A lot of the things that we do are a result of unconscious habit rather than conscious choice.

It is unclear how the conscious and unconscious selves relate to each other.

But if you want to have healthy habits, you must learn to integrate your unconscious self with your more thoughtful conscious self. For instance, people with good self-control are acting on habit.

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About Wendy Wood:

Wendy Wood is a social psychologist whose research addresses the ways that habits guide behavior - and why they are so difficult to break - as well as evolutionary accounts of gender differences in behavior. Professor Wood has been Associate Editor of Psychological Review, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Review, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and a founding member of the Society for Research Synthesis. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, and Rockefeller Foundation. Prior to joining USC, Professor Wood was James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Professor of Marketing at Duke University.

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This interview is an episode from The Well, our new publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.

About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

So what do they think?

How is the power of science advancing understanding? How are philosophers and theologians tackling these fascinating questions?

Let’s dive into The Well.

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Is polygamy good for society? Author Louise Perry explains. What is the future of romantic relationships? Louise Perry, author of "Women Aren't Human," explores the possibilities of polyamory as the next sexual minority rights movement. While some proponents argue for legal recognition of their relationships, Perry cautions against rejecting the monogamous model entirely. Despite the commonality of polygynous mating models in human history, Perry argues that monogamy has proven to be a more stable and peaceful system in society. She cites the "Cinderella effect," where households with multiple wives are more prone to conflict and stepparents are more likely to abuse their stepchildren. Perry also traces the historical roots of monogamy to ancient Rome, where sexual ethics were vastly different and cruel, and to the advent of Christianity, which introduced radical and revolutionary ideas about sexuality. Despite the downsides of Christian views on sexuality, Perry argues that their fundamental tenet of protecting the weak and restraining the strong remains relevant today.

About Louise Perry: Louise Perry is a writer and campaigner based in London, UK. She is a columnist at the New Statesman and a features writer for the Daily Mail. Her debut book, The Case Against the Sexual Revolution: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century, is published by Polity.

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Chapters:-

0:00 Monogamy vs. polygyny

1:46 Monogamy: Better for society?

2:57 Ancient Rome & the Christian inflection point

4:24 “De-Christianizing” sexual ethics

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When you start learning a new skill, you have to make conscious decisions and exert continuous willpower to practice and improve.

Only over time does a skill become "automatic" and transform into a habit that can be performed at a high level.

While practice is important to becoming "elite" at any particular skill, there are also many other factors at play, such as innate talent and opportunity.

--------------------------------------------------

About Wendy Wood:

Wendy Wood is a social psychologist whose research addresses the ways that habits guide behavior - and why they are so difficult to break - as well as evolutionary accounts of gender differences in behavior. Professor Wood has been Associate Editor of Psychological Review, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Review, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and a founding member of the Society for Research Synthesis. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, and Rockefeller Foundation. Prior to joining USC, Professor Wood was James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Professor of Marketing at Duke University.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This interview is an episode from The Well, our new publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.

About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

So what do they think?

How is the power of science advancing understanding? How are philosophers and theologians tackling these fascinating questions?

Let’s dive into The Well.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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What are nightmares, and why do we have them? Patrick McNamara, an experimental neuroscientist who studies the neurobiology of sleep, dreams, and religion, believes nightmares have both important spiritual and emotional functions for our minds. While nightmares can be deeply unpleasant, they have been experienced and recorded by humans for thousands of years, and historically those who were able to withstand and control their nightmares were held in high societal regard — appointed as spiritual guides, or shamans. Beyond the spiritual, McNamara explains that nightmares can provide insights into the neurobiology of our REM sleep, where we can confront and process trauma. Nightmares can create a kind of exposure therapy, assisting emotional regulation and helping to maintain healthy emotional responses to the environment. That’s why REM sleep is crucial for processing emotional trauma: it allows us to integrate traumatic experiences into our long-term memory stores.

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chapters

0:00 When REM sleep goes off the rails

0:30 Your brain on nightmares

1:33 Investigating religious nightmares & demonic possession

3:52 Those who conquer demons

4:45 REM neurobiology: Trauma processing

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Adam Grant's #1 phrase to unlock potential

The science of super longevity

Beat anxiety with the most addictive experience on Earth

----------------------

About Patrick McNamara: Patrick McNamara is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northcentral University. He also holds appointments in the departments of Neurology at the University of Minnesota and Boston University School of Medicine. He is a founding editor of Religion, Brain & Behavior, the flagship journal for the emerging field of neuroscience of religion. McNamara's current research centers on the evolution of the frontal lobes, the evolution of the two mammalian sleep states (REM and NREM), and the evolution of religion in human cultures. McNamara is the editor of Where God and Science Meet and Science and World Religions, and the author of The Neuroscience of Religious Experience (Cambridge University Press), Religion, Neuroscience and the Self: A New Personalism (Routledge), and numerous publications on the neurology and psychology of religion. McNamara is a John Templeton Foundation award recipient for his research project The Neurology of Religious Cognition. Get Smarter Faster, With Daily Episodes From The Worlds Biggest Thinkers.

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Many of our behaviors may not be goal-oriented. Instead, they are based on habit.

For example, what motivates someone to go running at 5 am: a goal, willpower, or habit? It's probably a mixture of all three, but habit is the most important.

If you want to change your behavior, you must change your habits.

----------------------------------------------

About Wendy Wood:

Wendy Wood is a social psychologist whose research addresses the ways that habits guide behavior - and why they are so difficult to break - as well as evolutionary accounts of gender differences in behavior. Professor Wood has been Associate Editor of Psychological Review, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Review, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and a founding member of the Society for Research Synthesis. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health, and Rockefeller Foundation. Prior to joining USC, Professor Wood was James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Professor of Marketing at Duke University.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

This interview is an episode from The Well, our new publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.

About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

So what do they think?

How is the power of science advancing understanding? How are philosophers and theologians tackling these fascinating questions?

Let’s dive into The Well.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Up Next ► How do elite performers automate their habits?   • How do elite performers automate thei...  

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Why marriage is thriving — and dying — in different American classes, with journalist and scholar Richard Reeves. Marriage in the U.S. has fundamentally transformed over the past century. In general, women have far greater legal and economic power in marriages than they did just decades ago, and while it was once difficult for women to file for divorce, today women do so at twice the rate of men. What’s more, gay marriage has been legal in all 50 states since 2015. Still, other aspects of marriage in the U.S. have remained remarkably unchanged. As journalist and Brookings Institution scholar Richard Reeves points out, a college-educated woman today is about just as likely to get married as her mother was — and even a bit more likely to stay married. But the same is not true for Americans on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale. As Reeves notes in this Big Think video, it’s important for all humans to have strong and meaningful relationships, whether within the context of marriage or not. The question is how to best ensure that the most people can build those relationships.

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About Richard Reeves: Richard V. Reeves is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where he directs the Future of the Middle Class Initiative and co-directs the Center on Children and Families. His Brookings research focuses on the middle class, inequality and social mobility. Richard writes for a wide range of publications, including the New York Times, Guardian, National Affairs, The Atlantic, Democracy Journal, and Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Dream Hoarders (Brookings Institution Press, 2017), and John Stuart Mill – Victorian Firebrand (Atlantic Books, 2007), an intellectual biography of the British liberal philosopher and politician.

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Conceiving a child is like playing the lottery. Given any two parents, there are 70 trillion possible genetic combinations that any one of their children could inherit.

This genetic diversity can make siblings really different from one another, for instance, in terms of their education, income, and lifespan.

Any attempt to study or address inequality in society must consider the impact of genetic inequality.

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About Kathryn Paige Harden:

Dr. Kathryn Paige Harden is a tenured professor in the Department of Psychology at UT, where she leads the Developmental Behavior Genetics lab and co-directs the Texas Twin Project. She is the author of The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality (Princeton). Dr. Harden received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia and completed her clinical internship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

--------------------------------------------------------------

This interview is an episode from The Well, our new publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the John Templeton Foundation.

About The Well

Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.

So what do they think?

How is the power of science advancing understanding? How are philosophers and theologians tackling these fascinating questions?

Let’s dive into The Well.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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What do aliens, apes, and orchestras all have in common? Professor Michael Spitzer explains how they each help us understand the origins of music.

Humans are not the only species with music, but we are the only ones who had to make music completely from scratch.

According to Michael Spitzer, Professor of Music at the University of Liverpool, humans are not inherently musical. In fact, we come from a lineage less musically inclined than birds or even insects. This means that when it comes to our musical abilities, we had to rely on both cultural and biological evolution to make music a fundamental aspect of human life.

Our ability to create music is also partially due to how our bodies have developed over time. Contrary to our ape-like ancestors, we have dexterous fingers that allow us to use instruments, and a descended larynx that allows for a wider variety of vocal sounds. These developments paved the path toward human musicality, which eventually distinguished itself from animal vocalizations, transitioning into an art form that serves as a medium for social connection and identity expression.

Spitzer explores the emotional resonance of music, which tends to set us apart from other music-making species, emphasizing its power to express and evoke deep sensations through patterns and rhythms that mirror human experiences. This connection between music, emotion, and human identity highlights music's role as its own universal yet deeply personal language.

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About Michael Spitzer:

Michael Spitzer is the author of The Musical Human and professor of music at the University of Liverpool, where he leads the department’s work on classical music. A music theorist and musicologist, he is an authority on Beethoven, with interests in aesthetics and critical theory, cognitive metaphor, and music and affect. He organized the International Conferences on Music and Emotion and the International Conference on Analyzing Popular Music and currently chairs the editorial board of Music Analysis Journal.

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With Insights from the World's Leading Minds

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Near death experiences change people’s lives - and not always for the better.

Most near-death experiencers say that they have trouble speaking about the experience because there just aren't words to describe it. It's like trying to draw an odor with a crayon.

Experiencers describe a sense of connectedness to other people, to nature, to the Universe, and to the divine. For them, this changes everything. For instance, it makes them much less interested in power and fame.

Experiencers almost always say, "This is the most important thing that's ever happened to me, and nothing else in my life compares to it." The most common change is that they are no longer afraid of death.

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About Dr. Bruce Greyson:

Dr. Bruce Greyson is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the UVA School of Medicine. He served on the medical school faculty at the Universities of Michigan, Connecticut, and Virginia. He was a co-founder and President of the International Association for Near-Death Studies, and Editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. His award-winning research led him to become a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and to be invited by the Dalai Lama to participate in a dialogue between Western scientists and Buddhist monks in India.

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The leading source of expert-driven, educational content. With thousands of videos, featuring experts ranging from Bill Clinton to Bill Nye, Big Think helps you get smarter, faster by exploring the big ideas and core skills that define knowledge in the 21st century.

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Humans don’t have pheromones, women’s periods do not sync up with one another, and there’s no scientific evidence that a menstrual cycle lasts 28 days. OB-GYN and health communicator Dr. Jen Gunter explains.

There have been many misconceptions about women’s health in recent decades, resulting in a widespread lack of proper education on menstrual science. According to Gunter, this can be incredibly harmful, as it perpetuates myths, leads to misunderstandings about normal menstrual health, and prevents people from advocating for themselves effectively.

In just 10 minutes, Gunter explains ovulation, the reason for menstrual cramps, the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome, and the potential dangers of commonly used period-tracking apps. Finally, Gunter reiterates the need for better menstrual health education to combat ignorance and misinformation, which can have serious implications for women's health and autonomy.

Chapters for easier navigation:-

0:00 Medicine & myths

1:38 Which mammals menstruate?

1:58 What is a menstrual cycle?

2:38 The science of menstruation: the decidua

4:38 Evolution’s curse: period side effects

7:59 “Breeders”: Data dystopia

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About Jen Gunter:

Dr. Jen Gunter is an internationally bestselling author, obstetrician, and gynecologist with more than three decades of experience as a vulvar and vaginal diseases expert. Considered “the world's most famous—and outspoken—gynecologist,” (The Guardian), her New York Times and USA Today bestselling books, The Vagina Bible and The Menopause Manifesto, have been translated into 25 languages. She is the host of Jensplaining, a CBC/Amazon Prime video series that highlights the impact of medical misinformation on women, and the recipient of the 2020 NAMS Media Award from The North American Menopause Society. Her 2020 TED Talk, “Why Can’t We Talk About Periods?” received more than two million views in its first six months, leading to the launch of her popular podcast on the TED Audio Collective, “Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter.” Originally from Winnipeg, Canada, she lives with her sons in San Francisco,CA.

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