I was so excited to talk with psychologist Paul Eastwick about love, attachment, marriage, masculinity, sexuality, and the stories modern culture keeps telling us about relationships that may simply not be true.
Drawing from his book Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection, our June It Has to Be Read. offering, Paul challenges the now-familiar idea that relationships are mostly about status, competition, dominance, “mate value,” or trying to land the best possible deal in a romantic marketplace. Instead, he argues that human beings evolved as bonding creatures. We are wired less for conquest than for attachment, caregiving, mutual support, and emotional connection.
Our conversation moves from online dating culture and the manosphere into deeper questions about what actually helps people stay together over time. I reflect on my own 56-year marriage, caregiving, raising children and grandchildren, and having to unlearn the rigid –and ridiculous– ideas about masculinity I inherited growing up in an authoritarian evangelical world. Paul explains how relationship science increasingly points away from simplistic gender stereotypes and toward something more human, complicated, and hopeful.
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LINKS
https://www.lovefactuallypod.com
Our June It Has to Be Read. offering,
Bonded by Evolution: The New Science of Love and Connection
on Bookshop
Shop the “It Has to Be Read.” Book Club List: https://bookshop.org/shop/frankschaeffer
Paul Eastwick is a Professor of Psychology at UC Davis, where he serves as the head of the Social-Personality Psychology program and the director of the Attraction and Relationships Research Laboratory. Thousands of undergraduate students have taken his course on attraction and close relationships, and he has published over one hundred scientific articles and chapters and won numerous early career awards. His research and writing has been featured in outlets like The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, and Scientific American Mind. He hosts the popular podcast Love Factually with his longtime colleague, Eli Finkel, where they analyze rom-coms and romantic dramas from the perspective of relationship science. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Cornell University and his PhD at Northwestern University.