Roy Baumeister (infamous willpower psychologist + NYT bestseller) is one of the world’s most prolific and influential psychologists. He has published 700-plus scientific works, including more than 40 books, and has received the highest award given by the Association for Psychological Science for his lifetime achievements. He is the guy who coined the term “negativity bias” and “decision fatigue”, and writes about why we do stupid things, the psychology of heartbreak and S&M. Roy also, somewhat notoriously, wrote the book Willpower, which saw life-hackers worldwide take up morning routines and inspired Barack Obama to wear the same two suits for the entirety of his presidency.

In this episode Roy, who’d been based out of Queensland until the pandemic took him back to the States, talks about all of the above and how it feeds into chocolate, radishes and the economic power of the female orgasm…and the tragedy of male sex drive.

If you want to catch up on the episode with Joseph Henrich talking about the WEIRD phenomenon of psychological studies, here it is.

Read the Pew Research about young people having less sex.

Buy Willpower: Rediscovering Our Greatest Strength

You can follow Roy Baumeister’s work here.

If you need to know a bit more about me… head to my "about" page

Subscribe to my Substack newsletter for more such conversation

Get your copy of my book, This One Wild and Precious Life

Let’s connect on Instagram! It’s where I interact the most

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The OpenAI Internet Browser Has Arrived: ChatGPT Atlas w/ Dave Blundin & Alexander Wissner-Gross | EP #203

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

Robots Everywhere: Physical Automation Forecast

The AI-powered Podcast Player