Evolution doesn't want to lose its best tool if it can motivate you by making you happy. People who have the right motives, who work in ways that serve their geans, then they're going to have more children. And these things will spread throughout the jean pool. It's super duper common to find people wo get happy by being with close others or having really good food. But we're wired for survival and ction, not happiness in an evolutionary sense.
#371: Psychology professor Bill von Hippel explains the evolutionary science behind how we’re hardwired as humans.
We’re wired to be social, to connect, to communicate and cooperate.
We’re wired to want to learn and teach, to build a collective body of knowledge that stretches beyond what any single individual could ever learn in their lifetime.
We’re wired to feel surges of happiness that fade, so that we’re intrinsically motivated to keep repeating behaviors that lead to additional surges of happiness.
Once we understand the evolutionary science behind what makes us happy, Dr. von Hippel explains, we can apply this knowledge to making better decisions for our work, money and lives.
Bill von Hippel is a graduate of Yale University and the University of Michigan. He’s currently a psychology professor at the University of Queensland in Australia. He joins us to share his insights into the history and science of happiness.
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