The Truth Behind Video Games & Their Psychological Impact - Michael Kasumovic

1. 0:00 – 0:16

   Intro

   1. MKMichael Kasumovic0:00

      Individuals who have a stronger drive to find mates are more likely to want to play violent video games and to play them more often. I, I never would have thought it actually would have worked out if it didn't keep showing up constantly in our studies.

2. 0:16 – 11:52

   Why We Play Video Games

   1. MKMichael Kasumovic0:16

      (wind blows)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:16

      Why do people play violent video games? What's their motivation?

   3. MKMichael Kasumovic0:20

      (laughs) Yes. That is an age-old question since video games really came out, isn't it? Um, you know, they're fun, first off. Let's be honest. They're a really good time and people love playing them, but that's not really enough of a- an answer, is it? It's, um, seems like there's more than that just driving us. And, you know, my research and the research of my colleagues, uh, Tom Benson, for example, um, we believe that it's a search for status. Video games really allow you to test your mettle against others, and they allow you to see how well you stand up to other folks. And as a consequence, it allows you to see how you stack up and where you sit in the hierarchy. So we're arguing that it really allows you to get a better understanding of yourself and where you sit in between others.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:06

      Why the violence?

   5. MKMichael Kasumovic1:08

      Yeah. Well, if we look through human history, you know, there's not a lot of kindness or as much kindness going on as there is of aggression and violence. And if we look at all animals, uh, almost all animals have some kind of social hierarchy. And individuals on the top of that hierarchy have, you know, extra or gain more benefits than other individuals lower in that- that hierarchy. And violence is a way to kind of keep that order in that hierarchy. And it actually ... A hierarchy works really well, because we are able to understand where we sit. And when we know where we sit, we actually don't have to compete against, uh, one another and we don't have to be violent against one another. It's when that hierarchy is kind of removed do we find that, that there's disorder and individuals within that system need to figure out where they sit, and that's when more aggression usually happens. So we have this kind of interesting system in video games, where individuals play games to have fun, but also can compete against one another, can kind of see where they stand against one another. And that allows everyone to constantly keep changing and testing where they sit in that hierarchy, so we see a lot of kind of, uh, an attraction to violent video games because of that.

   6. CWChris Williamson2:26

      I had a researcher called Tony Volk on the show recently.

   7. MKMichael Kasumovic2:29

      Mm.

   8. CWChris Williamson2:29

      And he did some stuff around bullying. One of the interesting insights that he gave me was that bullies need to bully somebody who could be, uh, conceivably within a similar status hierarchy, uh, because if it's a 12-year-old bullying a five-year-old, you- you ... What's, what's the status here? Or-

   9. MKMichael Kasumovic2:48

      Exactly.

   10. CWChris Williamson2:48

       ... same thing, the same thing, if it's a fight between two guys in the street, but one of them's got a baseball bat and the other just has his hands, that also isn't a particularly reliable measure of status.

   11. MKMichael Kasumovic3:01

       Mm.

   12. CWChris Williamson3:01

       Because y- you don't have two people ... It's why there's no status associated with some young guy punching an old lady. Like, the- there's no, uh, competition for hierarchy when it comes to that, and presumably one of the things that you get with games. And this is interesting. Thinking about games like, um, Fortnite and, uh, Call of Duty: Warzone, what they've done is the only real upgrades you get-- I guess Warzone's slightly different, but the only real upgrades that you get, especially on Fortnite, are artificial aesthetic ones. So you're not getting anything that gives anybody an advantage in the game. Every single game of Battle Royale on Fortnite, the playing field is completely flat and it is how good are you from the beginning to the end, best man wins, or woman.

   13. MKMichael Kasumovic3:44

       Yeah, or person. Exactly. Absolutely. And, and that is key, isn't it? Because if you have an advantage, then there's a problem. It's really hard to say wh- what, what caused you to win or to lose. "Oh, well, you know, I lost that game, because that person ha- you know, spent a lot of money to be able to get those upgrades, so of course I was gonna lose." And that's, that's a really interesting question as well, because winning and losing we know have effects in a lot of different animals. Uh, and we are starting to see that same kind of research being done on humans, which is really neat. Y- you have this loser effect, where if you lose, you're more likely to lose in another game, uh, in a future game that you play. If you win, you're more likely to win in a future game that you end up playing. But if those odds are, are stacked against you, does that winner effect have the same effect or that loser effect have that same effect on your perception of yourself and how you behave in a future match? You know, for example, if, if I'm playing someone, like we talked about, in Warzone, and they have, you know, a much better gun than I do, but we're equal in all other parts, I'm gonna end up losing. And when I end up losing, I'll say to myself, "Well, I didn't lose because I'm really terrible at this game. I lost because that person had an advantage." So it's unlikely that that's going to have that same kind of effect on my self-perception of my own ability as a real loss where we're equals. So absolutely, you know, fighting within your status or closer to your status likely has a much bigger effect. But there's actually very, very little research done on that kind of stuff, which is kind of interesting, so it's an open playing field. So if we look at a lot of non-human animal research, that's where we've done a lot of research on what happens to losers after they lose and what happens to winners after they win, and in those systems we see a, a really unique kind of pattern, where it's not them necessarily adjusting things as far as we can tell. It seems to be some kind of internal response. For example, let's imagine two crickets, uh, fighting for some space where they're gonna call for some females to try and attract some females to mate with them. You'll have males fight pretty aggressively for that space. If that fight escalates to something that's really physical, where they have to be really aggressive with one another and there's a chance of them hurting with- hurting one another, then what happens is that the winner ends up-... it's almost as if he feels better about himself. But that's a very human way of thinking about it. Um, but comes out of that fight, and if you match that individual with another male of the same size and same traits, they end up out-competing that male. They have a better chance of winning than if they fought them for the first time. And it's vice versa for the loser. The loser will go into another fight, and if you match them for the same size and the same weight and all those traits, they're more likely to lose that fight than they, that second fight after they win, after they lost. So it's not necessarily ... It, it seems as if something's going on internally. So in a lot of systems, we've looked at physiology, maybe there's some hormonal changes of what's going on and that's shifting how individuals perceive themselves. But there's no real clear kind of pattern across an- the animal kingdom. And when you look at it in humans, it's even more complex. So we've not figured that out, uh, at all, and there's still a lot of research to keep looking into.

   14. CWChris Williamson7:07

       It's so strange when the Matthew principle and power laws end up appearing in nature as well.

   15. MKMichael Kasumovic7:14

       Yeah.

   16. CWChris Williamson7:14

       I wonder, you know, does Jordan Peterson stand up straight with your shoulders back thing about the lobsters and serotonin and, and-

   17. MKMichael Kasumovic7:21

       Yeah.

   18. CWChris Williamson7:21

       ... things like that. Um, but especially when it comes to a computer game-

   19. MKMichael Kasumovic7:26

       Yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson7:26

       ... I don't know. You know, you, you don't think that it's quite as limited by ... Let's say that there's some sort of hormone cascade that stops people f- people's muscles from being able to deploy power in the same way-

   21. MKMichael Kasumovic7:38

       Mm-hmm.

   22. CWChris Williamson7:38

       ... if you're a loser, right? Or, or you are beaten in a fight so you spend the next couple of weeks further down the status hierarchy, which means that you're malnourished-

   23. MKMichael Kasumovic7:47

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CWChris Williamson7:47

       ... and underfed and depressed, which means that the next fight that you get into... But you're iterating so quickly in video games that you, you're almost controlling for the physical, uh, changes. So it makes me think that at least in humans, it, a lot of it has to be about self-perception and about the story that we're telling ourselves.

   25. MKMichael Kasumovic8:07

       Yeah. I think so too, because if you think about when you're talking about p- physiological or hormonal shifts that are happening within our body, and you mentioned that if we go down the status hierarchy then we're gonna experience less interaction, less food, potentially become more depressed, that's really, really costly. If that was built into our system, you could see that being selected out from an evolutionary perspective really quickly, because that's really bad. If you can't survive after losing, well then it's going to be hard for you to find a mate and, you know, have your genes continue on into the population.

   26. CWChris Williamson8:40

       Oh, so you would end up producing or selecting for a-

   27. MKMichael Kasumovic8:44

       Exactly.

   28. CWChris Williamson8:44

       ... population of people who were immune to losses.

   29. MKMichael Kasumovic8:47

       That's exactly it. So it doesn't seem like it's that simple. And, and I do agree with you 'cause I do think personally that it is something about self-perception. And this is a really hard thing to test in non-human animals, which is why I've moved to humans to kind of explore this question, but it's also really hard to look at in humans, especially in the video games that we currently play, because game designers do something really interesting, right? They kind of balance wins and losses for you, because if you keep winning and you realize, "I'm really good at this game," then all of a sudden you don't really want to play anymore, because that challenge is kind of gone. Same thing if you end up losing a bunch of matches over and over again. You end up not wanting to play because you realize you're not very good and it's no longer any fun. So designers are balancing that. When you first start playing a game, they match you to people who are of your level. You know, if you win something, they might match you with someone more difficult or you end up losing, so you end up going down that self-perceived hierarchy. But then you, they match you with someone who's a little bit worse than you and you end up winning. So they're balancing those wins and losses for you so you're always kind of in that sweet spot and you're always wanting to kind of play more. So that's why it's actually really, really hard to use current video games to explore these outcomes because it's not just what's happening to us. It's under ... The system is under control by the game designers, so it's really hard to tease those aspects apart.

   30. CWChris Williamson10:16

       You also looked at, uh, demographic status related and mating related correlates to playing video games, right?
3. 11:52 – 15:45

   Video Games Are Hijacking Human Desires

   1. MKMichael Kasumovic11:52

   2. CWChris Williamson11:52

      So wh- what does it say that the people who are most status-seeking in the virtual world-

   3. MKMichael Kasumovic11:59

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson11:59

      ... pursue a particular thing which actually leads to relatively few successes of status in the real world? Like, it seems to me if, if you are looking to be successful, uh, socio-sexually-... winning at Fort-

   5. MKMichael Kasumovic12:15

      Yeah.

   6. CWChris Williamson12:15

      ... Fortnite is not the most direct route to go down. So, it seems almost like this desire for status and esteem and prestige in the eyes-

   7. MKMichael Kasumovic12:26

      Mm-hmm.

   8. CWChris Williamson12:26

      ... of the opposite sex and, and your own sex has been hijacked in a way which doesn't actually realize many of the gains that you should do. Is that fair?

   9. MKMichael Kasumovic12:36

      It is. Uh, if we think about what you just said, you know, the virtual world and the real world, that line's blurring very, very quickly. You know, what is the virtual world now? What is the real world? Um, and if we look through our evolutionary history, this virtual world never existed, so our systems evolved in response to the real world. And just like you said, developers are able to kind of hijack that whole system, and we seem to not be able to tell the difference between how a win occurs in the virtual world and the real world. Those are both very satisfying kinds of things and allow us to kind of change our self-perception of ourselves in response to that win or loss.

   10. CWChris Williamson13:14

       Oh, so I understand what you meant about the lines being blurred. Uh, individuals who play these video games are struggling to distinguish between successes in the virtual world and successes in the real world. I wouldn't say that you're able to cash in status from being good at video games as effectively in the real world.

   11. MKMichael Kasumovic13:32

       Sure.

   12. CWChris Williamson13:32

       Now, I would be interested to see if you looked at people who are, uh, who have more followers, uh, on, uh-

   13. MKMichael Kasumovic13:41

       Right.

   14. CWChris Williamson13:41

       ... social media platforms, who post more frequently, um, who, uh, use, uh, I terms in their captions and in tweets-

   15. MKMichael Kasumovic13:49

       Mm-hmm.

   16. CWChris Williamson13:49

       ... and stuff more frequently. I would guess that you will find basically the same effect going on, but that is complete bro science.

   17. MKMichael Kasumovic13:56

       (laughs) Well, I- that's an interesting one as well, right? Because you're self-selecting for a, a group of individuals who are doing really, really well, who are not only status-seeking, but they're doing really, really well in that environment and are really high in that hierarchy. So, possibly, but it's, it's hard to tease apart kind of what's going on. But if we go back to just something you said just before that, I don't think necessarily that it's a concern that these virtual skills transfer into the real world. I don't think our minds kind of think in that kind of a way, even though there are some studies showing that performance in certain video games actually does translate into greater performance in the real world in a work context. Uh, like when you're playing games like SimCity and managing games, you're actually seem to be much better at managing projects and, and, and doing work in a team in the real world. So interestingly enough, some of those skills do translate. But I don't necessarily think that someone who's playing Warzone a lot, and they're killing it in that game, and they step out and go, "Man, I am just so incredible."

   18. CWChris Williamson15:04

       (laughs)

   19. MKMichael Kasumovic15:05

       They realize that those skills don't translate to anything real, but they still feel really good about themselves. And if we know about trying to gain friends and trying to gain mates, we know confidence is a really strong thing. And if that interaction online improves your confidence, your self-confidence, that is going to translate to some real world kind of benefits.

   20. CWChris Williamson15:29

       Do you have any evidence for that?

   21. MKMichael Kasumovic15:32

       There isn't much right now-

   22. CWChris Williamson15:33

       Okay.

   23. MKMichael Kasumovic15:33

       ... because this is a, a kind of a new way of thinking-

   24. CWChris Williamson15:36

       So I, I would be, uh, uh-

   25. MKMichael Kasumovic15:38

       ... and research hasn't looked at that. Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson15:39

       I would be so fascinated to see if that works. So I'm, I'm currently of the opinion that

4. 15:45 – 24:04

   Are Men Being Sedated?

   1. CWChris Williamson15:45

      the, the, uh, almost the opposite thing happens. So, um, it's my belief that screens, video games, and porn are sedating men out of their-

   2. MKMichael Kasumovic15:57

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson15:57

      ... status-seeking, uh, team-bonding, and reproductive fitness behavior, that they're given a titrated dose, right?

   4. MKMichael Kasumovic16:04

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson16:04

      Just a tiny, tiny little amount.

   6. MKMichael Kasumovic16:06

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson16:06

      The uncanny vulvas as they're called by Di- Diana Fleischman. Um, and what this is doing is it's causing young male syndrome, which we should have seen given the amount of-

   8. MKMichael Kasumovic16:16

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson16:16

      ... uh, matelessness and sexlessness and loneliness that young men particularly are suffering with at the moment. That's the reason that young male syndrome hasn't kicked in, that men are being sedated out of these behaviors by this. But what you're suggesting-

   10. MKMichael Kasumovic16:28

       Hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson16:28

       ... if this is true, is that confidence and status that's derived in the virtual world would cause people to, uh, believe that more readily in the real world. Now, what would be surpris- Th- the reason that that would be surprising to me is that we're seeing people retreat from real-world behaviors-

   12. MKMichael Kasumovic16:48

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson16:48

       ... that would have been predicted had they have found success in the virtual world and it crossed over. More and more, we're seeing people silo themselves off just into an online world that doesn't come back across.

   14. MKMichael Kasumovic17:00

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson17:00

       Now, this could be due to something that isn't just status hierarchies, uh, you know, fucking about.

   16. MKMichael Kasumovic17:05

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson17:05

       This could be, uh, the generalized addictive nature of these, uh-

   18. MKMichael Kasumovic17:08

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson17:09

       ... of these tools. It could be the comfort crisis or convenience, the fact that the couch is just way more comfortable. Um, but yeah, th- what, what's, what's your thoughts on that male sedation hypothesis, all of this stuff I've just thrown at you?

   20. MKMichael Kasumovic17:21

       Yeah, those, those ideas have been around, and I listen to them a lot, and they seem like really simple answers to me to a very, very complex problem. I don't think it's that simple, and I don't think it's any of one of those things that are causing individuals to kind of behave in that, in that way. Um, and here, let me explain, uh, explain why. Uh, first off, as a scientist, one thing I l- learned really early in my career is everything is really complex. Way too complex to actually simplify in these single or one or two or even three different kind of factors. Um, second, with the, you, we, earlier we talked about this idea that individual, individuals who are more interested in sex and finding partners are more driven to play violent video games because they're more driven for status, right? Interestingly, what else explains this behavior or what else is correlated with this behavior of playing violent video games if your, is your own self-perception of your own mate value.If you perceive yourself as a high-quality mate, you end up playing more violent video games. Then we started manipulating that. Could we actually change an individual's self-perception of themselves and what do they do afterwards? So, what we did is we took a bunch of individuals and we ended up letting them play different video games. Some were violent and some were non-violent, and we looked at their performance in those games. Individuals in the non-violent games, they didn't change their self-perception of their own ability and performance, and that didn't seem to affect their own self-perception of their mate value. But individuals who performed really badly in the violent video game saw themselves as worse off. They-

   21. CWChris Williamson19:06

       Less desirable.

   22. MKMichael Kasumovic19:08

       Exactly. They actually decreased their own self-perception of their mate value, which I think is fascinating that a video game can actually do that to somebody.

   23. CWChris Williamson19:15

       And you didn't see this in non-violent video games or-

   24. MKMichael Kasumovic19:18

       That's correct. Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson19:18

       ... it was, uh, mediated less?

   26. MKMichael Kasumovic19:21

       It, it w- we didn't even see it.

   27. CWChris Williamson19:23

       Wow.

   28. MKMichael Kasumovic19:24

       Yeah.

   29. CWChris Williamson19:24

       So-

   30. MKMichael Kasumovic19:24

       Yeah.
5. 24:04 – 27:45

   Common Traits of Gamers

   1. CWChris Williamson24:04

      the, um, video games discussion-

   2. MKMichael Kasumovic24:07

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson24:07

      ... when you gave people the opportunity of choosing these different games, and you're saying people who are more, uh, preoccupied, that are more concerned with-

   4. MKMichael Kasumovic24:16

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson24:16

      ... uh, status, specifically mate-seeking is one of those-

   6. MKMichael Kasumovic24:19

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson24:20

      What is the personality trait that you think is driving that? Is it sociosexuality? Is it externalizing behavior? Is it extroversion? What is it?

   8. MKMichael Kasumovic24:32

      I- To be honest, I'm not sure if it's a single trait. Um, I don't think it maps to the big five that well. Also, I- I think it varies in an individual's lifetime. Um, you know, I think there's definitely feedback in, in our, in our own personal experiences that potentially influence those outcomes. That changes our personality, that changes our outcomes, that changes our likelihood to behave in certain ways.

   9. CWChris Williamson24:58

      It's a feedback mechanism, yeah.

   10. MKMichael Kasumovic25:00

       Yeah. So again, you know, I don't think it's that simple that we can just go ahead and say, you know, extroverted individuals are more likely to play these games. They're more likely to get that, that hit of what they need, that self-perceived-

   11. CWChris Williamson25:11

       Mm-hmm.

   12. MKMichael Kasumovic25:11

       ... increase in mate value. You know, they see them higher in the hierarchy and they behave that way. So if we hit those individuals, we get that better understanding of what's going on.

   13. CWChris Williamson25:20

       Okay.

   14. MKMichael Kasumovic25:20

       I think it's a lot more complex. Um, but I do think we can start using video games and that feedback individuals gain from video games to better understand why certain people continually are drawn to that and become addicted to video games as we know them.

   15. CWChris Williamson25:38

       Okay. Uh, other question from earlier.

   16. MKMichael Kasumovic25:41

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson25:41

       You gave people the opportunity to choose between violent and non-violent video games.

   18. MKMichael Kasumovic25:46

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson25:47

       Have you got any suggestion or is there any evidence that suggests that people who are more preoccupied with status full stop play video games more?

   20. MKMichael Kasumovic25:57

       Yes.

   21. CWChris Williamson25:57

       Not that you get a bucket of gamers and then gamers move within that. Does it make them more likely to play video games full stop?

   22. MKMichael Kasumovic26:07

       I, I do think there is a status seeking individual who are more driven to play violent video games because what we do end up seeing as well is a s- very, very strong age effect. We know that, um, you know, our, our desire for sex kind of decreases over time as we age. As that happens, we are less interested in gaining status because we just don't need it as much any longer because we're not trying to achieve those hierarchical kind of goals. So I do strongly believe that individuals who are more status seeking are going to end up wanting to play more violent video games. Uh, and then as a result, you end up getting that feedback. So there may actually be something in those individuals who do become addicted. Our thinking is, and this is something that still needs to be tested, our thinking is that it's individuals who aren't getting that satisfaction with their own status that are constantly being driven to want to go play violent video games.

   23. CWChris Williamson27:05

       Mm.

   24. MKMichael Kasumovic27:05

       And that is that bizarre feedback loop that keeps getting people in, into violent video games, um, when they should stop.

   25. CWChris Williamson27:13

       Isn't it strange that the cohort of people that we think about-

   26. MKMichael Kasumovic27:18

       Mm-hmm.

   27. CWChris Williamson27:18

       ... when we think about compulsive, uh, high hour violent video games users would be, you know, your mom's basement, incel-

   28. MKMichael Kasumovic27:28

       Yes. (laughs)

   29. CWChris Williamson27:28

       ... retreat from society guy?

   30. MKMichael Kasumovic27:30

       Yeah.
6. 27:45 – 35:35

   Socio-sexual Behaviour of Male Gamers

   1. CWChris Williamson27:45

      10 years or so, we have seen the prevalence of some misogynistic echo chambers online, uh, of-

   2. MKMichael Kasumovic27:52

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson27:52

      ... guys who spend an awful lot of time on the internet, uh, very, very carefully nitpicking and breaking down what's happening within the dating market, uh, why women perhaps don't care about them. I would guess if you were to look at some of the Blackpill and incel forums that a lot of those guys would be very heavy violent video game users.

   4. MKMichael Kasumovic28:12

      This is, this is, you know, you're talking to one of my favorite studies that I've ever written. You know, why are individuals behaving in kind of sexist, aggressive ways to women online? This is a study I did a- a while back and, um, with, with a colleague, Jeff Kuznekoff. Uh, and if, and if you give me a second to tell that story, I'd love to tell it.

   5. CWChris Williamson28:35

      (laughs)

   6. MKMichael Kasumovic28:35

      Um, yeah. Jeff is, Jeff did an incredible PhD, um, where he ended up playing about 500 games of Halo, uh, back in the day when it was really, really popular. And I, you know, I've told this story and everyone's like, "Oh man, I wish I could do that for a PhD." Uh, and it wa- it was incredible what he did. With those 500 games, a third of them he played as himself with a male voice that he would just press buttons to respond to individuals in game and that would say different phrases to colleagues, to teammates, right? Because you can't speak to your opponents. So it's important to say that these are all teammates. He played another third of those games where he didn't talk at all, and another third of those games where he used a female voice. When he pressed those buttons, a female voice would, you know, comment on anything that's going on in the game. So you have these two treatments under control. And what he ended up doing is he ended up playing the game really, really well because he was actually quite good at Halo at that time. Uh, or he played it kind of haphazardly where he didn't try as hard. And he found that he got a lot more negative comments to himself from his teammates when he used a female voice, significantly more. And this goes back to that whole sexist kind of perception. What's going on there? Why are men being aggressive towards women? I read this paper and I said, "Jeff, these are incredible data. Have you ever looked at what, who is saying those negative comments?" Because if you look at your positive comments, men and women are getting... Your male and female voice treatments are getting the same number of positive comments as well. So it's just that men are more aggressive towards women.

   7. CWChris Williamson30:16

      Before you go into the next-

   8. MKMichael Kasumovic30:18

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson30:18

      ... bit where you got involved-

   10. MKMichael Kasumovic30:20

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson30:21

       ... how much did his performance mediate-... whether he was playing well or badly, he said that he would i- he would either be lackadaisical or successful.

   12. MKMichael Kasumovic30:28

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson30:29

       Uh, h- h- how did that mediate people's responses to the male and female voice?

   14. MKMichael Kasumovic30:33

       A little bit, but not nearly as much as the treatments. So, the, the factors that affected w- w- the kinds of comments he received were largely explained by the treatment, much more than his-

   15. CWChris Williamson30:46

       Treatment?

   16. MKMichael Kasumovic30:46

       ... own performance. The treatment, the male voice or the female voice.

   17. CWChris Williamson30:48

       Right, right, right. Okay, okay, cool.

   18. MKMichael Kasumovic30:50

       Yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson30:50

       Um-

   20. MKMichael Kasumovic30:50

       So that explained virtually all-

   21. CWChris Williamson30:51

       Uh, b- but within that, within that, was there, was there any difference for how he played-

   22. MKMichael Kasumovic30:54

       Very little. Very little. It, almost nothing.

   23. CWChris Williamson30:58

       Right.

   24. MKMichael Kasumovic30:58

       Yes.

   25. CWChris Williamson30:58

       'Cause I would have thought, you know, let's say, just spit-balling-

   26. MKMichael Kasumovic31:01

       Yes.

   27. CWChris Williamson31:01

       ... I would have maybe presumed that, um, a very competent male player would have-

   28. MKMichael Kasumovic31:06

       Yes.

   29. CWChris Williamson31:07

       ... caused some ire and jealousy-

   30. MKMichael Kasumovic31:09

       Mm-hmm.
7. 35:35 – 40:28

   How Status Impacted Player Behaviour in Halo

   1. CWChris Williamson35:35

      You find out that this guy-

   2. MKMichael Kasumovic35:36

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson35:36

      ... has played 400 games. He's split it up-

   4. MKMichael Kasumovic35:38

      Yep.

   5. CWChris Williamson35:38

      ... into three buckets. One's female, one's male-

   6. MKMichael Kasumovic35:41

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson35:41

      ... one's no voice at all, and you've said, "Wow, this is fantastic." Did you look-

   8. MKMichael Kasumovic35:45

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson35:46

      ... uh, who was giving you these comments? What, what, what, how do you get involved in this study?

   10. MKMichael Kasumovic35:51

       So, Geoff said, "I'd love to, but, you know, I'm, I'm just moving universities. I got a new faculty position and I just don't have the time." I said, "Well, can we work on this together? Because I think this is y- what you've done is absolutely fascinating, and, you know, I think we could look into what's going on and, and see who's behaving in that kind of way." So he agreed, and he was super kind to share his data. We transcribed everything of what everybody said, um, and because Halo, at the end of every match, you actually have a status screen at the end, right? You know where you sit, uh, how well you performed, how many kills you got, how many deaths you got, and h- your performance relative to others, right? We all love that screen 'cause we love seeing our kill-death ratio, right? Um, so we take a snap of that, and we can see how well everybody did. Now what we can start looking at is who said what-... to who and how well they did in the game. So we have a measure of status. And now we can see how an individual's status affected what they said to Jeff when he played as a male character or a female character. And remember, there were no, these were all men that were playing. There were no women playing at that time. And what we find is that men who were playing against Jeff, and outperformed Jeff as a male, were kind to him. They, lots of com- positive comments. Men who didn't, who didn't perform as well as Jeff, so Jeff outperformed them as a male, fewer positive comments, but still very few negative comments. And that kind of makes sense. That gets back down to what we just talked about, Chris, where men who are lower in the order don't want to be aggressive to someone who is better than them. Because there's a hierarchy there. There's a chance that that could turn out really badly for you, right? And even if it's a video game and it's digitally and virtually online, you're not going to interact with this individual in the real world, but we still behave in that way because that's how our systems have been selected for to work. This is just a new environment that it's happening. And of course, when you're top, there's no need for you to be aggressive and mean to people below, so you're more supportive because you want to help those people up. So that's what was happening when Jeff played as a male voice. It's completely different when you look at how Jeff played when he was a female. So when Jeff played when he was a female, what happened is that men that outperformed him were very positive and supportive, which is really great to hear. Again, they're not losing any status by being supportive to somebody who is not as good as them. But it's the men who performed worse than Jeff when he used a female voice that were very, very aggressive, and there's a beautiful correlation between an individual's level and their performance in the game, the number of kills they got in the game, their kill-to-death ratio, and how aggressive they were. Individuals that were of lower status and performed more poorly were more aggressive to Jeff as a woman than they were to when Jeff was a man.

   11. CWChris Williamson39:09

       Why?

   12. MKMichael Kasumovic39:11

       It goes back to exactly what you, we were just talking about in this hierarchy. If you are a level 15 male in this game, and there's a woman coming up and she's outperforming you, not only is she better than you, meaning that she's a higher status than you are, she is also knocking you down the totem pole. And if we think about what that means for a man is, now I'm lower status than I used to be, I've lost to a woman, and I have fewer potential mating choices in that environment. It's exactly what you just said. And the best way to make sure that women don't compete in that kind of an environment is to make them not want to compete. And how do you make them not want to compete? You be very aggressive towards them and you use sexist slurs, because you know that hurts the most.

   13. CWChris Williamson40:19

       I've been thinking for a long time about some of the challenges of women's overachievement in education and employment,

8. 40:28 – 52:04

   What Happens When Women get Involved in Male Status Games?

   1. CWChris Williamson40:28

      and the fact that we've basically flattened the playing field for, or maybe even not, we've maybe even skewed it slightly toward women in that it's mostly knowledge work, it's a brain-based, not a brawn-based economy, uh, conscientiousness, you know, the ability to just-

   2. MKMichael Kasumovic40:44

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson40:44

      ... sit in a seat and not have ADHD and all the rest of it-

   4. MKMichael Kasumovic40:48

      Yep.

   5. CWChris Williamson40:48

      ... uh, is an, is an advantage. I wonder whether you're seeing an increase in male to female adversarial communication-

   6. MKMichael Kasumovic40:56

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson40:56

      ... because women are now playing in the status hierarchy that previously would have been siloed off just for men-

   8. MKMichael Kasumovic41:03

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson41:03

      ... and you have two things going on which you hinted at before. First one is, in the overall hierarchy of status, there are this many hundred people, thousand people in the game, in the com- com- the company, whatever, uh, you've been-

   10. MKMichael Kasumovic41:16

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson41:16

       ... slotted down one. Generalized status anxiety, right, is, is the first thing-

   12. MKMichael Kasumovic41:22

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson41:22

       ... but the second part is hypergamy, which is-

   14. MKMichael Kasumovic41:24

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson41:25

       ... if you can get that specific female herself-

   16. MKMichael Kasumovic41:28

       (laughs) ... and drag her down a little bit, perhaps there's a chance that she might date you. Because if there is too big of a disparity in mate value or status, there's no way that that woman's going to look at you, and if you can manage to get your status to stand on the shoulders of the insults that you've thrown at her, perhaps she'll see you as a potentially viable mate. What do you think about that? What do you think about how the flattened playing field for employment and education, uh, could maybe be tied in with what you've learned from video games? You know, absolutely. If you think about how the world has changed in the last, you know, 100 years, for example, we've seen a huge shift in what determines status. We've seen a huge shift in the traits that are associated with individuals performing well in, in a s- in a certain environment. And that's especially when you're talking about, like you said, working in companies, uh, you know, things that don't require physical strength and traits. If we look historic, evolutionary speaking, if we look past, you know, tens of thousands of years, we know largely that men and women did have certain roles, um, but it's, it's not even as important what men did and what women did...... generally, there was a female hierarchy and there was a male hierarchy, and individuals competed within that hierarchy.

   17. CWChris Williamson42:51

       Correct. It was-

   18. MKMichael Kasumovic42:51

       Like I said-

   19. CWChris Williamson42:51

       ... intersexual, not intrasexual competition.

   20. MKMichael Kasumovic42:53

       That's exactly it, right? It's all happening within, and you're competing against the same sex, and it's kind of straightforward. Um, and that's largely because whatever society you're in, the society has decided this is what men do and this is what women do. Sometimes there's overlap, but very little, uh, whatever that decision is. Uh... What you've s- just said is this flattening, is this idea that now men and women are able to compete against one another because they're trying to attain the same things. They're trying to attain the same jobs. They're trying to attain the same status, the same house, same car, same everything. So now, all of a sudden, men and women are competing for the same things, um, and that's problematic from an evolutionary perspective because that's not the kind of environment that we generally grew up in, and that's not th- how our system has been selected for in an evolutionary context to be able to deal with this kind of stuff. So when men see women competing in this field, it's bizarre, maybe a little bit different, and like we said, it's the best way to make sure is by negging them, right? You f- you make them feel bad about themselves, and you feel better, and then it allows you to gain status. It allows you to potentially, uh, more mating opportunities open up for you. But I think what needs to kind of happen now is a cultural shift. We have to start understanding that that world where those hierarchies were separate for men and women are gone. They no longer exist. They're never coming back, nor should they, because in this world that we live in now, that hi- those separate hierarchies are irrelevant. They don't matter anymore. We're working together for the same things. So what has to happen is a shift in how men think. It's not, why is it bad to lose to a woman? It doesn't matter. It's nothing to do with strength anymore. It's nothing to do with physical endurance or differences in our physical bodies or hormonal changes or physiology. Those aren't limiting factors anymore. It doesn't matter how strong you are. That doesn't determine how good you are at Warzone. It's your reaction time. It's how quickly you can process information, and men and women do that equally. There's no difference in that. So all of a sudden, we have a level playing field in that kind of a world for men and women, and women are starting to thrive in it. If we look at some of my research, women who play more violent video games have a better self-perception of themselves. So they are responding in a similar way to men in response to desire for status. So we actually have v- less, fewer differences between us than we think and we're really ready to admit. So getting back, I think the idea is that we have to change that cultural shift of what it's like to lose to a woman. It's not bad to lose to a woman. You're losing to someone who's better than you, and if you want to be better, then you just gotta try harder.

   21. CWChris Williamson45:53

       How much of that do you think is culture? I, I, I don't disagree-

   22. MKMichael Kasumovic45:57

       Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson45:57

       I don't disagree that it would be a good idea for status hierarchies to be able to be-

   24. MKMichael Kasumovic46:03

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson46:03

       ... uh, d- like gender non-specific-

   26. MKMichael Kasumovic46:06

       Yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson46:06

       ... that it doesn't matter whether you lose to a guy or a girl, but I think it would be naive to presume that this is all just culture and that men can think their way out of this. We can't-

   28. MKMichael Kasumovic46:15

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson46:15

       ... reprogram men's status hierarchies-

   30. MKMichael Kasumovic46:17

       No.
9. 52:04 – 58:40

   Do Violent Video Games Improve Fighting Ability?

   1. CWChris Williamson52:04

      You also did something to do with playing violent video games and s- subjective fighting ability and-

   2. MKMichael Kasumovic52:11

      Mm.

   3. CWChris Williamson52:11

      ... perceptions of men's toughness and facial recognition and stuff.

   4. MKMichael Kasumovic52:15

      Yes. (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson52:15

      What was, what was all of that?

   6. MKMichael Kasumovic52:17

      Yeah. So, you know, another way of thinking about violent video games is they allow us to practice. Um, they allow us to practice certain skills that could be beneficial in some kind of hierarchical encounter. You know, if we think about violent video games, there's really low cost to playing. If you lose, it's no big deal. Um, not like compared to a physical fight. If you lose in a physical fight, you're likely going to be damaged and hurt, uh, and that's a very, very bad thing for you, right? But in, in video games, it's okay if you lose. It's not the end of the world. So, it's almost like it's a way of training to see how well you can perform in that and see if you can up your status. At the same time, you know, it could be a way for us to gain signals of what makes a good competitor so we can make better decisions when we go into that competition. Like, if I could, for example, get a better understanding of, when I'm interacting with someone, how likely they are to fight back. How li- when are they going to be most aggressive? And I can see those little signals in that potential opponent, that's to my advantage, right? Because then I know how far to push somebody, I know whether I could potentially take someone, and those are all good things. So, we wanted to see if any of those kinds of behaviors gained from playing video games could potentially spill over to the real world and how we assess, uh, our opponents or individuals. And kind of what we ended up... And what, the way we did that, I should, maybe I should explain a little bit more there, is, you know, we let them play a game, a violent game or a non-violent game, and then we put them through a, a, a small number of tests where we look at, how well can you discriminate emotions? How well can you potentially discriminate whether an opponent is better or worse than you? And what we ended up finding was that individuals who played that violent video game were less adept at noticing someone's shift towards anger, which we found really, really interesting, and this is kind of opposite to what you'd think. It seems that playing that violent video game pumped individuals up to such an extent that they're worse off at being able to tell when someone is angry at them.And you would think that's really, really bad because that could potentially lead to more aggression, which could potentially lead you to getting hurt, and getting hurt is never a good thing.

   7. CWChris Williamson55:00

      Why? Why, why would it be the case that someone who has spent all of their time working out whether they're about to be attacked by this enemy becomes retarded when it, uh, it's time to actually work out whether or not someone's going to attack them?

   8. MKMichael Kasumovic55:17

      (laughs) I don't know. It's, it's, it's crazy, isn't it? 'Cause you wouldn't expect that, but that's what we see happening. And the only thing that we can think of, because this, this starts diving into the realm of physiology. What's going on in there, in your system? What's changed? Is ... Uh, are there testosterone spikes? Are we seeing some kind of a shift in how our body's functioning that's changing our ability to distinguish, uh, how we perceive our opponents? Something's happening there, but it's not something simple. It does seem to be something in the physiological realm, which is not something that we've been able to explore yet.

   9. CWChris Williamson55:48

      Could it be ... Hey, look at me bro-sciencing your study. Uh-

   10. MKMichael Kasumovic55:52

       (laughs) I love it. Let's do it.

   11. CWChris Williamson55:53

       ... c- ... could it ...

   12. MKMichael Kasumovic55:54

       (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson55:54

       ... could it be s- could it be something to do with the desensitizing to aggression?

   14. MKMichael Kasumovic55:59

       It may well be. You know, if we, if we think of ourselves in society ... Uh, I was ... Uh, a good friend of mine, uh, Rob Brooks has this great analogy. If you're sitting in a crowd of people, you're very unlikely to throw a water bottle at somebody who's saying terrible things on stage in a, some kind of a protest, for example, um, because you're not that kind of person. You don't wanna hurt anybody. But if someone else throws a water bottle first, does that change your likelihood to do that? How about if there's a second or a third or a tenth? Now all of a sudden, well, other people are doing it, you know, maybe I should kind of join in. So it does seem to kind of ... There's a shift in what you perceive as acceptable behavior, and it does seem that our previous kinds of interactions are in some way coloring what we're doing in the future. Whether that is a physiological thing or whether that is a self-perception thing, it's tough to say. I think definitely self-perception has something to do with it. I don't know the relative importance to something underlying and physiological, and that's kind of what we're missing to that puzzle.

   15. CWChris Williamson57:11

       What about the subjective fighting ability and the perceptions of toughness as well? How was that mediated?

   16. MKMichael Kasumovic57:18

       Yeah. Individuals who, you know, played those violent video games did see themselves as tougher, and we did another study to kind of push that and see what exactly is going on there. And in that same kind of a way that I talked earlier about how men responded to losing or winning that coffee date, we did a, a very similar study where we were told, we told individuals, "You're going to compete physically in a bunch of physical challenges against another opponent, and that opponent is either stronger or tougher, uh, sorry, or weaker than you." And we found that individuals who were more likely to compete against that tougher individual were more likely to want to play a violent video game. So it does seem that these opportunities to become aggressive, even in a virtual world, and those opportunities to practice aggression and dominance in a virtual world is spilling over to real world behaviors and our desire to kind of ... How we, uh, how we see our opponents and that real world is then, you know, filtering back into the virtual world and shifting how we want, what we want to do in that virtual world and the games that we want to play in that. So there is definitely that feedback in that virtual and real world, just like we talked about earlier. That delineation is becoming smaller and smaller.

10. 58:40 – 1:00:30

    Why Does Status Respond to the Local Environment?

    1. MKMichael Kasumovic58:41

    2. CWChris Williamson58:41

       Why do you think it is that our own self-perception, our own sense of self is so heavily impacted by the local social environment, even if that environment is virtual? Why would that be adaptive?

    3. MKMichael Kasumovic58:59

       If you think about the environments that we used to live in, you know, they are very different than, than they, we live in now. They were small, local villages, communities. We knew everybody. Um, we would want to be in a hierarchy there. There was a level of status, just like we see in all animals. So we s- lived in small communities. So this is a system that's been, that's evolved through millennia of that type of an environment, and now all of a sudden, all bets are off. You're no longer competing against 50 or 100 people that lived in your small village. You're now competing against hundreds of thousands of people online. You're competing in a global market, and that seems overwhelming at times, and it doesn't help that our evolved systems aren't selected to compete in that kind of a world. That's why I think, um, our interactions in the social environment, uh, online through things like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and all those things have such a huge effect on us because we normally had those kinds of interactions on a very small local scale where we knew everybody. But all of a sudden, this is a global scale where we don't know everyone, and that person's getting more likes than I am, and I want more likes. That's not fair. And it's a very weird kind of competition where these companies have drawn out all these evolved kinds of behaviors that we have and put them in a completely different context and taken advantage of them.

11. 1:00:30 – 1:06:44

    Do Bearded Men Win More Fights?

    1. MKMichael Kasumovic1:00:30

    2. CWChris Williamson1:00:30

       Going back to the, uh, combat thing that you were talking about-

    3. MKMichael Kasumovic1:00:33

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:00:34

       ... earlier on, do beards provide an advantage-

    5. MKMichael Kasumovic1:00:37

       (laughs)

    6. CWChris Williamson1:00:37

       ... during combat?

    7. MKMichael Kasumovic1:00:38

       I ... That is a, always a fascinating thing because in the literature, um, there's been so many arguments for why beards exist. And you and I are both bearded men.... and I would say we're both-

    8. CWChris Williamson1:00:52

       I'm growing this, I'm growing this beautiful handlebar guy at the moment. For the people that are just listening, I look like a Miami cop from the '70s.

    9. MKMichael Kasumovic1:00:59

       (laughs) And if you look at mine, I'm starting to go gray everywhere but this handlebar.

    10. CWChris Williamson1:01:04

        Oh, yeah.

    11. MKMichael Kasumovic1:01:04

        So you know, I'm ... I'm starting to-

    12. CWChris Williamson1:01:05

        We look like we fuck.

    13. MKMichael Kasumovic1:01:07

        (laughs)

    14. CWChris Williamson1:01:07

        Both of us look like we fuck. (laughs)

    15. MKMichael Kasumovic1:01:11

        I'll take it. I'll take it.

    16. CWChris Williamson1:01:14

        Okay, here.

    17. MKMichael Kasumovic1:01:14

        But in the literature ... Yeah, in the literature, it's a funny thing. Men are trying to explain why beards exist, and they start talking about, you know, they're more attractive, they hide your jawline, um, to make you look like a more testosterone male. Uh, and (laughs) the, the most interesting one that, uh, a colleague of mine found, Barnaby Dixon, was this idea that beards are really good because if you got hit in the face, beards could potentially, uh, act as a, you know, to kind of support your face a little bit and maybe your fist slides off and you don't get that hit as hard. In a way, they're insulating your face from that full-on hit that you would get. And if you think about that, if you've ever felt someone's beard, like this isn't going to insulate against anything. Let's be honest. This tiny little beard, if I get hit in the face, I'm going down like a chunk of bricks.

    18. CWChris Williamson1:02:08

        The best that you can hope for is mild irritation, like a rash on the knuckles-

    19. MKMichael Kasumovic1:02:13

        (laughs)

    20. CWChris Williamson1:02:13

        ... of the person that's hit you. Yeah.

    21. MKMichael Kasumovic1:02:16

        But this is, this is huge in the literature, and there's lots of people talking about it, and Barnaby's like, "This is enough. There's gotta be a way to answer this question." So we looked at a bunch of UFC fighters, and y- if you notice, UFC fighters change their facial hair all the time. Um, sometimes they're bearded, sometimes they're not, sometimes they have a mustache, sometimes they have a goatee, have all kinds of beard shapes. So you can actually score their beard shapes, um, from, you know, one to five based on nothing, to a mustache, to a goatee, to a full beard, to a heavy beard. You know, score all that. Then you can look at their wins and losses against individuals that do or don't have beards. Not only that, you can look at their likelihood of getting knocked out. And you would think if beards are good at insulating a punch, individuals with bigger beards would be knocked out less, and they're not. (laughs) It just doesn't happen.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:03:16

        Mm-hmm. Didn't work.

    23. MKMichael Kasumovic1:03:17

        So ... I know. So everyone out there, if you're growing your beard to make sure you're insulated from a, a good hit, it's not gonna work.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:03:24

        This, this mustache was my prophylactic against someone trying to assault me in the street, actually. That was ... First off was-

    25. MKMichael Kasumovic1:03:30

        Particularly-

    26. CWChris Williamson1:03:30

        ... because I wanted to look like I fuck, and the second thing-

    27. MKMichael Kasumovic1:03:32

        (laughs)

    28. CWChris Williamson1:03:33

        ... was that I wanted to not get, not get knocked out. So I, well, I've definitely seen, um, some evidence that s- that suggests, uh, men who have beards are perceived as more masculine, perceived as more dominant-

    29. MKMichael Kasumovic1:03:47

        Yes.

    30. CWChris Williamson1:03:47

        ... perceived that they would be more likely to win in a fight.
12. 1:06:44 – 1:15:20

    Different Types of Sexual Competition

    1. MKMichael Kasumovic1:06:44

    2. CWChris Williamson1:06:44

       You used the word in one of your studies, contest competition. I learned about this.... months ago, and I can't remember the distinction between contest competition and some of the other different types of competition. Can you just give me a primer on that again? (laughs)

    3. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:01

       (laughs) Oh, man. I'm not even sure I can give you that.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:07:04

       Okay.

    5. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:05

       So, yeah. So, what do you mean by contest competition? You ... So, there's definitely differences between contest and competition. And, and competition. Is that, is that what you mean?

    6. CWChris Williamson1:07:16

       Who did I speak to about this? David Putz.

    7. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:18

       Yes.

    8. CWChris Williamson1:07:18

       David Putz-

    9. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:19

       Oh, yeah. Okay.

    10. CWChris Williamson1:07:20

        ... was who I spoke to about this. Okay. What was I talking to David Putz about? Uh, male-male aggression has driven a lot of the sexual dimorphism that we see between men and women. The traits ha- have been developed to be effective at dominance and aggression.

    11. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:33

        Mm-hmm.

    12. CWChris Williamson1:07:33

        Right. Okay. So I think this is to do with, um, female mate choice, looking at, um-

    13. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:43

        Yeah.

    14. CWChris Williamson1:07:43

        ... basically allowing, allowing females to select guys off the top, um, and contest-

    15. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:48

        Yeah. Yeah.

    16. CWChris Williamson1:07:49

        ... con- contest competition would be a different form of their selection.

    17. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:52

        I see what you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry. Yeah, yeah.

    18. CWChris Williamson1:07:54

        David Putz, speaking about the masculinity thing-

    19. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:58

        Yeah.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:07:58

        ... David Putz-

    21. MKMichael Kasumovic1:07:58

        Yeah.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:07:58

        ... told me this story, this really f-f-funny story from when I think he was a grad student, who stood in line at a, a checkout, some super

    23. NANarrator1:08:07

        .

    24. CWChris Williamson1:08:07

        ... these two guys talking behind him, and he couldn't believe how low their voices were.

    25. MKMichael Kasumovic1:08:11

        (laughs)

    26. CWChris Williamson1:08:11

        They sounded like that Chocolate Rain kid from-

    27. MKMichael Kasumovic1:08:14

        Yeah.

    28. CWChris Williamson1:08:15

        ... like 2006. And, um, they couldn't, he couldn't believe how low their voices were and he turned around and he saw that there was a really attractive girl in between him and them.

    29. MKMichael Kasumovic1:08:24

        Right.

    30. CWChris Williamson1:08:24

        And that got him onto the men modulate their voice, uh, based on whether there are women around them, um-
13. 1:15:20 – 1:22:44

    What Basketball Can Teach Us About Male Performance

    1. CWChris Williamson1:15:20

       you, you did a study looking at basketball players. What did you learn?

    2. MKMichael Kasumovic1:15:24

       Yeah, so we wanted to see how individual performance changed over time. You know, you can imagine that individuals when they're younger, they're great. You know, you've got a lot of energy, you've got a lot of strength. You haven't senesced as much, so you just haven't aged as much, so your body just isn't breaking down as much. And, um, what you find is that's generally the case in, in men, male basketball players. If you look at their performance in various skills over their lifetime, what you end up seeing is that men generally hit a peak. I can't remember exactly when that peak is at this point, um, but they hit a peak and then they start senescing and start performing more poorly, which is what you'd see in a lot of non-human animals as well. They hit this peak, and then you start aging, and you're just not able to attract as many mates or be able to protect your harem any longer. You know, red deer and elephant seals are really great examples of that. You're the king at some point, where you have all the ladies, and then after that, there's just somebody who outcompetes you, and you just don't do as well. So, we did the same thing in female basketball players because, you know, the nice thing about the NBA and the WNBA, you have a lot of data for a large number of years, and you can start looking at how individuals are actually performing. What we end up seeing in women is they don't actually hit that peak. They don't seem to senesc in their performance like men do. Now, there's caveats in our data, of course. The WNBA hasn't been around for as long as the NBA quite yet, so it's hard to tell if, if we start seeing the same amount of data, uh, as in the NBA, could we see those differences? And secondarily, you know, women, it ... The WNBA doesn't have as many teams. That means that women aren't playing as many games, so their bodies aren't, um, under as much stress potentially, because they're not playing as many games and traveling as much. So, maybe they, we don't end up seeing that peak because women aren't pushed to their limits like men are in these really, uh, these ... In the NBA, where they're playing a lot more games. And that may be true. Nonetheless, it's quite interesting that men are hitting their performance peak at some point and then senesce, and women generally don't and can keep performing for much longer, until they retire and choose to stop playing.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:17:54

       Without trying to account for some of the ways structurally that this could be explained away-

    4. MKMichael Kasumovic1:18:01

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:18:02

       ... why? What is your hypothesis for that?

    6. MKMichael Kasumovic1:18:05

       Yeah. Testosterone, we know testosterone is damaging, um, so it could be physiological in that sense, where, you know, we're selecting for aggressive, strong men playing the NBA, and these men likely have higher testosterone levels. As a consequence, at some point, that starts breaking things down in our bodies and has that negative effect where we just start senescing and our bodies just can't repair themselves as well to keep functioning in that really great way or that necessary way. Women don't have as much testest- testosterone. As a consequence, maybe things aren't breaking down as quickly or as strongly for women, so we don't see that happening, uh, in, in female performance over time. So, that's a possible idea as well. But of course, that needs testing.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:18:54

       So, that would be the mechanism.

    8. MKMichael Kasumovic1:18:56

       Mm-hmm.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:18:58

       What's the adaptive reason?

    10. MKMichael Kasumovic1:19:00

        Hmm. Well, you know, not everything has to be adaptive, you know?

    11. CWChris Williamson1:19:06

        I think this is-

    12. MKMichael Kasumovic1:19:06

        The reality is-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:19:07

        So I, I, I'm going to beli- I'm going to put forward a, a theory that I think that this is, but I'll, I'll let you...

    14. MKMichael Kasumovic1:19:13

        Okay. So we are, we know that com- men want to be in a hierarchy. If there's an advantage to having testosterone to ensure that you're higher in the hierarchy, that's going to be selected for. We know that once, if we look at the average, you know, lifespan of a male, that's increased a lot over time. We're a lot older now, and we, we're living a lot longer now than we did, you know, 10,000 years ago, for example. And that's for a number of different reasons. If there's selection for testosterone to be able to improve individual performance, and then we hit our peak at about 40 and then we start senescing, I'd like to think it's a little bit later than that because I'm older, but anyway, uh, hitting 40 and then we start senescing. 10,000 years ago, we weren't living to 40. Right? So there was no benefit to be able to select for late life benefits. As a consequence, that selection would have been very strong to maximize performance to the age of 40. And that means you're doing really well. After that, it doesn't matter because you're either going to be dead and you're definitely not going to be reproducing, and you're definitely going to be out-competed by somebody else. So it's irrelevant. You're essentially dead at that point, reproductively speaking, because you're not going to get a chance to mate with anybody. That's changed obviously now, right, where individuals are living for much longer, but that system that's been selected for still exists. And as a consequence, we senesce at that age, at that point, because that's the system that we've evolved to have, and that's just how we work.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:20:49

        Well, you have spoiled my theory because that's what I was going to say.

    16. MKMichael Kasumovic1:20:54

        (laughs)

    17. CWChris Williamson1:20:54

        Yeah, I, uh, I, it just seems, it seems to make sense. The burn bright, accumulate status-

    18. MKMichael Kasumovic1:21:00

        Right. Yes.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:21:01

        ... load as much as possible, you know, 17, 18, 19 years old, you're some prehistoric killer. Everybody thinks-

    20. MKMichael Kasumovic1:21:10

        Mm-hmm.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:21:10

        ... you're the, you're the shit. Run around-

    22. MKMichael Kasumovic1:21:12

        Mm-hmm.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:21:12

        ... impregnate, hope to stick about for, you know, 10, 12 years so that you can do a bit of pair bonding and protect the, the one woman that you've got and your three kids-

Episode duration: 1:35:19