Dr. Robin Hanson is a polymath, a well-known rationalist, and an associate professor of economics at George Mason University. In this conversation, Dr. Hanson speaks with me about the underlying motivations behind much of human behavior, and how the pretexts (the reasons we give) for our behavior don’t often match the subtexts (the real reasons).

In this episode, Dr. Hanson and I talk about evolutionary psychology, how your conscious mind just presents a favorable picture of your motives and not your real motives, why we have a press secretary in the brain at all, the subtexts underlying all interpersonal communication, signaling, status, why we laugh, and more. We talk about hidden motives in various areas of everyday life such as body language, conversation, laughter, education, medicine, politics, religion, charitable giving, and more.

0:00 Intro

0:36 Why Dr. Hanson Began Studying "Hidden" Human Motives

3:03 Why Humans Evolved to Self-Deceive

5:52 Why Care What Others Think?

6:41 The Liar in Your Brain, and Why You Have One

10:30 Split-Brain Patients: A Case Study of the Brain Making up Lies

14:36 Signaling & Showing People What We Want Them to See

18:31 Hidden Motives in Nonverbal Communication

20:21 Status Signaling in Nonverbal Communication

25:57 Your Conscious Mind Is Not in Charge

27:43 What Can We Do To Be Perceived More Favorably?

30:33 The Visual Dominance Ratio: Eye Contact Patterns Signal Status

32:17 Status Is the Undercurrent of Almost Every Interaction

36:15 Hidden Motives in Conversation

40:17 Why Do We Laugh? Hidden Motives in Laughter

43:47 Can Evolutionary Psychology Show Us How to Be Funnier?

45:11 Does Threat & Uncertainty Make People Laugh More?

47:45 Conspicuous Consumption

54:11 Hidden Motives in Charitable Giving & Altruism

58:41 Hidden Motives in Medicine; On the Margin, Medicine Isn't Helpful

1:11:29 Education Isn't About Learning—Hidden Motives in Education

1:14:09 Does Education Pay For Itself? Is the Economic ROI Worthwhile?

1:19:19 Hidden Motives in Politics

1:26:29 Hidden Motives in Religion

1:29:39 Most Religious People Are Hardly Religious At All

1:32:47 The Benefits of Understanding the Hidden Motives Behind Human Behavior

1:35:12 How Dr. Hanson Uses His Knowledge of Hidden Motives

1:37:23 How to Leverage Your Human Nature to Get What You Want

1:40:35 What Dr. Hanson Would Change About The Elephant in the Brain if Re-Writing It Today

1:42:04 Where to Find Robin Hanson

1:42:35 Teaser

FIND DR. HANSON:

The Elephant in the Brain – https://amzn.to/4orZxGm

Dr. Hanson's Substack "Overcoming Bias" – https://www.overcomingbias.com/

BOOKS MENTIONED:

Bryan Caplan's "The Case Against Education" – https://amzn.to/4fpQNwp

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8ziMZDlNMcE