Happiness and Evolutionary Psychology with William Von Hippel | AD 172

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About William: William von Hippel, Ph.D., grew up in Alaska, got his B.A. at Yale and his PhD at the University of Michigan, and then taught for a dozen years at Ohio State University before finding his way to Australia, where he is a professor of psychology at the University of Queensland. He has published more than a hundred articles, chapters, and edited books in social psychology, and his research has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, The Economist, the BBC, Le Monde, El Mundo, Der Spiegel, and The Australian.

Topics Discussed In This Episode:

• William’s start in social evolutionary science
• The fear we experience being attributed to evolution
• Technology affecting our evolution
• Social vs. technological innovations
• The difference and similarities between hunter and gatherers and us now living in the modern world
• Great ideas being found
• Sexual selection within evolution and how it has shifted with the influence of dating apps and the internet
• Maximizers vs. satisficers
• Finding the fundamental purpose of your life
• The meaning of life
• Coronavirus and self-isolation
• The evolution of collaboration
• Being present-minded
• The fallibility of memories
• Sociopathic tendencies within humans 
• The cost of empathy
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and self-actualization
• “Killing the Mastadon”
• How art and science fit within evolution. 
• Objectivity
• The acceptance of the truth
• The end result of science and art being incredibly similar
• The concept of the “starving artist”

www.artistdecoded.com

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