EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,045 words- 0:00 – 3:09
Is It Hard To Find A Happily Ever After?
- CWChris Williamson
I hear that I've got you onto creatine and protein powders.
- TTTy Tashiro
(laughs) Yeah. Life changing. I, I gotta say, I listened to an episode of yours about a year ago.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- TTTy Tashiro
With Peter Attia, and, um, the two of you got me on creatine, got me on protein powder, and I have never... I mean, this is the best shape I've been in, in decades, so I, I appreciate-
- CWChris Williamson
Let's go.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Who knew?
- TTTy Tashiro
I mean, I'm not at the same level you guys are at, but, uh, for my modest, uh, goals, it's, it's been, it's been really tremendous, so I appreciate that.
- CWChris Williamson
Think about how many better relationship outcomes are downstream from you being a bit more jacked over the last 12 months from me and Peter talking shit about how good creatine and protein powders are. The world is interconnected, Ty. Everything is this big sort of mess. Look, dude, I, uh, I, I hope that you've had your creatine this morning 'cause I, I've fallen in love with your work. Dr. Shannon Curry a couple of weeks ago introduced me to you, and, uh, I, I think your stuff's so great. You know, the s- there's real evidence-based, science-backed look at relationships, attachment, love, what it is, what predicts effectiveness, red flags, green flags. So, I wanna, I wanna do a real full run through today.
- TTTy Tashiro
Great. Looking forward to it.
- CWChris Williamson
Awesome. Okay. Uh, happily ever after, how come it's so hard to find?
- TTTy Tashiro
Ooh. This is a, this is a long story. It gets a little depressing. I promise people, uh, uh, have a better story as we go along here, but, um, you know, the two things people really want when they sit down and think about it is they want a relationship that's happy, I think that's a more obvious thing, but they can forget that, hey, we also want something that's gonna be stable and last. You don't wanna have something that flames out after two or three years. And so, um, happily ever after actually is a phrase that captures that well. And if you look at the data on that, happily ever after is really elusive for modern love. So, I think a lot of people are familiar with the divorce statistics, but let me break that down with a little bit more detail. So, the divorce rate for first marriages is somewhere between 41% and 43%, so it's obviously pretty high. Uh, you would think maybe in a second marriage your divorce risk goes down 'cause y- you learned a couple things. Actually not the case. It goes up 10% for second marriages.
- CWChris Williamson
God dammit.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. (laughs) Goes up 15%, uh, for third marriages. So, if you kinda average all these numbers together, the divorce risk is about, is about 50%. Now, also part of that is, uh, the happy part, so some couples stay together, but they're really unhappy, chronically unhappy. And if you use the most modest estimate possible, you know, that's, that's gonna be about 8% of, 8% to 10% of couples, so now we're up to 63%. Uh, so, you know... Or 60%, I'm sorry. So, happily ever after, yes, is, is really hard to find, and I think it's harder than ever in the modern dating environment that we have.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. That's a very depressing way to begin a conversation about love.
- TTTy Tashiro
(laughs) Yeah.
- 3:09 – 8:57
Are We Designed To Be Monogamous?
- TTTy Tashiro
- CWChris Williamson
Um, look, it, it seems to me that, and I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this too, um, as fun as reading Sex at Dawn was, I don't think it's accurate. It seems to me that humans are sort of serially monogamous or monogamish, something like that, working on between two to seven, ten year cycles with partners, getting infants to the stage where they're able to remotely fend for themselves. What's your perspective sort of, uh, anthropologically here?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. I, I think that's about right. It, it gets confusing with some of this evolutionary psychology, uh, theory because it, it could be true, for example, right? Let, let's say that we're not desi- designed to be as monogamous as we are in modern society, but we have all these social constraints. We have financial commitments attached to marriage. We have kids attached to it who are dependent on their parents for longer (laughs) than ever maybe in human history. And, you know, any reasonable person then, uh, who has some degree of willpower is gonna be able to fight some of these-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
... tendencies or biological pushes to kind of craft the life that they want. Now, I think the value of something like Sex at Dawn is to say, "Hey, maybe I have some of these base urges, and when I feel those pop up, I know what those are, but now let's develop a plan to deal with that so I don't burn down the rest of my life."
- CWChris Williamson
Dude, the best story around this, David Buss wrote, uh, The Evolution of Desire, and he was telling me this story. This guy reached out to him and said, "I wanted to thank you because your book saved my marriage." David said, "Oh, it's interesting. Uh, w- what happened?" He said, "Well, you know, I've been happily married to my wife for, you know, a decade or so and everything's really great and I, I, I, I, I do love her, but I find myself getting attracted to other women. You know, I'd see an attractive woman walk down the street and I'd think, 'Wow, she's hot.' And I thought that that was an indication that there was something wrong with me or wrong with the relationship or wrong with my partner or there was an in- b- incompatibility, and I read your book and I found out that men e- especially have a reward circuit in the brain when we look at anything remotely sexual." A pair of rocks that kind of look like boobs to us, like-
- TTTy Tashiro
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... "I'm in."
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, so-
- TTTy Tashiro
(laughs) Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Son of a bitch. I'm in.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and I realized that, oh, no, this isn't some early indication that there's a problem in my relationship. This is just a pretty effective, pretty old bit of my biology just making sure that I'm sort of keeping a weather eye on what the surroundings look like. So it's marriage with the wife has continued to tick along perfectly fine. I don't feel guilty. I don't feel ashamed about this. I feel like that's, that's similar to what you're talking about.
- TTTy Tashiro
I think that's awesome. Yeah. You know, it's... I think just having these desires, having these reflexive, you know, kind of maybe a turn of the head or something like that is, it's totally natural. The question is-... is, you know, can you be honest with yourself about that, first of all, so you have the insight and the awareness, and then two, do you have a contingency plan so that you're not at the whims of your desire?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
And so one of the really interesting things, for example, about couples who are really satisfied and who stay committed and are, are resistant to divorce, is that they actively... We use this esoteric term derogate. So, so they actively disparage attractive alternative options, so other people they could hook up with. And so, like, if you have them look on the computer screen, for example, and a, a hot woman pops up on the computer screen, men will reflexively avert their eyes for a second to try to not look at it. Now, they'll look back (laughs) eventually 'cause they're, 'cause they're guys, but they have this kind of protective mechanism to say, "I can't just, you know, passively work with this. I need to actively try to manage my desires so that I can have a happy relationship."
- CWChris Williamson
I have been thinking about this a lot recently. Um, it's, like, the insight, um... It's far easier to avoid temptation than to resist it, and, uh, Brad Wilcox in his book Get Married, he talks about, uh, there are certain, like, high-risk environments that you can find yourself in if you're in a relationship. You know, if you really want to be faithful to your partner, you could say, "Well, you should love them so much that it shouldn't matter if you're in a nightclub drunk at 2:30 in the morning," and you go, "Yeah, yeah, I m- m- maybe it shouldn't." But in the same way as I don't ever intend on becoming a heroin addict, but if I just left loads of heroin needles around the house on one evening I was bored, I'm like, "Eh, you know, I might shoot up. Who knows?"
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So, uh, yeah, um, avoiding temptation rather than resisting it, sort of environment design in that way. I guess, like, this relational environment design too, which is, "Hey, look, I'm just not gonna give myself the chance to become en- enthralled because I understand how, um, fast acting the lust system can be and it just (snaps fingers) sort of kicks into high gear and, and you don't really know." So yeah, I, I very much think, um, designing your lifestyle and, uh, thinking carefully about what you expose yourself to is probably a pretty, a pretty smart, uh, idea.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah, I think you're so right about that, Chris. Uh, one of the phrases I hear so often from people who have cheated on their partner, now they're like, "Whoops, I shouldn't have done that," um, is they use the phrase, "So next thing I know," a- a- as if it's this total surprise that they were drunk in the nightclub and now they're making out with somebody.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TTTy Tashiro
And, you know, one of the things you'll do is you just backtrack with them to this whole host of bad decisions that eventually led to them, right, being in that moment where they made out with someone or, or something else that they shouldn't have.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- 8:57 – 16:24
Why Do We Find Difficulty In Visioning A Romantic Future?
- CWChris Williamson
Why do people have a difficulty in envisioning their romantic future?
- TTTy Tashiro
Uh, well, I'll ki- we're, we're not very good with the future in general, right? Um, when we think something good's gonna happen, we have this affective forecasting problem is what they call it, so we, we think that something good is gonna be much better than it's actually gonna be emotionally, and then if there's something aversive coming up, we think it's actually gonna be much worse, uh, than, than it really is. And then we get to the experience and sometimes we're disappointed. Like, for the positive thing, I call it the prom effect, where you think the prom is gonna be this amazing night and all magical. Most people will tell you their prom is a little bit disappointing, right? And that's because they made it out to be this thing it wasn't gonna be. You know, same thing with negative events. A lot of times if you just, for example, get into your email and do the thing, (laughs) right? For me personally, I'm like, "This isn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be," so...
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
The same thing applies to relationships where sometimes we put unreasonable emotional expectations on what a relationship will provide us, and by the same token, if there's something hard to do in a relationship, let's say talk about a tough topic or bring up something uncomfortable, we tend to catastrophize that and think it's gonna be much worse than it's really gonna be. And so both of these errors in either direction can cause problems with us accurately envisioning the future.
- CWChris Williamson
I suppose when you layer on top the hormonal neurochemical cocktail of being in passionate love as well, uh, that accurate prediction of anything pretty much goes out the window.
- TTTy Tashiro
Well, now, yeah. Now, that's, that state, that f- that phase, however long it lasts, now that's a total neurological disaster. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TTTy Tashiro
You know? So... Yeah. I- you know, I, no, I, I'm not a neuroscience expert but I know enough to, you know, make, make sense of these things. I remember reading... When I first read those studies about these people in passionate love and they're thinking about their partner, I mean, if you look at the things that are activated, not activated, uh, the, kinda the takeaway is you're not making cost-benefit analyses and, and you're ha- y- the reason is 'cause you're having a really hard time seeing cost at all. Those areas are actually deactivated, so it's harder to see cost. Um, it's all benefit based and, of course, when we've been, you know, in that phase when we're in passionate love, yeah, we're totally irrational and we make... Uh, anything the partner does seems cute or quirky. Of course, if you fast-forward two or three years, some of those cute, quirky things become super annoying, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Wildly irritating. "I just love the way that she s- like, slurps her tea," and then that's the sound that makes you want to tear your own eardrums out only, only a couple of years later.
- TTTy Tashiro
That's right. Th- th- that's right. So, you know, sometimes I can get quiet. I'm, I'm pretty introverted, and so maybe a woman early in a relationship might think it's mysterious or something like that. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
It, it becomes much less mysterious when, uh, I'm not having the active conversation when we're supposed to be really engaged with something. So yeah, you know, it can happen to all of us but, uh, there's all kinds of mistakes we make and passionate love is... That being said, Chris, I think, you know, sometimes people are like, "Well, so, so maybe I should try to hold it together a little bit more when I..."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
...I'm like, "No way." You know? What, what feels as good as passionate love? When do you ever feel that way emotionally, um, you know, physically? Uh, w- when are you just that euphoric about anything in life? And almost never, right? And so, I, I think it's just really a great thing that people should just enjoy. But one of the things I like to do then is say, "Let's put some guard rails up ahead of time-"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
"...before you're in that state, so you can enjoy it." And you know that you're not gonna make bad decisions about getting a dog together or something when you're in passionate love that now traps you in a situation that's not good in the long run.
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, this is exactly the same as what I just said. It's easier to avoid bad temptations than it is to resist them. So I think, uh, you should be careful who you let yourself fall in love with. You should see... Um, you know, I mean, even maybe from one week of spending time... I have a, a, a friend that went and spent, I think, 10 days, this sort of tr- you know, whirlwind romance. Spent 10 days with this woman, and then at the end, both of them, uh... And they're happily married now, and it's sweet, but you know, you think, "Oh God, 10 days. 10 day-" Uh, you're go- you're telling me that I can go from totally, well, relatively rational, functioning human who can do cost-benefit analyses, who can observe red flags, who can plan their future, who can prioritize themselves, make their needs known to a useless blob of, like, serotonin-less, dopamine-fueled sex hunger with one person. With... And, and here's the, here's the fucking wild thing. With no ability to perceive other mating options.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
That's the other thing that passionate love does which I don't think many people realize. And again, it's a huge, uh, price, cost, risk, maybe that people go through, which is you are essentially unable to see other viable mating options, which means you will stay in a relationship which is mistreating you, which is not good for you. Um, you will be more scared of leaving one which is unsatisfactory, no matter how short of a period of time it is, because just the way that your mating mind works, you have shut off other mating options. And that's real functional if you're about to make babies, but it's not so functional if your relationship sucks. So you're, you, you, you're right. It's not just cost-benefit analysis, it's also you're unable to observe the market, right? You're not having to-
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
...you're not having to force yourself to avert your eyes. Your eyes are never straying. You're just locked onto your partner.
- TTTy Tashiro
That's right, yeah. T- totally immersed, totally absorbed in the experience, and a- a- all of our psychology and all of our physiology is pushing us in that direction. It's really remarkable, right? If, if, if you think about it. Um, I, I say it's kinda like when you have to, when you have to pee, there's nothing else you can think about except, "I have to pee." (laughs) Oddly enough, being in passionate love can be a little bit the same. Blinders on and just totally focused on, on one thing. And if it's good and it's healthy, gosh, that's a beautiful thing, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
But if it's, let's say, with a narcissist or a psychopath, and they're getting their claws into you, well, y- you're not in this position to make good, reasonable choices. You know, n- now it's not so, now it's not so great anymore. But, uh, but o- on this, on this point though, on this passionate love point, if you do have these guard rails up ahead of time for yourself, and you find someone and you're just, gosh, you're really into it and you're just absorbed in that experience, just enjoy it. It's great. It doesn't last for forever. And, uh, sometimes people ask, so, "Hey, Ty, why can't I stay in that heart pounding, butterfly in the stomach, passionate love feeling for forever?" And, you know, I, I tell them, "Because you would die." (laughs) You know? Th- that, that pounding heart is high blood pressure. And those, uh, you know-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TTTy Tashiro
...butterflies are burning a hole in your, s- uh, would burn a hole in your stomach, you know, burn a ulcer in there, uh, from all the cortisol and everything else they're, they're leaving off. So, you know, if you're just in passionate love for a year or two, don't, don't worry about it. But if you stay that way, it's too high of a state of arousal for any human to maintain.
- 16:24 – 24:19
Differentiating Passionate Love And Companionate Love
- TTTy Tashiro
- CWChris Williamson
Just do a little bit more of a primer for the people listening. Passionate love system, companionate love system, transition between the two, um, how, uh, uh, w- how people feel, how they interpret and misinterpret that kind of journey.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah, you know, so, so passionate love is, uh, I mean, it's pretty heavily lust driven, so, you know, y- you're very sexually interested in a person. You're just starting to get things kicked off, uh, sexually or physically with that person. So yeah, it's really kinda heavy on the lust side of the equation. Now, when you get to know the person better and you get into a more stable phase of the relationship, now you start to see this companionate love emerge, which is more of just like the, "We enjoy hanging out with each other." Like, "We're, we're, we're really good friends. I actually just enjoy who this person is beyond the physical aspects." And now you have the two components in place. You know, being in love... So you can love somebody, uh, you can love your dog, you can love candy. You know, you could love a partner to a certain extent, but when you say you're in love, the use of that preposition, it's a, it's a either/or thing. You don't say, like, "I'm kind of in love with somebody." It's an either/or thing. And researchers have found there's actually only two components necessary for the in love, and it's do you have that companionate love, that liking, right, for them? The second part is, is do you have the lust or the kind of passionate side of things? If you have those two ingredients, um, you know, it's pretty likely that you'll, that you'll fall in love with the person. And if you then track that over time, as you could imagine, the companionate love, that's gotta be your rock, right? That's gotta be... In, like, athletic terms, that's like playing good defense. You can always rely on that happening. You can always rely on putting effort into that and that showing up. Um, the passionate love will still be there a- and it will come stronger at certain times, but it's much more, there's much more turbulence with passionate love and the lust side of things. So you wanna...... really invest in someone who you can fall in companionate love with-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
... primarily, right? You also want the physical component as well, but, uh, I, I would, I would put the companionate before the lust part of it.
- CWChris Williamson
That's interesting. What would you... How would you distinguish between lust-driving traits and companionate-driving traits-
- TTTy Tashiro
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... or lust-positive traits and companionette-positive traits?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. The, the lust one's pretty easy. (laughs) So, you know. Um, there's... Hotness will, will really just... That could probably take you the entire way with- with the lust part of it. So, is someone physically attractive? Uh, there could be other components to that. So researchers have found, for example, that, um, with women, when they're at peak fertility in their menstrual cycle, they're actually sensitive to men's scent, to their smell. And so, you know, women in peak fertility, uh, like the body odor of men who tend to have symmetrical bodies and symmetrical faces, which is oftentimes more attractive and kind of a si- outward sign of physical fitness or physical health. Um, so all these physical things kinda fall on the, on the lust side of things. You can also put in that category for, you know, women choosing men, a certain degree of social dominance or leadership capability can be very hot (laughs) as well. You know, they like, they like the power or they like the... You know, there's a reason why lead singers and quarterbacks tend to do pretty well, uh, kind of showing that leadership, you know, showing that dominance. At the start, at least, uh, women sometimes often can find that lust, lust-worthy.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
Now, companionate love is gonna sound totally boring, (laughs) you know, by comparison. But, you know, these are things like stability, uh, is the person a kind, i- you know, person, do they have good values, and those sorts of things. And of course, those things are important for a long-term relationship and important for liking the person and trusting a person, um, but they're a lot less flashy-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TTTy Tashiro
... than the components for lust.
- CWChris Williamson
Have you ever looked at any research around, uh, the passionate love phase? What actually causes the, uh, degradation of that, or, or what causes that to transition into companionate love? I'm wondering whether, um, somebody that was in an intermittent long-distance relationship, perhaps, um, that might extend out because it's a, an amount of time, um, uh, or, or something similar. Maybe, maybe, uh, contact is more intermittent than you might think, so the familiarity as well also doesn't proceed as quickly. I'm trying to work out what the mechanism is, the ticking clock that occurs that transitions you from passionate to companionate love and, uh, whether there are certain ways that people can speed-run through, uh, that. Not, not that you necessarily would want to, um-
- TTTy Tashiro
No.
- CWChris Williamson
... or ways that people could extend. Not that you would necessarily want to do that either, but-
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... I'm, I'm just intrigued.
- TTTy Tashiro
I, you know, I wish I had a good answer for you that was totally positive how to make this happen. But one thing I'll say that might be helpful here is that there is a tremendous amount of variability with how long it takes people to transition out of passionate love, actually much more than I would have expected. So some people trash- uh, transition out of passionate love after just a couple months. Other people will keep it going for a year or two. Uh, there's some just outliers, though, who will keep it going for years on end. Uh, once in a while, anecdotally, I'll meet some of these couples who've been married for, you know, a decade, two decades, and they're all over each other. (laughs) Like, you know, get a room, uh, kind of situation. And I'm like, "Wow, that's really, that's really amazing. Th- that's really great." And, you know, who knows what, why that's the case. So-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
... I think some place where psychology hasn't gotten yet with the research on passionate love is exactly to your question. So, why is it the case some people trash- transition out more quickly? Why do some people sustain it for longer? One thing I will say that seems to be one of the most promising variables is what we would call expansion of the self. So, you know, you have your own traits and characteristics that are unique to you. And even though your partner might have some similarities with you, they're of course gonna have their unique personality traits and, you know, interests and all kinds of things, life experiences. One of the things that happens in couples that maintain a higher degree of passionate love is they're super curious about the things that are different in their partner, and they wanna learn about it and they wanna try to expand their own self, so their own interests and personality, to try to emulate, uh, some of those qualities as well. And so what you can imagine is, you don't have just two people who are fixed circles, like, coming together.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
You have two people expanding, right, who they are, expanding their possibilities into each other. And so, they grow individually but then they also grow together as a couple. So, for couples who've been together for a long time, that's one of the best pieces of advice I could give, is one, be really interested in your differences even though they annoy you sometimes. Um, number two, get some things together as a couple where it's new to both of you and you can both grow, you know, within learning about this thing and make it something of your own.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I, I wonder why... I wonder why people who take on some more of their, their partner's interests and, and stay curious, I wonder why that helps to an extent. I mean, it's, it's very good, uh, uh, for keeping relationship longevity because it makes you become sort of more attuned with your partner. You're almost speaking the same language in one way.
- 24:19 – 33:03
How To Know If You're In Love
- CWChris Williamson
Um, how do you know if you're in love with somebody as opposed to just liking them or lusting after them?
- TTTy Tashiro
Y- y- you know, one of the weird things, Chris, is people just know. (laughs) Like, uh, it's a- I know it's a really unsatisfying answer, epistemologically, but, um, yeah. That's- that's kind of the case. They're just... You ask married couples, you know, uh, this always cracks me up when I hear a single person ask a happily married couple, "So how did you know that, you know, this was the right person for you?" And they always give the same answer, which is, "You just know." Which is totally unhelpful, (laughs) you know, to the person who's single.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
But, um, yeah. It is this kind of cliff-like phenomenon, this dichotomous thing, where people just switch into it and they're like, "You know what? I'm in love with this person." They might withhold that for a little bit (laughs) so they don't look bonkers-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
... but, um, yeah. People just... It's one of those weird things in life where we just know it.
- CWChris Williamson
And it's strange that you don't get to choose who you fall in love with, and you kind of don't get to choose necessarily who you fall out of love with. I suppose you can do things that are predictive. Again, you cannot expose yourself to, uh, people that you don't think you should fall in love with. You cannot expose yourself to situations, uh, and you can, um, cut off at the knees issues which will cause you in future to fall out of love, but the actual act of it happening, it's like being convinced that two plus two equals four. It's like I- I- I can't unconvince you of that fact unless I unconvince you of that fact, and I kind of... It's- it's not your choice to be convinced or unconvinced of something, and I- I- I kind of get the sense that love is a little bit like that.
- TTTy Tashiro
It is, yeah. And, gosh, it's really inconvenient, (laughs) sometimes, r- on both ends, uh, there. But I- I- I like what you said about when it comes to falling in love, though. Uh, yeah. You can try to avoid folks that maybe you know are bad for you, that you tend to- tend to go for. Um, eh, on- on that same note, though, you can also say, "Hey, there are qualities in people that I really do enjoy and that I really value, but sometimes, for whatever good reason, I don't place emphasis on those when I'm choosing partners." So yeah. You wanna over-select from these pools of people who have these qualities that you know are really good for you, that you don't naturally gravitate towards, but s- by the same token, yeah, let's avoid people who you know are bad for you but, for whatever reason, you just have a weak spot for th- for those folks.
- CWChris Williamson
Why do we like the things that we like in partners? How are we socialized into wanting the things that we do or inheriting the wants that we have?
- TTTy Tashiro
Hm. Yeah. There's s- there's some universality about that, actually. So, like, uh, David Buss, for example, has done some really nice cross-cultural studies, where he looks at wh- what do people want in a mate, and there is some commonality there for long-term partners. You know, we want someone with, who's kind, you know. We want someone who's loyal and can be committed, all these things that- that would make sense. With short-term mating partners, uh, (laughs) we- we tend to not prioritize those things. We go for the hotness or the excitement, and that's fine as well, if that's- if that's your goal and you're clear about it. I think where we get tripped up sometimes is, we want something that's long term, but we get tempted by the things that are good for the short term, right? So we go for the hot, exciting person. And as we've talked about, it's really easy now, if you fall into passionate love with this person, to all of a sudden be in a rut, and next thing you know, you're spending a ton of time together, you've moved in together, you got a dog together. And it's, like, two years down the road, and- and you're like, "Gosh, I've, I don't think I'm actually happy-"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
"... with this person." Uh, and it seems like a blur that you got to that point, but of course, there were all kinds of decisions that led you up to that situation.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It- it really is... I- I wonder how many relationships, marriages, families, even, were born out of somebody falling backward into a lustful relationship, and before they knew it, they woke up with two kids and a dog and a marriage and a ring on their finger.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, yet they ne- they never intended to. And yeah, uh, at no point did it feel right to back out. You know, it felt good, and then it felt okay, and then it didn't feel so good, but it was kind of more committed and you were in really deep, and then stuff just kept progressing. And, uh, yeah. Do you know what the Abilene paradox is? You familiar with this?
- TTTy Tashiro
Uh, please, uh, uh, tell me. I- I don't think I do.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, it's a really cool idea. So Abilene paradox, um, it's a- a- a situation where a group makes a decision that's contrary to the desires of the group's members because each member assumes that the other members approve of it. So it kind of explains how, uh, a number of accurate individuals can become idiots when they get together, so think kind of Emperor's New Clothes. Um, an acquaintance invites you to his wedding despite not wanting you there because he thinks that you want to attend, and you attend despite not wanting to because you think that he wants you there.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Or, um, or at a business meeting, someone suggests an idea that he thinks that the others will like, recruiting some spicy influencer, uh, as the face of the brand, and each other member has misgivings but assumes that the others will consider them bigoted if they don't agree, so everyone approves the idea despite nobody liking it. And I wonder how many Abilene marriages we've got-
- TTTy Tashiro
Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
... where both partners have kind of fallen backward into this thing, no one really ever thought about it. You've... Yeah, sure, the passionate love phase was great, and before you know it, you're, yeah, you're i- i- in your 40s with a couple of kids and you- you didn't actually ask for this.
- TTTy Tashiro
Sure. I think a ton, you know, end up that way. So there's the, "Okay, we just thought each other were hot and (laughs) you know, we kind of got together for that reason. Next thing we know, we're married with kids." I think that happens. But you bring up a good, a really good point there, which is this broader- broader societal context where people think, "Well, there's just certain things I'm supposed to do in life by a certain age."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
And they almost have this checklist-like mentality. "Well, I- I wanna meet the person I'm gonna marry by 25." You know, "I'll be married by 27. I wanna have kids by, you know, 29." And I respect that. That hasn't been my path, for example. I- I respect that people-
- CWChris Williamson
No mine.
- TTTy Tashiro
... y- yeah (laughs) , have that aspiration, but I think sometimes people can be so rigid about wanting to check off those boxes. I- I think you and I have probably both seen this with friends, where-You just think to yourself, they're just plugging in somebody-
- CWChris Williamson
Dude.
- TTTy Tashiro
... that's good enough, right?
- CWChris Williamson
I, I have-
- TTTy Tashiro
So they can kind of check off the box.
- 33:03 – 43:23
What To Look For In A Partner
- TTTy Tashiro
- CWChris Williamson
Correct. Uh, okay. What should you look for in a partner if you want to improve the odds of finding enduring love?
- TTTy Tashiro
Hmm. So, uh, I, so I used to teach a course, uh, for undergraduates on the psychology of romantic relationships. And, and I, I loved, I loved that class, I loved my students. And one of the things we would do is I'd say, "Take out a piece of paper." Uh, I guess they still had paper (laughs) at th- at this time. And I said, "Write down all the things you want in your ideal partner. Pretend I'm, like, your fairy godfather and I can grant these wishes to you." And so they would, they'd always ask for more time. They'd write down about 20 to 25 things on their paper that they wanted in their ideal partner. And I think that's great. You know, you should, you should dream big. And then I'd say, "Does anybody wanna volunteer their list so I can read it in front of the class?" And great, you know, a lot, a lot of students would volunteer their list. And so I'd go through and I'd read, in the order that they had put them, the traits. So it was 200 students in this class. I'd have everyone raise their hands and I'd say, "Okay, uh, this person wants someone who's tall." So just by thought experiment, let's say everyone's a guy in here, right? So I say, "If you're a guy who is under six feet, put your hand down. Now, you'll lose, out of 100 people, you'll lose 80 people with that, because only 20% of men in the US are six foot or taller." And then she might say something like, "I want someone who's, who's wealthy." And I say, "So what does that, what does that mean to you?" Maybe she says, "I want someone who makes at least $150,000 a year." To her, that's what that means. Well, you know, you're, of, of the remaining 20 guys, you're gonna be down to about five now, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
Whatever trait is your third wish, you will end up... I, I guarantee, I've done this now dozens if not hundreds of times. Whatever your third wish is will take you down to one person out of 100, or will take you to a fraction of a person, which is actually much more, much more likely. So, you know, when we say what, what's, what's the things to choose in a partner, I think the first place we wanna start with is we, we need to really prioritize and be laser focused on the things that are most important to us before we generate our list of 20 to 25 things.
- CWChris Williamson
Less. The answer, "What traits should you look for in a partner," is less.
- TTTy Tashiro
Is-
- CWChris Williamson
Fewer tr- fewer traits.
- TTTy Tashiro
Fewer, uh, y- you know, I, I, the way I like to phrase that is I say, "Make the list of your dreams." So you could make your 20 trait list, let's say. Um, but what nobody does, or, or I haven't met anybody yet. What nobody does is rank order those traits then. So what's number one, what's number two, what's number three-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
... so on and so forth. And then let's, the top three traits that you want in a partner, I tell people, "Write that out, print it out, and put it on your mirror, or p- put it on the back of your phone, or put it some place where you'll just always see it, because you need to have that really salient in your mind that these are the things you're actually looking for." And one of the beautiful things, though, about psychology is if you take that time to just do that simple task, and you remind yourself fairly consistently, right, about what you want, your selective attention will now direct you towards those things that you want without you even having to think about it. And it'll direct your behaviors towards choosing-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
... people like that. And so it's this thing that doesn't take that long but has a really high return on investment for that time. So yeah, I t- I tell people, "Imagine you have a fairy godmother. Fairy godmother can give you three wishes for your ideal partner."... what are those things that you want? And so one of the things I did in this, uh, I, I wrote a book about this. And so it kind of started out the first third talking about, "Hey, you get three wishes and here's why." And the middle part, I was interested in, so how do people usually spend their three wishes? Because in a good fairy tale, people always squander, right, their wishes on things that, that aren't good.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
And now we have these really great studies, um, where we can actually watch what people do in things like speed dating or with online dating. And let me explain why this is important. So if you ask people, if a researcher asks a bunch of people, "Hey, what do you want in your ideal partner?" they'll say what they think is socially desirable. So they'll say, "I want someone who's kind. I want someone with good character," you know, all these things. Now, if you watch what people actually do in speed dating or online dating, those aren't the things at the top of their list. You know, those aren't their three wishes. They go, two of those three wishes will go to looks and the money. So for men it's looks first, socioeconomic status second. For women, socioeconomic status first-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TTTy Tashiro
... and looks second. Yeah. And-
- CWChris Williamson
Ah.
- TTTy Tashiro
... you know, so two of your three wishes and then, you know, now you just down to one. So two of your three wishes go to looks and money.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TTTy Tashiro
Now I wanted to be open-minded about, so I said, "Well, maybe that's okay." You know, maybe it's 20 years down the road and you wake up next to your partner and you say, "I am just so glad that they're hot," you know? (laughs) And 20 years later, that makes me so happy in my marriage and, you know.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
So there's data about that as well. And, you know, what you find is that for physical attractiveness, the return on investment for that is not good, you know, it, it's, it's around zero. Early on in a relationship, it's, it's actually decent. And even early in marriage, it can be somewhat beneficial for marital satisfaction, but, uh, it quickly fades away-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, when you say, when, when, when-
- TTTy Tashiro
... to, to about zero.
- CWChris Williamson
... you say return on investment, you mean, uh, how predictive is this of marital satisfaction?
- TTTy Tashiro
That's right. That's right.
- CWChris Williamson
Cool. Cool.
- TTTy Tashiro
So how, how much return am I getting from your hotness-
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- 43:23 – 57:06
Traits We Should Avoid For A Relationship
- CWChris Williamson
what else on the traits we want that we probably shouldn't want, before we get into the traits that we should want?
- TTTy Tashiro
So I, I just read a really interesting study, actually a couple of days ago, and there's this, this series of three personality traits they call the dark triad. So it's psychopathy, (laughs) um, kind of being antisocial, uh, Machiavellianism, you're really manipulative for your own self-gain, and narcissism, right? Excessive self-love and vanity and a lot of selfishness goes along with that as well. So you don't want these traits (laughs) in, in a partner. Obviously they don't make for a happy relationship. Uh, one of the things that they looked at was (sighs) dark triad traits are oddly attractive, uh, more attractive than they should be, right? Given that we rationally know, hey, being in a relationship with a narcissist isn't gonna lead to me being in tears and a fetal position in the corner, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
We know that intellectually, but why do we feel a draw towards narcissists, for example? Or, or people high in psychopathy, for that matter? And there's, there's a couple of things here. So one, one thing that they found in the study was that maybe it's dependent on age, and so they found for women, you know, women who are older do not want a narcissist. They don't want someone high in psychopathy. But the young women, they were actually more attracted to the dark triad traits, and uh, one of the reasons for that is that those dark triad traits, as bad as they are in a long-term relationship, like, they're pretty good for getting what you want in a short-term situation. So, uh, psychopathy, for example, like, you have really low impulse control. You're willing to cheat to get, you know, to win, to get what you want. Uh, you tend to be aggressive. Like, if you were in a threatening situation, those would actually be really great traits to have. If you were, uh, trading in really volatile and competitive financial markets, I wouldn't mind if my (laughs) trader actually had some high psychopathy traits. Those would actually be adaptive. So that's one of the reason why early in a relationship, right, those things can be attractive to us. The other curious thing about that that I find interesting is that people high in psychopathy, uh, is pretty reliable, are better in bed. So the sexual satisfaction-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TTTy Tashiro
... is, is higher.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, funny.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah, but, you know, their low impulse control, their kind of aggressive, th- you know, they have these traits that could manifest as, you know, really exciting sex, and so it is, it is more satisfying sex now, uh, and that's fine, and that, it's
- NANarrator
(laughs)
- TTTy Tashiro
... I'm not gonna judge that. But now if you're in a companionate love relationship with this person, you're married to this person, now you have to deal with his low impulse control and this aggressiveness and this cheating and all this other stuff, and uh, it's not gonna be so much fun anymore.
- CWChris Williamson
Right. So avoid the psychopath Machiavellian narcissist as best you can.
- TTTy Tashiro
As best you can. Once again, though, it's one of these things where it's easier said than done. And so it's, it's, it's important to understand that you might have a draw towards these things, that there's something actually kind of like dangerous and exciting about those types of people.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm. Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
And even early on in a relationship, it can be really fun, (laughs) actually, uh, dating someone high in psychopathy or like someone who's narcissistic because they're manipulating you. You're getting a lot of attention, right? And they're telling you all these wonderful things and that can, that can feel good. But, uh, yeah, so if people really have to be self-aware about it, and then they have to say, "Hey, I'm gonna be out on, on the lookout for these things, because there's gonna be like a siren's call to uh, to gravitate towards some of these traits."
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. What are some better traits that we should want?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yes. So there are, there are much better decisions to make. So one of the things that's happened over, you know, the past decade or so is that a lot of these research studies they did in the '80s and '90s have matured. So what they did in these studies is they got people before they were married, and they assessed them on all kinds of psychological characteristics. So like attachment style, personality, you know, all- also intelligence, all sorts of things. And then they could track them over the course of 10 or 20 years into the point where they got engaged and they got married and, you know, maybe got divorced or, or stayed together. And these studies are a gold mine for seeing which traits actually matter in predicting long term satisfaction and stability. And, you know, let's take personality as one, one example of how you can, how you can use this. So there's the big five personality traits. It's be extroversion, openness to experience, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, and these are kind of broad brushstrokes of who somebody is. Now, if you put those five variables in a predictive model and you say, "So which of those five traits predicts long-term satisfaction and stability, if at all?" you find really consistent findings, which is that neuroticism, probably no surprise here, right? People who are moody, prone to anger, kind of negative and pessimistic, uh, they're less satisfied in a relationship, their partner's less satisfied in a relationship, and they're at higher risk for divorce. And if I had to say there's one trait that people should wish for-... you know, wish for somebody who's not high in neuroticism, especially uncontrolled neuroticism. Uh, it's, it's just predictive of so many not great things.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, just briefly on that. How can people tell if someone is h- what, what, what, what is the sort of behavior of somebody-
- TTTy Tashiro
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that is high in neuroticism?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. Um, you kind of feel like you're walking, walking on eggshells all the time w- after a while, right? So people can mask it for a little bit, but after a while, you just feel yourself being tense all the time and you're picking up on some of that vibe, some of that neurotic vibe that they have. And maybe because they've been angry or explosive with you in the past, like, you're like, "Oh, we don't wanna upset them or anything like that." Um, there's this over-reactivity in them. You know, I always... (laughs) Sometimes friends... You have to be a pretty good friend of mine. But sometimes a friend will ask me to meet their partner and, uh, give them my evaluation.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
You know, I try not to do this that, that often. But if I really s- love someone, I'll, I'll do it. And one of the things I'll do is I'll put that person under a certain degree of duress. So I'm like a really... I'm like a pretty nice guy on average, you know? But I might get a little adversarial with that person or I, I might push them on something, and one of the things I'm looking for is, how do they respond to that stress? Do they respond in an even-keeled, reasonable, patient kind of way or do they get reactive and angry and worked up? And, uh, that's, you know... So that's one thing that people can look at. Uh, oddly enough, I still love the litmus test of looking at, how does the person treat the waitstaff at a restaurant? And I, I know that's a good common sense thing that people use. I would encourage them to continue to use it.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
But yeah. You know, i- i- maybe your table's not ready. Maybe the service isn't great. I- it's, can that person hold it together or do you start to see the cracks of their neuroticism?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so, uh, again, avoid neuroticism.
- TTTy Tashiro
Avoid neuroticism. Now, o- one caveat there is... Look, I have some friends who are super neurotic, (laughs) you know, but they have the maturity and, you know, the consideration of other people to have worked on it a lot. So they know that about themselves and they've worked really hard, you know, either on their own or in therapy to make sure that it's not a problem consistently for other people. So that's one caveat I, I'd put on the neuroticism piece.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, there's also a, a degree of depth, right, that you can have from that, that people are able to see, uh, and empathize in ways, especially if it's been sort of alchemized neuroticism. Uh, yeah, there's an additional level of depth which, which could m- maybe even be useful.
- TTTy Tashiro
For sure. For sure. You know, let's say a partner is prone to being depressed, for example. Um, it doesn't make them a bad person. Um, but do they have a sense of, "Hey, I wanna take a sense of responsibility for this and I wanna do the things I can to, you know, live with that as best as I can."? Uh, you know, then you're probably gonna be all right. But if it's this just uncontrolled neuroticism, (laughs) that's gonna bring nothing but pain probably in the long run. So that, that's, that's one wish. Um, you know, a, a second wish is agreeableness. So people who are empathic and kind and generous, and I think that might sound like common sense to folks but let's remember, it doesn't make the top three when you watch what people actually do when they're choosing a partner. Number two, I think, like, being a nice guy, for example, in our culture, gets a really bad rap. So if people are bringing their partner out to meet their friends for the first time, kind of the initial public offering of the partner, right, to the friend group, and the partner goes to the bathroom for a little bit after we've all chatted and they say, "Hey, so what do you think of my new partner?" And you say, "Oh, they're nice," that person would kind of feel insulted, right?
- 57:06 – 1:08:13
Green And Red Flags To Be Aware Of
- TTTy Tashiro
- CWChris Williamson
Fascinating. Okay, uh, just, uh, broadening out from personality, um, I mean personality is an awful lot, w- what else should we be looking for in terms of green flags and red flags-
- TTTy Tashiro
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... trait-wise, behavior-wise, values-wise, life history, life future, et cetera?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the fortunate things is there's such a wealth of relationship research now that, you know, we have this whole, (laughs) we have dozens of things now that we can look at that are predictive of long-term satisfaction and stability. And so let me give you an example of another area. There's, um, attachment, which I think probably a lot of people are familiar with to a certain extent. So attachment is how secure you f- you feel in your relationship with your caregivers, you know, first of all, and then second of all, people who are, like, really close friends or romantic partners in adulthood. And so people can be securely attached where they trust that they can rely on other people, they feel secure about who they are and in a relationship with others. There's people who are avoidants and these folks are emotionally distant, they don't wanna get too close to people, they always feel like they're kind of a- aloof, and, um, that's one of the insecure attachments, of course. The other in- insecure attachment is anxious avoidant and, uh, you know, these folks are anxious that the person's gonna leave them, um, they also tend to be kind of push-pull people in relationships where they can be clingy, alternating with being angry (laughs) at you for things that seem kind of random, and that's obviously no fun in a relationship as, as well. One of the ways I like to describe attachment actually is how they measure it in infancy. So for infants they have this thing called the strange situation, and this woman Mary Ainsworth devised this really clever methodology. So what you have is you have a mom with a, let's say, like, a one-year-old, two-year-old, let's say, let's say a two-year-old, uh, and the, they have the child on their lap and in that room, in this laboratory are a bunch of toys scattered around at measured distances from the middle where the, uh, mother and child are at. A light will go off, the mother leaves the room i- in, in a planned kind of way, and what happens with most of the kids is they start to cry, right, which is kind of predictable. They're in a strange place, their mom's gone. That's not that interesting. What is interesting is what happens when the mom comes back. So after a couple of minutes the mom comes back into the room, sits down in the chair. Securely attached kids will come to their mom, you know, get on the lap, and will be comforted relatively quickly. What's interesting then is once they're calmed emotionally, which doesn't take that long, they'll get off their mom's lap and they'll start to explore the room. And so they'll go out and get some toys that are nearby and they'll look back at their mom and say, "Hey, isn't this, isn't this kind of a cool thing?" Or they might bring it to their mom. And they'll do this thing where they start going further and further out into the room, exploring further and further away and not needing to look at their mom to make sure that she's there. It's 'cause they're secure and they can trust that she'll be there for them. Now, kids who are anxiously attached, when their mom comes back into the room, it, they're not comforted by her presence, and so they continue to cry in a really intense kind of way. They'll get on her lap and they'll cling at first, like cling in this really needy looking kind of way, but that'll alternate then with, like, pushing away and sometimes even hitting the parent. So they're pissed that the mom left the room but they're also clingy and can't trust that she'll stay there, so right, you get this push-pull kind of thing. They're less likely to get off the mom's lap and actually explore the room.... uh, because they can't trust that their mom's gonna be there. And if they do go explore, they don't explore as far as a securely attached kid. The avoidantly attached kid ... (laughs) Th- these- these, uh, these kids could care less that the mom has come back into the room. (laughs) So, uh, you know, uh, maybe they didn't cry in the first place. Uh, they'll stop crying when the mom does come back, but they're kinda ... If you could hear what they're saying in their mind, it's like, "Screw you for leaving. I don't care about you."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
And, uh, the other interesting thing about the avoidant kids is they will go very far out into the room and get the toys that are really far out there. So, they'll explore a lot, but it's because they kinda don't care if the caregiver is there. They've just reached this, like, "Hey, I can't trust you, so I don't care"-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
... uh, mentality. You can imagine if this was the interaction pattern hundreds and thousands of times during infancy and during childhood, how kind of concretized that would become, right, in a child's relational- relational style. And so, like, at the University of Minnesota, for example, they have this really cool study where they got kids when they were actually in their third trimester, (laughs) still in their moms' bellies there, and they've now tracked those kids for, like, 30 or 40 years. And they've been able to look at, did their early attachment behaviors with their- with their mom, their secure, anxious, or avoidant behaviors predict how they would interact with their romantic partners, like, 30 years later? And they found, you know, these really robust correlations between if you were a secure infant, you tended to be pretty even in how you managed conflict and emotions with your partner. If you were an anxious kid, you tended to be engaging in that push-pull, clingy, lashing out kind of behavior. And some people-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
Some of your listeners might have experienced that in a romantic relationship. And, you know, kids who were avoidant, yeah, tended to have that kind of stonewalling, withdrawing interactional style that's not great in a- in a relationship. So, that's- that's another thing, Chris. You know, people can look at someone's attachment style, once again, knowing that it's relatively stable over time, and, uh, it is, you know, pretty strongly predictive of long-term marital satisfaction and marital stability.
- CWChris Williamson
What do you say to the anxious or avoidant people? They go, "Right, okay. I'll just be celibate, then, will I, Ty? I'm a lost cause."
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah, yeah, yeah. (laughs) Well, uh, you know, one of the good things for folks to know is two thirds of people are securely attached. So, that's- that's- you know, good news. The second thing is this. Is ... There's this guys, Glen Roisman and Chris Braley, and they've- they've done some of these longitudinal studies as well, and one of the questions they've had is can people become what they call earned secures? So, if you were anxiously attached or avoidantly attached in infancy, for example, can you become securely attached as you get older? And the good news is, yes, that can happen. It's not the majority of them, but there's a subset of folks if they, you know, work hard at it and get the right people in their lives, then yeah, they can become actually earned secures in- in adulthood. Now, if you're the person choosing a partner, this is one of the mistakes folks make sometimes. Is ... Let's say someone's dating, uh, dating someone who is anxiously ambivalent in their attachment style, and they're really pretty soundly anxious ambivalent. One of the things that a lot of us do, even the best of us, is we're overly optimistic about what's gonna happen with that person in the long run. So, we'll say, "Oh, I'm sure they'll change," right? Or even worse, we'll say, "I will change," (laughs) you know, "this person's attachment style." And that's not a good bet to make. So, I would say if someone's insecurely attached, hey, no judgment. That's okay, but, you know, learn about it and then do the work you need to do to try to mitigate some of the negative things and move towards a more secure attachment style. If you're dating someone who's insecurely attached, it's not necessarily the end of the world, but, you know, they're not gonna change anytime soon, if they change at all. And if you're in a dating situation, I would certainly call that a red- a- a red flag.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. Okay. W- is this why the in-laws matter, in your opinion?
- TTTy Tashiro
That's right, yeah. So, I- I think people intuitively do this, and there's like- there's a good kind of lay wisdom to that. Is they wanna look at- they wanna meet the parents, and they wanna, say ... They're kinda looking at how good is the relationship between the parents and the person that they're dating? I don't know that they're always aware of why they're interested in the quality of that relationship, but part of it is they're actually implicitly looking at these attachment things. Like, if there's a solid relationship there, they think they can transfer that to, "Maybe this person will also have a solid relationship with me in the long run." And I think, you know, the evidence kind of points toward, yeah, there- there is some good evidence for that. Now, conversely, if someone has a conflictual relationship with their parents, it doesn't guarantee that they're gonna have a bad relationship with you, but it is a risk factor. So, it- it's just, once again, people wanna be careful when they see these red flags. They're not necessarily deal breakers on their own, but as these things start to accumulate, that's when it becomes- that's when it becomes a problem.
- CWChris Williamson
What about, uh, life history, stuff like that? Sort of what- the- the breadcrumbs of how somebody has spent their time up until this point when you've got to know them?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. Uh, super important. You know, best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So, yeah, you wanna pay attention to that. I think it's one of the reasons why we ask our partners, uh, "Hey, can you tell me about your relationship history a little bit?" People are getting this kind of ethnographic (laughs) right, observation of like, "So, how'd your other things go?"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TTTy Tashiro
"'Cause am I gonna suffer the same fate?" It's- it's not a bad- it's not a bad idea-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
... to- to do that. You know,... is that one of the things I would distinguish between is sometimes people have freely chosen to make (laughs) bad decisions, right? Repeatedly. You know, other times people have been, dealt bad hands by life, and I think that's a different kind of thing. And, um, (clears throat) I guess for me, personally, like, although I'm interested in, like, like, bad decisions, for example, what I'm more interested in is, so what's the, what's the story after that? So if you made a bad decision, kind of (laughs) almost like a job interview, so what did you do then about that bad decision or that bad place that you got to? And you're looking for does this person have insight about their bad decision, and then, two, did they develop some coping skills or strategies for, one, not only how to fix it, but, two, how to avoid making that same mistake in the future? And while it sounds like common sense that people would do that, I think very few people do. It's more common that people keep making the same mistakes with little insight, rather than, you know, being the kinds of people who are self-aware and change.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- 1:08:13 – 1:14:35
Does Compatibility In Personality Matter?
- CWChris Williamson
What about, uh, similarity in personality? Uh, should you be trying to find someone who's similar to you in that regard?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. It's, it's a good question, and such a good question, in fact, that researchers have devoted a tremendous amount of time and money to investigating this. And if you actually look at a lot of the dating apps, they're based on matching on things like personality. Uh, the Match group, actually, it's, it's in the name, right? And there's this intuitive appeal to this idea that, yeah, if I match someone on personality, we're gonna have a happier and, and better relationship. But what they find in these studies, and there's been some meta-analyses of tens of thousands of couples where they've looked at does match predict long-term satisfaction and stability, uh, it really doesn't. You know? So matching actually doesn't matter that much when it comes to personality. You can be extroverted. Your partner could be introverted. Can that create some problems sometimes? Yeah, probably, but does it really matter that much in the long run? You know, it, it, it doesn't. What matters with personality, and I, I really like to drive this home for folks, what matters with personality is not whether you match your partner. What matters is which partner has the worst traits (laughs) in the relationship. So, uh, if one of the partners is low in agreeableness, high sensation-seeking, and high neuroticism, for example, the other per- partner has a perfectly healthy personality, what's gonna predict in that is not the healthy partner's personality. It's gonna be the personality of the partner who has the worst traits. So my old advisor, one of my old advisors in graduate school, Ellen Berscheid, had this great saying that applies to so many relationship situations. And, uh, (laughs) she was a, she was at the end of her career, uh, when, when I knew her, and, um, she'd say in this resigned voice, "You know what the problem with relationships is, Ty? It takes two people to make it work and only one person to make it not work."
- CWChris Williamson
Wow.
- TTTy Tashiro
And that is so, you know, that i- that is so true. So yeah. People don't need to spend a lot of time thinking about matching on personality. You know, think about what's the quality of the traits that each partner has, and that's the more important thing. You know, one thing I might add to that real quick, if I, if I might, is that with our hypothetical bad trait partner we just talked about with high neuroticism, low agreeableness, high sensation-seeking, that's when you really have a problem. So sometimes people will ask me, they'll say, "Hey, you know, Ty, I'm kinda high in neuroticism. Does this mean I'm doomed to have bad relationships?" And I, I love that question, and what I say to these folks is, "The fact that you're asking me that question in the first place gives me a tremendous amount of hope for your relationship future," right? Because, one, they're self-aware about it, two, they wanna do something about it, and, three, they're concerned about how is that gonna affect somebody else. So they already have the mindset, right, to be on a path to handle that well. It's, all of these things are, are incremental risk factors. So just being neurotic all on its own is not damning for your relationship future, but now you're neurotic and you're low in agreeableness, that's actually someone who's, like, a psychopath or has antisocial personality disorder. You're high in neuroticism, low in agreeableness, high in sensation-seeking, now you've got, like, a sociopath on your hands, right? So it's as you stack these bad traits or these risk factors, that's when you have the real problems. Conversely, I'll say, and just as importantly, as you stack great traits in a relationship, it also has that same multiplicative effect where it's more than the sum of the parts. So if you get someone who's kind, who's emotionally stable, you know, who is really committed to the relationship, oh, my gosh. You know, two things. One, they're probably always gonna be that way.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- TTTy Tashiro
And, two, like, it's gonna have a multiplicative effect where it's, it's, it's just gonna, uh, give you so many good things, more than you could ever imagine.
- CWChris Williamson
It's interesting that we don't rise to the level of the best partner. We fall to the level of the worst partner, w- best and worst, uh...
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Mo- most optimal, most suboptimal, perhaps. Uh, you mentioned emotional stability there. Uh, David Buss must text me once a month reminding me about the importance of emotional stability. Um, I, I, I'd love to get your take on it because I know what his is, but, uh, y- how does that fit into what we've maybe spoken about already? Uh, how does it slightly differ? How would you, uh, wha- how does it present?
- TTTy Tashiro
Mm. Yeah. So, uh, emotional stability is the term that's the flip side of neuroticism, okay? So it's very similar to, to what we've been, to what we've been talking about. I think in the context of romantic relationships, one of the interesting things that's just come out over the past couple years is that it's, it's not so much what we would call low activation emotions, so things like depression, uh, for example. It's like a...... it's a negative emotion, but like the way you feel that in your body, it's not like your heart's racing or like you're red in the face or anything like that. It's just actually an absence of energy, right? What seems to be particularly destructive in romantic relationships are these high activation negative emotions, so rage and anger and those things where you really get hot in the face and your heart rate really, you know, gets up there. Those seem to be the more destructive, um, parts of neuroticism, or, you know, conversely-
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
... a lack of emotional stability.
- CWChris Williamson
David's got this lovely idea around emotional stability. He says, uh, after some, um, emotional perturbation of some kind, some dysregulating event, how long does it take a person to get back to baseline?
- TTTy Tashiro
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, you know, if you are late for a flight, is that the rest of the holiday? Or are they over it by the time that you arrive at the hotel, type thing?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, yeah, I think that's a, a level- You know, 'cause all of this stuff, whenever I think about it, I think it's- it's so fascinating and so interesting, uh, sort of in the abstract, but when it comes to functionally what- what does this look like? How can you tell that, you know, unless you're gonna get somebody to go and do a HEXACO test or a- a- a- a Big Five or something, um, you know, how are you gonna- how are you gonna judge this? You know? So, I think, I think that's very important. Um,
- 1:14:35 – 1:32:48
Reasons Why People Are Drawn To Challenging Relationships
- CWChris Williamson
another question, why do you think it is that people are drawn to relationships that are very tough? That from the outside look turbulent, difficult, challenging, uh, the classic "I can fix him" meme. Uh, what have you come to believe about that?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah, uh, ca- can go in reverse there. So, you're not gonna fix anybody.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TTTy Tashiro
I have to tell folks out there. Uh, it's a common belief. Uh, people almost seem to have it as sport or hobby, right? Like, I'm gonna fix (laughs) -
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- TTTy Tashiro
... go fix people. Uh, it almost just never... Such low odds that that ever ends up- ends up working out, but-
- CWChris Williamson
Why?
- TTTy Tashiro
Uh, 'cause people are- people are stable, you know? Uh, there's these really beautiful studies of personality where they track people for 40 or 50 years, from the time they're in their teenage- teenage years to the time that they're retired, and if you were neurotic when you were- highly neurotic when you were a teenager, you're like the grumpy person at the retirement home. You know? It's just like a stable kind of thing. C- you know, also, if you were the sweetheart, really nice, always helping people out kind of person in high school, you're doing the same thing-
- CWChris Williamson
Do you reckon-
- TTTy Tashiro
... in the retirement home.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you reckon that's the same for socio-sexuality? If you were the girl that was sleeping around a load in high school, you're still the girl that's sleeping around-
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... a load in the retirement home?
- TTTy Tashiro
Well, you know, that is a concern, actually, with older adults right now. So, there's this, um, STD- STD concerns, one of the places it's most co- acute in public health is among older adults. They're-
- CWChris Williamson
Phenomenal.
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Phenomenal.
- TTTy Tashiro
Which is- which is, uh, amazing. So, yeah. People don't change because traits are- you know, traits are stable, and folks might see these articles every now and then that- that you can change your personality, and that is true to an extent. But the number of people who will change their personality, like- like the rough way to put that is about 20 to 25% of people, like, for example, who are neurotic, will turn themselves into not neurotic people anymore.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
The remaining 75 to 80% will show stability over time. And the w- reason I like to put things that way is if you're in the position of choosing a partner, you know, this is a bet really, right? And you're saying, "Okay, so I have this person who's high in neuroticism."
- CWChris Williamson
Huh.
- TTTy Tashiro
Do I think that's gonna change? 80 some- 75% chance, yeah, gonna be exactly the same way for the rest of my life.
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- TTTy Tashiro
25% chance they change. That's not a bet I would probably wanna make.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- TTTy Tashiro
You know? Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's interesting when you think about sort of what people are doing when they first find a partner. They're kind of... It- it- I get the sense, and you may tell me that, uh, my belief in personal growth and malleability is misguided, uh, and must be subdued, but, um, you're trying to find somebody that is as close to the bullseye of what it is that you're looking for, uh, whilst making the decision rationally before you get into passionate love, using evidence-based insights from somebody as educated as yourself, trying to find somebody that's close to the bullseye but also has, I would guess, as strong of a capacity to grow, to work on themselves, to be able to update their beliefs, uh, uh, the way that they operate as possible.
- TTTy Tashiro
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, and it seems like those two variables, um, uh, how close are you- where's the starting point and, uh, how capable are they of- of running and maneuvering toward something that is, uh, more healthy?
- TTTy Tashiro
Yeah. Yeah. No, exactly. So, you're kind of identifying this trait that sits outside of personality a little bit, right? Which is this- this interest and this- this persistence to grow as- as a person, and I think you're... Gosh, that's- if people wanna put something in their top three, that would be another great trait to- to put in their top three. Like this-
Episode duration: 1:48:52
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