Category Archives: Evolutionary Psychology

Sustainability and mating

on October 12, 2022 in Evolutionary Psychology, Fitness, Nature

A friend told me he thought of me and my sustainability leadership work with concern while reading the book The Mating Mind. He described it as describing the implications and effects of sexual selection in evolution. He started with the example of peacocks having elaborate tails. Sexual selection suggests that the tails that make them easy targets for predators indicate all its other genes are fit, so a potential mate[…] Keep reading →

How we’re like gorillas with kids

on December 9, 2021 in Evolutionary Psychology, Nature

You know how male gorillas kill babies from other fathers? As written here, “silverbacks have been observed to deliberately kill babies—especially in mountain gorillas. Usually this is the case after a female transferred to another male together with her baby or if a new leading male takes over. This behaviour, called infanticide, is interpreted as a means to shorten the time until the baby’s mother becomes fertile again and the[…] Keep reading →

Superman and picking up garbage

on July 30, 2020 in Art, Creativity, Events, Evolutionary Psychology

As you probably know, I pick up at least a piece of litter every day from the ground and put it in a trash can. I’m not reducing the amount of trash, but at least saving some from reaching the ocean. More importantly, I’m developing skills, experiences, and beliefs about changing culture around trash. Since restaurants and bars started serving outdoors on mostly single-use plastic, the amount of litter has[…] Keep reading →

A catalog of inner monologue thoughts

on May 3, 2017 in Awareness, Evolutionary Psychology, Exercises

If you pay attention to your inner monologue, as the exercise I call The Most Effective Self-Awareness Exercise I Know leads you to, you’ll notice patterns. Songs get stuck in your head. You judge people. You judge yourself. You try to figure out the best order to do things in. You play out arguments you might have with others. Sound familiar? Years ago I had the idea to catalog the[…] Keep reading →

Cockroaches and equality

on September 30, 2015 in Education, Entrepreneurship, Evolutionary Psychology, Stories

A couple weeks ago I was in NYU’s “eLab,” a space that promotes entrepreneurship. Besides a few administrators who work there, it’s mostly students there, mainly connected with tech startups. That morning there weren’t many people there. I sat on a couch near the entrance and the staircase downstairs. Twenty or thirty feet away, across the open meeting area to my left, a few students worked on their laptops in[…] Keep reading →

Language, communication, evolutionary psychology, and leadership

on August 1, 2015 in Awareness, Evolutionary Psychology, Leadership, Models, Nature

A client who knows I’ve applied a lot from evolutionary psychology to leadership and self-awareness wrote: What’s your opinion of the theory that language serves primarily as persuasion? In its raw form, I’m currently telling you that you are an authority by asking a question. And that sentence might seem like it’s an authoritative statement, but instead it is clarifying my question, which in its clarification is a neediness to[…] Keep reading →

Calling emotions negative is like calling fire or pain negative

on March 19, 2015 in Awareness, Evolutionary Psychology, Nature, Nonjudgment, Perception

People describe anger, depression, and many other emotions as negative or bad, as if they don’t want them in their lives. They’re useful! They motivate you to change what causes them, generally things in your environments and beliefs. What causes them is conflict between yourself and others, internal conflict, and wanting the world to change, mainly. As long as conflict exists, which is forever since no one shares your interests[…] Keep reading →

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