Relationship Scientist REVEALS 3 CLEAR SIGNS He'll CHEAT (Don’t Miss THIS RED FLAG!) | Macken Murphy

I spent a couple years at Oxford studying infidelity. Narcissism is associated with infidelity. Plenty of people find sexual narcissism sexy, right? So that's someone who believes that they're the best lover ever and is, you.

Know, totally confident and bad. That also predicts infidelity. Now, Mackenzie Murphy isn't just a behavior scientist. He's a master at decoding the little things we do and say that reveal a lot about our relationships and what.

We'Re really looking for in love and life. Mackenzie's insights are going to open your eyes to the complex world of human attraction. The symptoms of PTSD are so common among people who that some psychologists have coined the term and used the term PISD, post infidelity stress disorder.

What is the research that stands out to you the most around love, relationships, and intimacy in a modern world?

The research on what we know impacts success in romantic relationships. So there are very simple things that you can do to improve your romantic connection with someone.

What would you say are the three clear signs that a man may cheat on his partner that he's committed to?

I don't even know if I should share this, but.

Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. I am very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Mack and Murphy in the house.

Good to see you.

I don't know how it's inspiring, but thank you. Very excited because I wouldn't say I discovered you, but I found your content before a lot of people knew about you. And I still don't think really many people know about you yet. So I wanna introduce you from what I saw online. Now, Macken Murphy isn't just a behavior scientist. He's a master at decoding the little things we do and say that reveal a lot about our relationships and what we're really looking for in love and life. So whether you're single, dating, or you're just love understanding more about people around you, Macken's insights are going to open your eyes to the complex world of human attraction. Now, you're a scientist, you're a researcher, and you've studied a lot of different things around animal mating theory and history of animal mating, but also human mating. And your content on TikTok is how I found you and what made me really interested about the depth of research that you dive into and study on the science of love and relationships. We were just talking about this before about a few different key things that people are interested in a lot these days. Infidelity, cheating, why people cheat, why it's important for men and women to try to become more beautiful, jealousy, insecurity, all these different things that people are struggling with or trying to understand about themselves and others. And so I'm excited to dive into this. And the first thing I want to talk about is infidelity and cheating.

Sure.

Why do you think people are cheaters or cheat at one point? What is the main cause of cheating that you've seen? And do men cheat more than women?

Okay, well that's a very complicated question. I'll say up front that infidelity in the animal literature is just called extra-pair copulation, right? This is, you have your in-pair mate, the primary partner, and there are many people think monogamy is, you know, this kind of unnatural social construct. That's an idea I run up against quite a bit. but monogamy, there are plenty of monogamous animals. I would say that we are a serially monogamous species of ape. That's a slightly controversial thing to say. But we're serially socially monogamous. Infidelity, extra-pair copulation, right? The propensity to have sexual intercourse with people who are not your mate, right? The inclination towards that, that's also part of our evolutionary story. Now you asked about why people cheat. and whether men cheat more than women. Whether men cheat more than women, I'll start on that because that's, I mean, it's a controversial thing to say on the internet. It would be a controversial thing to write on a blog. But in a human mating behavior lab, somewhere that actually studies infidelity, this would be one of the most banal things you could ever say, which is that men do cheat more than women. Now, I'm not saying that nobody disagrees with this. I'm not saying that there aren't some researchers who say, you know, maybe there's more evenness here or maybe women actually cheat more. And maybe in some subpopulations, right, in circumspect socioecologies and in some age groups, maybe infidelity rates vary. But what do we see? Well, we see that in general, right, women report getting heterosexual women report getting cheated on more than heterosexual men, right? So you ask people, have you ever been cheated on? Women are more likely to say they have been. And then when you ask people, have you ever cheated? Men tend to say, yeah, more. So men admit to cheating more on these anonymous surveys. And you can say, well, survey data, self-report, maybe women are more likely to lie. But then that's a bit of a silly thing to say because the research that we have on lying indicates that men are more duplicitous. Men lie more. I'm not saying it's a big sex difference, but Anytime someone's tried to look into that that I'm aware of, it's tended to say, okay, men seem more apt towards lying. And then finally, the final piece of evidence on this, when we're saying, how do we know that men cheat more? Is when you look at mate poachers. So this is the other person in the scenario, the third party. Yes, the interloper. When you ask men and women, have you succeeded? Have you attempted mate poaching? Have you succeeded? For short-term mating, uncommitted mating, so there's two types of mate poaching. There's this infidelity that we're talking about, and then there's the second type, which is also infidelity, but you're starting a new relationship. It seems to be, at least in Western samples, and this is a less studied fact, that women who mate poach have higher success. So when you take all those findings together...

So women who are single and want.

To, if they want to take your boyfriend for a night, they'll have more success than men who want to take your girlfriend for an average. Why is that? Well, that's a great segue because we can now talk about, so those are the reasons to think that men cheat more than women. And why is that, right? Why do men cheat more than women? I mean, I'm somewhat agnostic on the idea that it's still possible that men cheat more, but one theoretical thing to consider, right? If new research came out that showed women cheat more, I'd be open to accepting it. I'm not emotionally committed to any ideas. But one of the theoretical reasons to expect men to cheat more is that male mammals, humans are mammals, male mammals have a very powerful benefit from infidelity that female animals can't have at least in the same way. And I'm realizing just when I'm speaking that I don't think infidelity is a good thing to do.

Right.

I don't think cheating is a good thing to do. A lot of people, they might clip things I'm saying and take it out of context. And when I'm saying that infidelity is natural, it's evolved, a lot of people are saying that it's inevitable or think that I'm saying that it's inevitable. It's not, right? Plenty of people, probably most people, don't cheat or that it's good, right? But there are plenty of natural things that are bad, right? Like I also believe that under in very niche circumstances, we have psychological adaptations to homicide, right? Killing people. I don't think that murder is okay, but I recognize that mammals sometimes kill each other, right? And that there are sometimes fitness benefits to engaging in such a risky activity. Don't please nobody clip me and say that I think on the side's okay. So going back to the topic, right? Why do men cheat more? One of the theoretical considerations that's worth bringing on board is the fact that male mammals, when they have multiple partners, can increase the number of offspring that they have. So for male mammals, to an extent, quantity has more benefits relative to female mammals. And obviously, gender and sex, these are complicated things that interface in complicated ways, but for the most part, men are male mammals in general. Most men would be male mammals, and most women would be female mammals. And so, men have this benefit to multiple mating that women generally don't have, which is that they can have multiple offspring. And this was in our ancestry. So I'm an evolutionary behavioral scientist, where I'm interested in the evolution of human behavior. And so I'm looking at how did this behavior benefit our ancestors? So obviously in a contraception context, having an affair isn't going to get you more offspring. But because male mammals can have multiple mates pregnant at one time, Whereas female mammals can only be pregnant by one mate at a time, male mammals can expand their progeny by expanding the number.

Of mates they have.

But that doesn't work in a modern society. Not necessarily. It could, I mean, sometimes that still happens, right? Children are born out of affairs, right?

That's still, I won't name any specific examples.

I shouldn't say it doesn't work, but.

It doesn't socially acceptable. No, certainly not.

And I'm not sure it ever was. And it doesn't bring harmony in a relationship when that's happened. Yeah, I'm not saying that that's a good, again, I'm not saying it's a good thing to do. But I also want to note that, so that presence of that powerful benefit could be part of the reason why men cheat more, right? Is that they have this additional benefit to infidelity that women don't necessarily have. But there are other reasons, I don't want to oversimplify it. I think a lot of people would hear that and they would say, okay, well let's take that to the bank. Why do men cheat? They cheat because their male ancestors who had affairs had more offspring than their male ancestors who didn't have affairs. Not exactly right, right? Infidelity, is a tool that can be put to many purposes for an animal. And in humans it's quite complicated because we also have these complex social structures. So yes, some people who cheat are driven by a desire for sexual variety that probably in males helped increase progenate. But other individuals, there are individual men who cheat, for example, to mate switch, to obtain a different mate. So they're with one woman, And they want to be with a different woman, and the infidelity is the way that they facilitate that. And that's true of women as well.

Why not just break up first?

David Buss has a funny quote on this. He said, why would you quit your job before looking for a new one?

Right?

Why would you dump your partner before seeing what else is out there?

Right.

You have some security, you have some familiarity, you have income, you have value from the exchange.

So mate switching is another reason women and men both mate switch, right? And some scientists think that the main reason women cheat is to mate switch. I won't weigh in on that, but that's one viewpoint.

What is the research saying on why women cheat?

Okay, well, again, it's similar to men where we have these many functions, right? So women and men both cheat to mate switch, to an extent. Women and men both cheat to, frankly, get revenge on their partners for infidelity. And there's some published research that indicates that women might be more likely to cheat for revenge. and it's an open debate as to whether that's a genuine psychological tendency or whether it's just that they get cheated on more and so they have more opportunities to actually pursue that strategy. Sure. Women in some societies, such as among the Himba of Namibia, this is an agro-pastoralist group. They have incredible rates of infidelity, much higher than we see in the West. Incredibly high rates of women's infidelity, female infidelity. And the main reason, based on a few studies from Brooke Schelza and Sean Prael, who are brilliant scientists, and I've spoken to them before and they were both a pleasure to speak to. Their work indicates that in that socio ecological setting, the primary reason that women cheat is to obtain multiple investors. Now we see women cheat for multiple investors in the West as well, but it looks a little different. This would be the case where the woman is dating one guy and he's provisioning benefits to her in various ways, but then she's also got maybe, and this isn't a common thing, but maybe she's got a sugar daddy type relationship on the side as well, And it's like, you know, boyfriends do lots of good things for you. And so if you have multiple boyfriends, you can have more of those good things, right?

Right.

And that seems to be a primary motivation among the Himba, where, you know, it's a somewhat resource scarce situation. And so one of the benefits that women accrue through infidelity is they obtain multiple partners who are putting resources towards them. More resources, more safety, more resources, more opportunities. More everything. So that's one reason that women cheat, and maybe to an extent men as well, I don't know how common that strategy is in the West, but it's certainly, again, it's important to understand it. It's certainly common there. So there's tons of reasons. And then another one, and this is the last one that I think I'll mention unless you want more, because there really are many strategies. The last potential reason that women have affairs, right, is to couple the, let's say, the indirect benefits of one partner with the direct benefits of another, right? So indirect benefits are Some people call them conceptual benefits or genetic benefits, right? This is, you can have an affair, and this is something that we see in other animals, you can have an affair with a male who maybe has, you know, who's maybe healthier, right? Something like that. And then your offspring will be healthier. And then you can raise those children surreptitiously. With the boyfriend. With the boyfriend, who maybe is a better investor, right? That's not particularly common. It's, you know, in Western pop, I don't want anyone to, it's not particularly common for this to actually, I'm not saying that it's not, it doesn't have a profound influence on our modern psychology, right? The roots of this behavior, I would say that to an extent it does, right? And there's various pieces of evidence for that. But in terms of the actual execution of that strategy, very low frequency. Generally, I mean, on the internet you hear all this nonsense about people saying, oh, the extra pair paternity rate, right? The rate of you are not the father is like 30%. And I'm like, no, it's not, it's not, it's not. And nobody, please, nobody, clip this, it's they say it's 30% because they go to paternity clinics where men who are already suspicious are looking to find out from those people.

From those 30%.

And it's like, okay, that's like going to that's like going to an auto shop to try and determine the rate of car crashes. If you look at general population studies, right? Studies where they where it's not self selected in this incredibly biased way, you see rates more like 3% would be high. Yeah, yeah, 2% would be more normal. Sure. And, you know, generally, if you ask a scientist who studies paternity, they'd say in Western samples, 1 to 2%. But in some groups, it's very high, like among the Himba, again, from Namibia. It's like 50-50.

Yeah, it's 40-60.

Yeah, but it's not a you don't know. There's a strange cultural context. It's worth noting. It's not a you don't know situation.

They do know. Isn't it more about being raised by a tribe? And the more men that are involved with a woman, the more likelihood they'll help take care of the child as well.

Yeah, kind of. That's actually, that's about right. And it's not the same setting. I mean, in the West, there's a debate as to whether it's even analogous, because in the West, when a man finds out, oh my God, my wife slept with someone else and I'm raising that guy's kid, that's the end of the relationship pretty consistently. That's a disaster. But among this group, it's like, yeah, I know that's not my kid.

But I'm going to raise him because he's right down the street or he's.

In the tribe or he's in the community. Yeah, it's just a different... This is a much more complicated question. And if you're interested in having a really good scientist who could tell you everything about that specific scenario, Brooke Schaalalza is the one to invite. But you're about right in the sense that it's multiple investors and that it's complex because there's, and this is going to be very foreign to people in a Western context, but there's status to be obtained from being a good parent to your wife's affair partner's children, right? I think there's also some complexity in the sense that maybe when these men were younger, they were the affair partner to, you know, and as they age, they're getting some of that benefit back, right? So they were on the other side of it. They've played both sides of the field. They understand the game to an extent.

I'm curious, in the Western society and world, what's the science or the research on monogamy relationships versus polyamory relationships and which ones are more beneficial and which ones have more harmony, peace and true love versus which ones causes more stress and destruction. Is there any science that shows polyamory is actually healthy, creates harmony, abundance with having multiple partners, each partner having multiple partners?

Yeah.

What's the science of that?

Well, you could say, given the fact that I spent a couple years at Oxford studying infidelity, you could say that I have some expertise on informal polyamory, but formal, what you're describing, formal polyamory, like where they're both in on it.

They'Re like, yeah, we each have our own fidelity.

That's not really infidelity because they're faithful to the rules of their relationship.

It's just that their rules are different. But based on research, has that worked?

Oh, well, people in a long-term relationship. Yeah. So what I was getting to is that that is just not my area of expertise. And other academics, you know, I really don't want to plant a flag here because a lot of other academics will speak on subjects that they haven't... No, not other academics. That's actually not even the word I'm trying to use. A lot of people, you know, on the internet, right, not necessarily academics.

Will.

Speak as if they're an expert on everything. Whereas in academia, right, if you haven't spent at least a year on a topic, you really know very little about it, right? You're that... It's not a quick process to learn about a subject deeply. Now, if you know that a lot of related subjects, maybe you can get yourself up to speed quickly.

Is there any research that you've come about, whether you're the expert or not.

On it, in that category of polyamory versus monogamy? From a societal perspective, when you're comparing groups, it does seem that monogamy comes with tremendous social benefits. It comes with economic benefits, it seems to come with social stability benefits, reduced violence.

Right.

I mean, monogamy is a game where it's a table where everyone can potentially get a seat because it's one to one pairing, right? If you start mixing and matching.

It.

Seems that what the end result of opening the door to that is that there's that you get single men who are excluded from the mating market and those men I'm not and I have no political opinions on this, just to be clear. A lot of people sometimes hear facts and interpret them as advocating for a position. I'm just saying that It is the case that if you have tons of single men in an environment who have no romantic prospects, they're going prospects, they're going to, they're going to, they have nothing to lose, right? They don't have as much of a stake in society and they also have all this incentive to compete. Because it's like, well, I've lost the game anyway. It's kind of like, you know, in boxing, let's say, where it's like you're already down on the scorecards and now it's like, well, I'm gonna lose anyway, let me just throw some Hail Marys, right? You become more violent because it's like, I can take these risks. And we see that in these, you know, young single men, I mean, some people call it young male syndrome in my field, right? It's like they cause so much trouble.

Really? If they're not in a kind of monogamous relationship or committed relationship or... That's.

Certainly the theory and in these, you know, some of the work by Joe Henrich is pretty interesting on this. I believe he actually testified in some Canadian thing, He's a professor at Harvard in any case, and he's done some of the work looking at the kind of societal effects of monogamy and...

Interesting.

You know, he's not, again, just like me, he would be in the business of what is rather than what should be. But he has observed it's like... Monogamy seems to be pretty good for the goose and the gander.

Right.

For everyone.

For society. It's also seems to be good for the people involved in it. But one note that I will make is that you might be able to run a study on people in polyamorous relationships and show that they're happier, right? Maybe.

You might be able to.

You might be able to. I'm not saying that I know of that result. But those sorts of results mislead people. Like, you really enjoyed doing football, right? And if I showed you, I assume, and if I showed you a study that showed that people who play football are less happy, Right? It's like, well, or sorry, people who don't play football are happier, right? You'd be like, well, that doesn't mean that me being forced to quit football or quitting it will make me happier as an individual, right? It's like both people have selected themselves into those populations.

Right.

A better example might be skydiving, right? It's like you might find out that people who skydive are much happier than the general population, and then it's like, oh, we should implement skydiving and everyone should skydive. And it's like, no, they chose to do that, so they enjoy it. So it could be the same with polyamory. Sure. So I don't know if in terms of so you were asking a question about like, what's better? And it's like, it may be the case that polyamory is better for some people and monogamy is better for others. That would be my guess.

But it sounds like from your observation.

That yeah, from a social perspective, I will tentatively say that it's probably better for us to pair up and hang out. Instead of just viciously competing sexually.

Right.

Into our 30s and 40s.

Right.

What would you say are the three clear signs that a man may cheat on his partner that he's committed to?

There are no clear signs in the sense that, well, I mean, if you catch them cheating, that's pretty clear.

But, but it might have the potential.

So you're looking for red flags.

Yes. What are those red flags that a man may cheat on you.

Well, a lot of these are quite depressing, but one of them is just family history. So infidelity runs in families. There is evidence that it is partially under the influence of genetics, like most behaviors, right? That shouldn't be, you know, a lot of people get up in arms about that, but genes code for proteins and regulatory molecules, and those proteins and regulatory molecules make up and run your brain, right? So it's not surprising that genes have some impact on behavior. and it seems that it has some impact on a person's individual likelihood of pursuing infidelity, right? So, I'm not saying that you should be punitive about this, but in terms of just red flags, it's like, and plenty of people whose dads cheat don't cheat themselves, but it's like if you know a guy's dad cheated, it's like, well, he's more likely to himself probably. Interesting. More likely than someone whose dad was the epitome of faithfulness. And I don't think that's going to be partially social, it's going to be partially Biological and a lot of people take that as a very controversial thing to say, but the data supports it. Another...

So it's really like, okay, if you've found out that their father cheated, ask them questions about what they think about that. Ask them questions about...

It's just a risk factor.

Yeah, it's a risk factor. Right.

In the same way...

Doesn't mean it's gonna happen.

It doesn't mean it's gonna happen. In the same way that you might, if you found out that... If you found out that That a person's father had schizophrenia, right? They suffered from schizophrenia. You wouldn't say, oh, they're definitely going to be schizophrenic. Sure. You would just say, okay, all else being equal, if I know nothing else about two people, and one of them has a family history and one of.

Them doesn't... Watch out for this, yeah. Yeah, that's that.

Maybe they would... All right, so family history is the first red flag. Second one? Past, frankly, just... What is there Normal, what are their actual sexual inclinations? So we see there's this concept in psychology known as sociosexuality, which is essentially a person's propensity to engage in uncommitted mating. And, you know, if someone really enjoys sleeping with people who they just met and loves to have one night stands and things like that and doesn't, you know, doesn't want to or need to be in love in order to have a passionate sexual relationship with somebody, those sorts of people who really love that sort of stuff are going to be more inclined towards unfaithfulness than people who don't. And you might think, oh, that's kind of peculiar, but it's really not when you think about the fact that most infidelity is, to some degree, uncommitted mating. And so you're asking, Hey, do you like other forms of uncommitted mating? And if they do, I'd say that they're more likely. And both of these factors that I've mentioned were talking about men, But both of these apply to- For women as well. To women as well.

Red flags for women that they might cheat.

Well, just in the sense that if you're dating two people, men or women, right, and I really want to emphasize that because a lot of people make this point, but they only talk about women, and it's clear that they're just trying to score points in some weird gender war that I don't relate to at all. It's just embarrassing to me to watch it. But it is true that you know, if you're someone who is sociosexually unrestricted, let's say you're probably more interested in sleeping with people other than your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend.

And I guess that goes into, like, the whole body count issue, like people talking about body count and how does that play into if someone has a higher rate of sexual intimacy with people that are not committed to their body count. Whether they're committed or not committed, are they more likely to cheat if they're with me?

It's like- yeah, well, let's talk about it in the most nuanced way possible. Because it probably is a proxy based on the information that I'm aware of. There is some data on this. Some people have run these studies, and I would say that there probably is an association there. I actually think that it would be overly cautious to say there's not an association there. Interesting. But think about the context, right? If you meet one guy and he's 19 and has slept with 10 strangers in his first semester at college, right? Versus you meet a 30-year-old man who has had, you know, a few one-night stands and several relationships that didn't work out. Like, that's still a body count of 10. Context. But those are very different people. Yes. If you're asking me, I wouldn't say that there's any particular reason to be worried that that man is gonna have an affair, right? But if the 19-year-old, I'm like, this guy's kind of out of control. Right, right. So it's really, I would say that body count And maybe I'm wrong about this, but I would suspect that body count predicts infidelity in as much as body count correlates with sociosexuality, if I had to guess.

And why is it so looked down upon when women, younger women sleep with a lot of men versus younger men sleeping with a lot of women?

It's an interesting question.

Is there any science or research that shows how it can harm one of the other genders more or less.

Well, I'll talk about that because a lot of guys say, oh, and this is just wishful thinking, it's kind of a little bit of coping and seething. It's people saying like, oh, men can do whatever they want sexually and it doesn't mean anything, but women have to, you know, be chaste and pure. And it's like almost every study that I'm aware of that shows a negative association between promiscuity and relationship outcomes shows the same results in men.

Right?

I'm not saying that there's no studies that show one gender or the other, but in general, if you have, if you look at a set of married people and try to find like, oh, does body count predict marital satisfaction or, or, you know, divorce or infidelity.

Right.

Generally, it's like, oh, the effect is found in women and men. So why is it more stigmatized in women versus men in the American West? You know, it done in the, in the, in America and in the West. More generally, I'd say, kind of an interesting question. I think there are other cultures where it's also stigmatized more on one gender versus the other. And generally it is, the stigma does lean towards women, and it's a complicated question. I don't think I'm the right person to answer it because I don't know. But I will note that it's not because it only matters as an indicator for one gender. That's just not true.

Gotcha. Okay.

It could also, to be frank, it could also be that in these societies, 'Cause just as a note, a lot of people think that only men care about this stuff, but when you do surveys and you ask questions like, what's the ideal body count?

Right?

So I think Steve Stewart Williams did a study on this, and you find that both men and women care about it, right? They both care, right, to an extent.

What is the ideal body count?

It's a moderate number, generally, not zero. There's this kind of, and this is in Western samples, But in their studies, and also, I think Alexander from Date Psychology tried to validate this with his Twitter followers. But the Stuart Williams study, I believe it was UK and US, it might just be UK, I'm not sure, but similar results all around. About average, right? So somewhere in the realm of- what's average? Somewhere between a few and several is generally what we see in these studies.

Three to seven.

Yeah, a few to several, sure.

A few to several.

So it's under 10. Yeah, people seem to discriminate against And I'm not saying, obviously there are some people who fetishize virginity and are very attracted to it, but in general it seems that men and women are a bit put off by inexperience and really put off by too much experience. So it's like if you and women discriminate more harshly against inexperience than men, right? And they both discriminate quite harshly against Against too much experience. So the graph, if I were to graph, and by the way, I don't think that anyone should be counting the number of people they sleep with so that way they hit the optimal number. This might help people lie more effectively about how many people they slept with. But if you were to graph optimal body count in terms of the average person's interests, it would look something like a wave where it starts off not a huge seal be a virgin, but not ideal. And then it's like, oh, a few, you know, now, now we're talking about.

A, you know, normal, healthy.

Yeah.

Somebody's not a loser, but somebody.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And someone, someone who has sex. Right, right. Just my type.

Right.

Yeah, exactly. That I think that's what people are thinking is, like, they don't want someone who's, you know, a complete prude. They want someone who has, you know, a, a full set of knowledge. Some knowledge.

Right.

But then after you get past several, then it's, then it's a wave crashing on the shore. It's, it really does. People are put off by it. So, to say that women care too, I guess it would be interesting. It's like, well, in most of these cultures where women's sexuality is more strictly controlled than men's and more harshly stigmatized, are cultures where men have all the power, right? And so maybe if women had all the power, they would start becoming very sexually controlling and neurotic about male sexuality.

Interesting.

I'm not sure that they would, I'm not convinced that they would. But we can't run the experiment, right? There's no way of testing that in a lab that I know of. I mean, maybe some clever researcher is listening and thinking, oh, I've got an idea. But it's clear that women care too, and seemingly to a similar degree, similar-ish anyway. And so it's possible that the reason that we see the stigma is just about who has the power. But again, I'm going to be cautious here and say that there are probably experts on chastity and purity in these concepts. who have very fleshed out ideas as to why it's men who are doing this, you know, kind of stigmatizing. But that would be based on my knowledge that we might have ulcers.

What's your thoughts on jealousy? Do you feel like jealousy and insecurity is a sign that someone loves you, or is it a toxic, unhealthy trait?

A lot of people do, and this isn't, you know, laboratory studies, this is just living a human life. A lot of people do seem to find some degree of jealousy sexy.

Right?

But jealousy is also... Just because it's like, oh, this person really cares about me. Like, they really care what I'm doing.

Did they really care about you or are they more insecure about themselves?

My feelings on jealousy is that it's a naturally evolved human emotion, right? It's one of the many pieces of evidence that we are, let's say, a serially monogamous ape. And I'm not alone in thinking that, by the way. You know, Helen Fisher wrote a very good book on this, and there are plenty of academics who agree with me. I also know that there are plenty of academics who disagree and think I saw you had sex on in the lobby. So there are plenty of people who disagree with this, but humans have a evolved psychological adaptation to feel jealous when they see threats to their partner's fidelity, right? So it's like if you see a super hot guy talking to your fiance, that might be like- Ben: Would it be a protective or something? Yeah, you're like, no, this isn't- I mean, you seem like a totally secure guy, but you might be sitting there thinking, oh, this isn't ideal, right? Right, right. And same for her, you know, you go to an event and, you know, a bunch of girls want your autograph or whatever, She might be, and she seems like a very secure person as well, but she might be internally be like, this is not the ideal situation. And that is a evolved psychological adaptation to, in your case, protect paternity and in her case, protect investment. So, a lot of people don't understand the evolutionary psychology of men's jealousy is very clear. It's a clear story. If someone else is sleeping with your girlfriend, you might end up raising a kid that's not yours. so that's a pretty clear narrative. Yeah, it's like, oh, I don't want that to happen. So jealousy is natural on the woman's side.

Right.

There's no chance that her in, in, in most cases, there is no chance that he is going to be pregnant.

Right.

So.

She, she's not too worried about that. Right. She's, but what she is worried about is that if you're out, you know, sleeping with other women, maybe you end up raising those kids, taking care of her, taking care of those kids, and then she's left alone with a baby and nobody, nobody around. So both sexes have strong reasons to feel jealous and those have deep roots in our evolutionary biology.

You're in a relationship. Do you feel jealous ever? Yes.

But I also, I will say this, that the research really helps because it's like, no, genuinely, because I'm like, I.

Would give you, I mean, you're what, 26, 27? I'm 40, almost 41. I would say every relationship I was in from 16 to 35, I was jealous. So I'm gonna grow out of it at different levels. I'm not saying you're gonna grow out of it. It was one of the hardest things for me to actually overcome. Now, I'm just gonna speak from personal experience. I don't know if this backs any data or research or science that you've seen, but what I do know is being jealous was a horrible thing to feel. It never felt good for me. I never felt empowered and excited by it. It caused more stress and anxiety. and it probably had me saying things that I shouldn't have said in my relationships, acting in certain ways I shouldn't have acted in, nothing horrible, but nothing benefiting me. There was no benefit ever in the relationship for me being jealous. Now you might be able to say, well, you know, having a little bit of jealousy and saying, oh, who was that guy and showing that you care that they were talking to someone else, maybe there's some slight benefit for that. But just like you said, like, you know, someone in a boxing match who's like outmatched and know they're gonna lose, that builds and you start throwing haymakers later. That is not a fun picture in a relationship. Sometimes hard to get back.

Yeah.

And also it doesn't, everyone is, and.

I'm not a terribly jealous person. I'm just acknowledging that I have jealousy.

I have that emotion.

Of course.

Like everybody.

I get it to an extent. I certainly don't have, you know, morbid jealousy or anything like that. But, you know, I mean, the green-eyed monster sometimes visits. Of course. But what I will say is that...

Let me finish my thought and you add to that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the jealousy that I felt never added any benefit to the relationship and it only made me feeling more insecure and anxious. There was a time when I was about 34, 35, 36 in that time where I noticed the jealousy started to leave my body. Like I stopped being jealous if this person was going to be with someone else. There was something that flipped inside of me. And I was in another relationship after that where I had zero jealousy that I can think of. Maybe there was moments, but it didn't come out as jealous acts. And I remember thinking to myself, something switched inside of me. I don't know if it was the time, the season of life, the experiences of different relationships I'd been in, the agony and pain that I felt by having jealousy in 20 years of my life before that. But something flipped and I just said, if this person doesn't want to be with me, what's the point of me being jealous or insecure? If they're going to move on and leave, it's probably going to be painful in the moment, but it's going to benefit me in the long term. So I just got to a point in my relationship with Martha now when I started dating her, she's a very famous celebrity in her country and Done.

40 movies and her DM requests are probably horrifying.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't look at that stuff. Yeah, I mean, I'm kidding. Yeah, I'm sure she's got tons of men who have lots of money who are, you know, sexy, charming, who have big businesses, who are celebrities that were reaching out to her before me, and I'm sure some still reach out now, right? She doesn't engage in that. But if she didn't want to be with me, it would be the greatest gift that she would give me. by moving on quicker than staying with me longer and then cheating on me or ending it later. And so I'm like, if you want to be with me, it's because you're committed to the vision of our relationship and what we can build together. Now, that doesn't mean I just get to be a sloppy human being and stop caring about her and stop investing in time and communicating and loving her and speaking life and abundance into her. So, I'm constantly developing self as a man and as a human being to build confidence, to be my word to myself, to add value to society, to be desirable to myself, but also to her. And if that's not enough for her, then we shouldn't be together. And so, the jealousy thing just doesn't add value to the relationship from my experience.

I completely agree. I think that's all very wise.

I'm not saying you should just like cut it off. Right now, but I don't, and I.

Don'T, this isn't something that I struggle with. Yeah, yeah, it's not a huge part of my life, but I was just like, you acknowledge that you have that. Yeah, that's fine. Like many people do. Do you engage in any of the playful jealousy that we discussed? The kind of, hey, who was that guy?

No.

None of that. None of the jokes.

No.

Interesting. I'm trying to, I mean, maybe there was once or twice where I was like, you know, where do you know that guy from? Where like someone came up to her, like, just curious, like, oh, is this someone you dated in the past or someone who was hitting on you before?

Just more of like, who is this person? Yeah.

Yeah. But not from a sense of like.

Why are you talking to this guy? Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. Never. Never me either.

Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that's, that's not my personality. No, I don't. I don't know why. I don't. I think again, I had too much pain and suffering by experiencing.

Now, I probably had a lot more jealousy than you. I wasn't as evolved. Yeah, it's a, well, it sounds, it sounds like you, you really suffered from it. I, I've, I've, I've been quite lucky. I've also heard, I don't know, I mean, I think that a little bit of playful protectiveness, if it's in that spirit. Yeah, yeah. I think that, again, some people find it quite sexy and, you know, quite stimulating that it's like, oh, wow, this, you know, this, I get this. This woman wants me so badly. This, this guy wants me so badly. They don't want anyone else to talk to me. But as long as it's, but where does that go to? But if it's not, yeah, but that's, that's with the very strict Provision that it's like, it doesn't lead to controlling and strange babies, such as going through DM requests, such as, you know, going through- Give me access to everything.

Where are you every two hours?

All that stuff. Yeah, why didn't you call me last night, et cetera.

And I think that's, you know, it's a slippery slope, for sure. It's like, okay, I'm gonna drink a glass of wine once a week, and then I start having twice a week, and then two glasses of wine a night, and then it's like, now I'm an alcoholic. So it's okay, make sure you manage that, I think, because the is a thing. Otherwise, I just think that's a lot of relationships struggle with too much jealousy. Yeah.

Yeah.

From my personal experience.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

I don't have the science behind it, but I'm curious, when you know when you've been dating someone that they are actually in love with you, are there clear signs that someone truly loves you?

Such a good question. So I spoke to the world's leading expert. And I'll flag here as well that I'm a very, let's call it the earliest career researcher possible. I'm a PhD student. Everything that I've said in this convo, you know, I've done some research myself. We've run a couple studies and, you know, one of them's in the Reddit phase, one of them's under peer review. You know, I'm active as a peer reviewer and we go to speak at academic conferences, et cetera. But I'm still very, you know, even though I'm an active researcher, I'm still very early. So everything that I've said so far, it's the work of other people, right? And that's part of kind of my mission, let's say, as a person, is like, I love my field. I love the researchers in my field, and I want all of their voices to be heard on platforms like this. So I spoke to Helen Fisher, who is someone who definitely doesn't need my amplification. She's very famous. But she's, I would say, the world leading expert in romantic love, understands it top to bottom, right? And what she told me is that the best proxy that we have, right? So there's all these symptoms of romantic love. But the most, you know, if we're talking about in love, like acutely in love, the symptom that you're looking for is obsessive thinking. Thinking about them all the time. Other things include, you know, special meaning, right? So their car is now better than all the other cars. Their shoes are, the way they tie their shoes is so spectacular, you think it's adorable. those sorts of, you know, imputing special meaning that's pretty common with people who are in love. And love is also really best understood as, and this also comes from her work, really best understood as three brain systems, right? There's lust, which I don't think I need to explain. There's, let's call it passionate love, romantic love, right? This acute honeymoon phase style love, which generally lasts, you know, if things go really well, Could last maybe four years if you're lucky.

If you're a long-distance relationship.

Maybe a little longer. And the final form is attachment. So that's, you know, when you're settled down with someone and you want that to last a long time. And there's, you know, there's even a, there's even an, those feelings of stability and connection and deeper meaning. And, you know, those passionate love feelings go away and some people think, oh, what a disaster. I want to keep them. But, I mean, those passionate love feelings come with a lot of what we were just talking about, right? They come with a lot of jealousy. They come with a lot of, like, do you really want your life to be categorized by obsessing over a romantic partner for 40 years? It's like there's more important things to be doing. A few years of that, I think, it's about right. Then other things.

If someone is in a relationship with someone right now and they've been cheated on by that person, but they've chosen to stay with them, Man or woman? Do you think it's possible, based on research or science that you've studied, that that relationship can work or that they can be faithful after infidelity?

I think we all know couples who have survived infidelity.

Right.

And there's the kind of trite aphorism, best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. To an extent that does seem to apply here. It's not the best predictor, but Kaylin Op and her colleagues did a longitudinal study of people in relationships, so to say. And I believe it was Kaylin Op, I'll have to double check that after the show. But there was a study in Indicase that looked at, okay, what's your relationship history? Where are you coming from here? And then watched, you know, how did this relationship play out? And excuse me if I'm misquoting the stat. I read this study two years ago, but I believe it was that people who had cheated in their past relation... You know, I won't say a specific number, but it was a multiple more likely. It wasn't like they're 10% more likely. It was like they're three times more likely to cheat again than someone else taken naturally. Right. And that's previous relationship to current relationship. But I would say that it's like you gain so much information, plenty of people don't cheat, plenty of people never cheat their entire lives, right? Plenty of women, plenty of men, maybe even most. And so if someone does that to you, they've just given you, as you might say, a gift of giving you all this information about them as a person. And I'm not damning cheaters. Plenty of psychologically normal, good people make mistakes that they consider mistakes immediately.

Right. That happens.

But this idea that it's like you can, there are plenty of fish in the sea and you want to choose the one fish that already did that to you? You know, I, I, but I would, I would say that this is that in speaking about this, I'm talking a lot about, I'm thinking in my mind because of my own age, I'm thinking of, you know, young relationships where hitting reset is pretty easy and finding someone new.

But if you have 10 years of.

Relationship and you've got the family and all this context, it's a little different. So I'm not making any blanket recommendations. I'm just saying that you, if, if someone someone has cheated on you, they're more likely to cheat on you than a random stranger on the street.

Do you feel like Gen Z is cheating more than other generations?

I don't see any evidence of that. If anything, young people are engaging in less risky sexual behaviors across the board.

Really? Why is that?

It's interesting. I mean, that is something where I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to email you some names that you could talk to about that. Some people call it the mating crisis.

What is the mating crisis?

That, you know, people aren't mating as much.

Why is that?

Well, there's a bunch of different theories. It's not my area of expertise. I'm sure you can sense that I'm kind of uncomfortable speaking about it because I think it's a little bit... I'm very tentative about it. I'll just say that. Like this idea that it's even a thing or that it's a bad thing.

Right, right.

Is it such a bad thing that teenagers are having less casual sex? Is that really something that is that a problem that needs to be fixed? Is it such a problem that people They're waiting waiting longer before having sex for the first time? I don't know. And that's not the I'm probably dumbing it down. That's certainly not the only thing that people talk about the mating crisis. People talk about, you know, various subcultures formed around, you know, the state of not being able to mate and that sort of thing. and I appreciate that for some people the mating market is probably especially hard now. But you wanted to ask about why it's happening. Well, one component that a lot of people who are experts in this talk about is the fact that there's a risk reduction across the board. So it's not just that they're having less casual sex, they're also drinking less, smoking less, da, da, da, da. Another factor that you'll hear about is that in some ways there's a in some specific ways, and I'm being very careful here because again, it's not my area of expertise. I've heard other people who are experts say that there's somewhat more social conservatism in some ways, using that word very carefully. I'm not saying that Gen Z is super right wing. I just mean that they are in their social behaviors more conservative, right? And so they might be less interested in getting super drunk on a Friday night and finding a random person at a club to get naked with, right? That's, that's a, that's you know, for a lot of people, that's, that's a relatively wild thing to do, and they don't do it often if they do it at all.

Have you ever been unfaithful in previous relationships?

And.

No, I haven't.

Yeah, I guess the follow-up question would be, how do you know you could change if that had happened in the past where you could still be a faithful person moving forward, knowing that the statistics are you know, you're more likely, how do you change behavior in someone who has?

Well, one encouraging piece of advice is plenty of people in Kaylan Op's study, and I really hope it's Kaylan Op now, because I've said it twice, many people in that study who cheated in their previous relationship didn't cheat in the next one.

Right?

So it's not doom. It's not that whole once a cheater, always a cheater thing. It's like that's a good saying and it's probably true in many cases, but it's not true in all cases. Interesting. But what you're asking, again, keep in mind that I'm more of a what is guy and so I feel like that's quite a deep spiritual question to say, how can I change? And move forward. And it's one that I don't have any personal experience with. And so I haven't walked that road. and I also don't know of any data in terms of therapeutically helping people who have that. I would say though that it's hard to imagine therapy because it's not a pathological behavior in the sense that it's, as we spoke about at the start, animals also engage. Animals in socially monogamous species also engage in high rates of extra-pair copulation, right? They also have affairs, right? So the closest, our closest socially monogamous relative, the Gibbons, They're the species of ape. They have really long arms, they swing through the trees. Very hairy. But they look like us otherwise. They're quite close relatives of ours, all things considered. And they also engage in monogamy, right? They're very beautiful creatures. They pair up, they go into the trees, they actually sing duets. It's very romantic. Really? Yeah, and the singing seems to be kind of the gibbon version of posting each other on Instagram for humans. It's like we're together, just so everyone knows. But it's also about territorial defense and social signaling and whatnot. And scientists did an experiment they really couldn't get away with in humans where they, I believe this was Rykard, they just watched them and they were like, are they, and they counted every time they saw them have sex and they were like, or engage in intercourse or copulate. And they said, okay, how many times are they mating with their partner? How many times are they mating with someone else? and someone who's not their partner. And 11% of the time they were cheating, which is much higher than humans. So treating it as, I'm not saying that every behavior that occurs in other animals occurs in humans, but we see documented rates of extra-pair paternity across the animal kingdom, across socially monogamous lineages. And so even though it's not necessarily a good thing to do, and so it's pathological in that sense, maybe it's morally pathological, from a psychological perspective, we all evolved to have these urges. It's just a matter of whether you choose to succumb to them.

What about if someone has been cheated on in a previous relationship? What should you look out for in dating someone who has been cheated on by someone else?

Well, that's a really good question. Gosh, you're really nailing these questions.

I'm trying to set you up for the success of the rest of the interviews you'll do with the hardest questions up front.

Yeah.

No, I think these are excellent.

And is there any research on that or how to approach a potential partner where in the first few days they say, you know what? I've been cheated on a lot in my past.

Yeah.

And it's a big concern of mine.

And I have a lot of worries.

You're not going to cheat. You're not going to do this. You know, or someone who's had that already.

Yeah.

How should you approach entering a relationship with someone's been cheated on?

Well, you're already signaling. It's very perspicacious of you to, Notice that in your imitation, you're performing reassurance seeking, which is a behavior that's very commonly exhibited by people who have been cheated on. So you go through your, this is like a typical kind of romantic career. You're dating someone in high school, dating some people in college, da, da, da, da, da. And then you're never even thinking of the possibility that you could get cheated on. And then you see a text pop up on your partner's phone and it's like, oh my gosh, then you find out whatever, da, da, da, da. And that's a traumatic event for many people. I mean...

It's a betrayal.

Well, I'll even go so far as to say traumatic just because it's certainly a betrayal. But to take it into the psychological space, PTSD is generally a term only assigned to physical threats, and it's kind of unclear whether you can really categorize infidelity that way. But the symptoms of PTSD are so common, such as reassurance-seeking, ruminating, etc. are so common among people who have been cheated on that some psychologists have coined the term and used the term PISD, post infidelity stress disorder. My advice here would be to proceed with caution and understanding and goodwill that you're dealing with someone, if you don't know what that's like, you're dealing with someone who is dealing with something quite severe. And this is another thing that I just want to know. I mean, I see I mean, you might be mercifully tucked away from this corner of the internet, but there's a whole corner of the internet right now that's like, men cheating is fine, women cheating is not. And it's like, we've done the research on this, and women who get cheated on are often severely traumatized, right? Like about half of women who, and in some studies more than half of women, who are paired with men who are unfaithful, exhibit these symptoms, right? So to say just callously, like, oh, it's different, you know, some nonsense about, you know, a key that opens many locks versus, you know, some stupid platitudes. And it's like, what a careless thing to say about the feelings of the women that you're with. And, you know, I just wonder, like, do these men even have mothers the way they speak about these things?

Wow.

I'm curious what is, what we should be more cautious of, getting into a relationship with someone who cheated, before or getting to a relationship with someone who's been cheated on.

Well, I would be more cautious, I would be more cautious about the worried about, but it depends what your concerns are. If you're worried about being with someone.

Who'S completely, like if someone's got PISD and they're struggling and they can never trust the person they're with and they're always stressed and anxious and they're always ruminating and reassurance and where are you? And that's not attractive after a while.

No, it's an issue. And you're like, It's a huge thing.

You might feel exhausted and you'd be like, I don't want to be with this person. Yeah. If they can't trust me, if they're always checking where I'm at, if they're always calling me saying, FaceTime me, where are you? Who are you with? Who is that person? That's not a sexy quality in a mating partner. And so is that a bigger red flag if someone who hasn't dealt with, I'm not saying it's okay what they went through, but if they haven't processed and started to heal that, is that more of a red flag versus someone who you know, in their previous relationship cheated on their partner.

You've made such good points here.

I gotta do some research on this.

Yeah, well, it's because my gut reaction was, obviously, I don't want to. I'm thinking, yeah, I'm like, oh, I don't want to be cheated on. So I'm gonna go with that. But you've brought up a good point. I don't even know if I should share this, but they're okay.

In.

I believe it was in the same study. that I'm referencing about, you know, once a cheater, always a cheater, that kind of thing. There's also indicative evidence, and it's just one study, so let's not go to the bank on it. You want to look for, you know, cumulative bodies of research when you're assessing a finding. But there's indicative evidence that people who have been cheated on in the past are more likely to be cheated on in their next relation.

Oh, yeah, that's crazy.

Now, that's a disturbing finding. And you might think, well, that doesn't make any sense, right? How could that affect my probabilities? And I'll give you a couple examples that could be, not saying that this has been studied enough to make conclusions, but if you're the sort of person who is attracted to narcissism, let's say, plenty of people find narcissism quite sexy.

Good luck. Right. Yeah.

But narcissism is associated with infidelity. Plenty of people find sexual narcissism sexy. So that's someone who believes that they're the best lover ever and is totally confident and bad. That also predicts infidelity. And so you're attracted to a trait and that predicts your partner selection. And then the types of partners that you're attracted to, you happen to be cursed by being attracted to covariates of infidelity.

You got a bad picker.

You'Re a bad picker. Another thing would be just physical attractiveness. If you really prioritize that, people who are more physically attractive tend to have more options, tend to be more interested in suitors, etc. tend to be less satisfied in relationships. So if you're really interested, if you're really prioritizing like, oh, I just want to date the hottest girl possible, it's like maybe that's why you keep getting cheated on, is because you're not thinking about deeper qualities. And then so not to victim blame, but it could be picking. And then I hate even saying this, but it Could possibly be what you're talking about. I know of an anecdotal case where I know a woman who told me she was like, my boyfriend was accusing me of cheating so much that I actually just did it. Like she was being falsely accused so much that it was like, I'm gonna just do this. Yeah, it's like, I'm the bad guy. I'm the bad guy, regardless of what I do. So what's the point in being good? Yeah. So I'm not saying that that's what causes it, but I'm saying that there is a... Some people hear that, they hear, oh, if I was cheating on my last relationship, I'm more likely to be shooting in my next relationship. And they say, that couldn't be true. And it's like, well, there's actually several ways that it could be true. And we just talked about it.

Gosh, this is so fascinating. I really think about when we choose out of a wound, you're talking about you're attracted to narcissism. Maybe there was something, one of your parents had this trait and it was attractive to you, or maybe it was unattractive, but you're trying to fix that parent or whatever it might be. But when we are attracted based on a wound, a psychological wound, it typically ends up having more challenges and problems we need to overcome in that relationship because we're trying to fix someone. We're trying to, we're attracted to them and then we want to change them as opposed to being attracted and saying, I accept you for who you are. Obviously, we're going to grow and evolve, but I accept the personality, the values, the qualities that you have. And I think if we haven't healed something within us, we're going to keep attracting that thing that chemically, sexually stimulates us and makes us feel something. But then we're going to also be afraid of it, or we're going to be needing reassurance on something. So we're attracted, but you're not going to hurt me, are you? As opposed to, oh, I see you for the whole person that you are. I've asked all the questions. I'm allowing my gut to also have intuition and be like, is he being honest? And is she following through on what she's saying? And, you know, is there congruency? Then you're able to choose based on the whole person versus, oh, I'm just getting this chemical feeling by what I see or what I'm attracted to. What's your thoughts on that?

I think you put it quite well, and I don't have much to add. I would also note that with my specific example, narcissism is interesting because there are very good reasons to be... So narcissism pretty consistently has a small effect predicting attractiveness in general.

Really? What do you mean by that?

Meaning that if someone's super cocky versus someone who's average cockiness or insecure, right, the cocky person generally has a slight Competitive advantage and like a speed dating setting more options. I think it's more attractive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. And you can talk about why that is and one of it is just that who doesn't want to be around someone confident, right? And also it gives you this veneer.

Of.

Being able to take care of yourself and others. I think that some people I think that I think that to be honest, it's like I'm not saying that I'm that I prefer that I don't But I do understand that a trait that is in some ways negative, narcissism, in many ways negative actually, I'll be frank, in certain environments, and maybe such as a speed dating study, you sit down with someone and they sit down at the table, they're full of confidence, they're relaxed, they want to chat with you, they want to flirt with you, and they're taking all your compliments in their stride. That's a lot of fun to be around. And so it might not be that that person is wounded and choosing you know, sexual narcissists, let's say.

But...

They haven't spent enough time with them yet. Spend time with someone, get to know.

Them before you... Yeah, I would say that my... So this podcast is very big on, you know, helping people add value to their lives and improve. And I'm not really much of an advice person, but I will say one piece of advice that if you find yourself getting cheated on over and over and over again, right, if you're listening to this, it would be worth taking a step back and saying, look, it's not my fault that this happened. but what can I change about my future behavior to avoid this happening again? And I think one set to look at changing would be in picking. It's like, okay, well, I keep getting cheated on. Who am I dating? Well, I'm only dating hot narcissists, let's say. I'm only dating sociosexually unrestricted party animals. Maybe I can pick someone more settled down, more reliable, and maybe they don't have that same sexy cockiness and party atmosphere. but maybe they're going to be more reliable. And then on the other end, the other set of things, so that's choosing. And then maybe there's also, I mean, humans naturally perform a suite of mate retention behaviors, right? It could partially be a skill issue. It's like you're creating an atmosphere that pushes people away in your relationships. And it's like, how can I create an atmosphere that, you know, very much like you were saying earlier about your kind of personal journey with jealousy, we're creating an atmosphere where people want to stay as opposed to creating a cage.

That they feel trapped in.

Yeah, exactly.

From all the research that you've done, again, you're early in your career, but you've done a lot of research and studies and you've dived into the research. Yeah, that's accurate.

Yeah, I mean, I've done, again, I've done two studies. I'm known not for, like, if I was telling you before, it's like if I go to an academic conference, Nobody's coming up to me trying to talk to me about, you know, like, oh, I really liked that study. They want to talk about TikTok and- Sure, sure, sure.

But all the research that you've done and studied other people's work.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. You did years and years of reading.

Yeah. What is the research that stands out to you the most around love, relationships and intimacy in a modern world? And what is the research where you know data proves something that you still need to work on personally.

And you know what? I actually think I can do a blended answer here. So this is partially coming from Helen Fisher, right, who we mentioned earlier. It would be nice to give her a shout out, but also, you know, other disciplines. The research on what we know impacts success in romantic relationships, right? So there are very simple things that you can do to improve your romantic connection with someone, right? Some obvious ones are have more sex, say nice things to them, flirt with them, but also touch them in non-escalative ways. Let's say cuddling is very good for you, being more physically generous in the sense that maybe you're in the kitchen with them, giving them a kiss on the back of the neck or something like that. Those things seem to really improve Everyone's satisfaction, both yours and theirs, being very romantically generous, even with someone who you've been with for a long time. And it's interesting how effective it is from a subjective perspective if you've been in a long relationship. Just be like, oh, I can force it a little bit. I can be like, I'm going to give this person a compliment just for no reason right now. And watch how it changes your relationship. You feel better, they feel better. And that's, you know, that's a, you met Tim, obviously, that's part of what we're doing at Couply, right? Where we're really trying to, so Couply is our app that we have where you and your partner both download it. And what we're trying to do is to integrate some of the science of what makes a successful relationship into that so that the advice that we're giving, right, and the activities that we're providing are ones that can actively lead to good outcomes between couples. Now, in terms of things that I need to work on, right? I think, I mean, that's quite a personal question and it's interesting, but I'll-.

Let's get personal with you.

I've underestimated the importance of physical attractiveness to romantic love, right? If you're in a relationship, you cannot just take your foot off the gas and start looking like a slob and hope that they'll stick around for your personality. That might be the world that we want to be in, but a huge component of being in a relationship and showing up for them is doing that.

Right.

And- Ben: Taking care of yourself. Cristine: yeah, it's taking care of yourself.

Right.

And really, not just at a spiritual level, but also at a physical level. It's like we see that people in relationships tend to invest less in their physical appearance, but investing in your physical.

Appearance is- Ben: How important is being physically attractive in a long-term relationship?

Well, in short-term relationships, very important. It's the most important thing probably.

To attracting the person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in speed dating study, you know, we all in our surveys and questionnaires, we say, oh, I want someone who's honest, generous, loyal, kind, et cetera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Smart. Yeah, smart.

Yeah.

We talked about that before the show a little bit. But in behavioral studies, depending on the study, physical attractiveness comes out as really important. the number one factor in a speed dating paradigm.

Right?

So speed dating paradigm, you get people in the real world to meet.

You get 60 seconds with a person. Yeah, yeah. So you're gonna be like, am I.

Physically attracted to this person or not? But it's also kind of funny because we see it in vignette studies as well, and physical attractiveness seems to have an effect on people's perception of your personality. That's a very well established psychological finding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people call it the halo effect, which is more extrapolable and it's not exactly what we're talking about here, but it's related, which is this idea that If you're, you know, if you, and this is kind of a caricature of it, but it is broadly true that it's like, okay, well which of these photos is sexiest to you? And it's like this guy or this girl. And then it's like, now which of these biographies paired with the photos has the best personality? It's like also this guy. Right, right, right. So then there's also things where attractive people are perceived to be more intelligent, even though they're probably not.

Really?

Yeah, attractive people are perceived to be funnier, even though they're probably not. attractive people, they get all these career benefits, but the main benefit seems to be in mating. I mean, attraction, being attractive isn't just about attracting mates, right? And we can talk about that more. But in attracting mates, it is a tremendous advantage. Attractive people have more mates, more desirable mates, more committed and doting mates. The only way that I'm aware of that you can plug in attractiveness and see oh, this is actually a disadvantage, is that more physically attractive people tend to be less satisfied in their romantic relationships. Why is that? Well, I mean, it depends on the study. I'm not saying that that's a consistent result, that it's like this gets found every time. But there is some indicative evidence that more physically attractive people are less satisfied, and that if you manipulate their perception of their own attractiveness, you make them.

Think that they're hot, then they are.

More interested in other people and that kind of thing. Because they keep looking for the greater option. It's harder to be happy with your choice of meal when everything's on the menu.

Right?

And if you're super hot, you've got more choices, right? That's what other people have said about this, is it's kind of hard to settle down when it's like people are constantly interested in you, that sort of thing. But again, it could be that this, I mean, again, this isn't like a, this isn't what we might call, I mean, no one in academia ever uses this phrase, but settled science, right? It could be that more studies are done, and for anything that I've said in this podcast, it could be the case that future studies are done, and this turns out not to replicate or it doesn't seem to be true. But based on the evidence that I'm aware of, initially, it does seem to be that physically attractive people have a harder time settling. But other than that, it's just win after win after win. The people More people will be interested in you, those people will be more interested in you, and they'll also treat you better. They'll be, they'll be, yeah.

Wow.

So what are- Less likely to cheat on you, more interested in giving you gifts. Interesting stuff.

Interesting.

Tons of tons of connected findings here.

What's the downside of being extremely physically attractive?

Well, that's one. And other than that, it just.

It.

Just seems to really help.

Right?

It's like you get paid more, people think you're cooler, people think you have a better personality, People think you're funnier. There's a really funny study where they played, you know, they asked a bunch of people, they're like, what would you bring to a desert island? Right? And that's a great, if you're a funny person, that's a great opportunity to be funny.

Right?

And so they brought in a bunch of people and they said, you know, speak into the recorder, right? We'll video you. What would you bring to a desert island? And some people, you know, they were funny, some people weren't. They showed people just the audio, right? And I'll be very careful here so I don't mess this up because it's kind of complex. But with just basically, they did an audio only condition and a looks and audio condition. So you can see who's speaking and the unattractive people became less funny once they could be seen.

Right?

And the attractive people were more funny in the video condition.

What are the pros and cons to a woman or a man dating above or below where they're currently believed they're at in the league sense.

Well, the benefits of dating someone out of your league are pretty clear, right? It's like most people like to date hot, funny, intelligent, fun people who have money and are willing to spend it on you, right? And there's nothing wrong with that. And the benefits of dating someone who's hotter, funnier, richer, More intelligent, better mental health, physically healthier. The benefits to that, it's like, okay, I get it. I get why you want to do that. And I think that probably everyone listening does, but the costs are more insidious in the sense that they're not immediately apparent and they might follow you through the relationships. So that hotness, for example, might matter upfront. but to you. But maybe it doesn't matter as much to you 12 months down the line when it's like those initial kind of high lust feelings have maybe cooled down a little bit and now it's like, you know, you're out at the bar and having to deal with the fact that girls are approaching and maybe that stresses you out, right? Maybe you haven't done the internal work on jealousy yet. Or maybe they've got a wandering eye because, you know, they've been with better and they could do better and they're constantly getting opportunities to do better.

Right?

So I would say that the benefits of dating someone above your league are quite clear to everybody, and that's why people sometimes pursue it. But the costs are that this is going to be someone who is very likely harder to keep. And look, people who can do better generally do do better, and can you really blame them? And so if you're gonna go out of your way to try and date someone who can do better, that maybe isn't the most strategically prudent move, right? It might be best to, I mean, David Buss, who's the most cited evolutionary psychologist in history, I tend to agree with him that the best situation is that you think, and I believe he said this in his book, When Men Behave Badly, is that you think, and I hope I'm not misquoting them, you think that they can do better, but they can't. So you think that they're out of your league, but you're actually wrong about it, and they basically think the same thing about you. So you're in a position where it's kind of crossed misperceptions, where you think, oh, they're just the greatest mate ever, they could have anybody, and they think the same thing about you, and both of you are wrong. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Well, it's a good thing in the.

Sense that you're going to be very grateful for them and think that they're fantastic, but you're not going to have to deal with the costs of them going elsewhere. Because they actually, they're grateful for you, too.

So both of you thinking, oh, I've really leveled up.

That's exactly what I'm trying to say. You summarized it much better than I did. Yes. Is that you are looking across the bedroom, looking across the dinner table, holding their hand on the walk and thinking, gosh, I'm lucky. Yeah, exactly. Like I am just, I've hit the lottery here and you're wrong.

That's probably the best case scenario. As a behavior scientist on these topics, Where do you struggle with allowing data and analysis and research and science that you're constantly studying versus being in the moment in a relationship with your partner? Do you have any struggles of just allowing yourself to be, feel, experience without thinking, analyzing, Managing science in your mind at the same time.

I mean, people have a very hard time believing this, but I really do put it, for the most part, put it all aside and just follow my heart.

Really? Yeah.

It's like... I... Yeah, I think this stuff is very interesting and some of it is helpful, but for the most part, it's... I'm a man with real emotions and those emotions drive my behavior. And I follow them pretty consistently. I'm not the sort of person who's like, oh, let me calculate based on my data, you know, what I should do here. I've made tremendously illogical decisions because I was feeling strong romantic emotions, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

And I've also- CB: you: went against data.

Yeah, I would say so.

I was in a wordry doubt.

Ye, and I also think that that would be I would say that this stuff is very fun to think about and some of it is really useful. But for the most part just fall in love, have a great time, and don't sweatttle this. A lot of people, they hear me talk. I I get people in my comments all the time saying this is, you know McI Murphy's most depssing man on the Internet and I'm like, You know, this genuinely, it's like, this is, this is like, people say very negative things from the perspective of like, I can't stop watching this, but it's making me very depressed. And it's like, here's the analogy that comes to mind, right? So I like explaining things, right? And I like understanding them, but it doesn't... So when I'm eating an apple, Right? I'm eating the apple and I'm not thinking, oh, the sensations in my mouth feel good because my primate ancestors benefited from fruit sugars in such a way that the ones who liked it reproduced more than the ones who didn't like it. That would be a crazy thing to think. I'm just eating the apple and having a nice time, right? Right. And in the same way, when I'm, you know, Having a cup of tea with my girlfriend and we're just kind of talking through the day and having a nice time. The data couldn't be further away from my heart. It's just not impacting me at all.

That's cool, man. That's good to know that Mac and Murphy is a human being.

Yeah.

It's just a human thinking, analyzing scientist.

I think that TikTok favors me coming across as a robot, which is fine. It was just the one minute of me talking about data super fast. That was great.

That's great, man.

I have no feelings.

This has been awesome and fascinating, Mac, and I'm excited for your journey, where you're at. I know you're still kind of just really getting started with your own research and your science and things like that, but the content you're putting out there, I think, is inspiring a lot of people, even though you say it's depressing more people.

Well, I don't know. I don't know if it's depressing more people. I just know that there's a contingent, especially it seems, I mean, my audience is mostly women, and then there's this contingent of men that watch as well, and then there's this contingent of young men who are struggling on the mating market who they just see my data and it's just more evidence that they're screwed in their minds. And I don't think that's necessarily true, but, you know, in some, like, if you're an unattractive man scrolling through your feed and my face comes up and I'm like, attractive men have more mates.

More desirable mates, more commitment. That is depressing. I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you've got this app called Couply, which is essentially helping couples. It's not about people that are trying to get in a relationship, it's people that are already in a relationship to maintain and improve their relationships. And you're an advisor in this and you're helping kind of create some of the curriculum in there as well. But this app is already out, is that right?

Oh yeah, totally. So basically the concept of Couply, right? There's so many apps that try to get you into relationships, right? And this is an app that's geared towards trying to help you stay in one. That's great. you can think of the mating market like a revolving door where people are getting kind of pulled from the single pool and thrown into the dating pool constantly. And if you think that people being in loving romantic relationships is a good thing, if you actually like that, which I do, then you want more people to go in and less people to go out. And a lot of people right now are working on the in problem. So most people are in relationships and then there's this pool of single people. depending on your data set, but it's a minority of people. There's this small group of single people, right? Not small, sizable minority of single people. And there's a bunch of apps and products that are just trying to push people in, ostensibly. Maybe they're not trying to do that, I won't say either way, but there are these dating apps and dating websites and pickup artist courses and things like that that it's like, stop being single, basically. And then there's all these people here who basically have no help. at all. Like, it's like there's the couples therapy if things get really bad, but for the most part, there's just not that many tools, right? Certainly not on your smartphone. And so what we've done with CoupLite is we've created an app where, which I've just come on board as a scientific advisor, part owner as well, where you and your partner download the app and you both participate in quizzes to get to know each other better.

Right?

You take courses as well to understand how to improve your relationship, deal with things like jealousy, which we mentioned. And what I've been brought on to do partially is just to bring the science of human mating behavior into the app so we can actually help people in a data informed way. I'm not saying that it's partially experimental, but just trying to actually say, well, what is likely to really help people in relationships? so to give an example of, you know, one of my colleagues, one, one really important thing for couples is one really strong predictor of relationship satisfaction is sexual satisfaction.

Right.

So couples that, I don't think it should be a surprise to anybody, couples that are having great sex tend to be happy with each other.

Right.

And so one thing that, you know, Tim Johnson, my CEO has done, is bringing on Dr. Tara, who's, you know, the real quote unquote sexpert.

Right.

And she's gonna be helping in the app in a similar way to me, just to improve people's sex lives, right? So bring in fun sexy quizzes and things like that, and courses and classes. And what we're hoping, right, is that this will make mating better for the people who are paired, right? Because the people who are actually paired. Yes. Rather than just trying to come up with a new way to swipe your thumbs and meet people.

It's great, man. Couply. Yeah. They can get it anywhere on the App Store or whatever. If they go to the App Store.

On iPhone, Android, everything like that. Yeah, yeah. And it's got a pretty large user base already. I think we're at like 400,000 users. It's definitely established. Awesome. But looking to take it to the.

Next level with some science, we're playing around with AI as well. It's gonna be interesting. Very cool. Couply, make sure you guys check out the app. Couple final questions for you, Macken, but I want people to follow you. TikTok is your main spot. Macken Murphy, I believe, is still your main place. Although you've got a lot of different places people can follow you, but is that where you think they should go to first or macandmurphy.org, where should they connect with you?

I think that the safest thing to do would just be to Google my name and just kind of fall wherever you land. I mean, I know that, you know, I'm mostly on TikTok, it's true. That's a very, you know, gen Z space. And I'm really grateful to that group of people for boosting me in this way. I mean, obviously, you know, I'm not a famous academic. I'm really, you know, it's science communication. I am a scientist. I am an active researcher, but it's really a science communication. That's to know that some of us are grateful to that group.

Yeah.

So TikTok would be fine, but if you're, I mean, you messaged me when I had like 700 followers on Instagram.

Yeah.

I think Instagram is growing as well, and YouTube is tiny, and I have no idea why. I'm on all of them.

You're on all of them. So follow you, check you out everywhere. This is a question I ask everyone at the end of my interviews and maybe this will change in the next five, ten years for you because you are so young in your life still. But this is a question I ask everyone. It's called the Three Truths. So I want you to imagine a hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as.

You want to live.

You know, you can be 80, 100, 200, whatever, but you get to live your life exactly how you design it and envision it. And everything you want to create, it comes true. Personal, professional. But for whatever reason, everything you create in your lifetime from here moving forward, it has to go with you to somewhere else. We don't have access to it in this world. This conversation, any books, podcasts, anything you ever create, we don't have access. Your research, all of it will be gone. Hypothetical. But if you could put yourself into your future self and imagine those experiences happening, living the life you want to live, and on the last day you can only share three lessons with the world, and imagine you've experienced this life, what would be those three truths that you would leave behind?

Oh man, this is a really tough question. I'm very conscious of the fact that I'm young and I don't necessarily have the sort of The sort of wisdom that would...

This may change, obviously, but what do you think you're at right now? And what do you think your future self will want to share?

Okay, one piece of advice that's been really helpful to me is to.

At.

Least in terms of how you behave, to try and live in accordance with your values as opposed to the vicissitudes of your base emotions. and chance thoughts. I would say to... And this is an original... I can't remember who this comes from, but it was also very influential on me. I'm going to be kicking myself afterwards. But someone said in a book that I was reading, they said to think more about cultivating your obituary virtues. as opposed to your resume virtues. And that had a profound influence on me. So thinking more in terms of what are people going to say when I'm gone versus what am I able to say in a job interview? And then I guess to keep it appropriate to the topic that we've been talking about today, I would say that the person you pick, most people were in a Western context. I know that you've got a global audience, but I would say that most of your audience is probably Western. The vast majority of us are going to, as you have recently, pick someone, enter a very serious romantic relationship, and try to stay with them forever, right? I would say that that choice.

Not.

The first to say it, is probably the most important one that you make. And then how you interface with them, that's the probably the most important relationship you'll have. It's certainly the one, I mean, most of us, our parents will pass away about, you know, halfway through life, and our children will grow up, leave the house, Etc. And it's like the person who's likely going to be with you throughout that time is your romantic partner. And so careful with that choice and then really think of it like a skill that you want to be excellent at in terms of maintaining that. And I say all these pieces of advice for the caveat that I'm, that I am a newborn baby and, and I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I think great wisdom though, and none.

Of it comes from me. All of that is, all that is trying to cite other people.

I love it though. Before I ask the final question, Mac, and I want to acknowledge you for being an academic researcher, a scientist in academia, but bringing this to the masses. People in science and academics that are doing great work, but they're also not putting themselves out there for many other reasons. and I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, but I just want to acknowledge you for finding research that can be helpful and beneficial to individuals for their personal lives and their relationships to improve and doing it in a research based way, sharing with others to support them. So I really acknowledge you for, for starting this journey. It takes a lot of Courage, especially coming from academics. I know a lot of academics don't want to be on social media, resist it. They shy away from it, so I'm glad you're doing it and I encourage you to continue to do more. So congrats on everything, man.

Thank you.

Final question, what do you think is your definition of greatness at this age in your life?

I really admire people who have real success in the home in the sense that they're, I just really look up to that, people who have their family life totally together. That to me, Yeah, I mean, you know, status money, these things are very flashy and awesome and fun to chase, but in terms of what I actually look up to, it's, I love it when and really respect and admire it when someone has sorted it inside their own home.

There you go, Mac House. Thanks, man.

Cheers, bro. Appreciate it. I know I have an issue with jealousy. I'm trying to work on it, but at the same time, the person doesn't have to break their back to make me to make sure I feel soothed. Okay. I pick consciously. I pick really well because I know that's a wound of mine. But I also learn to embrace and trust the process.