SYSK Choice: Why It’s Human to Seek Pain on Purpose & How Cooperation Shaped the World

You know when you call a customer service number and you hear, “Your call is very important to us…”? What that usually says to me is – “Get comfortable, this is going to take a while.” Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to make your customer service experience shorter and less frustrating? Listen as I begin this episode with some solid advice. frustrating experience. So, this episode begins by discussing how to make that experience a little bit smoother. https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-call-customer-service/

Can you ever really know pleasure if you don’t experience pain? Do humans actually want and need pain? Pain is a fascinating topic, as you will hear from my guest Leigh Cowart. She has purposely put herself through some very painful experiences such as, being a ballerina to eating the world’s hottest chili pepper. Listen as she discusses her research on pain and explains why some of us actually seek out pain. And yes, it turns out we all likely need some pain in our lives. Leigh is a journalist and author of the book, Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose (https://amzn.to/3lHYF0F)

While humans can be selfish, we also have to cooperate with each other because we simply can’t do everything for ourselves. The ways in which humans cooperate turn out to be very complicated because while we cooperative we also compete with each other. We can be very compassionate and cooperative with some people but not others. Evolutionary biologist Nichola Raihani has examined how our ability and desire to cooperate with each other (or not) has helped guide the development of modern civilization. Listen as she explains this fascinating topic. Nichola is a professor of evolution and behavior at University College in London and author of the book The Social Instinct: How Cooperation Shaped the World (https://amzn.to/2XwTKr8).  

Do women apologize more than men? Actually, yes but why is that? Listen as I explore some interesting findings on why men and women tend to apologize differently. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46381418_Why_Women_Apologize_More_Than_Men_Gender_Differences_in_Thresholds_for_Perceiving_Offensive_Behavior

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