The Nicolas Procel Podcast

Dr. Joseph Sirgy is a management psychologist, professor emeritus of marketing at Virginia Tech, and author of over 40 academic books and 300 scientific papers. Dr. Sirgy has extensively researched and written about the science of quality of life, wellbeing, and happiness over the course of his decades-long career.

0:00 Intro

0:25 Introduction to the Most Important Science

8:44 The 3 Faces of Happiness

11:11 The Experienced vs. Evaluative Happiness Debate

13:13 Layers of Happiness: Biology, Emotions, Traits, Etc.

25:57 How Should I Live, and How to Be Happy?

27:43 Why I Disagree With (Some) Happiness Scientists; You Can't Just "Think Yourself Happy"

34:45 How Happiness Works, and How to Be Happy

38:23 Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

46:11 How to Be Happier

48:17 Tools to Make Your Mind a Happier Place to Live

53:44 How to Structure a Maximally Happy Day

57:27 The Most Important Happiness Levers In One's Day

1:03:26 The Purpose of Everything a Human Does (Perhaps)

1:04:46 How Can People Make Their Leisure Happier/More Enjoyable?

1:14:12 How Does Our Health Affect Our Happiness?

1:21:33 Drugs & Happiness

1:23:56 Happiness Begets Happiness

1:26:35 How to Get More Happiness From Work?

1:33:36 The Difference Between a Career and a Calling

1:37:36 How to Find Your Calling if You Have No Idea What It Is?

1:47:18 What Matters Most for Quality of Life?

1:50:58 What Matters Least for Quality of Life, but Is Overrated?

MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE:

Corey Keyes's "Languishing: How to Feel Alive Again in a World That Wears Us Down" – www.amazon.com/Languishing-Alive-Again-World-Wears/dp/0593444620

FIND JOSEPH SIRGY:

Dr. Sirgy's Website – https://sites.google.com/a/vt.edu/joe-sirgy-personal-website/

EPISODES LIKE THIS:

The Evolutionary Psychology of Happiness & Achievement | Dr. Lionel Page – https://youtu.be/USkA2kdPMCU

Your Brain Is Designed to Lie to You | Dr. David Pinsof – https://youtu.be/JYb9k391HBg

The Hidden (Evolutionary) Motives Behind Everything You Do | Dr. Robin Hanson – https://youtu.be/8ziMZDlNMcE

Scientist: How Self-Discipline & the Human Mind Work | Dr. Rob Kurzban – https://youtu.be/7PRFSJZpdkQ

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/faHVkP99-GE

Dr. Lionel Page is a professor of economics at the University of Queensland. Lionel is also the author of the Substack "Optimally Irrational," where he writes about various topics including psychology, the science of happiness, human nature, politics, evolutionary psychology, irrationality, and various other topics.

In this episode, Dr. Page and I talk about how happiness can be understood from an evolutionary perspective. We start with why evolution seems implausible to many, and then move on to talk about how happiness works, why happiness doesn’t last, why we have incorrect intuitions about happiness, how status affects happiness, and more. We also cover how goals affect happiness, and how to optimize goal-setting for happiness.

0:00 Intro

0:58 What Can Evolution Tell Us About Happiness?

9:32 Why Evolution Seems Like Bullshit

20:02 Primary vs. Secondary Rewards

28:17 Happiness Is Relative

41:00 How Your Brain Calibrates Your Happiness

46:14 Hedonic Adaptation; Why Happiness Doesn’t Last

53:04 We Are Designed to Delude Ourselves About Happiness; The Focusing Illusion

57:32 How Do Goals Affect Our Happiness?

1:14:29 How Can We Set Goals for Maximum Happiness?

1:28:16 Evolving for Controllable Happiness Is Impossible

1:34:25 Is Any Lasting Happiness Possible?

1:36:51 Do We Habituate to Status?

1:43:07 Is Happiness Mediated by Surprise

1:57:28 Do Some Things Consistently Give Happiness?

2:01:01 Would Dr. Page Change Anything About His Happiness Articles?

MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE

How Eyes Evolved (Richard Dawkins) – https://youtu.be/c4lrEM6Txtk

FIND DR. PAGE

Dr. Page's Substack – https://www.optimallyirrational.com/

Dr. Page's X – https://x.com/page_eco

Optimally Irrational (book) – https://amzn.to/48TdKa5

EPISODES LIKE THIS

Your Brain Is Designed to Lie to You | Dr. David Pinsof – https://youtu.be/JYb9k391HBg

The Hidden (Evolutionary) Motives Behind Everything You Do | Dr. Robin Hanson – https://youtu.be/8ziMZDlNMcE

Scientist: How Self-Discipline & the Human Mind Work | Dr. Rob Kurzban – https://youtu.be/7PRFSJZpdkQ

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/USkA2kdPMCU

Dr. Robert Kurzban is a former professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and an evolutionary psychologist. Dr. Kurzban was mentored and trained by Dr. John Tooby and Dr. Leda Cosmides, both founders of the field of modern evolutionary psychology.

In this episode, I converse with Dr. Kurzban about evolutionary psychology, the science of self-discipline, and the theory of the modular mind. We look at the now-debunked resource view of willpower (ego depletion) and a better theory of self-discipline, as well as what science tells us we can do to be more disciplined. Through an evolutionary lens, Dr. Kurzban and I examine a handful of other topics such as self-esteem, self-deception, the evolutionary psychology of morality, and whether men overperceive sexual interest (the so-called "sexual overperception bias").

0:00 Intro

1:42 One of Science's Greatest Ideas for Understanding the Mind

7:12 Science Advances at a Crawl

7:49 The Strong Correlation Between Parental Grief and Reproductive Value

15:11 You Are Not a "Self," You Are A Committee

17:47 Why it Feels Like We Have One Conscious Experience; Consciousness Can Be Split

23:50 What Is a Module?

26:03 Psychological Organs

29:52 Is There Specific Evidence for the Mind Being Modular?

31:35 Evolutionary Ideas ARE Testable

32:51 An Example of Modularity From Neuroscience

37:02 A Brief Overview of the Science of Self-Control

39:05 A Better Theory of Self-Control

42:24 Willpower-As-Resource is a Debunked Theory

50:37 How Do Different Modules Take Charge of "You?"

59:41 Various Techniques to Use This Theory to Be More Self-Disciplined

1:01:48 The Self-Discipline Equation, & How to Tweak It for Better Results

1:03:48 Altering Human Biology for More Self-Discipline

1:07:45 Artificial Friends

1:10:35 A Better Theory of Self-Esteem and Self-Evaluation

1:13:38 The Most Effective Way of Building Self-Esteem/Confidence

1:17:32 A Better Theory of Self-Deception

1:20:27 Why Does Self-Deception Exist?

1:27:40 The Evolutionary Origins of Morality

1:31:32 What Would Dr. Kurzban Change About His Book?

1:33:11 Do Men Overperceive Sexual Interest?

1:36:56 Where to Find Dr. Kurzban

MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE

"Human Grief: Is Its Intensity Related to the Reproductive Value of the Deceased?" (Crawford et al.) – https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/1989-crawford.pdf

Folly of Fools by Robert Trivers – https://amzn.to/4q7OodTKurzban & Perilloux's paper on sexual overperception bias – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25413875/

Kurzban & Perilloux's paper on sexual overperception bias in non-Americans – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40806-015-0017-5

Martie Haselton & Bill von Hippel's paper on sexual overperception bias – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28056212/

Kurzban & Perilloux's reply to Haselton & von Hippel – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28056211/

FIND DR. KURZBAN

Dr. Kurzban's Substack – https://thelivingfossils.substack.com/

Dr. Kurzban on X – https://x.com/rkurzban

Why Everyone (Else) Is a Hypocrite (book) – https://amzn.to/3MCD4rw

The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind: How Self-Interest Shapes Our Opinions and Why We Won't Admit It (book) – https://amzn.to/4pASM5g

EPISODES LIKE THIS

Your Brain Is Designed to Lie to You | Dr. David Pinsof – https://youtu.be/JYb9k391HBg

Professor: The Hidden Motives Behind Everything You Do | Dr. Robin Hanson – https://youtu.be/8ziMZDlNMcE

Psychology Professor: The 8 Most Common Thinking Errors | Dr. Alexander Swan – https://youtu.be/96HCK0HKz_0

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Iln5FSC44X4

Dr. Juan Carlos Marvizón, (pseudonym Hermes Solenzol) is a retired neuroscientist and expert in pain physiology, as well as a former member of the UCLA Brain Research Institute. He is also an author of various... romance books, and has a blog about various topics including science, philosophy, and more.

In this episode, Dr. Solenzol and I talk about some of the mistakes and oversimplifications made by Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Anna Lembke. We also talk about all things dopamine, including its role in pleasure, its role in motivation/wanting, the neurobiology of the "dopamine reward pathway," the pleasure-pain balance being "bullshit," habituation, addiction, compulsive behavior, drugs' interactions with the brain, pornography, gambling, and more.

0:00 Intro

0:47 How Dr. Huberman & Dr. Lembke Are Wrong About Dopamine

5:13 Can Non-Drug Stimuli (e.g. Behavior) Be Addictive?

9:54 Does Dopamine Cause Pleasure? Or Just Desire?

15:31 The Neurobiology of the Dopamine (Mesolimbic) Reward Pathway

17:53 How Drugs Interact With Dopamine Release & the Brain

19:13 A Simpler Explanation of Dopamine, the Reward Pathway, & Drug Interactions With the Brain (Trying to Dispel Confusion)

22:20 Dopamine Peaks & Baselines

24:23 What Does Dopamine Do, and What Does It Make Us Feel?

28:03 Does Dopamine Make Us Desire & Crave?

29:04 Dopamine Receptors (Very Important for Understanding Dopamine & Its Effects)

37:01 Dopamine Is the Molecule of Change

37:46 The Neurobiology of Addiction

46:56 Compulsive Behaviors; Too Much Dopamine

50:18 Dr. Huberman is Wrong: Supplementing L-Tyrosine is Useless for Dopamine

52:02 L-Dopa Supplementation, Problems With L-Dopa

56:06 Neurobiological & Other Differences Between Addiction & Compulsion

1:02:49 There Is No Such Thing As Too Much Pleasure

1:04:29 Sources of Craving

1:08:58 Why Some People Seek Pain

1:11:51 What's Behind Compulsive Gambling?

1:14:27 Why Is Pornography More Compulsive Than Sex?

1:17:25 "The Pleasure-Pain Balance is Bullshit"

1:22:56 Does "High-Dopamine" Behavior Lead to Less Pleasure?

1:30:29 Does Habituation Affect All Pleasure, or Is It Just Local?

1:32:55 Combatting Habituation With Mindfulness

1:35:16 How Can We Maximize Reward and Minimize the Cost?

1:41:52 How Do We Enjoy Lots of Pleasure While Avoid Habituation, Tolerance, & Other Dark Sides of Pleasure?

1:45:10 A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind

1:48:48 Where to Find Dr. Solenzol

FIND DR. SOLENZOL

Dr. Solenzol's blog – https://www.hermessolenzol.com/en

Dr. Solenzol's Medium – https://medium.com/@hermessolenzol

Dr. Solenzol's Substack – https://scienceandmeaning.substack.com/

DR. SOLENZOL'S BOOKS

Games of Love and Kink – https://amzn.to/47DhgV9

Juegos de amor y dolor – https://amzn.to/4mwbBVI

Cecilia desencadenada – https://amzn.to/45x0qGk

Amores Imposibles – https://amzn.to/45MhO8L

La tribu de Cecilia – https://amzn.to/4fJ31A8

Para volverte loca – https://amzn.to/45KDi62

BOOKS MENTIONED

Anna Lembke's "Dopamine Nation" – https://amzn.to/45BgsgQ

David Linden's "The Compass of Pleasure" – https://amzn.to/4lxSXeB

Daniel Lieberman's "The Molecule of More" – https://amzn.to/3Ve4Z22

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5X5PgX0qe8M

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

Named "one of the 50 most influential psychologists in the world," Dr. Kent Berridge is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan as well as an award-winning researcher in the field of affective neuroscience, studying topics such as pleasure, reward, and addiction. Dr. Berridge is the recipient of various awards, among them the APA Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award, the APS William James Fellow award, and more.

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yyKGGC7OjhQ

Dr. David Pinsof is the co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, as well as a social scientist at UCLA and author of Everything is Bullshit on Substack, where he explores the evolutionary forces behind self-deception, belief, and human behavior.

0:00 Intro

0:35 Why We Evolved to Self-Deceive

4:42 People Are Bad At Spotting Deception

5:20 Why We Bullshit Ourselves & Others

7:37 The Use of Self-Deception

11:27 Why Are People So Easily Deceived? The Social Function of Self-Deception & False Beliefs

14:45 Social vs. Real Beliefs; Why People "Believe" Conspiracy Theories

22:03 Why Listen to Dr Pinsof?

23:40 Is There Evidence We Are Constantly Bullshitting Ourselves?

28:53 Science Has Shed Light on Human Nature & Motivations

34:41 How Does Human Behavior Work?

36:43 Evolutionary Incentives Drive All Behavior

38:49 Subliminal Priming is Bullshit

40:13 A Scientific & Evolutionary Perspective on the Meaning of Life

52:05 How Can We See Past Our Self-Deception?

53:13 Dr. Pinsof's Recommended Books

Dr. Pinsof's Substack "Everything Is Bullshit" – https://www.everythingisbullshit.blog/

BOOKS MENTIONED:

Hugo Mercier's Not Born Yesterday – https://amzn.to/3G2tb36

Hugo Mercier's The Enigma of Reason – https://amzn.to/4cvnBTa

EPISODES LIKE THIS:

The Hidden (Evolutionary) Motives Behind Everything You Do | Dr. Robin Hanson – https://youtu.be/8ziMZDlNMcE

How Life Began and How Humans Evolved | Richard Anderson – https://youtu.be/NR0gOZu2oCQ

Psychology Professor: The 8 Most Common Thinking Errors | Dr. Alexander Swan – https://youtu.be/96HCK0HKz_0

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/JYb9k391HBg

Dr. Alexander Swan holds a Ph.D. in Psychological and Brain Sciences and is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Eureka College. His research focuses on cognitive psychology, particularly judgment and decision-making, with an emphasis on cognitive biases.

0:00 Intro

0:19 What Biases Are & Why We Have Them

3:04 The Evolutionary Function of Biases

8:22 The Most Common & Pervasive Biases

11:50 Psychological Inertia

14:11 Science Is Not Always True, Bias in Science

19:34 How to Mitigate & Overcome Bias

24:36 Why People Think They Aren’t Biased; Availability Bias

33:56 WYSIATI Bias, Bias Blind Spot

37:40 How to Train Against Your Own Biases; Hindsight Bias

38:42 The Misinformation Effect, How Bias Shapes What You See

47:25 Are Smart People More Biased?

50:22 Gender & Age Differences in Bias

53:01 Dr. Swan's Bias Fighting Recommendations

1:04:05 How Much Does Learning About Biases Help?

1:06:53 Rationality; The Benefits of Bias

1:16:14 Cognition Requires Bias

1:18:58 How Dr. Swan Harnesses Bias For His Own Gain

1:20:36 Dr. Swan's Most Important Recommendation

Dr. Swan's "Understanding Cognitive Biases" Great Course, his podcast, and more - https://linktr.ee/alexbswan

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/96HCK0HKz_0

What if a single mutation millions of years ago is the reason you're here reading this right now?

Richard Anderson is the author of Nautilus Award winner “The Evolution of Life: Big Bang to Space Colonies,” which details the history of the universe and life, as well as the present and future of humanity, life, and the planet. Richard holds a master’s degree in microbiology from San Jose State University, with further studies in molecular biology and biochemistry.

In this episode, Richard and I unpack the story of life, from the origins of the universe to the evolutionary occurrences that made us human. We explore how stars forged the physical world, how early life sparked into existence, and why a single evolutionary twist set humans apart. This conversation covers the narrative of the universe, from the Big Bang to the present day.

0:00 Intro

00:22 How Did the Universe Begin?

04:10 How Did Life Begin?

07:52 How Did Reproduction Begin?

09:45 The First Life Forms

11:35 The First Breakthrough In Evolution

14:51 Prokaryotic vs. Eukaryotic Cells

19:21 How Humans Evolved

26:12 How the Human Brain Evolved & How We Became Great Hunters

31:00 Humans Evolved Predatory Eyesight

33:38 How Tools Altered Human Evolution

34:51 The Virus That Altered Mammalian Evolution

41:46 Male vs. Female Brain Differences

44:11 Conservative vs. Liberal Brain Differences

47:04 Criminal & Psychopath Brain Differences

54:25 Most Of Your Body Doesn’t Contain Your DNA

58:19 Can Humans Live in Space?

01:10:00 Can Humanity Overcome Ideological Differences

01:20:39 All Humans Are Practically the Same

01:31:02 How Will Humans Evolve Next?

01:34:17 Robotic Evolution

Get Richard's Book "The Evolution of Life: Big Bang to Space Colonies" - https://amzn.to/4gsHWJD

Richard's Website: https://richardandersonauthor.com/

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/NR0gOZu2oCQ

What if everything you’ve been told about finding meaning in life is only scratching the surface?

My guest in this episode is Jerry Pannone, a former philosophy teacher and author of the book "Survive: Why We Do What We Do." Jerry has spent a large portion of his life studying philosophy, the humanities, psychology, neuroscience, and more, and synthesizes that information into insights about the human condition.

Why does music stir our souls? What lies beyond self-actualization? In this conversation, Jerry Pannone unpacks the deep connections between music, identity, and the search for meaning. Jerry and I explore transcendence, our fundamental psychological drives, and how expanding your awareness can transform your life.

0:30 Why Jerry Agreed to Be on the Podcast

5:41 How Our Identities Form, and How Jerry Formed His

14:59 Why Does Music Speak to Us?

23:08 The Skill of Nonverbal Communication

27:22 The Two Worlds We Live In & Ego Development

32:34 Are Animals Sentient? Is It Ethical to Kill Them?

39:51 Why Assume Killing is Bad?

42:32 The Moment Jerry Quit Hunting

46:03 Why Leaving a Religion Is a Sin

50:14 When Rules Are Necessary

53:00 What All Humans Seek

57:40 Why What We Seek Is Not Enough

59:54 You Don’t Know Much About Anything

1:04:17 How Narcissism Affects Falling In Love and Other Social Aspects

1:09:30 Prejudice & Religious Intolerance

1:16:12 Your Genes & Upbringing Define You, No Free Will

1:20:15 Reaching True Transcendence

1:26:59 Why Assume Transcendence Is Real?

1:37:01 The Downside of Enlightenment

1:39:44 There Is No Free Will

1:43:34 Don’t Let Ego Alter Your Actions

1:48:26 When Jerry Taught Ethics

1:50:33 What Jerry Would Tell His Younger Self

1:55:35 Where You Can Find Jerry

1:56:34 Jerry’s Recommended Guests

Get Jerry's Book "Survive: Why We Do What We Do" - https://amzn.to/3Z9DwBm

Jerry's Website: https://jerrypannone.com/
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3DXj16IgiWU