Speaker 1: This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: App KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: You've got doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Speaker 1: Doctor Wendy Wall Show. I'm taking your calls. The numbers one,
Speaker 1: eight hundred five to zero one KFI one eight hundred
Speaker 1: five to zero, one, five.
Speaker 2: Three four. Okay, Producer Kayla, who do we have next?
Speaker 2: We have Fred with a question. Fred. Hi, Fred, It's
Speaker 2: doctor Wendy.
Speaker 3: Hello, good evening.
Speaker 2: What's your question.
Speaker 3: I'm gone, I got a crazy question for you. I
Speaker 3: would like to know. I would like to hear your
Speaker 3: opinion on this.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: I'm sixty one and forty years ago. In nineteen eighty five, Yeah,
Speaker 3: there was a girl. I knew her and she's one
Speaker 3: year exactly, one year younger than me. I knew her,
Speaker 3: but we started dating and we never we never had sex, okay,
Speaker 3: but we dated for about four months. I was working
Speaker 3: out Colorado, so.
Speaker 2: You were twenty one and she was twenty with the
Speaker 2: last time you did.
Speaker 3: Twenty okay, Yeah, it's been that long, and I we
Speaker 3: I remember taking her home in my truck. Anyway, I
Speaker 3: told her, I said, okay, I guess this is where
Speaker 3: we shake hands good night, And she said, uh uh,
Speaker 3: so we kissed good night. But at that point my
Speaker 3: head exploded and there were fireworks over my head and
Speaker 3: stars and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: Don't you love those neuro hormones? How exciting, Fred?
Speaker 3: All the planets were perfectly lined up, and what happened
Speaker 3: I was just well, I came back here to La
Speaker 3: to work.
Speaker 4: I was working.
Speaker 3: I got a real good job out here, you know
Speaker 3: about So.
Speaker 2: After one kiss you'll you'll laughter.
Speaker 3: I had to come out here and work. We were
Speaker 3: too young. She lived with her parents and there was
Speaker 3: no way she could you know. It's it took me
Speaker 3: three years to buy my house and then I took So.
Speaker 1: Let me get you recently looked her up online?
Speaker 3: No, no, I recently was working in Denver, and out
Speaker 3: of the blue I ran into her.
Speaker 2: Oh did she remember you?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah?
Speaker 2: And is she married?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: No? No, she's asailable, she's just as beautiful as ever
Speaker 3: as anyways, you know, she's she went through a bad relationship,
Speaker 3: so she's you know, she's really sketchy. About, you know,
Speaker 3: so she should be. I mean, but well, we talk
Speaker 3: every day, you know now on the phone, and I'm
Speaker 3: gonna go see you in about a month. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: drive back up there, and I got a load going
Speaker 3: up there in my truck. I'm a fear but I'm
Speaker 3: just thinking. I know, I've never been married, and I
Speaker 3: feel like I ruined my life because I was always
Speaker 3: searching for that and other women. And I mean, I've daved,
Speaker 3: I've had a couple of serious relationships, but I never
Speaker 3: ever felt that again. And I'm wondering, is that like
Speaker 3: that normal?
Speaker 1: Okay, So there's no such thing as normal when it
Speaker 1: comes to love, Fred, What your experience is something called
Speaker 1: retro sexual attraction, meaning that at the very beginning of
Speaker 1: our life, when we have our first love, the attack
Speaker 1: of hormones on our brain is so exciting that it
Speaker 1: lingers for decades.
Speaker 2: People literally, if you ask anybody.
Speaker 1: Over the age of fifty sixty seventy about their first love,
Speaker 1: you will watch their face light up. You will see
Speaker 1: them go into the story of what it was like.
Speaker 1: You've had the opportunity of running into her again. Now,
Speaker 1: my biggest concern, Fred, is what happened between then and
Speaker 1: now to you that you were turned off relationships and
Speaker 1: love for forty years and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it's opened up to you. I mean, we can't judge
Speaker 1: the timing, but I just want to make sure that
Speaker 1: you don't have kind of an attachment issue and that
Speaker 1: you might accidentally, without your own knowledge or permission, do
Speaker 1: something to mess this up. And that's why I always say,
Speaker 1: you know, get a therapist. You got a wingman who
Speaker 1: can help you explore your feelings. And the other thing, Fred,
Speaker 1: move slowly. You already said she's skittish, she's been in
Speaker 1: a bad relationship, right, So move very very slowly. There's
Speaker 1: no rush, there's no rush for rush to physically touch,
Speaker 1: there's no rush for sex. Just go there and enjoy
Speaker 1: touching base with somebody from another era of your life.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have a lot of people to talk
Speaker 1: about from way back. Whatever happened to so and so?
Speaker 1: Do you know what happened to Sow and Zoe?
Speaker 2: Right, and just enjoy.
Speaker 1: Each other's company. But the more you create anxiety about this,
Speaker 1: the worse it'll be for you. So keep it light,
Speaker 1: have some fun, and call me back and let me
Speaker 1: know how it goes, Fred, I'm very excited to hear.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's so cute. I'm rooting for them.
Speaker 1: I really am rooting for them. Dear Doc, Wendy. I'm
Speaker 1: going to social now. I am dating someone and there
Speaker 1: is a cultural difference. I understand Americans care about how
Speaker 1: friendly someone is, but other cultures can be a little
Speaker 1: to the point, I can't tell if my guy is
Speaker 1: being rude to me or if it's a cultural difference.
Speaker 2: How do I explore this?
Speaker 1: You ask or you explain what that feels like from
Speaker 1: your culture. So if they say something that feels a
Speaker 1: little rude to you, then all you say is, hey,
Speaker 1: that felt very like you're criticizing me. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if you're joking or whether that's your culture, because
Speaker 1: in my culture, we don't talk like that to somebody
Speaker 1: we care about. So I'm curious to know how it's
Speaker 1: what your intention was. It's always a good idea to
Speaker 1: ask somebody what was your intention there? What did you
Speaker 1: mean by that? Because here's what the experience was to me. Right,
Speaker 1: That's all you need to do is just address it,
Speaker 1: and that's how we all learn to get along. I'll
Speaker 1: answer one real quick, because then we got to go,
Speaker 1: how long do I date someone before telling them I
Speaker 1: have an autoimmune disease? You know what this is like
Speaker 1: the person who had the trauma early in life with
Speaker 1: their straining order. You don't date for very long, but
Speaker 1: you also don't tell them on the first phone call
Speaker 1: or the first coffee date. All right, you don't let
Speaker 1: it go on where they start falling in love with
Speaker 1: you and then blah blah blah blah blah. Right, I
Speaker 1: would say, you know, as you start to build intimacy
Speaker 1: and trust and you see it's reciprocal, they're opening up
Speaker 1: to you, that's the time to explain this stuff, all right.
Speaker 2: When we come back.
Speaker 1: The new thing interpersonal intelligence versus intra personal intelligence. I'll
Speaker 1: explain the difference when we come back. You're listening to
Speaker 1: the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty
Speaker 1: Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 5: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 5: AM six forty Welcome.
Speaker 1: Back to the Doctor Wendywall Show on KFI AM six
Speaker 1: forty Live everywhere on.
Speaker 2: The iHeartRadio app. Can we talk.
Speaker 1: About your interpersonal intelligence. You know, that's very different from
Speaker 1: your intra personal intelligence. Actually, I teach a class on intelligence,
Speaker 1: and I always tell the students that some other are
Speaker 1: going to get this wrong on the exam. The definitions
Speaker 1: intra means insight inside yourself, being aware of your own feelings,
Speaker 1: being authentic, being able to have some emotional intelligence about
Speaker 1: managing your own feelings, expressing your feelings to other But
Speaker 1: inter personal intelligence is now becoming very in vogue. So
Speaker 1: maybe one time, maybe your partner somebody you're with, gave
Speaker 1: you really unhelpful advice. You know, when people say things like, well,
Speaker 1: things are going to get better or you'll get over it,
Speaker 1: and you're really not in the mood to hear these things.
Speaker 1: In fact, when they say that kind of stuff, it
Speaker 1: makes you feel worse. And on top of it, your
Speaker 1: partner doesn't even understand why you need help. I don't
Speaker 1: understand why it's such a big deal. You're making a
Speaker 1: mountain out of a mole hill. That's what people say,
Speaker 1: right well, according to a new study at the University
Speaker 1: of California, Santa Barbara, the world of emotion regulation research
Speaker 1: is actually undergoing a big shift. We are moving away
Speaker 1: from intra personal meaning emotions within yourself to interpersonal getting
Speaker 1: some help from someone else.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I like to say that a healthy relationship is interdependent.
Speaker 1: You don't want two people who are too independent. You
Speaker 1: don't want people who are too dependent on each other.
Speaker 1: You want people who are healthfully interdependent, taking turns leaning
Speaker 1: on each other's shoulders. So researchers at the University of
Speaker 1: California Santa Barbara say, but obviously, couples who have higher
Speaker 1: emotional intimacy with each other are better at regulating each
Speaker 1: other's emotions because love helps you become more motivated to
Speaker 1: calm your partner down, to reset their mood.
Speaker 2: So the way they did this study is.
Speaker 1: Really interesting is they would read these vignettes about life
Speaker 1: to people the participants, and some were positive, some were negative,
Speaker 1: and then for each one they would say, okay, so
Speaker 1: here's eight different emotions. Words for emotions you know, might
Speaker 1: be proud, excited, guilty, angry, afraid. At which emotion do
Speaker 1: you think the person is going to experience when.
Speaker 2: This happens to them?
Speaker 1: And then they ask the partner, if this happened to
Speaker 1: you and you were feeling bad, what would you like
Speaker 1: to hear your partner say right, And so here's an example.
Speaker 1: Like they're very kind of vague and could be interpreted
Speaker 1: in any way. So here's one from the study. The
Speaker 1: riskwatch I inherited from my great grandfather stopped working this morning.
Speaker 1: Repair said there's no.
Speaker 2: Way to fix it. It was so old.
Speaker 1: I hardly used it. I know it's just an object,
Speaker 1: but it's been in my family for ages. I wish
Speaker 1: there was a way to get it working again. I
Speaker 1: will stay right here. There's going to be a gender
Speaker 1: divide in the answers. If the person reading this is
Speaker 1: a female, the dude's going to want to find a
Speaker 1: way to fix it.
Speaker 2: I'm guys like to fix problems.
Speaker 1: They think the answer is fixing, but instead the researchers
Speaker 1: say what emotion do you think your partner will experience?
Speaker 1: Of course they're also asking the partner privately, what would
Speaker 1: this do to you? Write this feeling? And then what
Speaker 1: would you say to them to help them feel better?
Speaker 1: And then they asked the partner what would you like,
Speaker 1: not in front of them, what would you like? So
Speaker 1: what they found out is that people who have better
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to use that word again, intra personal. Sorry, Yeah,
Speaker 1: intra personal intelligence, meaning they have can sense their own feelings,
Speaker 1: They know that feeling in their stomach, and they have
Speaker 1: a word for it. They tend to be more empathetic
Speaker 1: and be more accurate in guessing their partner's emotions. Also,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised to have to say this, people have an
Speaker 1: avoidant attachment style. We're really clueless about how to help
Speaker 1: their partners. But here's the big news. Empathy isn't a
Speaker 1: trait you're born with. Yes, to some degree, some people
Speaker 1: are higher they're more empathetic than others. But it is
Speaker 1: also a skill that can be cultivated and strengthened. And
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of things you can do that are
Speaker 1: backed by science. Number one, taking someone else's perspective, literally
Speaker 1: walking in someone's shoes when something else is going on,
Speaker 1: asking yourself, hmm, what would it.
Speaker 2: Be like if I were them? What would it like?
Speaker 1: Literally asking that question all the time, imagining the other
Speaker 1: person's point of view. You can actually hone a skill
Speaker 1: and a practice to have more empathy by just constantly
Speaker 1: asking yourself, huh, what would it feel like to be them?
Speaker 2: Right now?
Speaker 1: There's also research to support the idea that mindfulness met
Speaker 1: meditation improves emotional regulation and even attunement to other people's emotions.
Speaker 1: This one study that was published in Psychological Science found
Speaker 1: that just two weeks of practicing loving kindness meditation increase
Speaker 1: brain activity in areas associated with empathy. See here's the thing.
Speaker 1: When you're meditating, you're hopefully told to allow anything, respect it,
Speaker 1: love it, love yourself, love others. Just breathe, just relax,
Speaker 1: let the feelings come. It's everything's okay. Non judgmental awareness
Speaker 1: of our feelings, and that helps us have empathy for others.
Speaker 1: Here's one of my favorites. If you're somebody who only
Speaker 1: reads nonfiction, get off that junk. You need to read
Speaker 1: literary fiction. Or you have complex characters and they have
Speaker 1: a whole stream of different emotions, right, this will help
Speaker 1: you understand other people's thoughts and emotions. Literally, just reading
Speaker 1: more good literary fiction will increase your emotional intelligence. And finally,
Speaker 1: just spending more time with people from different backgrounds, okay,
Speaker 1: whether it's different races, different genders, different ages, different origins,
Speaker 1: countries of origin, just to understand their perspectives, people with
Speaker 1: different political views, people with different religious views. Just spending
Speaker 1: time asking questions not being rude, not rudely criticizing, but
Speaker 1: understand trying to understand their perspective. This can open up
Speaker 1: your mind. And here's the best news of all. Our
Speaker 1: brain is plastic brain. Plasticity is on your side. Empathy
Speaker 1: is linked to neurocircuits involving what's called the mirror neur neurons, sorry,
Speaker 1: the mirror neuron system. And this will actually grow. I
Speaker 1: like to say a lot of these behaviors, if you
Speaker 1: continue to do them, will grow new super highways, new lanes,
Speaker 1: new offshoots. It's called intentional repetition. So simply put, if
Speaker 1: you practice empathy, you can literally rewire your brain for it.
Speaker 1: And this is what you need to have a healthy relationship. Hey,
Speaker 1: we come back. I have a very special guest. I'm
Speaker 1: so excited to have him on the show. He's the
Speaker 1: co host of the podcast called Love Factually, and he's
Speaker 1: a researcher in interpersonal relationships and he's got some interesting
Speaker 1: things to say about love. You're listening to the Dr
Speaker 1: Wendy wall Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live
Speaker 1: everywhere in the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 5: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 5: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AMCIX live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Now, I'm about
Speaker 1: to fan girl again. You know I do this every
Speaker 1: once in a while, I get somebody on the show
Speaker 1: who I'm actually a big fan of. And this week's
Speaker 1: guest is doctor Paul Eastwick. He's a professor at UC Davis.
Speaker 1: But get this, he runs a lab where he does
Speaker 1: research on all my favorite subjects, attraction relationships. But also
Speaker 1: he's cool because he's co hosting the podcast Love Factually,
Speaker 1: of course, available on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 4: This is Love Factually, the podcast that analyzes rom coms
Speaker 4: and romantic films using the science of close relationships.
Speaker 1: So as want to be film critics, We're going to
Speaker 1: meet the people where they are.
Speaker 4: This podcast is about what the movies get right and
Speaker 4: wrong about how relationships actually were.
Speaker 2: Hi, doctor Paul, how are you?
Speaker 4: Hi?
Speaker 3: Very goodness?
Speaker 4: Thanks someone for having me on today.
Speaker 2: You didn't know that i'mould be fangirl on you on
Speaker 2: live radio.
Speaker 4: Yeah right right, Okay, I'm ready. I'll see if I.
Speaker 3: Can live up to them.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what I want to talk about We don't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of time, but what I like
Speaker 1: to talk about is your mate evaluation theory. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, I need to know the story behind
Speaker 1: Love Factually. It is such a brilliant title for your podcast.
Speaker 1: What is the podcast Love Factually?
Speaker 4: And yes, So the basic idea behind the podcast is,
Speaker 4: along with my longtime collaborator and now co host, Eli Finkle,
Speaker 4: we take the science of close relationships is we have
Speaker 4: understood it and internalized it over the years, and what
Speaker 4: we do is we talk about how various rom coms
Speaker 4: and romantic films reflect what we know in the science,
Speaker 4: either what the films are getting right or what they're
Speaker 4: kind of mangling.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to tell you that I have always
Speaker 1: said what they get wrong pretty much one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of them is that they they end at the beginning
Speaker 1: of a relationship.
Speaker 4: That is is a fantastic point. There's so many of
Speaker 4: those films that classically do that right. You get what
Speaker 4: you're doing, You're seeing what amounts to something like the
Speaker 4: first ten percent of the relationship, and that's part is
Speaker 4: supposed to make it feel good and like say, send
Speaker 4: you home feeling happy and look sometimes they depict that
Speaker 4: early ten percent. Well, but we've got to acknowledge that
Speaker 4: there's a lot left to come when the movies end,
Speaker 4: when the couple gets together, right and.
Speaker 1: They get past their limerins and move into intellectual commitment
Speaker 1: kind of love.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, we've covered plenty of movies that do cover the
Speaker 4: whole art. It's actually kind of tough if we want
Speaker 4: to give the movies a break. It's tough to go
Speaker 4: from beginning all the way to the end. Right, Are
Speaker 4: there any la Land is one that does it really well?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean also the Notebook, Come on.
Speaker 4: The note right right, That is one of the view
Speaker 4: that goes from the beginning to end. Really the end
Speaker 4: the spoiler alertly yeah, really the end literally the Notebook. Yeah.
Speaker 4: But but they're out there, and and we like to give,
Speaker 4: you know, you know, accolades to those movies that pull
Speaker 4: it off.
Speaker 1: So moving from the podcast onto some of your research.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: One of your most famous studies has to do with
Speaker 1: something called mate evaluation theory, and it basically talks about
Speaker 1: how people analyze, evaluate, make selection for potential mates.
Speaker 2: And and I read the.
Speaker 1: Whole study today because what I do is I turn
Speaker 1: it into language everyone can understand. And now I'm going
Speaker 1: to have you correct me if I say it wrong.
Speaker 4: I'm ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 1: There are basically five ways that people evaluate a mate. Right, First,
Speaker 1: you talk about something called shared evolved mechanisms.
Speaker 2: And cultural scripts.
Speaker 1: Is this David Buss's evolutionary stuff. I'm hearing that women
Speaker 1: like men who are tall, and men like women who
Speaker 1: are fertile and roundt Yeah, really.
Speaker 4: It is is definitely meant to encompass that. Right. So
Speaker 4: anything that's like agreed upon, whether the reason for agreement
Speaker 4: is there something evolved in the mind that this is
Speaker 4: appealing to who we are as a species on average,
Speaker 4: or because I don't know, we've decided in this culture
Speaker 4: that you know, it's appealing if you can like make
Speaker 4: really great TikTok videos like actually.
Speaker 2: Right, this is attractive.
Speaker 1: I mean, I will say, I'm a woman of a
Speaker 1: certain age, and I've watched female body shape change over
Speaker 1: the years, and in the nineteen eighties it was the
Speaker 1: advent of the boob job, and it was very exciting
Speaker 1: to suddenly see breasts on every and now it's all
Speaker 1: about but right, So that's one example of a cultural script.
Speaker 2: All right, moving on number.
Speaker 1: Two individual differences that affect how a perceiver. That's somebody
Speaker 1: who's attracted to somebody views all potential mates. So is
Speaker 1: this like somebody's deal breaker list, Like this is my checklist,
Speaker 1: these are things I'm looking for.
Speaker 4: I would think of this one as like this is
Speaker 4: like people's own personality. So some people are happy people,
Speaker 4: and honestly, they're going to be happy in whatever relationship
Speaker 4: you put them in. And some people they're not so
Speaker 4: much and they're going to be kind of miserable in
Speaker 4: whatever relationship you put them in. So that's this component.
Speaker 4: It's kind of like is your lens that you take
Speaker 4: to the whole world and it doesn't matter who you're with.
Speaker 1: Interesting because my new husband, Julio, he is a giggly
Speaker 1: Dominican and he's the happiest person.
Speaker 2: I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 1: Then I'm met his whole family in Dominican Republic and
Speaker 1: they all giggle. I was like, Wow, it's a cultural thing.
Speaker 2: This is cool. Yep, so happy with anybody, even me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there you go, and like, look, don't feel bad.
Speaker 4: It's a really good good thing to be to have
Speaker 4: a little bit of some rose colored glasses.
Speaker 3: As you view the boy.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, I have to reel him back in all
Speaker 1: the time, as his optimism.
Speaker 2: Is a little too high. Uh okay, moving on to
Speaker 2: the third one.
Speaker 1: Individual differences that affect how a perceiver views some targets
Speaker 1: depending on the target's feature.
Speaker 2: So let me take a crack at this. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: would this be correct?
Speaker 1: Maybe somebody with an anxious attachment style might look at
Speaker 1: a partner's emotional passion and intensity as being really attractive.
Speaker 1: But if that person looking is avoidant, they might feel smothered.
Speaker 4: That's a great example. Yeah, I mean this also would
Speaker 4: encompass the deal breaker list you mentioned earlier, the idea
Speaker 4: that that I, like, I can't stand people who you know,
Speaker 4: like going to fancy seven course meal restaurants, Like I
Speaker 4: just can't be with somebody like that, Like that is,
Speaker 4: you know, too high falutant for me. If you have
Speaker 4: that kind of deal breaker, that's this third one that
Speaker 4: you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Not yourself. Do not invite Paul to dinner? Okay, gotcha?
Speaker 1: All right, we have to go to we have to
Speaker 1: go to rat Okay, when we come back there two
Speaker 1: more as part of your made evaluation theory. And then
Speaker 1: I want to talk about what this made evaluation theory
Speaker 1: can teach.
Speaker 2: Us about dating. Okay, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on
Speaker 1: kf I AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 5: You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 5: AM six forty.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show.
Speaker 1: I'm KFI AM six forty Live every where on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app. My guest is University of California Davis Professor,
Speaker 1: doctor Paul Eastwick. He is also a researcher in attraction, relationships,
Speaker 1: interpersonal love, sex, the whole shabang. He has the numbers
Speaker 1: and the data on it. Okay, doctor Paul, your mate
Speaker 1: evaluation theory, how people evaluate mates to be a potential mate,
Speaker 1: You say narratives about idiosyncratic reactions to one particular target. Now,
Speaker 1: I just got to admonish you on that is some
Speaker 1: psychobabble there.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: I had to think about that for a minute.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I would say this is like, I think
Speaker 1: this is the exciting part because this is does this
Speaker 1: mean that if you like have this sense that there's
Speaker 1: great meaning to this relationship to you in particular, I
Speaker 1: don't know, like there's something about this person that makes
Speaker 1: you go, oh, it's meant to be.
Speaker 2: It feels magical.
Speaker 4: Yes. And also about the things that you construct along
Speaker 4: the way. And this is the one that I think
Speaker 4: is if you ask the average person what is important
Speaker 4: in your relationship, they're gonna ultimately gravitate towards these kinds
Speaker 4: of things. The special rituals we have, the pet names
Speaker 4: we have for each other, the customers that we build,
Speaker 4: the values that we've created over time. And this stuff
Speaker 4: is huge.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 1: This is as a couple creating, or what an individual
Speaker 1: creates in their life and then says, wow, this person
Speaker 1: fits that.
Speaker 4: It is really supposed to be what you are creating.
Speaker 4: I'll say, like this where you're creating the con in
Speaker 4: a context with this particular person. And the real idea
Speaker 4: with this one is the idea that, like, I can't
Speaker 4: just take somebody else who like looks a up like
Speaker 4: your partner and substitute them in. Like, the point is
Speaker 4: that this person was there along the way for the
Speaker 4: creation of these things, Like you have memory with this person,
Speaker 4: and that's that's what it's really about.
Speaker 1: And I always say relationships are a living thing. They're
Speaker 1: like growing a gardener together. And having been prior to
Speaker 1: meeting my now husband, I was a single mom for
Speaker 1: twenty years with two little girls, and I did not
Speaker 1: want to risk exposing my kids to a poor romantic
Speaker 1: choice that I might make. But I knew that if
Speaker 1: I kept studying this stuff, by the time they got
Speaker 1: of age and old enough, I would find my person.
Speaker 1: But there is something now that I'm in a secure
Speaker 1: attachment where I really feel like there's a living thing.
Speaker 1: Like we're co thinkers, we're co emotional.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: He does half the thinking, you know, and I do
Speaker 1: half the intellectual work. I mean, a great example, here's
Speaker 1: a simple, simple example, and I'm sure many couples do this.
Speaker 1: One of us will be working on an email and
Speaker 1: we will read it aloud to the other person. It
Speaker 1: might be an important email, and he will add more
Speaker 1: business language or analytically language to mine, and I will
Speaker 1: add more emotional language.
Speaker 4: To Yep, we get emois in there had an exclamation point.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Now're a team. We're thinking like one brain exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, right, And it's this thing that people build
Speaker 4: together that you know, what we try to point out
Speaker 4: in this paper is we all kind of intuitively get
Speaker 4: that this is really important, and we as researchers are
Speaker 4: actually not great at capturing it. And that's for a
Speaker 4: bunch of methodological reasons that aren't especially fascinating. But the
Speaker 4: bottom line is what we think the lion's share of
Speaker 4: compatibility is how well you create a culture to your relationship. Well,
Speaker 4: we actually just haven't. Uh, you know, there's a lot
Speaker 4: out there about that that still needs to be explored
Speaker 4: and understood.
Speaker 1: And just so that people understand what you just said,
Speaker 1: one of the problems with doing relationship research is a
Speaker 1: lot of it is self reporting. You can't like put
Speaker 1: people in MRI machines and just say.
Speaker 2: Oh, there's love, although some attachment.
Speaker 4: Researchers are doing that right right right.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's go to what made evaluation theory can
Speaker 1: teach us about dating. Now that we know these points, what,
Speaker 1: how does that help us make better decisions?
Speaker 4: Well, I think where it can really help people is
Speaker 4: to recognize that there's some amount of curiosity that is
Speaker 4: important when it comes to being in a relationship with somebody.
Speaker 4: It's curiosity about how did we get to this point
Speaker 4: and are the patterns we set up early in our
Speaker 4: relationships still serving us. Well. You know, one of the
Speaker 4: challenges that often happens is that, you know, couples do
Speaker 4: things because they work right, and they keep those things
Speaker 4: going because they were effective at one time. But it
Speaker 4: can be very easy for one or both couple members
Speaker 4: to lose track of what their needs are as they
Speaker 4: change over time, and to realize that the patterns they've
Speaker 4: set up might actually now be getting in the way,
Speaker 4: might equally even be stifling one of them. And so,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm a big believer that you know that
Speaker 4: many couples can make it work, but it does require
Speaker 4: some amount of curiosity about what the other person is
Speaker 4: experiencing and how did we get here? Do we need
Speaker 4: to mix things up or not right?
Speaker 2: I call it rewriting the relationship contract.
Speaker 3: From time to time. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: And also when it comes to choosing you mate, looking
Speaker 1: at some of these cultural scripts is a good idea
Speaker 1: for us to become aware of them and realize how
Speaker 1: they could be limiting us.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, I'm a big believer in the idea
Speaker 4: that actually the narratives that you co create with somebody
Speaker 4: really begin from the first moment. Like a lot of times,
Speaker 4: what we think we're trying to do is assess things
Speaker 4: like how how good are you know this person's traits?
Speaker 4: Are they attractive, are they intelligent? Are they funny? But
Speaker 4: we're really doing is trying to figure out are they
Speaker 4: funny with me?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: Do they seem smart with me? Do they make me
Speaker 4: feel smart? Like it's relational from the very first few minutes.
Speaker 4: I mean, we even see this if you look at
Speaker 4: you know, first impression research, and we've collected a lot
Speaker 4: of data on first impressions. But what people are trying
Speaker 4: to do is just find something where they both have
Speaker 4: a little bit of knowledge in common, and they can
Speaker 4: kind of try to start scaffolding something together, something that
Speaker 4: they have in common, something that they can sort of
Speaker 4: bond over a little bit, and then you sort of
Speaker 4: build up from there. So you know, everything is a construction,
Speaker 4: and it really happens from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: So when I met my husband during COVID, during quarantine
Speaker 1: and lockdown, my role was they had to meet me
Speaker 1: on a windy pier wearing a mask. Okay, and if
Speaker 1: they couldn't do that, then if they want to protect
Speaker 1: my health, it's not going to happen. And then when
Speaker 1: we sat down for I only do coffee day, so
Speaker 1: it was only twenty minutes they got you got to
Speaker 1: leave them wanting more, you know. And then I said,
Speaker 1: when we sat down, I said, look, you know, we
Speaker 1: could sit here and brag about the masks were off
Speaker 1: at this point because we were more than six feet
Speaker 1: apart and the wind was going. Yeah, and I said,
Speaker 1: we could sit here and brag about how great we
Speaker 1: are and how datable we are. But could we begin
Speaker 1: actually by each of us telling a story of why
Speaker 1: we think we're completely undateable.
Speaker 4: Oh that's wonderful, he said.
Speaker 2: Okay, you'll go first.
Speaker 1: Good, and he had a much much more tragic story
Speaker 1: than I did, but it developed intimacy from the get go.
Speaker 4: Yep, right, it was that's great. Yeah, I spot on.
Speaker 4: I love to plug urt eron. And you know the
Speaker 4: grade thirty six questions. Oh yes, studying, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: right exactly. But really, what you're doing in that sixty
Speaker 4: to ninety minute period is you are getting comfortable and
Speaker 4: then talking about things that are interesting and deep and meaningful.
Speaker 4: And people can do this in short periods of time.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and within ten minutes of our coffee coming,
Speaker 1: both of us had our eyes welling up with tears
Speaker 1: over our stories. Yeah, and dealing with the shame of
Speaker 1: having to tell the story too right. And so I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you one more question before time is
Speaker 1: so tight and Radio I'm sorry. The last question has
Speaker 1: to do when it comes to this study with these
Speaker 1: sort of these models we have in our heads for
Speaker 1: what we're talking specifically heterrich sexual relations. Here, for my example,
Speaker 1: an opposite gender parents' role is in our model of love. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, with my husband, we will be out shopping
Speaker 1: somewhere and he'll be in the next aisle over and
Speaker 1: he will clear his throat one hundred percent it is
Speaker 1: my dad. Everything about the sound, the tone and everything,
Speaker 1: And I almost get startled when I hear it. Did
Speaker 1: I unconsciously choose him partly because of that? Oh?
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean there is a little bit
Speaker 4: of work showing that, Yeah, that people can be unconsciously
Speaker 4: primed with images of parents, and you know, they feel
Speaker 4: a little bit more safe. And so maybe that you know,
Speaker 4: is coming from somebody of your you know, preferred age
Speaker 4: and gender that you just find yourself a little bit
Speaker 4: more attractive with that person for that reason. But this
Speaker 4: stuff is going to be really really subtle. Yeah, any
Speaker 4: unconscious effects are going to be very very small on
Speaker 4: the whole. But it's possible that you know, things like
Speaker 4: like what you mentioned there, uh, sort of the way
Speaker 4: that he clears his throughout might might be a small
Speaker 4: thing that carried over from those unconscious leanings.
Speaker 1: Which might have been important to me and my trauma
Speaker 1: is that my parents both died of cancer in the
Speaker 1: same year when I was young, and so interesting enough,
Speaker 1: his mother, who's eighty six years old, I.
Speaker 2: Love, so I got a dad and a mom back
Speaker 2: with this marriage.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, right right, quite sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Paul, it is a delight to have you on
Speaker 1: the Doctor Wendy Wall Show here on KFI. We are
Speaker 1: going to have your co host, Eli Finkel next week,
Speaker 1: I believe, so we'll make sure that we cover love
Speaker 1: factually as much as we can. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: being with us. My guest is doctor Paul Eastwick, a
Speaker 1: professor at the University of California Davis. You've been listening
Speaker 1: to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty.
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