Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's yesterday's coffee, that's now today's iced coffee.
Speaker 1: Ali warred back with a tender, sloppy, heartfelt episode of Ologies.
Speaker 1: Oh kissing, oh smoochin, suck and face?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 3: Why? For how long?
Speaker 1: How? That's right? This week we're gonna go all the
Speaker 1: way to first base. But before we toss me boss,
Speaker 1: let's say some thank you to all the folks at
Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Ologies for supporting the show since
Speaker 1: literally day one, for being our backbone. And also for
Speaker 1: all the folks wearing your Ologies hats and backpacks and
Speaker 1: shirts and drinking cold coffee out of Ology smunks. And
Speaker 1: for all the folks who tell friends and tweet and
Speaker 1: graham about the podcast and hit subscribe, give it a
Speaker 1: rating on iTunes, keeping it up in the charts, and
Speaker 1: especially y'all who review. You know, I creep them like
Speaker 1: a crush. Each week I read you a fresh one,
Speaker 1: such as this one from old zeb twenty two, who says,
Speaker 1: this is the podcast I suggest to my friends and
Speaker 1: family more than any other. Dad word is the fun, loving,
Speaker 1: foul mouthed, bad defending nerdy friend your mother warned you
Speaker 1: about so casually mentions that she has several dead birds
Speaker 1: in her freezer, which I hope she's using for good
Speaker 1: and not to do some terrible prank on a neighbor.
Speaker 1: Keep up the great work, stay safe, keep them coming.
Speaker 1: I would never waste dead birds like that, But thank you,
Speaker 1: old Zeb, I appreciate it. Thank you to everyone who's
Speaker 1: spreading the show around via word of mouth. Speaking of mouse,
Speaker 1: let's jump right into them. Filmatology. It's a real word.
Speaker 1: It's the study of kissing. It comes from philimma, meaning
Speaker 1: a kiss in the Greek tongue. And as soon as
Speaker 1: I saw this word years ago, I just longed.
Speaker 3: To probe the topic.
Speaker 1: So I searched scientific journals just for the word kissing,
Speaker 1: and then I found several studies done by a professor
Speaker 1: and an anthropologist at Oxford in the UK. Hot diggity boy, howdy,
Speaker 1: this dude was legit. He got a bachelor's and a
Speaker 1: master's in psychology and philosophy from Oxford University, a PhD
Speaker 1: in psychology on the social dynamics of Salata baboons. He's
Speaker 1: a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Oxford.
Speaker 1: He's been an author on over four hundred articles in
Speaker 1: scientific journals, including such hits like What's in a Kiss?
Speaker 1: The Effect of Romantic kissing on mate desirability, and examining
Speaker 1: the possible functions of kissing in romantic relationships. And if
Speaker 1: you've ever heard the notion that humans can only have
Speaker 1: about one hundred and fifty stable friendships, that's all him.
Speaker 1: It's called Dunbar's number. He explained it casually as quote
Speaker 1: the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about
Speaker 1: joining uninvited for a drink if you happen to bump
Speaker 1: into them in a bar.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be one of his one fifty and
Speaker 1: interview him so much, so I emailed him and he
Speaker 1: wrote back saying no, but more politely, a quick two
Speaker 1: sentence rejection. I'm afraid I'm just too tied up with
Speaker 1: other commitments of the moment. My apologies. So I wrote
Speaker 1: back with literally a pretty please in the subject line.
Speaker 1: He wrote back, a shimmering letter just said yes, fine
Speaker 1: by me. I literally gasped. I screamed when I got it.
Speaker 1: So we hopped on to Skype to record, and in
Speaker 1: remote calls we speak via Skype that I have theologists
Speaker 1: record into their voice memos on their phone and then
Speaker 1: we cut them together for better sound quality, a little
Speaker 1: pro trick I learned from the illusionists Helen Zealzman. But
Speaker 1: we have some difficulty. I can maybe just record you
Speaker 1: straight from my speakers and we will worry about it
Speaker 1: in post.
Speaker 3: We'll fix it in post. But we gave it a
Speaker 3: good try.
Speaker 1: I was terrified already of this interview. So much at stake,
Speaker 1: such a well regarded dude. Will I botch it? How
Speaker 1: does the rest of it go? Or do we bond
Speaker 1: immediately and have a jolly time talking about smooches and
Speaker 1: first kisses, and why people kiss, and the microbiome and
Speaker 1: social relationships, kissing in other animals, why we fall in
Speaker 1: love with some people and not others, the notion of soulmates,
Speaker 1: and doing research in nightclubs. So swipe on, somelip bomb,
Speaker 1: pucker your ears for the wit and the wisdom of anthropologist,
Speaker 1: scholar and gentlemen Oxford philharmatologist, Doctor robin Ian McDonald dunbar.
Speaker 4: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Okay, good, okay, First off, Hi, thanks for.
Speaker 1: Being here, and this is all edited, so don't worry.
Speaker 3: We'll cut out anything anything textical.
Speaker 4: That's anything sensible and leave the rubbish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, exactly, only the rubbish. That's what we're going for.
Speaker 1: And so now I'm not sure if this is a
Speaker 1: word that gets used often, but you aren't a filmatologist,
Speaker 1: would that be correct a person who studies kissing.
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't have said that quice. But I've never
Speaker 2: heard the word before.
Speaker 1: It's a real word. It's an actual word. A filmatologist. Yeah,
Speaker 1: filmatology is the study of kissing. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know, but you are one of the world
Speaker 1: experts in it. Literally, I've been looking for an expert
Speaker 1: in this to do this ology for like years and
Speaker 1: you're you're the dude.
Speaker 2: We have done a little bit, but it's a tiny, tiny,
Speaker 2: tiny fraction of what we spend.
Speaker 4: Our lives really doing. Honest, go well, milood.
Speaker 2: As they say in criminal courts to the judge, it
Speaker 2: wasn't me, midlud.
Speaker 1: I didn't do it again. Over four hundred papers authored,
Speaker 1: written or edited more than twenty books, including Thinking Big,
Speaker 1: How the Evolution of Social Life Changed the Human Mind,
Speaker 1: The Science of Love, and the Science of Love and Betrayal.
Speaker 1: Oh the British. They all have honorary doctorates in self deprecation. Well,
Speaker 1: you've done it more than anyone else, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask you what you know about it. So, and
Speaker 1: you're an author, you're an evolutionary biologist, you're an anthropologist,
Speaker 1: you have so many credits. How did you get interested
Speaker 1: in science and interested in behavior?
Speaker 2: I guess in a way, this sort of, as much
Speaker 2: as anything, goes back to the fact that I grew
Speaker 2: up in East Africa, and so you're kind of immersed
Speaker 2: in many different cultures there, and in the end it
Speaker 2: kind of drew me off into initially psychology, and then
Speaker 2: I ended up studying primates in Africa again, but monkeys mainly,
Speaker 2: and spending an awful lot of time studying them before I,
Speaker 2: twenty years or so later, ended up back again studying
Speaker 2: humans properly for the first time.
Speaker 1: Was it at all a relief to start studying the
Speaker 1: behavior of humans because you could ask them questions?
Speaker 3: Or was it just more complicated?
Speaker 4: It was complete desperation.
Speaker 2: Because I would have carried on studying monkeys and antelope,
Speaker 2: which we've been studying as well, but there was no
Speaker 2: funding available for anything like that in Britain during the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, and I ended up studying humans because they
Speaker 2: were there on the street and you could do.
Speaker 4: A lot, a lot of the kind things.
Speaker 2: You could ask the same kinds of questions we'd been
Speaker 2: asking about primate behavior, you could ask of humans too.
Speaker 2: You know, why do they choose this person to make live?
Speaker 2: Why do they you know, why do they invest in
Speaker 2: their children? And the way they do? All these kind
Speaker 2: of questions we ask of monkeys and apes when we
Speaker 2: study them.
Speaker 4: You can kind of do on the street and it
Speaker 4: was free. You didn't need a big grant to do it.
Speaker 2: And people, you know, you could ask them questions because
Speaker 2: you know they obviously were people. You could give them
Speaker 2: surveys to fill in as well as well as observe them.
Speaker 1: And what led you to want to study social relationships?
Speaker 1: Because you're known for the Dunbar number, You're known for
Speaker 1: a book The Science of Love?
Speaker 3: Like, what is it about social relationships?
Speaker 4: You know nothing about love?
Speaker 3: You got to know something if you're a scientist about it.
Speaker 1: My boy or not, you were a world expert in this.
Speaker 1: I mean I guess that that must put a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure on you in relationships. If you are an
Speaker 1: expert in them.
Speaker 4: Tell me about it, all right?
Speaker 1: His Wikipedia page notes that he's been married at least once,
Speaker 1: but we were only a few minutes in. It was
Speaker 1: too early to pry. But he's charming and affable. I imagine that,
Speaker 1: plus his research history, I bet that's a hit in
Speaker 1: social situations.
Speaker 2: Okay, So yes, I suppose all the way through. Ever
Speaker 2: since I first studied anything in the world, even before
Speaker 2: I started by Pah, what I was interested in was
Speaker 2: social evolution. How do different society, different animal societies, you.
Speaker 4: Know, come to be?
Speaker 2: And why did one species have one kind of society
Speaker 2: and other species have another kind of society. So that's
Speaker 2: a kind of rather a big question because you have
Speaker 2: to study practically everything about them, their ecology, their genetics,
Speaker 2: their evolutionary hastens on. And then that transfers very easily
Speaker 2: across to humans because obviously different cultures have different societies.
Speaker 4: You know, their culture is their society if you.
Speaker 2: Like, and you know you can ask meaningful questions about
Speaker 2: why one group living in one area has gone down
Speaker 2: one particular road, has the kind of you know, perhaps
Speaker 2: their polygamists, and another group living somewhere else and monogamists,
Speaker 2: or those kinds of questions.
Speaker 1: Now you've studied monkeys, and you've studied apes including humans.
Speaker 3: Do other animals kiss on the mouth?
Speaker 4: Yeah, actually some of the other mammals in fact do.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not really common in the way it
Speaker 2: is in humans, or even to some extent the way
Speaker 2: it happens in some of the monkeys snapes where they
Speaker 2: kind of do a kind of lip to lip.
Speaker 4: Kissing, and particularly with babies.
Speaker 2: I think you know, mother monkeys mouths their babies often
Speaker 2: and frequently, and then you know in some species they
Speaker 2: will feed them titbits that they've been eating, you know,
Speaker 2: mouth to mouth, So you can kind of see where
Speaker 2: kissing came from if you like.
Speaker 4: It's easy to see. But I mean, nobody.
Speaker 2: Does this stuff to the quantity and quality of humans.
Speaker 2: I want to kiss you.
Speaker 1: Why do you think humans have a slobber on each other?
Speaker 2: This is almost the big evolutionary question that remains unanswered.
Speaker 4: Is all clear? There are various suggestions one can make.
Speaker 2: One is it's clearly very kind of erotic if you like,
Speaker 2: it's very arousing, and the lips have a lot of
Speaker 2: brain tissue devoted to them, sensory brain tissues devoted to
Speaker 2: the lips, you know, disproportionately so put it this way,
Speaker 2: monkeys and apes are very tactile. They do a lot
Speaker 2: of cuddling and stroking and if you like, pesting, all
Speaker 2: those kind of things we do, and a lot of
Speaker 2: this sort of social grooming and social grooming triggers the
Speaker 2: release of endorphins in the brain, which kind of make
Speaker 2: you feel very relaxed and happy, contented with the world.
Speaker 2: It's very nineteen sixties hippie ish, you know.
Speaker 4: Endless sun, chill vibes, hot bodies.
Speaker 2: The world is a beautiful place and very trusting as
Speaker 2: a person you're doing.
Speaker 4: This with or who's doing it too.
Speaker 2: And these involve a very special set of neurons which
Speaker 2: only respond to light, slow stroking of the skin. And
Speaker 2: we have those neurons too. They're known as the sea
Speaker 2: tactile neurons. They don't do anything else. They're not involved
Speaker 2: in pain or anything, you know, sensing pain or anything
Speaker 2: like that. We respond exactly the same way. So that's
Speaker 2: why in our closer relationships we're very tactile. You know,
Speaker 2: it's an awful lot of cuddling and petting. And I
Speaker 2: don't mean this in a kind of social context. I
Speaker 2: mean just you know, when you're talking to your good friends.
Speaker 2: You know, there's a.
Speaker 4: Tap on the shoulder and the arm around the shoulder
Speaker 4: and all this kind of thing that goes on.
Speaker 2: You know, we're very tactile in that sense, even though
Speaker 2: we don't really think about it. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: is the because it's a very intimate thing, as it
Speaker 2: is in monkeys' names, you don't do it with everybody.
Speaker 2: This is why, you know, when you're caught in a
Speaker 2: crowded lift, you feel very uncomfortable because all these people
Speaker 2: you know, in very close physical contact with you, and
Speaker 2: normally you do only allow your nearest and dearest family
Speaker 2: and friends to be in that close physical contact, you know,
Speaker 2: So we are very ambivalent about it for the very
Speaker 2: reason that touch is very kind of you know, indicative
Speaker 2: of both close relationships and also spilling over from that
Speaker 2: you know, quickly gets exploited in courtship and sexual relationships
Speaker 2: between partners. Right, so the lips clearly play a major
Speaker 2: role in that. That said, one of the other things
Speaker 2: that happens during kissing in particular, is the exchange of
Speaker 2: huge quantities of.
Speaker 4: Bacteria.
Speaker 2: Right now, a ten minute kiss, I forget the exact amount,
Speaker 2: but it results in the exchange is something like ten
Speaker 2: million bacteria from one body.
Speaker 4: To the next.
Speaker 1: So a twenty fourteen study out of Amsterdam revealed that
Speaker 1: one ten second French kiss can transfer eighty million microbes
Speaker 1: into your partner's mouth. That is, the entire population of
Speaker 1: New York City cramming into your mouth every second of
Speaker 1: a kiss.
Speaker 3: That's love, baby. If he was interested in me, what
Speaker 3: my germs? He just craved my germ.
Speaker 2: Now this is quite useful because actually it tells an
Speaker 2: awful lot about the other person. So we've both got bacteria,
Speaker 2: the microbiotic sort of elements from the other person being exchanged.
Speaker 4: But also you're getting a.
Speaker 2: Lot of their the saliva and stuff, a lot of
Speaker 2: the enzymes and other bits and pieces that the body
Speaker 2: produced them, particularly immune systems. So your personal smell, I
Speaker 2: hate to raise this tricky issue at this junker, but
Speaker 2: your personal smell and taste are directly determined by the
Speaker 2: same genes, same set of genes that determine your immune system.
Speaker 1: Really, so we're using our tongues and our snoops to
Speaker 1: gather intimate intel about a person's immune system. You thought
Speaker 1: Google was sneaky? Who the nose is sneakier, so's the tongue.
Speaker 1: And now doctor Dunbar addresses some Western flimflam about different
Speaker 1: greetings such as the kunic greeting of Inuit folks and
Speaker 1: the malory greeting the Hongi, among others.
Speaker 4: It's a complete myth that they're rubbing noses.
Speaker 2: What you do is you put your nose side by
Speaker 2: side or just in front of somebody else's and you
Speaker 2: breathe in slowly and deeply, And as the Maori is
Speaker 2: put it, this is you're breathing in their spirit, right,
Speaker 2: so you're actually breathing.
Speaker 4: In their smell.
Speaker 2: And by the same extension, when you kiss folk, you're
Speaker 2: you're tasting their same immune sysm. You're actually checking out
Speaker 2: who they are and whether you like them or not.
Speaker 2: And the people you like tend to be people who
Speaker 2: have a different set of immune genes to the ones
Speaker 2: that you have. Right, Normally, when you choose some a mate,
Speaker 2: a romantic partner, you choose somebody who's kind of ticks
Speaker 2: as many boxes as possible for similarity to you, looks
Speaker 2: like you, and feels like you, as it were, because
Speaker 2: what you're trying to do is to find the same
Speaker 2: set of genes so you don't lose these beautiful genes
Speaker 2: that you.
Speaker 4: Can you've been handed on by your parent.
Speaker 2: What a lot of species do is spend a lot
Speaker 2: of effort and time looking for people who have similar,
Speaker 2: not identify, but very similar genes to them. So that
Speaker 2: means they're kind of bringing that same family set back
Speaker 2: together again, except for immune system genes, because what ideally
Speaker 2: you want in your beautiful bouncing babies is as broad
Speaker 2: a set of immunities as possible.
Speaker 4: So if you pick the same ones, you know, they're only.
Speaker 2: Acquiring immunities to half the number of diseases and bacteria stuff.
Speaker 4: It's possible.
Speaker 2: Whereas if you pick sort of somebody who's really quite different,
Speaker 2: you're giving them a much better chance in life.
Speaker 1: So if someone rejects you, not necessarily, but just if
Speaker 1: someone rejects a person, it might just be that your
Speaker 1: immune systems are too similar.
Speaker 3: Can you take that? Is that like a way to
Speaker 3: take heartbreak? Construct?
Speaker 4: Yes? Yes, they're family, they're family.
Speaker 1: Has any of this research that you've done, I know,
Speaker 1: is it difficult not to apply it to your own
Speaker 1: life the lives of people that you know?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: I think if you work on human behavior.
Speaker 2: You just inevitably spend most of your time sitting at
Speaker 2: the back of the pub watching people.
Speaker 4: It's really difficult not to do that.
Speaker 2: And it's such fun, you know, just see and even
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, it's amazing if you read something
Speaker 2: like Jane Austen's book, she is such an acute observer
Speaker 2: of human behavior, it is unbelievable, you know, considering she
Speaker 2: was writing.
Speaker 4: A very narrow.
Speaker 2: Social background, you know whatever, it was nearly three hundred
Speaker 2: years ago, you know, I mean, her observations of the
Speaker 2: foibles of human behavior, particularly in the mating arena, like
Speaker 2: just electric. And this is what makes the films that,
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of costumed dramas that they do
Speaker 2: of her novels so successful. You know, they're just such
Speaker 2: acute observations on you know, the little things that bother
Speaker 2: people about relationships.
Speaker 3: She was an anthropologist.
Speaker 2: I guess she has to rank as before anybody even
Speaker 2: thought of the name anthropology.
Speaker 4: She has to rank as the founding mother.
Speaker 3: I may have lost my heart, but not my self control.
Speaker 1: And now, if you're in the pub and you see
Speaker 1: people on a date, can you tell by the way
Speaker 1: they kiss whether or not they've got fireworks or if
Speaker 1: you're watching like Love Island or something, I would.
Speaker 4: Give it an eight strong kiss. It's very wet and volumptuous.
Speaker 4: Oh god, not that.
Speaker 3: The bachelor.
Speaker 2: Yes and no, it's it's it's I think it's probably
Speaker 2: hard to tell. I mean, there are I mean this,
Speaker 2: I mean it actually is really very hard to tell
Speaker 2: because in many ways the two sexes behave quite differently.
Speaker 4: In those sort of contexts.
Speaker 2: So women are much more attentive when they're meeting even
Speaker 2: just meeting a boy for the first time, and this
Speaker 2: caused a lot of problems I think for boys, because
Speaker 2: boys are not that great in terms of social skills really.
Speaker 4: Signals the girls. Girls kind of have this way.
Speaker 2: Of being very attentive to you, and you know, sort
Speaker 2: of paying close attention when they're not really interested.
Speaker 1: Straight sis, non binary, LGBTQ. If you have ever been
Speaker 1: on a date and thought, wow, that one amazing and
Speaker 1: then it goes through, well this might be because one
Speaker 1: never knows how an ego is going to take rejection
Speaker 1: in real time, so to play it safe, you might
Speaker 1: just pretend to be interested and also more romantically and optimistically,
Speaker 1: doctor Dunbar explains, you.
Speaker 2: Know when you first meet somebody, you kind of don't
Speaker 2: know really whether they're the right person or not. So
Speaker 2: the last thing you want to do is kind of
Speaker 2: put them off. You want to kind of keep them
Speaker 2: interested a bit, or keep them interested long enough that
Speaker 2: you can assess their inner self, as.
Speaker 4: It were, and figure out whether.
Speaker 2: They're the right person for you or not. Do they
Speaker 2: see the world the way you do? Do they have
Speaker 2: the same kind of more on political views as you,
Speaker 2: They have the same interest Do they like the same music,
Speaker 2: they have the same sense of humor?
Speaker 4: All these kind of.
Speaker 2: Boxes that you would like to have ticked, And it
Speaker 2: takes a long time to find out all these details,
Speaker 2: so you need to invest that a lot of time.
Speaker 2: It turns out that the more boxes you have ticked
Speaker 2: of that kind, the longer the relationship will last. Really
Speaker 2: you want to yeah, you do want to make sure
Speaker 2: you know you don't you don't want to take a
Speaker 2: complete Duffers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I looked it up and Duffer is an incompetent
Speaker 1: or stupid person. And I'm not British, but I don't
Speaker 1: think that's a compliment or a box you want to
Speaker 1: check in your dream date.
Speaker 2: So you need to check check out this person and
Speaker 2: make sure that that they do check tick your boxes
Speaker 2: with or at least as much as possible, because there's
Speaker 2: no mister right or misright.
Speaker 4: You know, there's no no such thing as perfection.
Speaker 2: Well no, okay, maybe there is somewhere, but they're sort
Speaker 2: of somewhere in the know. How many of us are
Speaker 2: other on the planet now seven billion or something, so
Speaker 2: that makes three and a half billion of each sex.
Speaker 2: So somewhere in that three and a half billion there
Speaker 2: is mister or miss right.
Speaker 4: You know you're never going to find them. You know,
Speaker 4: there's many lifetimes of search.
Speaker 3: Oh god, this is like a Morrissey song. It's romantic
Speaker 3: but incredibly depressing.
Speaker 2: So what you do is you do exactly as Jane
Speaker 2: Norsten says. Right, we're all there looking for mister Darcy
Speaker 2: because you know he has the chisel features and you know,
Speaker 2: the cultured family background and the biggest state.
Speaker 4: And all that kind of thing. But only one.
Speaker 2: Person's going to get mister Darcy, right, So what are
Speaker 2: the rest of you do? The rest of the rest
Speaker 2: of us have to settle for the curate. The great
Speaker 2: problem is, you know, all of us in the end
Speaker 2: settle for a compromise, because otherwise.
Speaker 4: You will never find anybody you know.
Speaker 2: You will always be rejecting them is not quite mashing
Speaker 2: up to your levels of perfection. And if you accept
Speaker 2: a kind of compromise, there's always a risk that.
Speaker 4: It's kind of not going to work as well as
Speaker 4: you'd hope. That's life.
Speaker 1: But what about our early evaluations can help lead us
Speaker 1: toward a partner who's right for us? Can we tell
Speaker 1: from making out with someone whether or not like this
Speaker 1: could be long term?
Speaker 4: I think so.
Speaker 2: But this is the end product of a long process
Speaker 2: of courtship in effect.
Speaker 4: In other words, if you look at what happens.
Speaker 2: During courtship, normally it sort of breaks down into a
Speaker 2: series of stages, and at each stage you kind of
Speaker 2: explore the qualities of the person before you, and then
Speaker 2: you just hold off a moment and go should I pull.
Speaker 4: Out here or should I go to the next level
Speaker 4: right right now?
Speaker 2: Those levels tend to start with distance cures so vision,
Speaker 2: so do they do they look pretty or do they
Speaker 2: look canceled? According to the respective sexes they you know,
Speaker 2: are they attractive? And then it moves into a sort
Speaker 2: of kind of conversational mode. I think where you're now
Speaker 2: close enough to talk to them, so you now picking
Speaker 2: up on all the cultural boxes what I call the.
Speaker 4: Seven pillars of friendship.
Speaker 2: There's seven dimensions which are a bit like a supermarket
Speaker 2: barcode on your forehead, verbal supermarket barcode. They are also
Speaker 2: the things you like and dislike, and.
Speaker 6: You know, the the languages you speaking, all these kinds
Speaker 6: of things that make up this complex of cultural elements
Speaker 6: that you know tick your boxes or don't ture boxes
Speaker 6: according to your personal interests.
Speaker 1: Okay, quick aside. I looked up doctor Dunbar seven pillars
Speaker 1: of friendship, and essentially things that make us bond with
Speaker 1: are one growing up in the same place, especially during
Speaker 1: the core teenage years. Two speaking the same language, three
Speaker 1: having the same education for enjoying the same type of hobbies,
Speaker 1: five sharing the same moral or political point of view,
Speaker 1: six having a similar sense of humor, and seven sharing
Speaker 1: the same musical taste. Just in case you need some
Speaker 1: metrics by which you can judge strangers before you sniff them.
Speaker 2: But having decided that you know they meet most of
Speaker 2: your requirements, at that point you kind of move into
Speaker 2: a bit closer which is why kind of old fashioned
Speaker 2: dancing was very suitable because, you know, in sort of
Speaker 2: couple dancing, waltzing and all this kind of thing, you're
Speaker 2: now into breathing territory and you can have a good
Speaker 2: sniff and check the immune system from a little distance,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 4: And here's the interesting thing. I mean, you know, we
Speaker 4: often think.
Speaker 2: Of perfumes as sort of designed to obscure all the
Speaker 2: horrible bodily smells that you have, and in fact it's
Speaker 2: actually quite the reverse. Really, Yeah, the perfumes you like,
Speaker 2: they're very, very very personal to you. They actually are
Speaker 2: the ones closest matched to your own person natural bodily smell.
Speaker 2: So what you're doing is enhancing your natural bodily.
Speaker 1: So if you tend to gravitate toward fruity ones or
Speaker 1: musky ones, that's more an amplification of your own sense.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so that's that's that's your own natural body odor,
Speaker 2: not the kind of sweaty, sweaty armpits you probably do
Speaker 2: want to cover up. Natural And that's why there are
Speaker 2: so many different scents. And this is why I try
Speaker 2: and tell guys you should never buy a girl perfume.
Speaker 2: You know, you'll get it wrong because you'll buy the
Speaker 2: one you like, and it may not be the one
Speaker 2: that she likes because it doesn't match her natural.
Speaker 4: A natural body sense.
Speaker 2: So then and then you know, once you've kind of
Speaker 2: gone to that point, you.
Speaker 4: Know, at the next point your your.
Speaker 2: Can try a little kissing, I think is the answer,
Speaker 2: because that gives you another sort of look into peer
Speaker 2: into their soul in a sort of taste sort of way,
Speaker 2: or taste and smell are kind of really want and
Speaker 2: the same thing in the end, you know, And if
Speaker 2: you're happy with that, then you know, take the breaks off.
Speaker 3: Take the breaks off.
Speaker 1: It's like that should be someone's tender bio. Now, how
Speaker 1: are you studying this? Are you behind one way glass
Speaker 1: with a clipboard and getting people drunk? Are you having
Speaker 1: people fill out surveys? Like?
Speaker 3: How do you study this?
Speaker 4: Everything we've done by lad.
Speaker 2: On kissing anyway has been by surveys or offering people vignettes,
Speaker 2: a little vignettes. You know, here's I don't know, here's
Speaker 2: Jim and a little bit about Jim and how good.
Speaker 4: A kisser he is. And here's Fred, a little bit
Speaker 4: about Fred? Which do you prefer? That kind of thing?
Speaker 2: But this is sort of back to off a lot
Speaker 2: of work we did on make choice strategies, which are
Speaker 2: done by looking at lonely hearts ads in the days
Speaker 2: before Tinder arrived, where people kind of you know those
Speaker 2: old newspaper ads where you would say, you know a
Speaker 2: little bit about yourself and a little bit about who
Speaker 2: you were looking for. They were very very nice little
Speaker 2: summary is of what people actually had in mind, and
Speaker 2: sometimes also how they carefully didn't say things which they
Speaker 2: thought might.
Speaker 3: Be unhelpful, such as.
Speaker 4: Where they lived if it was kind of downmarket.
Speaker 2: So if you looked at London ads, because the London postcodes,
Speaker 2: the zip codes, you know, if I suppose to true
Speaker 2: any big city, really there are kind of upmarket zip
Speaker 2: codes and downmarket zip codes, and you never ever saw
Speaker 2: downmarket ones, but you often saw upmarket one. Really things
Speaker 2: like that, and most of the time you wouldn't even notice.
Speaker 2: It took us a long time to realize that that
Speaker 2: was what was happening up down Debby.
Speaker 1: When you're showing people vignettes and you're like, here's gym herespread,
Speaker 1: this is what kind of kiss they are?
Speaker 3: How do you determine what a good kisser is?
Speaker 1: Because I think anyone who's dated more than one person
Speaker 1: has kissed a good kisser and has been subjected to
Speaker 1: a bad one.
Speaker 3: Like, how do you determine that?
Speaker 2: We carefully try to avoid it. We just left it
Speaker 2: up to the imagination of the subjects, right, I guess
Speaker 2: in these kind of things you are trying to elicit
Speaker 2: people's natural responses. So if you're too specific, often that
Speaker 2: just doesn't give them the freedom of imagination for themselves.
Speaker 1: So you have to leave it up to them to
Speaker 1: write their own romance novel. So doctor Dunbar mentioned a
Speaker 1: wonderful Austrian anthropologist, Carl Grammer, whose career has been spent
Speaker 1: doing observational studies of courtship behavior of humans by gathering
Speaker 1: data going to a disco, if you will, and watching
Speaker 1: and taking note of how people are interacting. And I
Speaker 1: was like, no, people don't do this, and doctor Dunbar
Speaker 1: was like, yes they do. He's he's done science in.
Speaker 2: The club and we've done stuff in nightclubs on dancing
Speaker 2: and on conversations, and those have all been done on smartphones.
Speaker 2: Smartphone is just a computer basically, isn't it. So you
Speaker 2: can load upload software that you would normally have on
Speaker 2: a iPad or something like that. And you know, you
Speaker 2: can just press buttons and everything gets.
Speaker 1: Recorded, so you're coding data sets. But it looks like
Speaker 1: you're just like, yeah, text.
Speaker 2: Sedding texts, and you're really boring because he's just sitting
Speaker 2: in the corner sending texts.
Speaker 4: So why would you want to go and ask them.
Speaker 5: For a gat?
Speaker 1: Oh my god? Now what about long term partners? Do
Speaker 1: people kind of stop kissing after a while? Should they
Speaker 1: continue kissing? Or once they've sized someone up and they've
Speaker 1: decided to be with them, are they still sniffing each other?
Speaker 4: Yes? I think so. I think that has to be true.
Speaker 2: I mean, I suppose when you get incredibly old, maybe not,
Speaker 2: or maybe you do.
Speaker 4: I don't know, I haven't got there yet.
Speaker 2: But also, you know, kissing and smell will tell you
Speaker 2: a lot about somebody's health.
Speaker 4: M m.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of important too, and you know, sort
Speaker 2: of that's actually one of the cues that people who
Speaker 2: worked on that side of things have really shown are
Speaker 2: quite important.
Speaker 4: You know, it's kind of grossly obvious.
Speaker 2: You know, somebody has got bad breath, you head for
Speaker 2: the bar as quickly as possible. You don't want to
Speaker 2: be with them, and you know, it's because, you know,
Speaker 2: it's kind of indicative of.
Speaker 4: General physical health as much as anything, so you.
Speaker 2: Tend not to want unless you're an angel in disguise,
Speaker 2: anxious to look after the you know, the sort of.
Speaker 1: Second Yeah, okay, side note, I'm sorry, I have to
Speaker 1: tell the story. Once a long term boyfriend ordered a
Speaker 1: cream of roasted garlic soup at our favorite restaurant. This
Speaker 1: was probably fifteen years ago. I still remember how seeringly
Speaker 1: painful it was to smell him for at least a
Speaker 1: week after. It wasn't his fault, you know what. I
Speaker 1: just looked up the restaurant I had to. One yelper
Speaker 1: wrote about this soup quote. I thought I would be
Speaker 1: in heaven, but a demon from hell came knocking. The
Speaker 1: garlic was so intense I literally kept wondering if I
Speaker 1: had ingested DRAINO. That restaurant is now closed. Rip you now.
Speaker 1: Other causes of halatosis, in case you're wondering, that could
Speaker 1: ruin your smooch game. Dry mouth, which also causes morning breath, barf,
Speaker 1: gum infections, diseases such as some cancers, intestinal infections, acid reflux,
Speaker 1: or having a foreign body such as a piece of
Speaker 1: food lodged in the nostril, which is a good indicator
Speaker 1: that maybe you don't want to trust this person with
Speaker 1: your babies whatever.
Speaker 2: When you're looking for a romantic partner, it's kind of
Speaker 2: not ideal for them.
Speaker 1: Right now, Why do you think we're not utterly repulsed
Speaker 1: by kissing, given how dangerous it could.
Speaker 3: Be from like a viral or bacterial standpoint.
Speaker 2: That's because I think in the past, even the relatively
Speaker 2: close historical past, you didn't do these kinds of things
Speaker 2: very often with people outside your community, right, So it's
Speaker 2: part of the courtship and sexual activities that you engage
Speaker 2: in with people in general. Pretty much most of that
Speaker 2: is confined to your community. So you all share the
Speaker 2: same diseases and have the immunities to them, right, You
Speaker 2: tend not to get kissing probably being anything like is
Speaker 2: common between people from different communities, because usually that means
Speaker 2: they've just you know, killed all your males and have
Speaker 2: sort of.
Speaker 4: Carried you off as as war booty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, things, This.
Speaker 2: Is not an idea of relationship, you so, given the
Speaker 2: kissing is part of that kind of process of courtship
Speaker 2: leading up to to sex, you know, this is kind
Speaker 2: of probably not the ideal situation. So that means most
Speaker 2: of your kind of expectations really in your psyche is
Speaker 2: built around the fact that this is all part of
Speaker 2: your little local community. And I think it's probably so
Speaker 2: hardwired iness now because that's you know, we've lived with
Speaker 2: that for literally millions of years.
Speaker 1: Have people been kissing for millions of years or is
Speaker 1: it relatively recent?
Speaker 4: That is a complete unknown.
Speaker 2: We will never know because it doesn't it's not the
Speaker 2: sort of thing that gets fossilized.
Speaker 4: It's very hard to say.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think most of these behaviors we have
Speaker 2: you can kind of trace back to their primate origins
Speaker 2: in some form, and primates will do these things. So
Speaker 2: things like laughter. You know, we share laughter with great apes,
Speaker 2: but it's slightly different the way we do it. And
Speaker 2: in turn, that laughter that the vocalization is sort of
Speaker 2: pant like vocalization we give when we laugh is really
Speaker 2: the old world monkey play vocalization.
Speaker 4: It's a play invitation.
Speaker 2: And it's just been sort of exaggerated and kind of
Speaker 2: ritualized progressively leading up to it to the way we
Speaker 2: use it now. So it's you know, most of our
Speaker 2: kind of behaviors have those sort of obvious origins in
Speaker 2: something primates, and that's true of something like kissing. I
Speaker 2: think it's done much more extensively by I mean even
Speaker 2: the bonobos, the so called pygmy chimpanzees, and.
Speaker 4: The congo who are the kind of less aggressive and
Speaker 4: more friendly chimpanzees.
Speaker 1: If you like bobos, by the way, are the sex
Speaker 1: they horn up free spirited monkeys, kind of like your
Speaker 1: friend who comes to brunch in a loose sun dress
Speaker 1: with no bra and you're like, good for you, girl,
Speaker 1: that's inspiring.
Speaker 4: And are the only species.
Speaker 2: Of any species of certainly of monkeys, napes, anyway, of
Speaker 2: mammals that have copulate face to face rather than front
Speaker 2: to back as they were, in the way that all
Speaker 2: other animals do. Even they don't engage in huge amounts kissing.
Speaker 2: They do a little bit, but it's not nobody's in
Speaker 2: the human league.
Speaker 1: Wow, because manobos are known as the most amorous.
Speaker 4: Really of the Yeah, yeah, that's right, but it's for
Speaker 4: that reason.
Speaker 2: You know, it's because they have face to face compilation,
Speaker 2: and that's really very rare.
Speaker 4: Then their behavior is really weird. They have sex with everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard it's like burning man over in camp phenomena.
Speaker 4: What it's worse because it's burning man with children.
Speaker 3: That's a good point. I have some questions from listeners,
Speaker 3: can I ask you?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, But before we get to your questions, ologies patrons
Speaker 1: from patreon dot com slash ologies a dollar a month
Speaker 1: gets you.
Speaker 3: In the club.
Speaker 1: A few quick words from sponsors of the show who
Speaker 1: make it possible for us to donate to a charity
Speaker 1: of the ologists choosing each week. And doctor den Barr's
Speaker 1: grandmother was a Los Angelino and he asked that we
Speaker 1: find and donate to a charity locally which helps seniors,
Speaker 1: and so a donation this week went to ALA, which
Speaker 1: is Affordable Living for the Aging, which provides affordable housing
Speaker 1: and supportive services and alternate housing options for low income
Speaker 1: and formerly unsheltered seniors. They even help match senior roommates.
Speaker 1: How amazing is that ALA gives seniors in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: secure home environments and the affordable housing they need and deserve.
Speaker 1: So that donation was made in doctor Dunbar's honor, and
Speaker 1: it was made possible by sponsors who you may hear about. Now, Okay,
Speaker 1: your questions open wide.
Speaker 3: For some answers Renee Jennings, who's the first time?
Speaker 1: Question? Asker asked, We usually associate kissing with romance, but
Speaker 1: what is going on with the European way of greeting
Speaker 1: people with a kiss on each cheek?
Speaker 3: Do we know where they came from?
Speaker 2: Oh, that's just standard and Maori knows rub it. Oh
Speaker 2: you're just sniffing. Really, I mean we kind of do
Speaker 2: it well. I mean a lot of the Europeans don't
Speaker 2: even do a sort of slacky kiss sound. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just a head on one side, head on the
Speaker 2: other side, and you know, if you really call it
Speaker 2: three times minimum, you know, but it really is just
Speaker 2: getting close enough to be able to breathe in the
Speaker 2: spirit of the other person, see who they really are.
Speaker 2: And people do it with babies, and women especially do
Speaker 2: it with babies.
Speaker 4: You can see. And they pick babies.
Speaker 2: Up and bring them up to their face. And I've
Speaker 2: heard women so I just love the smell of newborn babies,
Speaker 2: you know, and you go, oh, yeah, you're just checking
Speaker 2: out who this is.
Speaker 1: Come on, so I guess dogs do it on the
Speaker 1: other end, and humans do it on the face.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, and that's very primating.
Speaker 2: I mean, monkeys particularly Old World monkeys and apes are
Speaker 2: fascinated by each other's babies, and they're forever picking them
Speaker 2: up and nuzzling them and sniffing them and checking out. Basically,
Speaker 2: that's just checking out, you know, are you in my
Speaker 2: family or the other family.
Speaker 1: Oh and side note, Swedish researchers found that the scent
Speaker 1: of dirty baby hats released dopamine in study participants, kind
Speaker 1: of like drugs would.
Speaker 3: And now they look.
Speaker 1: Into making a baby head nasal spray to treat depression.
Speaker 1: But what is the smell that we're huffing off of
Speaker 1: a baby?
Speaker 3: Is it old milk?
Speaker 1: Is it new skin? Is it promise?
Speaker 3: Hope?
Speaker 1: Nope, It's something called pretty And according to the Internet,
Speaker 1: it comes from the vernix caseosa, which is the whitish
Speaker 1: cheese like substance that coats a newborn skin at birth. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it is a little cheesy to want to smell
Speaker 1: a newborn. Also, patron Alissa asked about kissing newborns and
Speaker 1: giving them diseases, and I look this up in an
Speaker 1: article on babyology, said that if you have a cold sore,
Speaker 1: don't kiss a baby. Also, just probably don't kiss any
Speaker 1: babies if they're not your babies, because you could be
Speaker 1: a symptomatic of so many things. Also, wash your hands
Speaker 1: before you touch a baby. Now, if it's your own baby,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 3: It's your baby.
Speaker 1: You do what you like. I kiss my dog's face
Speaker 1: constantly and I love her disgusting musky bullyon breath. It's
Speaker 1: like a drug, so gross, so precious. Jesswan asked, is
Speaker 1: it moremen to close eyes when kissing or is it different.
Speaker 3: In different cultures.
Speaker 4: That I have no experience.
Speaker 1: I don't know, so, doctor Dunbar said in his observation,
Speaker 1: women tend to close their eyes more in Some research
Speaker 1: suggests that this is because of input overload, So in
Speaker 1: order to concentrate on tac dial senses, you might have
Speaker 1: to just throw visuals offline. Just eyes are going to
Speaker 1: put you on pause for a minute. Mouth is driving
Speaker 1: this boat.
Speaker 2: If you close your eyes, you won't know, will you now?
Speaker 2: Boys ten Really, that's interesting. I have no idea whether
Speaker 2: that's peculiar to kind of Western kind of European culture,
Speaker 2: as it were, whether that's true other cultures elsewhere in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 3: Huh.
Speaker 1: There are a ton of people who asked if there
Speaker 1: is a scientific term for French kissing, and why is
Speaker 1: the French that kissed this way?
Speaker 4: And I believe in long, slow, deep, soft wet kisses.
Speaker 4: The last three days.
Speaker 2: I didn't know whether it's the same term is used
Speaker 2: in any language other than English.
Speaker 4: It maybe just to be in the English being rude
Speaker 4: about the French.
Speaker 1: Okay, I thought that might leave some of you horny
Speaker 1: for answers. So on behalf of Patron's Anna, Elizabeth Ruby, Johnstone, VICKORYA. Wilson,
Speaker 1: Vince Alasha and A Valerie Hannah Black, El McCall, Heather Densmark,
Speaker 1: Kaitlyn Berger, Andrey Webber, Bennett Gerber, Rachel Ames, Haley, Everson,
Speaker 1: Robert O'Neil, and Christen Hint. I looked up kissing dou
Speaker 1: la francaise and sloppy tongue kissing aka tonsil hockey, and
Speaker 1: it came to be known as frenching from World War
Speaker 1: One soldiers who returned from Europe and they were kissing
Speaker 1: on their spouses in a way that they thought mirrored
Speaker 1: the lusty ways of the sexually liberated French. And the
Speaker 1: French are like, what are we going to call it?
Speaker 3: Us?
Speaker 1: Kissing? No, And after decades of calling it a lover's
Speaker 1: kiss or to kill with the tongues clunky at best. Finally,
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, they have an official included in the
Speaker 1: Dictionary term. It's galoche, which takes its name from an
Speaker 1: ice skate because it's all slippery, hopefully it's not that cold.
Speaker 1: Also es cargo, also slippery, already taken.
Speaker 2: Although most cultures kind of kiss on the lips as
Speaker 2: it were, I don't know, it's all cultures around the
Speaker 2: world necessarily engage in sort of you know, tongue kissing
Speaker 2: as it were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I feel like the French have kind
Speaker 1: of made out well with it. I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like it's out of being a boon. What about some
Speaker 1: people asked why they might not like kissing?
Speaker 3: Are there people who just aren't really into it?
Speaker 2: I think it probably depends on how TecTile you are,
Speaker 2: so people differ on a kind of dune. Mention of
Speaker 2: attachment was known as the attachment scale. I mean, they
Speaker 2: have several dimensions to the attachment scale, but essentially they're
Speaker 2: measuring your warts and coolness in your personal relationships with
Speaker 2: other people. So you know, at the hot end, you know,
Speaker 2: this is all very kind of italianate and you know,
Speaker 2: people are always putting their arms around you and giving
Speaker 2: you big hose all the time, and then they're kind
Speaker 2: of at the call end. You know, this is the
Speaker 2: the you know, don't touch me, I'm British.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 2: Dimension distinguishes between people who have the high density of
Speaker 2: endorphin receptors in the brain the low density. So it's
Speaker 2: like people who have a low dent people who have
Speaker 2: a low dentsitive endorphin receptors fill those up very quickly
Speaker 2: with a small amount of physical contact.
Speaker 1: Oh side note, April is National Autism Awareness Month, and
Speaker 1: some folks on the autism spectrum have varied sensory sensitiveties. So,
Speaker 1: for example, some researchers think a light touch might feel
Speaker 1: uncomfortable because different nerve fibers carry different types of touch,
Speaker 1: So touch with pressure is carried really fast via type
Speaker 1: A nerve fibers, whereas light stroking types of touch moves
Speaker 1: more slowly across those C tactile fibers doctor Dunbar mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: and it registers in emotional centers of the brain. So
Speaker 1: some folks on the autism spectrum report that kissing feels
Speaker 1: like sensory overload. Others say that light touch is uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Others are perfectly fine with both.
Speaker 3: And enjoy both.
Speaker 1: It's very individual and the research is ongoing, but doctor
Speaker 1: Dunbar notes that a partner sensitivity is always something to consider.
Speaker 2: One of the common features of AATs is you really
Speaker 2: don't like physical context.
Speaker 4: It's it's it's.
Speaker 2: Really disturbing for you. This is This is not a
Speaker 2: difference between the sets per sees. This is sort of
Speaker 2: just different styles of sociology. At the end of the day,
Speaker 2: the question I'm kind of inclined to ask is how
Speaker 2: many people have you kissed?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Most of us have not kissed vast numbers of people,
Speaker 2: So the likelihood of kissing somebody who doesn't match your
Speaker 2: style and requirements is pretty high. I think you have to,
Speaker 2: you know, get through an inordinate number of them in
Speaker 2: order to kind of go no, no, this one's a
Speaker 2: good one. So statistically speaking, you know, there's a fair
Speaker 2: chance that you know, the first I don't.
Speaker 4: Know, it's thirty or whatever. Let's stay.
Speaker 2: Turn out to be unsuitable from your product, perfectly suitable
Speaker 2: to other people.
Speaker 4: That's just bad luck.
Speaker 1: I'm a free bad luck, but good germs now a
Speaker 1: ton of patrons, including Heather Dunsmore, Ali Smith, Kristen dhn
Speaker 1: Urban and first time question askers Ginaviado, Hannessy, Charlotte and
Speaker 1: Vesper Clerks asked investment words. Is it true that kissing
Speaker 1: might have originated to share immunities between partners? Or was
Speaker 1: I like to So they wanted to know about microscopic
Speaker 1: makeout exchanges. If you kiss more people, would you have
Speaker 1: a stronger microbiome?
Speaker 2: You're certainly exchanging I mean exchanging microbiome constantly with you
Speaker 2: every time new contacts physically touch somebody, so you know,
Speaker 2: and obviously much more is being exchanged through kissing. So
Speaker 2: the answer is yes. And people who live together and
Speaker 2: from the same family tend to have much more similar microbiomes.
Speaker 2: Your microbiomes has turned out to be much more important
Speaker 2: for you than anybody ever imagined. It affects your health,
Speaker 2: It affects your how you develop psychologically as a child, cognitively,
Speaker 2: it affects your psychological balance as an adult.
Speaker 1: For more on this, see the microbiology episode from November
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen with doctor Elaine Shaw, wherein we learned that
Speaker 1: ninety percent of our serotonin is made in our sloshy, squishy,
Speaker 1: pooey guts. So if you're in a bad mood and
Speaker 1: have a bug up your butt, it might just be
Speaker 1: because you don't have the right bugs up your butt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so your partner can literally rub off on you.
Speaker 4: Yes, your friends do terrible things to you.
Speaker 2: Because there's some very nice research that was by some
Speaker 2: guys who are then at Harvard.
Speaker 4: Most of them have moved on.
Speaker 2: Showing that you know, your likelihood of becoming depressed or
Speaker 2: becoming happy, giving up smoking, becoming obese, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Almost anything he cares to look at was determined by
Speaker 2: whether your friends, your people you sort of spent most
Speaker 2: time with, we're in that state or not.
Speaker 4: So they know if your three nearest closest.
Speaker 2: Friends were happy, you were much more likely to become happy,
Speaker 2: you know, in the year's time. Okay, if they got depressed,
Speaker 2: you are going to get not just your microbiotide, then
Speaker 2: you are spreading around the place. It's no psyche as well.
Speaker 1: So not only can your invisible critters be contagious, but your.
Speaker 3: Big moods are too.
Speaker 1: How Why So I checked this out, and I found
Speaker 1: a paper by UC San Diego and Harvard researchers titled
Speaker 1: quote Dynamic spread of happiness in a large social network
Speaker 1: longitudinal analysis over twenty years in the Framington Heart Study,
Speaker 1: which read quote, emotional states can be transferred directly from
Speaker 1: one individual to another by mimicry and emotional contagion, perhaps
Speaker 1: by the copying of emotionally relevant body actions, particularly facial expressions.
Speaker 1: So people can catch emotional states they observe in others
Speaker 1: over time frames ranging from seconds to weeks. So, for example,
Speaker 1: the study continued, students randomly assigned to a mildly depressed
Speaker 1: roommate became increasingly depressed over a three month period. Although
Speaker 1: silver lining happiness is more contagious than sadness. Now, the
Speaker 1: study went on to say that the relationship between people's
Speaker 1: happiness extends up to three degrees of separation, for example,
Speaker 1: to the friends of one friend's friends. That's halfway to
Speaker 1: Kevin Bacon. So other studies on friendship and happiness report
Speaker 1: that loneliness can be toxic. So in this weird, unprecedented
Speaker 1: time of self isolation, just try to take time to
Speaker 1: chat with friends online or FaceTime or zoom them or
Speaker 1: scream at your neighbor from over a fence forty feet away.
Speaker 1: Talk to the birds or your cat. So if you
Speaker 1: are feeling lonely, just know you're not alone in any way.
Speaker 1: A few people, Rachel Weiss and Zoe Jane wanted to
Speaker 1: know if you had a good first kiss story.
Speaker 4: My god, that was before the dinosaurs. Lets extend back.
Speaker 4: Body can remember what it was like life.
Speaker 3: Mine was very slobbery.
Speaker 1: I remember being like, hmmm, I don't think that's how
Speaker 1: that's supposed to go. I was sixteen, black hair, combat boots,
Speaker 1: fully goth, and very unaware of technique. Also, I was
Speaker 1: so nervous I kept colping air and then I burped
Speaker 1: in his face. Sorry, high school boyfriend.
Speaker 4: I'm sure that's all our first exper.
Speaker 1: Does everyone Jessica Jansen wants to know, because you're an
Speaker 1: expert at behavior and court you know, courtship and kissing.
Speaker 1: Does everyone think you're an expert at at kissing?
Speaker 3: Is that expected of you?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm still waiting to be ask.
Speaker 3: One day, doctor Dunbar one day.
Speaker 1: So despite his wealth of published papers on the subject,
Speaker 1: this man will not kiss and tell he is a
Speaker 1: fortress of make outerie. It's admirable, it's frustrating, but it
Speaker 1: is admirable. Any movies or TV shows that have had
Speaker 1: really spot on or really terrible courtship or kissing scenes
Speaker 1: off the top of.
Speaker 4: My head, it's kind of hard hard to answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I still think in the end, probably
Speaker 2: the most brilliant piece of relationship stuff ever written with friends,
Speaker 2: So so okay, it's it's in the sort of Jane
Speaker 2: Austen level of kind of observation of people's foy balls
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, and in a funny sort of way,
Speaker 2: even the cricket.
Speaker 6: I can't think of the the the the the program.
Speaker 2: Now that's the science one, oh, big bang theory, big
Speaker 2: bang theory, right, it's just the dynamics of how the
Speaker 2: guys work together in that is so acute, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's the writing of that and the observation of
Speaker 2: just human behavior is as good as they're observation. The writers,
Speaker 2: the script writers understanding and writing on the science, and
Speaker 2: you know, and they do some of the most extraordinarily
Speaker 2: good science popularization as probably you know, the cream of
Speaker 2: the cream. At the same time there they're they're they're
Speaker 2: human you know kind of dynamics. So just it's beautiful
Speaker 2: to watch in its markers.
Speaker 1: I just want to see a quick load of Big
Speaker 1: Bang Theory showrunner and Young Sheldon co creator Steve Malaro,
Speaker 1: who is himself an ologite, Steve.
Speaker 4: What's that hey?
Speaker 1: Also for folks who have seen both Friends in The
Speaker 1: Big Bang Theory, does anyone feel like those two apartments
Speaker 1: connected by a landing kind of sharifibe? I always did,
Speaker 1: and out of curiosity and poor time management, I just
Speaker 1: looked it up and Friends and The Big Bang Theory
Speaker 1: Are you ready for this? Had the same production designer,
Speaker 1: a guy with the name of John Schaeffner. He was
Speaker 1: also responsible for the iconic Ratian sofa and floridian ease
Speaker 1: of the Golden Girls set. He had a great job
Speaker 1: and he did a great job anyway, Moving on the
Speaker 1: last questions, I always ask her what what do you
Speaker 1: hate about your work the most? What's the most annoying
Speaker 1: thing about your job or about research?
Speaker 3: What's just what's well?
Speaker 2: Research is always hard work, right, so collecting data is
Speaker 2: extremely tedious, goes on for you have to do it
Speaker 2: for hours and hours and hours and stuff. That's the
Speaker 2: sort of one of the downsides of it. It's a
Speaker 2: kind of benefit to what you're watching is something that
Speaker 2: itself is entertaining.
Speaker 4: But I think the real.
Speaker 2: Irritating side of it is just trying to get stuff published,
Speaker 2: because you know, it's the you know, you're having to
Speaker 2: deal with people who seem not to live on this
Speaker 2: planet when you try and publish your beautiful new data.
Speaker 4: And often it's because it's left field for them.
Speaker 2: And I kind of in a way, because of where
Speaker 2: we work, which is, you know, on human behavior and
Speaker 2: social evolution in mammals in particular, you just sometimes wonder
Speaker 2: whether these people have relationships.
Speaker 3: And what about what about your favorite thing about it?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just such fun, right, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: it really is. And also I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 2: a sort of curiosity thing about about how other people behave.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, it's really like sitting in
Speaker 2: front of an enormous jigsaw puzzle, because if you're dealing
Speaker 2: with social evolution, you're not just doing some tiny little
Speaker 2: gene that does you know, when it works, does this,
Speaker 2: and when it doesn't work, doesn't do this. You're dealing
Speaker 2: with these complex interactions between genetics, physiology, behavior, ecology, history,
Speaker 2: relationships of the moment the brain doing stuff up there.
Speaker 2: There's all this massive, great kind of juiceaw puzzle going
Speaker 2: on in front of you, and you sort of fiddle
Speaker 2: away a bit down in this corner, and then you
Speaker 2: do a bit in that corner, and then gradually the
Speaker 2: whole picture suddenly kind of appears in front of you,
Speaker 2: and perhaps literally one day, everything suddenly seems to fall
Speaker 2: into place and you just go, wow, that is amazing.
Speaker 1: So you get to have these real breakthroughs when all
Speaker 1: the data.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and especially when.
Speaker 2: There's no obvious reason why two bits of data should
Speaker 2: fit together. Hm, when you actually look at them from
Speaker 2: the right angle, as it were, suddenly you go, oh,
Speaker 2: actually they.
Speaker 3: Do that aha moment finally at last.
Speaker 1: It's almost like when you find someone that you actually
Speaker 1: fall in love with.
Speaker 4: I'm sure, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2: You know, us scientists suggest in love with our data,
Speaker 2: that's all.
Speaker 1: And what about the work that you've done on social relationships.
Speaker 1: Do you think that it's made your relationships better in
Speaker 1: your life? Do you look too closely at them?
Speaker 2: In some ways, maybe because you kind of have to
Speaker 2: have to think about relationships and why people are behaving
Speaker 2: in a subtle responding in a certain way. But also
Speaker 2: there is a sense in which the less you know
Speaker 2: the better, because these things, you know, if you know
Speaker 2: too much, you try and do it, force it, and then.
Speaker 4: It doesn't work. Right.
Speaker 2: The most important thing about relationships in the end is
Speaker 2: just going with the flow and letting it take its
Speaker 2: own course, and it will.
Speaker 4: Work, and it will work naturally.
Speaker 2: And this is why I get very, very irritated with
Speaker 2: mostly guys who come to me with got a new
Speaker 2: app or improving people's relationships, you know, and usually it's
Speaker 2: just reminding you when their birthdays are and things like that,
Speaker 2: or how long and would you be involved? And I go, no, way,
Speaker 2: this is a completely pointless exercise because you know, if
Speaker 2: you try and put in all those kind of artificial
Speaker 2: memory things, it's just going to screw the whole thing
Speaker 2: up complete In the end of relationship, your relationship with
Speaker 2: somebody is about your wanting to be there with them,
Speaker 2: not oh god, it's Monday and I haven't said hello yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so true. Well, thank you so much for all
Speaker 1: of the work that you've done. It's nice to know
Speaker 1: that people can just sniff each other slobber and then
Speaker 1: relax see what.
Speaker 4: Happens exactly strangers.
Speaker 1: Thank you so so much for doing this I hope
Speaker 1: this wasn't too painful.
Speaker 3: I so appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: I know how so you're so busy, and I just
Speaker 1: I realized that I fully begged you, so thank you
Speaker 1: for doing it.
Speaker 4: Know your pleasure, my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Well, get some sleep. Thank you for staying up late.
Speaker 4: Okay, very good? Hy hye.
Speaker 1: So find smart people and gently beg them to hang
Speaker 1: out on Skype and ask them stupid questions for the
Speaker 1: greater good of relationships everywhere, including mostly right now in
Speaker 1: your homes. Thank you to everyone who is sheltering in
Speaker 1: place right now. You are literally saving lives. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Links to doctor dunbars Ted talk and books are up
Speaker 1: on my website at alliwar dot com slash ologies slash filmatology.
Speaker 1: I'll put a link to that in the show notes.
Speaker 1: And we are at ologies on Instagram and Twitter. I'm
Speaker 1: Ali Ward with one L on both, so let's be
Speaker 1: Internet friends, shall we? Also? Bleeped episodes for kids are
Speaker 1: free on my website aliward dot com. Thank you to
Speaker 1: former intern Now employee Caleb Patton for working on those. Also,
Speaker 1: free transcripts, including of super recent episodes, are up on
Speaker 1: my site. Thank you so much to professional transcriber Emily
Speaker 1: White for heading up a volunteer army of transcribers to
Speaker 1: work on those and I'm going to shout out a
Speaker 1: few of them right now because they so deserve it.
Speaker 1: Thank you transcribers Lauren Fenton, deb Ward, Katie Coast, Mickey McGrath,
Speaker 1: Hannah Dent, Emily Down, Aska Dejica, and Rika Ringa and
Speaker 1: lisa's On and Florence you On for working on the
Speaker 1: transcribing guide, and of course og oldtimers Mike Melschuer and
Speaker 1: Wendy Fick. Y'all have been doing it since the beginning,
Speaker 1: So thank you all for making those episodes accessible to
Speaker 1: deaf and hard of hearing ologites and for people who
Speaker 1: just want to look up what we may have seen.
Speaker 1: Y'all are amazing. And thank you to Aaron Talbert for
Speaker 1: admitting the ologies podcast Facebook group and being a pal
Speaker 1: since we were four. I love you. Thanks Shannon Feltus
Speaker 1: and Bonnie Dutch of the comedy podcast You Are That
Speaker 1: for managing ologiesmerg dot com. They are sisters, They're hilarious.
Speaker 1: Thank you to assistant editor Jared Sleeper of the mental
Speaker 1: health podcast Make Good, Bad Brain. He also does Quarantine
Speaker 1: Calisthenics on Instagram live at noon Pacific every day, sometimes
Speaker 1: in full character of gold prospectors or leper cons He's
Speaker 1: a delight. Thank you to lead editor and host of
Speaker 1: the kiddy themed per cast in the Dino Pod see
Speaker 1: Jurassic Right, Steven Ray Morris for stitching these episodes together
Speaker 1: and keeping the ologies trains run it on time. You
Speaker 1: are among the finest of audio engineers, tooted. I'm lucky
Speaker 1: to have you so. Nick Thorburn of the band Islands
Speaker 1: wrote and performed the theme music and if you listen
Speaker 1: to the very end, you know I tell you a
Speaker 1: secrets you this week. I wasn't sure where to pop
Speaker 1: this in and aside, but I need to get it
Speaker 1: off my chest. I need someone to do us all
Speaker 1: a solid hop on Wikipedia and change the entry for
Speaker 1: something that rhymes with shmeskamo schmiss because number one, that
Speaker 1: e word is considered a slur by a lot of
Speaker 1: indigenous Circumpolar people and Inuit folk. And also because the
Speaker 1: Wikipedia image of the people doing it are two white
Speaker 1: folks and it was uploaded from Texas, So can we
Speaker 1: get that changed? Okay? Second secret, I have made out
Speaker 1: with two like semi celebrities, and they were the worst
Speaker 1: kissers of my life ever. Ever, this is years apart.
Speaker 1: Just a tongue in your mouth like a woodpecker, just
Speaker 1: beppe beat and you're like, what, how has no one
Speaker 1: told you that's not good? Anyway? Obviously short lived. One
Speaker 1: of them put his tongue in my ear in a restaurant.
Speaker 1: That was the last time I saw him. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you, no bueno. So before you get all mooney
Speaker 1: eyed at Harry Styles or Brad Pitt, just no number one.
Speaker 1: Neither of those weren't the guy. But you never know, man.
Speaker 1: Just because someone's a total fox does not mean they
Speaker 1: know how to use their mouth.
Speaker 3: Hoo yikes.
Speaker 1: Wow, I am kissing and I'm telling, but I'm not
Speaker 1: telling all of the information, So I feel like it
Speaker 1: doesn't count as a kiss and tell. Anyway, if you're
Speaker 1: in lockdown and you're missing people in smooches, just think
Speaker 1: about the eighty million bacteria that you're not getting in
Speaker 1: your mouth. Also, think of all the people who are
Speaker 1: breaking up because they have to live together so much.
Speaker 1: Gonna be a lot of single people after this, and
Speaker 1: then there's gonna be a lot of smooch in just saying.
Speaker 3: Okay by bye.
Speaker 5: Pacodermatology, homeology or do zoology, lithology, technology, meteorology, pole patology, anthology, zeriology, elinology, ages.
Speaker 4: What