What podcasts say about Robert Kurzban
Every statement, with the speaker, the exact quote and the moment it was said.
What Robert Kurzban has said on podcasts
71 statements · 28 positive · 19 negative · 5 mixed · 19 neutral
Subjective experience may be necessary for complex organisms to prioritize competing motivations.
“My sense is that it's just for... organisms like us and probably other organisms, there's just no other way to do it.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 2:07
Consciousness provides a common currency for comparing competing motivations.
“I think consciousness, this experience we have, is that common currency.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 3:25
Emotions measure adaptive information and motivate behavior.
“emotions measure something in the body or outside the world. which is going to be adaptively relevant, and then get you to do something.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 5:02
All emotions contain both measurement and motivational components.
“all of them have both components. In some sense, they can't work without both components.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 5:56
Social media can overactivate envy by exposing users to others’ apparent success.
“with all the platforms the kids are on instagram and whatever else it is you see all these people who have you know great success a lot of friends the kinds of things so your your envy system is like an overdrive”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 6:34
People lacking pain experience or pain motivation have shorter lives due to untreated damage.
“those people, sadly, they don't live very long because they don't make the adjustments they have to do to stop whatever damage is occurring”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 7:43
Unpleasant feelings motivate appropriate protective actions.
“If it's not unpleasant, you're not going to take the appropriate action”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 8:00
Itchiness functions as a defense against parasites and harmful organisms.
“itchiness is sort of one of the more interesting ones.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 9:16
Defecation behavior is adapted to balance bodily necessity with safety and social constraints.
“there is this adaptive problem, which is you want to poop kind of, you want optimal pooping”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 11:31
Defecation behavior is adapted to occur when necessary and in suitable locations.
“you want to poop kind of, you want optimal pooping. So you don't want to just poop anywhere”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 11:33
Fear of enclosed spaces reflects lacking visibility and escape routes.
“you should be afraid of enclosed spaces because you don't have so-called prospect and refuge”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 18:36
Dark enclosed spaces are more aversive because darkness reduces visibility.
“Absolutely. Because you lose prospect.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 19:04
Disgust measures the probability of nearby pathogens and motivates avoidance.
“disgust is measuring the risk of pathogen preference”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 21:43
Disgust measures the likelihood of nearby pathogens and motivates avoidance.
“disgust is measuring the risk of pathogen preference.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 21:43
Early co-residence produces sexual disgust toward otherwise unrelated individuals.
“the people who you raised with, even if they're not related, but as long as they were in the same spot at the same time, you're disgusted by the thought of having sex with them”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 23:25
Some emotional systems develop through early environmental exposure.
“some of our emotional systems are like this, that they only start kind of coming online”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 26:36
Evolution can preserve genetic variation in anxiety levels.
“you can retain a certain amount of variability in the genome for this variation in anxiety”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 30:37
Social media increases reputational vigilance by making actions constantly observable.
“social media has put us in something of a you know like a fishbowl because our actions are constantly being broadcast”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 31:22
Anxiety is fear directed toward anticipated future danger.
“anxiety is basically this, I think of it as fear for the future”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 32:39
Excessive anxiety can cause behavioral paralysis.
“if it's set too high, if you're constantly afraid about everything, then yes, you could have paralysis.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 33:19
Additional anxiety eventually produces diminishing returns because of opportunity costs.
“eventually you've diminishing returns”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 35:14
Human anxiety levels are probably calibrated reasonably well for ancestral environments.
“my default is to say evolution does a pretty good job so probably we have about the right amount of anxiety under again if especially if we were living in a normal everyday hunter-gatherer context”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 36:20
People can adjust their environments to match preferred stimulation levels.
“we have the luxury of manipulating our environments to accord with that.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 40:46
Panic motivates immediate action when severe danger appears imminent.
“this panic psychology seems to be, if I don't do something. Bad things are really going to happen.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 42:48
Aesthetic preferences favor cues correlated with fitness-relevant benefits.
“we tend to find aesthetically appealing. There's things that are correlated with stuff that would be kind of good for us.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 43:10
Gentle touch signals alliance and social safety.
“if someone is close enough to you that they can touch you, and chooses to do something which is gentle rather than hurtful, that is a really good indication that this is an ally of yours”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 45:37
People generally prefer moderate spiciness but reject excessive spiciness.
“Spiciness is like this. We like spicy. A little bit spicy is good. Oh, this is really spicy. But then once we get past that point, we're like, oh, that's too spicy.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 52:43
People prefer moderate spiciness but reject levels that become painful.
“A little bit spicy is good. Oh, this is really spicy. But then once we get past that point, we're like, oh, that's too spicy. It's just not fun. It's painful.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 52:45
Warmer, wetter regions with more parasites historically used more culinary spices.
“places that were warmer and wetter, so they had more parasites, used more spices in their food”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 53:26
Spices can inhibit pathogen growth in food.
“they inhibit the growth of those.”
Open the episode · 35 Emotions Explained By Evolutionary Psychology - Rob Kurzban - #1169Listen at 53:41
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.