Science of Attraction, Compatibility & Romance | Dr. Paul Eastwick

**Paul Eastwick** (0:00)
When you look at who gets the right swipes, and who receives messages on the apps, it's the most popular people. I mean, folks have claimed that it's one of the most unequal markets in the world, but regular acquaintanceship is not nearly so dramatic. I don't think the influence of attractiveness ever goes away, right? There's always going to be an unlevel playing field to some extent.
But the more that people spend time together getting to know each other, it reduces some of those market forces that give the desirable people all the advantages.

**Andrew Huberman** (0:38)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Paul Eastwick, a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Today, we discuss the science of attraction, mate selection, and relationships. And I promise you, what you are going to hear will surprise you. Paul's research has discovered that much of what you've heard about how people select partners, date, form relationships, even break up or repartner, is simply wrong, at least when you look at the actual data. For example, his data show that both men and women, when given a choice, select partners that are younger than them. Yes, you heard that right, it's not just men, men and women equally select partners that are younger than them, given the choice. His data also challenged the idea that financial status is more important to women when looking for male partners. Turns out that when men are looking for female partners, on average, financial status is as important as it is when women are looking for men. And somewhat less surprising, his work shows that indeed, dating apps select for qualities that are not the ones that research shows builds lasting partnerships. But he also offers solutions to those that are using dating apps to try and find a partner. Today's discussion is not just about finding a partner. It's also about what solidifies and maintains healthy relationships over time. Again, what the data say about that. Things like physical intimacy being among the very strongest predictors of relationship stability, as well as both partners feeling that no matter who else might be attractive to them, that their partner has unique qualities that no one else can match. So whether you are in a relationship or not, looking for a relationship or not, today's discussion gets into social bonding of all sorts. And repeatedly throughout today's episode, both as it relates to single people looking for a partner, people who are already partnered, we talk about the importance of activities that are done with other people, could be other couples or other single people, et cetera.
And that this is critical for those wanting to meet a partner, and it turns out to be critical for maintaining a healthy long-term relationship. We'll talk about what the data say about that. Super interesting. So today is not just about the real data of how people rate attractiveness, find partners and the glue that keeps people happily together. It's about the real life data and the actions that anyone can take that help you build and sustain excellent romantic and other types of relationships. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Paul Eastwick. Dr. Paul Eastwick, welcome.

**Paul Eastwick** (3:27)
Thank you so much for having me.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:29)
A lot of theories out there, a lot of speculation about attraction, dating, romance, and relationships, which are separable things, of course. We'll talk about all of them. But one of the semi-dominant themes in the public narrative and indeed on many podcasts is anchoring to evolutionary theory, which to put it really coarsely, is a market-based theory. People will even say, I married up, and people put quantitative measures on people. They're a six, they're a seven, they're a 10 in this, but a four in that.
As a neuroscientist, I hear that, and I immediately go to, and again, this is just purely theoretical, oh, this sounds very limbic. This is very much of like the hypothalamus. This is very much like the kind of thing that you might expect under conditions of like low food availability, low mate availability, a lot of weapons in a few, and very few laws to regulate violence or something, meaning men will harm each other in order to get access to mates. Women will be deceptive. This is the whole idea.