeah.

    15. GS

      Yes, I'm Jewish. But, but what I say would be true whether I was Jewish or whether I was, uh, anything else.

    16. SB

      So how i- as an evolutionary behavioral scientist,

  11. 38:31 – 44:55

    How Much of Human Behaviour Is Driven by Sex?

    1. SB

      how much of what we do is driven by sex and relationships?

    2. GS

      (laughs) Uh, I mean, so in, in my earlier books, so I'm gonna answer it again in a br- in a big way. Uh, in my first book, which is The Evolutionary Basis of Consumption and then in The Consuming Instinct, I argue that there are four key Darwinian mechanisms that drive much of our purpose of behavior, so that s- speaks to your point. Uh, there is behaviors that are related to natural selection, or our survival instinct. So for example, the fact that I'm almost certain that you and I have a preference for some instantiation of a fatty food more than raw celery is almost a guarantee.

    3. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    4. GS

      Am I right? Do...

    5. SB

      Yes, I agree. Yeah.

    6. GS

      Okay.

    7. SB

      Right.

    8. GS

      And I'm, I'm willing to bet that everybody who's in the studio will, will also agree. Okay? Now, we may have a different preference, so I, I prefe- I may prefer fatty steak, you prefer, uh, chocolate mousse, but we both prefer chocolate mousse and steak over raw celery. And so there are many consummatory acts and preferences that I can easily ultimately map to that drive, the most obvious of which would be our food preferences. Okay? To your direct question, then the next module, so that first module, I call it the survival module. The next module, called the reproductive module, sex, to your question, are all the things that we do because they're very much driven by sex-related issues. So, the types of products that men and women use as sexual signals are astonishingly the same across cultures. So for example, owners of Ferrari are 99% male even though there are a million women who have the resources to certainly buy a Ferrari, yet they don't. Oprah Winfrey is not stopped from buying a Ferrari 'cause she can't afford it, and yet she's not doing it. In the human context, fancy cars take on the morphological feature of the peacock's tail. So, all animals that are sexually reproducing use sexual signals. Humans, given that they're also a consummatory animal, will use specific products to signal, "Look at me. I'm better th- than Stephen." The way that I do that is by hopefully demonstrating clues that I have higher status than you. Okay?

    9. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    10. GS

      Now, women will also engage in vigorous sexual signaling, but it'll be related to things that are beautification, right? So, cosmetic surgeries around the world are almost excl- not that men don't do it, uh, hair plugs, but it's very, very much of a female domain. And so there are many, many behaviors, whether consumer-related or not, that could be then mapped onto the reproductive module, to your question.

    11. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    12. GS

      Then there are two other modules that I hinted at earlier when I talked about gift-giving. So there's the kin selection module. These are behaviors that are related to the fact of I increase my inclusive fitness by investing in my kin. Okay? And then there is reciprocal altruism module, which is why would I ever jump into the river... So if I jump into the river to save my three children, that's kin selection because each of my three children, on average, shares 50% of their genes with me, so if in the service of saving those three kids, I end up dying, the evolutionary calculus is totally in favor of me dying. Who cares?

    13. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    14. GS

      Okay? On the other hand, why would I jump into the river to save Stephen? First of all, until we met today, you're a stranger.

    15. SB

      Yeah.

    16. GS

      Why would I ever save a stranger? If you're not a stranger and you're a friend, you, but you're still zero genetic relatedness, so there, the argument is, is that it's due to reciprocal altruism, in that human beings have evolved the mechanism of reciprocity to oil our social bonds.

    17. SB

      To return a favor.

    18. GS

      To return a fa- So, so literally, the "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" literally comes from our primate cousin species...... where you engage in reciprocal grooming. So what happens? There are a bunch of parasites that are all over my fur that I can't get to, and so what I do is I come stand and I give you my back, and you will sit there and pick at all of it. Of course, the expectation is you'll now return the favor, so I literally scratch your back and you scratch mine. Now, where did that signature come from originally? One argument is that imagine we are walking around in the savanna, where the most common threat that we face... Li- life is basically two things, I mean, other than sex: get dinner and make sure you don't become somebody's dinner.

    19. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    20. GS

      Mic drop. That's it. That's life. Okay? So, one of the problems that we've all faced, hence why we've evolved gustatory preferences for high-calorie foods, is caloric uncertainty and caloric scarcity. We don't have a neighborhood store to go buy our food, so I might actually die of starvation. Well, what if we mitigate that risk whereby we set up an insurance policy with non-kin, another group of folks that are also walking around the savanna? "Hey, next time that we bring down the big prey that's a thousand pounds of meat, we will share with you. But hey, you do the right thing and reciprocate back to us." So now you might say, "Okay, well that's all nice fancy science, but how does that manifest itself in, in human consumer behavior?" Well, there are so many behaviors that you and I engage in if we're friends that are completely rooted in that reciprocal module. So for example, when it's your birthday, I call you and I invite you out to dinner. I expect, unless you're a social cheat, that when it's my birthday, you will reciprocate. Now, from a strict economic perspective, why don't we skip this whole charade? I'm gonna pay $70 for your meal. You're gonna pay $70 for mine. We're gonna end up at the same spot. Let's not do it. The reason why we have to do it is because that reciprocal ritual is what oils our bonds of affinity. And so there are many, many behaviors that we engage in that are exactly tailoring that. So to summarize, much of our behaviors, I argue in my earlier books, could be mapped onto one of these four

  12. 44:55 – 53:44

    What Is a Mate Desirability Score?

    1. GS

      modules.

    2. SB

      And in that earlier book, The Consuming Instinct, you talk about a mate desirability score.

    3. GS

      Right.

    4. SB

      What is a mate desirability score?

    5. GS

      So, imagine a car. A car is made up of many attributes, right? So, the car could be what's its gas efficiency? What's the strength of its, uh, uh, engine? How well does it hug the, the, the road? What's its green? Is it a green car or does it have bad exhaust? So, so a car is a multi-attribute product. It's made up of many attributes. And then it could be that the way that I choose which car I pick is the one that scores the best on the totality of those attributes, okay?

    6. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    7. GS

      That's called a multi-attribute choice. Well, human beings are also products made up of many attributes. So in the mating market, you and I, let's say we do men now but, of course, it applies to women too, there's a bunch of attributes that we know that women are going to either like about us or not like about us. Overwhelmingly, by the way, the number one universal attribute that women seek is anything that's related to social status, right? So in other words, it could be my ambition, it could be my assertiveness, it could be my social dominance. It could be literally the, the big diplomas I have behind my back. It could be the number of zeros behind in my bank. It could be how many cattle heads I have if I'm Hadza tribe. But in no culture has a woman ever said the following, "Give me a non-assertive beta, meek man who has pear-shaped hips and a nasal voice, and I'm turning into a sexual frenzied animal." That, those words have never been uttered in the history of humanity. Okay? But what women will say... By the way, now, it's not that they only look for rich guys, right? Because many women will be madly in love with the starving artist, but the starving artist is showing what?

    8. SB

      Ambition?

    9. GS

      Ambition, assertiveness. There is a trajectory of creation that's coming around the corner. "I'm going to become a big r- rock star." But no... That's why, by the way, if you do, uh, I- I think that study has been done where you... And actually some of my students in one of my classes did a similar study for their project. Just show a guy, exact same guy in a personal ad he's got a guitar, he doesn't have a guitar. Nothing changed. It's the exact same guy. It's Steven. But give him a guitar or no... Oh, with the guitar, Steven is gorgeous. Without the guitar, he's less gorgeous.

    10. SB

      What's the other explanation for that that people might jump to? They might say, "Well, I like music, so that's why I prefer Steven with a guitar, and he's gonna play some songs and I'm gonna feel good and then I'm gonna have sex with him."

    11. GS

      So, (laughs) so that's a very good question. So that is the difference between proximate explanations and ultimate explanations. Much of science operates at the proximate level. It explains the how and the what of a phenomenon. How does diabetes work? What are the factors that increase the likelihood of you having diabetes? That's perfectly fine. The ultimate explanation is the Darwinian why. Why would the phenomenon have evolved to be of that type? So you could say, "I'm just drawn to a guy who knows how to play music." You've just explained proximate. It's like saying, "Why have we evolved to have sex? 'Cause it feels good." That's a proximate. The ultimate explanation is that a sexually reproducing species has to have a mechanism by which you're drawn to engage in the behavior that results in procreation. So it's not that ultimate explanations are superior to proximate ones. It's that you need both levels of analyses to fully explain a phenomenon.

    12. SB

      So what is going on there with the guitar from an evolutionary perspective? Why is the guitar attractive?

    13. GS

      He's creative.

    14. SB

      Yeah.

    15. GS

      Uh, he's got the assiduousness to have the discipline to pr- wh- why is a violin virtuoso attractive? All other thing... Or, or Picasso? Picasso is a short little guy, he's frumpy, he's bald, yet he's got a very, very long line of very attractive women saying...... "Ca- ca- can I have sex with you, Picasso, tonight?" How is that possible?

    16. SB

      Is it because, at some level, we're associating that talent with status?

    17. GS

      A- absolutely.

    18. SB

      I- the person that can play the piano at the party probably has a lot of status, they're gonna have a lot of options, the-

    19. GS

      One- 100. As a matter... I mean, just listen to famous rock stars and what they say as to why they became musicians. I mean, literally almost to the word, it's as if they plagiarized each other. "Oh, I quickly realized that that's how I can get the girls." Right?

    20. SB

      (laughs)

    21. GS

      They never said, "It's because in my childhood, I grew up listening to Bach and Mozart and it tickled my auditory reflex." Right? They usually said, "Oh, I go to a party and I break out the thing, and the lineup begins, and then Gene Simmons sleeps with 5,000 girls, and the lead singer of Simple Red, who's a rather..." Forgive me, whatever your name is. He's ginger guy. He's not exactly the model of my sexual dreams if I'm a woman, but yet he was, you know, with tons of women, right? But to finish the point about mate desirability scale, so now imagine all of those attributes that I can co- so, okay, Gad Saad. Well, I'm not tall. That goes against me, but I'm not very hard to look at. That goes for me. I play soccer really well. I learned very quickly when I was 15 that the best way that you won't get bullied by anybody is when you're the big soccer star, okay?

    22. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    23. GS

      Uh, I've done pretty well in my life. So there are some traits that I score badly on and some traits that I can compensate on, and so we can put them all into a basket and say, "Okay, well, what... On a scale of 0 to 100, what would Gad score on his mate desirability scale?" And so that's what that scale is, it's basically taking all of our attributes and then saying, "What do you score? Is, is Steven a 78 or a 92?" Now, here's what's very interesting to, to that question, which you didn't ask. Humans engage in what's called assortative mating. Assortative mating is the idea that birds of a feather flock together. So there are two maxims, there's the birds of a feather flock together, and there's the opposites attract. Opposites attract only works w- well for short-term mating. I am sexually coy and shy, and I'm an introvert. You're sexually daring and extroverted. That complementarity might actually result in a nice tryst behind the bushes. But for long-term mating, if you want to assure success of a long-term marriage, then it's overwhelmingly birds of a feather flock together. And usually here what we mean is we share similar values, we share similar goals, similar mindsets. We really have to assort on these. If I'm an acerbic atheist and you're a committed Catholic who views everything through Jesus, it doesn't take a fancy professor to know w- we're not starting on the right foot, okay? But here's the other part about associative, uh, assor- assortative mating. This is actually something that I first pro- um, proposed as an open question many years ago on one of my appearances on Joe Rogan, and I received like 100 emails saying, "Oh, I wanna do that research with you," which I still haven't done, so maybe-

    24. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    25. GS

      ... it'll happen now, so let me repeat it. So I argue that people assort based on their overall mate desirability score, which is the question you asked. Meaning, if I'm an 87, I'm unlikely... Because the mating market is, is literally a market. It, it's a market, okay?

    26. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    27. GS

      If I'm an 87, I can command a girl or expect a girl in the 80s. It wouldn't be good for an 87 to go with a 36. Uh, we all want to get the 100. Both men and women want to get the 100, but what stops us is that I don't score 100. So I wanna get the gorgeous supermodel and so on, but maybe I'm not good enough to get her, and y- and, and all women want to get the highly accomplished gorgeous male Olympic swimmer who's both brawny and a neurosurgeon, but they can't get him because he's got the pick of the litter. So usually, we end up assorting on our mate value, but now here's the part where I propose there's a hypothesis, and it, it, it's, it's never been tested, although I discuss it in the happiness book. So I argue, I predict, although I haven't tested it, that what will predict the likelihood of a couple staying together into the future is whether their mating, overall mating scores stay in line or they begin to diverge.

  13. 53:44 – 57:18

    Can We Predict a Couple’s Success?

    1. GS

      So I'm the high school quarterback, so, uh, all the girls think I'm hot. I get to go to the prom pa- whatever it's called, uh, with the cheerleader, the head cheerleader. She's the hot girl. I'm the king of the high school. That's great. At that point, when we're both 18, we assort on our mating value. Now let's fast-forward. 10 years later, the hot cheerleader is now finishing her third year in neurosurgery, yes?

    2. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    3. GS

      There's a lot of hot pretty smart-looking male doctors. The, the hot quarterback when I was 18 has become fat, he's lost his hair, and he's, uh, consistently unemployed, and shows no interest other than playing video games. So what's happened? When we first met when we were 18, our mating values were the same, but now hot cheerleader has become neurosurgeon. Her score has gone really up. Hot quarterback is now a degenerate. Now there's a huge difference in our mating scores that's going to put a huge stressor on our marriage. So one of the things I argue in the happiness book is, yes, make sure to meet someone who matches you in your mating value, and work hard at making sure that you stay at the right mating value. Once we get that divergence, I'm predicting divorce.

    4. SB

      Okay, the... (sighs) It's super interesting. The question that springs to mind is as men and women age, who tends to drop in their desirability score?

    5. GS

      What do you think?

    6. SB

      I don't know.

    7. GS

      (laughs)

    8. SB

      (laughs) I don't know.

    9. GS

      Okay. You want me to answer it because then I can get the hate mail, no problem.

    10. SB

      No, no, but I, I ask that as well because there's clearly some data on who's asking for the divorces, who's initiating the divorces, who's cheating the most, that would-

    11. GS

      So women are overwhelmingly the ones to instigate a divorce.

    12. SB

      Yeah.

    13. GS

      That's true. Although, from a strict evolutionary perspective, the mate val- all other things equal, mate value of men goes up with age, mate value of women goes down with age. Now, here's how you reduce your chances in the mating market if you're a woman. You ready? Of course, just aging, yes, number one. Number two, if you're tall. That's a death blow. Why? Because whe- w- it's not that women want only tall guys, because then we, all the other guys would, we would have been twiddling our thumbs in frustrated celibacy. But women want a guy who's taller than them. That's what's guaranteed. There was actually a study done, uh, a few years, well, many years ago now, where they looked at 720 actual couples. Guess how many violated that norm? Women taller than men, out of 720?

    14. SB

      I don't know.

    15. GS

      One.

    16. SB

      One out of 720?

    17. GS

      One, right? So women, it- it's a, it's a nonstarter that a woman doesn't want a shorter guy than her. She might... I mean, Lionel Messi is my height, but he's Lionel Messi, and he found a gorgeous woman who's shorter than him, right? But what you don't want... Now, if I'm a six-foot-one woman... Now, of course there are still six-foot-two and taller men, but just statistically speaking, we've just shrunk the possible pool. There is a gorgeous guy, super handsome, very funny, very educated, who's 5'8", but I'm 6'1". I tower over him. If I wear heels and I add another four inches, he becomes my son.

    18. SB

      Well, this

  14. 57:18 – 59:57

    What Makes Men and Women Desirable?

    1. SB

      all brings to light something else which has been discussed a few times on this show, which is, if... We said there that men's mate desirability score stays pretty consistent unless they-

    2. GS

      All goes up.

    3. SB

      All goes up, unless they do something very bad. But the kind of inverse conversation there is that women's desirability scores are now higher than ever when they're younger than ever.

    4. GS

      Yeah.

    5. SB

      So you've got si- And I believe, from what I've been told, that the male's desirability score is now lower than ever, if we think about income, if we think about-

    6. GS

      Across age groups?

    7. SB

      Um, in, in the lower age groups.

    8. GS

      Oh, okay, I see.

    9. SB

      So, if you think about income, um, differences, if you think about educational differences, who's graduating from college, who's smarter-

    10. GS

      Yeah.

    11. SB

      ... and all these kinds of things, because of the very important changes that happen in society, um, men and women are getting closer and closer to parity here.

    12. GS

      Yeah.

    13. SB

      Which means that the... I mean, someone on the podcast described it to me as the tall woman problem, but it can also be described as the small man problem.

    14. GS

      (laughs) Well, and it's small, uh, it's small and tall, not... I was gonna finish that, right?

    15. SB

      Yeah, n- yeah, yeah.

    16. GS

      Yeah. It's not just the height.

    17. SB

      Yeah.

    18. GS

      So, I said death blow would be you get older, you're tall, and you're very educated. So, if you are a 38-year-old, six-foot-two PhD from Stanford, and you're a woman, good luck. Why? Because, number one, I've gotten older, so there's a smaller pool, right? Uh, number two, I'm tall. I want a taller guy. Number three, when I'm a PhD, I'm a woman now. When I'm a PhD, I want a guy who is as educated and accomplished as me or more. So now I need to find a six-foot-four guy who's also a PhD. Right? Here's the paradox, by the way, that people don't realize. People think that, oh, the reason why women always desire high-status guy, this is bullshit, it's not true, is because historically they have been dominated by the patriarchy, so they sought that which they didn't have. And that's completely falsified by the fact that very high-status women actually insist more on the guy being higher status. So, if it were... So for example, if I am a neurosurgeon and a diplomat, and I'm a woman, I don't say, "Oh, well, now that I have all that I need, let me look for the illiterate 17-year-old cabana boy who can't read three words, 'cause that's what I want." No. She even wants m- she insists more on the guy being meeting her or higher in status. So if I'm, if I'm older, tall, and super educated, it's a death blow.

  15. 59:57 – 1:09:10

    The Confusion Around Masculinity

    1. GS

    2. SB

      What does this all say about what's going on with masculinity at the moment? Because, um, when, I've, you know, we've said this a few times on the show, but when you look at the stats around suicidality amongst men, um, when you look at mental health issues amongst men, when you look at some of the influencers that men are now drawn to more than ever that are offering a new vision of masculinity, there's clearly some kind of transition, something going on in society at the moment as it relates to what it is to be a man.

    3. GS

      Right.

    4. SB

      You, you said this thing about beta male earlier on. No one wants a beta male.

    5. GS

      Right.

    6. SB

      Well, you know, it feels like there has been a narrative that has encouraged a bit more beta maleness-

    7. GS

      Yeah.

    8. SB

      ... in society. And we're seeing a bit of, like, a counter movement. I've had so many women, some of which have been on this show, say to me that they've got a young son, um, and they are confused about the advice they should be giving their young son in such a world.

    9. GS

      I get tons of women who write to me and s- and ask me sort of the f- I'm paraphrasing, "Where, where are the bold men?" Right? "I, I, I go to a place. I'm looking super, you know, ready to meet people. I'm easy to look at, and no one approaches me." Well, if you inculcate over many generations that, if I approach you and say-... "My God, my name is Gad. Y- y- you look lovely. What a beautiful dress." That's a compliment becomes a form of compliment rape. Then is it surprising that I may be a bit ambivalent in approaching you? I mean, I- I often joke that given some of the, what is now considered hashtag MeToo, Italy should cease to exist because the whole country is hashtag MeToo. Right? What do I mean by that? Italians, stereotypically of course, are seducers. They pursue women. I mean, women will say, you know, "I love Italian guys, how they approach." Now, we're not talking about, uh, uh, you know, being persistent to the point that they're harassing you, that they're, uh, pinning you down physically. But there is a dynamic of courtship whereby men who are bold, men who approach, men who take chances, who are confident are going to get the pretty girl. Well, now imagine if you create a dynamic in, for all sorts of reasons, one of which is radical feminism, the other one of which is to pathologize half of humanity called men through the label of toxic masculinity. No, it's called sexiness. A guy who jumps into a- a- a building to save a puppy and he's called a fireman, that's what we fantasize about. That's not toxic masculinity. That's masculinity, right? And so a lot of women will write to me and say, "Wh- where are those men, professor?" Well, those men are too afraid to come out. I- I'll give you a couple of examples, okay? At my university, we now have a mandatory sexual training module that we have to take otherwise we can't continue, right? It's- it's part of, like, you- you know, you have till October 15th to get the refresher. Because until my benevolent, kind employer taught me how to speak to women, I was clueless. So the first 57 years of my life, I walked around as a Middle Eastern savage not knowing how to interact with women. Of course I'm being sarcastic, right? But then the, my benevolent employer came along and through very, very cute condescending and patronizing cartoon vignettes, they teach me how to act. So, you know, a compliment that is in the wrong context could be a form of sexual violence. So for example, uh, you're walking down the street and you see a guy complimenting an- a woman and it appears that she's not, uh, welcoming that compliment. Is that sexual violence? And so I will first, just to test the algorithm, say no. And then it comes back, "Ooh, I understand why you might be..." But that is a form. Are you with me? Yes. So now I'm 59 with a big personality. This kind of bullshit doesn't get to me. That's why I speak openly and publicly, to the chagrin of all of academia. But the 21-year-old who doesn't have that same strength of personhood, do you think he's going to think twice before, at the next party, walking up to a girl, mustering up all his courage to ask her if she wants a coffee? Um, of course he is. So I think that's where that problem of dynamic comes from. And I'm now going to share a personal story with one- one of my brothers, which is also in the happiness book, which speaks to when you're the opposite of the non-bold, timid guy. One of my brothers, uh, has been in Southern California since 1984. He became very, very successful and wealthy. Uh, was an Olympian, uh, judoka. He- he represented Lebanon in the 1976 Olympics. The reason why that's relevant is because physically he's very dominant, but my brother is two feet tall. Obviously not, but he's- he's shorter than me. He's... Okay? How tall are you? I'm like 5'6", 5'7". And he's? He's maybe 5'3". Okay. But- but a bulldog. Yeah. Right? I always like to say, just because then it makes it easy, I say, "I'm Messi's height," so that makes it easier. (laughs) Okay. So, uh, he's not Messi's height. He's shorter than Messi's height. He's shorter than Maradona, right? So, but he walks like he's seven feet tall. Okay. So we used to, in the early '90s, I would come visit him. He- he used to live in- in Newport Beach where we are now. And we'd go to clubs. I'm- I'm single at that point. And my brother would say, "All right, Gad, we're gonna play the game." I'm like, "Oh..." His name is David. I don't know, David, I'm not in the mood. "Find the most beautiful and unattainable girl here." "Oh, come on man, I don't wanna do this." "Do it." Okay. All right. So I look around. So now I want to find not only the prettiest girl, I want to find an impediment to you getting her. What's an impediment? A really domineering looking man that she's with, therefore that makes it even less likely that you can get her. Yes? Mm-hmm. "Okay, David, I found her. The- the girl over there with the high heels in the middle of the dance floor." "That's the one? You sure, Gad?" "Yes, that's the one." Okay. He stands there. Dominant, tattooed guy goes to the bathroom. David, in great white shark mode, goes up to the girl. She, with her high heels, he's coming up to here. I jest. Right, okay? "Ha ha ha." I hear them smiling. He comes back to me, complete cold. Says, "She'll call me tomorrow." "Bullshit, David. No way. Zero chance. It's not happening." Next day. "Come, come." This is kind of an Arabic thing. "Come." "Hi David, it's Candy. We met yesterday at the thing. I'm looking forward to meeting you." How did he do it, Steven? He did it because testicles this big, he's 7'2", in his aura. Now, you might say, "Well yeah, boy does it add a lot of inches metaphorically when you have Ferraris and so on." But there's a more general story here.He owns the world, he walks like he owns it, right? But he's not of great... So if you ask women, "Yeah, it'd be great if I'm 6'2" and I walk big," but I could be 6'2" and very meek, and very tepid, and very beta, or I could be 5'7" and I'm messy, most are gonna go for messy. So that's what I mean, by the way, when I say that mating is a compensatory choice. Compensatory means that it... to your earlier point about mate desirability, we are judged on a basket of goods. If it were that we're only judged in a non-compensatory way, meaning... So for example, if it were that women say, "I always go out with the tallest guy," then there is no way for me to compensate for that. My humor won't get me higher score. My looks won't get me, my education, my accomplishment, I'm dead, because there's, there are a lot of taller guys. But if the way you choose me is as a function of how I score on a basket of goods, then I might have a shot. So that's why I tell people, by the way, that even though we all score poorly on some things, but there's a whole bunch of other things that we... that is within our possibility to improve. I guarantee you, for all that you are, if you improve on assertiveness, ambition, if your vocabulary changes so that when you sit at a party, people can judge you, by the way, within the first few sentences that you say. Just your elocution, the vocabulary that you use, the, the thoughtfulness of your answers, I can very quickly judge where you are, where I can put you in the, in the, in the pigeonhole. So there are way... You know what? Why don't you crack a book and read a bit, right? Why don't you stop playing video games?

    10. SB

      On

  16. 1:09:10 – 1:13:59

    What It Really Feels Like to Be a Woman

    1. SB

      this point of masculinity, w- the... just further upstream a little bit, we talked about men approaching women. Now, I have to present the counter-narrative to this, because I don't think most men understand what it is to be a beautiful woman-

    2. GS

      Right.

    3. SB

      ... and the-, and what they go through on a daily basis. This, um, ITV made a piece sev- I think seven days ago, I saw it on t- on X, or Twitter, um, which showed what it's like to be a, a beautiful woman walking down the street.

    4. GS

      Yeah.

    5. SB

      Um, this was only seven days ago. There's been a variety of different videos like this, but I'll just play it for you so you can see. (laughs)

    6. GS

      Oh, no. What's going on here? (laughs)

    7. NA

      I'm filming undercover alone in Cardiff, where police recently announced a decrease in violence against women. Within seconds, a group of men approached me.

    8. SB

      Do you play tennis?

    9. NA

      I do. Yeah.

    10. SB

      Yeah?

    11. NA

      Yeah. Why?

    12. SB

      Why?

    13. NA

      This guy didn't respect my personal space.

    14. SB

      I don't mean to be rude or anything, but I saw you and I had to say hello. You look nice.

    15. NA

      I'm just trying to run my round.

    16. SB

      That's fine, but...

    17. NA

      The guy in the black T-shirt sees me up ahead and speeds up to get next to me, and like many others, he overstays his welcome. I think I'll be okay. 20 people approached me in just two hours.

    18. SB

      Now, I don't think men realize that's-

    19. GS

      Yeah.

    20. SB

      ... that's the nature of what a woman goes through. So in the context of this conversation about, you know, we do have to be on the front foot if we are gonna find a mate, when you understand that that's what that beautiful woman that you're thinking about going up to has already gone through, it does ch- change your, uh, you know-

    21. GS

      I got you, but I- I've got an, uh-

    22. SB

      Sure.

    23. GS

      ... uh, uh, ready-deployed answer for that. Life is about modulation, right? Saying the right thing in the right way at the right time, right? Uh, I'm sort of paraphrasing a, a quote of Aristotle, which in- in- in the per- uh, not the Persuasion mind, in the Happiness book, I have a whole chapter that is going to address your beautiful woman story. So I talk about the inverted U. Uh, d- does that ring a bell? Do you know what that is, the inverted U?

    24. SB

      Uh, I can imagine on a graph.

    25. GS

      On a graph.

    26. SB

      Yeah.

    27. GS

      But not, not this way, that way.

    28. SB

      Oh, sorry. Yeah.

    29. GS

      Right.

    30. SB

      The other way, like a hill.

  17. 1:13:59 – 1:20:05

    How to Build Self-Awareness

    1. SB

      And I, I... At the heart of this though is this idea of self-awareness.

    2. GS

      Exactly.

    3. SB

      Because the men that rolled up there, they might in their own heads think they have a chance. They might, like, have a distorted view of their probability. I mean, one of them rolled up and said, "Hey, uh, do you want some tennis lessons? I'm a tennis coach." And from what I saw in the video, he was a good 30, 40 years older than her.

    4. GS

      Yeah.

    5. SB

      And in, in his head, he must have thought that the effort he's exerting there is worth the probability that he's assumed because there's just, like, no self-awareness, and I think at the heart of this is, like, how do you build that, that self-awareness to know... (laughs)

    6. GS

      Oh, I, I love that you're asking this because one of the things that frustrates me the most in social interactions is when... So I'm not a beautiful woman so I don't get that violation, but I get a million other violations for all sorts of reasons, one of which is that people do recognize me a lot and they do come up, so they don't do it because they're trying to get me behind the bushes, but then they'll stop me and lecture for the next 25 minutes about whatever idea they're having in their head. Now, I'm polite. I'm thankful that people appreciate my work and will come up, but I didn't sign up while I'm walking with my children and wife for you to lecture me for 25 minutes uninterrupted without me saying a word. If you come up and say, "Oh, I read The Persuasive Mind, professor. Loved it. Do you mind if I take a picture with you?" I'm always gracious, I'm alway-... But, so all of those social faux pas, almost all of them could be linked to what you said, which is a complete lack of self-awareness. Which, let's break it down even more. There is a concept in, uh, psychology, uh, called theory of mind. Are you, are you familiar with it?

    7. SB

      No.

    8. GS

      S- Theory of mind is a ability that m- you must have in order to have meaningful social interaction. What does theory of mind mean? When I'm chatting with you, I have to be able to put myself in your mind. So for example, if I'm talking to an audience that knows nothing about evolutionary psychology, I might alter the specific words I use because I have theory of mind that makes me say, "They don't know what domain-specific computational systems would be." If I use those words, I just lo- Not because they're dumb, but because they don't know that jargon. So I already exhibited a good communicator skill, which is I put myself in the theory of mind of my audience and I modulate my message depending on who I'm speaking to. Well, autistic children, by the way, fail on theory of mind. So one of the ways that you are able to diagnose... Because autism, you can't give a blood test that shows, oh, there is a marker of autism. So, uh, the way that you typically, uh, diagnose autism early is through various tasks that they go through. So there is a task for children that you suspect might be autistic where they will fail on such a test, which makes sense intuitively because you know that autistic children don't have very good social skills, are emotionally withdrawn, don't read cues well. So for example, if I'm sitting with you for 25 minutes while you lecture me about why Kamala Harris is a great president, I didn't sign up for that. You wanna shake my hand? That's great. Now, you can tell if you're not... If you are self-aware that I'm getting impatient. You should be able to tell that my children are starting to shuffle uncomfortably because they're getting impatient, but you're just as oblivious as those assholes. So, so many of social interactions are because of people's lack of self-awareness, and I am shocked by the extent to which most people lack self-awareness. So it's not that 95% of the people that I meet are unbelievably socially gracious and it's only the 5% degenerates that are bad. It's the opposite.

    9. SB

      But then there's a, there's an explanation for that.

    10. GS

      Okay, go.

    11. SB

      Because the ones that did have the self-awareness never came up.

    12. GS

      Right. Okay. F- Oh, so, so therefore-

    13. SB

      They looked at you-

    14. GS

      ... I'm only exposed-

    15. SB

      To the ones-

    16. GS

      ... to the bad instances.

    17. SB

      Yeah, so the ones that have the self-awareness and the theory of mind saw you walk past with your family and went, "He's with his family. Love his work, but I'm not gonna roll up on him with his family."

    18. GS

      Eh, y- you're exactly right. By the way, that's the exact same mechanism that explains something called the overconfidence bias, which is a cognitive bias whereby we overestimate something in an over... So for example, if you ask most professors, "So do you think that you, your, uh, your teaching, uh, ability, is it below average, average or above average?" 90% of professors say above average. Well, statistically that can't be. Well, why does that happen? It's exactly for what you said. The, the students who thought I was great took the time to come up to me and say, "Professor, loved the course." The ones who thought I was an asshole, they didn't come up to me. So what did my brain code? Only the great ones, and therefore I must be great. (paper rustles)

    19. SB

      When you're trying to build something, the problem that we all face is we need talent and skills that we don't have ourselves, and we can waste so much time trying to learn a new skill when really what we should be doing is using a platform like fiverr.com where you have global access to reviewed...... tried and tested world-class talent at your fingertips that you can access in a flexible and affordable way. Fiverr, for me, when I was starting out in business, was a real unlock. It was a bit of a hack, because I used to think that the only way for me to add skills to my project was by hiring full-time staff and bringing them into the office. Fiverr.com changes that. And if you're in that position now where there's a skill you're missing for a project that matters to you, here's what you have to do. Visit fiverr.com/diary to learn more. And here's the great thing, if it doesn't go well, Fiverr offer a pretty amazing money-back guarantee. So what are you waiting for? (page turns) What if the way you present yourself isn't appealing to the world?

  18. 1:20:05 – 1:21:27

    What Exactly Is a Beta Male?

    1. SB

      And again, this brings us back to this idea of, like, being a beta male, and when you say beta male, what we're saying there, w- what is the definition of beta male? It's, um...

    2. GS

      So yes, it's used colloquially, but beta male would be none of the markers that, uh, exhibit the types of qualities that women would find attractive you possess. So, it could be social dominance, it could be physical dominance, it could be high status, it could be assertiveness, it could be ambition, it could be... Look, uh, m- one of the reasons why women say, "I, I love, I'm very attracted to a funny man, a funny guy," what, what they're effectively saying is, "I want an intelligent man." Because it's very, very unlikely that you could be a very funny satirist if you're not intelligent. Dave Chappelle is probably smarter than a lot of my colleagues, but they have a lot of degrees. But he wouldn't be able to stand up in front of an audience, keep their attention for an hour and a half on really powerful social commentary where they pay $150 to come if he wasn't, if he weren't incredibly intelligent, right? So, so beta and, and alpha doesn't just mean tall and dominant and, "I have a club and I beat you with it." It means do you exude the types of cues that, on average, in the mating market, people would say, "Goddamn, that's an attractive guy." Whatever that means. That's, that's how I define it.

    3. SB

      So if,

  19. 1:21:27 – 1:23:16

    How to Achieve High Status as a Man or Woman

    1. SB

      if you had to give advice then to men and women who were intent on being higher value and higher status, how, what would that advice be and how would it differ?

    2. GS

      Some of the advice will be exactly the same for both sexes.

    3. SB

      Yeah.

    4. GS

      But some of the advice would be sex-specific in recognition that not of, not all of the mating attributes are equally desired by the opposite sex, right?

    5. SB

      Yeah.

    6. GS

      So for example, no man has ever uttered the following words, "Linda, you have a gorgeous body. I'm unbelievably sexually drawn to you, but you're not exhibiting the type of alacrity to improve your GPA score, and your lack of assertiveness in your studies suggests that I'm not going to have sex with you tonight." No man has ever uttered those words. But a lot of women meet a super hot guy at a club, he opens his mouth, and what comes out is retarded imbecility, and suddenly the sex opportunity has just shut down. So why am I saying all this? There are some traits that if men were to work on, that's gonna bring them more bang for the buck than if women worked on. Other ones, both, so for example, kindness and intelligence are universal traits equally desired by both men and women. So that's, that's true for both men and women across cultures. But social status is preferred by women in men in every known culture. Physical beauty and youth is preferred by m- men over women in every culture. So, so some traits, the advice would be the same, some traits, it'll be sex-specific.

  20. 1:23:16 – 1:25:58

    Struggling to Find a Partner? Here's What to Do

    1. GS

    2. SB

      I wonder, 'cause I'm trying to give, uh, I'm trying to figure out how to give advice to that bottom 50% of men that are basically having no sex.

    3. GS

      Right.

    4. SB

      Which I'm told about over and over again, that are at risk of becoming incels or playing video games in their room, that are turning to pornography as a medicine, I guess, and an antidote to their lives. What kind of advice would you offer to those, those sort of disillusioned men?

    5. GS

      Is that guy also 90 pounds overweight and pear-shaped, or-

    6. SB

      Probably not in shape.

    7. GS

      Okay. So you know what? Hit the treadmill. Looks matter. They don't matter to women as much as they do to men, but, you know, I'm, uh, my, my wife often jokes with me, I don't, I don't know if you've ever seen this on, on the internet, I will often post, you know, in a joking manner, a photo of me from 1985 in, actually in Southern California, in, in, in San Diego where I'm in my soccer physique days where I have the eight-pack and the V and the whole thing, right? Uh, and my wife would joke with me, she said, "How come I never got that version of Gad," right?

    8. SB

      Mm-hmm.

    9. GS

      Now, that doesn't mean... She obviously s- stayed with me when I was, you know, 86 pounds heavier, uh, so it's not the only thing, but boy, is it better to have this six or eight-pack than not have it. So, uh, my height I can't change, right? So I can't tell those guys that are potentially going to be incels, you know, "Please try to grow four inches," right? But again, crack a book. So for example, even with my own children, right, you would think having the father that they have, they're born, they come out of the womb and they're reading. You know how hard it is for me to get them to get away from this damn thing?

    10. SB

      iPad.

    11. GS

      Right? It's, it's, it's, it's one of the f- biggest frustrations I have as a parent, and, and as I said earlier, they're, they're very graceful, they're very poised probably compared to other children. They're a lot more knowledgeable. But it's not a reflex for them to say, "Of all things that I could do right now, I wanna go to a room and read." Whereas it is a reflex that I still have today with complete, full dedication. So, read more. Learn how to speak better. R- there, there... Again, mating is a compensatory process. There are things that I can't change about me. I can't change my height. I can't change the symmetry or lack thereof in my face.... but if I'm thinner, all other things equal, I'm probably gonna be better. So it's never a lost cause. Wherever I am in my mating desirability score, there are always effective intervention strategies that could improve my score. So I'm, I'm currently at a 42. I think that if I do strategies A, B, C, I could probably get up to 60, and 60 is gonna open me up to a lot more desirable women than when I was 42.

  21. 1:25:58 – 1:33:42

    Is Porn Good For Us?

    1. GS

    2. SB

      We, we talked a little bit e- earlier about, um, pornography. I think I, I said the word once, but I found it quite interesting, you know, we talked a little bit about sexual variety.

    3. GS

      Mm-hmm.

    4. SB

      That you make a case that porn in some ways might be good for us.

    5. GS

      Not quite. I sa- so I say that porn, it makes perfect evolutionary sense that porn is a behavioral trap that can lead to addiction. So I'm not saying it's good for you. I'm not saying that we've evolved to specifically consume porn, but here's what porn is doing. So in, in evolutionary theory, there is a distinction between an adaptation and an exaptation. An adaptation is something that has evolved because it confers either survival or, uh, reproductive benefits. So my preference for fatty foods is an adaptation that's linked to survival. My, uh, desire to use high-status products to impress the ladies is a behavioral trait that helps me in the mating market. Okay? An exaptation, not to be confused with an adaptation, is when there is a phenomenon that piggybacks on an adaptation. Itself, it serves no purpose. Do, do you follow what I mean?

Episode duration: 2:59:35

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