Beat Your Genes Podcast
BeatYourGenes
Evolutionary psychology with Dr. Doug Lisle, PhD and Nathan Gershfeld, D.C.
Most psychology advice treats your brain like a broken machine. Beat Your Genes starts somewhere different: your instincts aren't broken. They're just optimized for a Stone Age environment that no longer exists.
Dr. Lisle - Evolutionary psychologist, former Stanford lecturer, and co-author of The Pleasure Trap - has spent decades developing frameworks that explain human behavior from the ground up.
Nathan Gershfeld, D.C. - trained first as an electrical engineer and then spent 14 years as a Doctor of Chiropractic. He brings a systems thinker's curiosity to every conversation. He mostly lets Dr. Lisle talk.
Topics include relationships and attraction, self-esteem, personality, depression and anxiety, willpower, the ego trap, and how pushy people exploit agreeable ones.
380+ episodes. New episodes every other week.
New here? Start at beatyourgenes.org/start-here
Most psychology advice treats your brain like a broken machine. Beat Your Genes starts somewhere different: your instincts aren't broken. They're just optimized for a Stone Age environment that no longer exists.
Dr. Lisle - Evolutionary psychologist, former Stanford lecturer, and co-author of The Pleasure Trap - has spent decades developing frameworks that explain human behavior from the ground up.
Nathan Gershfeld, D.C. - trained first as an electrical engineer and then spent 14 years as a Doctor of Chiropractic. He brings a systems thinker's curiosity to every conversation. He mostly lets Dr. Lisle talk.
Topics include relationships and attraction, self-esteem, personality, depression and anxiety, willpower, the ego trap, and how pushy people exploit agreeable ones.
380+ episodes. New episodes every other week.
New here? Start at beatyourgenes.org/start-here
Episodes
Mentioned books
Mar 24, 2016 • 53min
06: Psychology of Gender Dynamics and Differences
Today's topic is gender differences. We start the show about a news event that occured with an academic where he stepped into some trouble for discussing gender differences. Dr. Lisle discusses the biological difference between men and women. For example, men can become more explosively angry than women due to a particular hormone that rises quickly in males. On the other hand, women can still be just as competitive as males, but they are slicker and friendlier. How did these differences evolve? Why did certain traits evolve in the different genders? How are men and women different? How does this translate into modern society? Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. www.BeatYourGenes.org Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus
Mar 17, 2016 • 57min
05: Stone-Age politics vs. Modern-day politics
Where do political views come from? Dr Lisle explains that political differences evolved from our basic need to optimize the survival of the stone age village. This results in a natural split of political views that essentially desire to either "share more" or "share less". Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. www.BeatYourGenes.org Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus
Mar 9, 2016 • 55min
04: Staying with a Man Who's Not Right For You
As Dr. Lisle discusses the purpose of psychology, we begin with a discussion of thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Some philosophers believe that we can think one thing and then feel something completely different but Dr. Lisle explains these seemingly conflicting thoughts & feelings explains how this relates to stress. We discuss different models of psychology and some of the limits of learning theory. For example, do we learn our emotions during childhood? Dr. Lisle discusses an example of a common "beat your genes" trap for women nowadays of staying with a man who's not right for her. We continue on this topic for the remainder of the show and Dr. Lisle begins the explanation about differing mating strategies. Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. www.BeatYourGenes.org Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus
Mar 3, 2016 • 58min
03: High Cost of High Expectations
Motivation and expectations are supposed to go hand-in-hand. The idea being - if you're expected to achieve a goal, your motivation kicks in to meet these expectations. In this episode, Dr. Lisle goes over a concept called The Ego Trap. Which is the trap we may find ourselves in if the expectations of our performance exceeds what we think we can reasonably accomplish. Dr. Lisle describes this trap, how this process works, why it works the way it does, and how to effectively overcome it. Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website: www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus
Feb 25, 2016 • 59min
02: Stepping Stones to Self-Esteem
What does "self-esteem" actually mean? In this episode, Dr. Lisle goes over the history of the study of self-esteem. Then he explains his own discoveries of esteem processes including self-esteem. As it turns out, nobody can give you "self-esteem". Dr. Lisle explains that self-esteem is quite literally esteem of your self, so it is how you view yourself. So, what's called "low self-esteem" or "high self-esteem" is entirely based on how you view yourself. However, this view is not easily changed, as Dr. Lisle describes a concept called the "internal audience" - a sort of social meter sitting inside your mind that views your own behavior & effort in context with expectations. When you impress your 'internal audience' through diligent effort, you feel higher self-esteem. In this episode, Dr. Lisle describes what you can do to impress your internal audience and therefore improve your self-esteem. Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website: www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus
Feb 18, 2016 • 59min
01: Happiness vs. Pleasure : What is the goal of life?
In the very first episode of the Beat Your Genes podcast, Host Nate Gershfeld talks with Dr. Doug Lisle, PhD about the purpose of life, happiness vs. pleasure, and the psychological mechanisms that guide our behavior. Dr. Lisle talks about some important findings namely, that purpose of life (biologically) is quite simple - to spread our own genes and ensure their survival into the next few generations. Because of this, our entire biology, physiology, and psychology is built around this goal. It's been like this for the entire history of our species and we have survived in nature due to this goal. All of a sudden, comes the modern environment of convenience and innovation in an incredibly short time frame. With this new environment comes a new set of challenges that our brains were never designed to solve. In this podcast and in future episodes, Dr. Lisle methodically describes what role the mind and, therefore, our behavior plays in our life experience and satisfaction. Copyright Beat Your Genes Podcast Host: Nathan Gershfeld Interviewee: Doug Lisle, Ph.D. and Jen Howk, Ph.D. Podcast website: www.BeatYourGenes.org True to Life seminars with Dr. Lisle and Dr. Howk : www.TrueToLife.us Intro & outro song: City of Happy Ones · Ferenc Hegedus
