Episode 26: Terrible Advice (with Paul Bloom)

Yoel and Mickey welcome Paul Bloom to the podcast, who is not only a returning guest but also the Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology at Yale University. We first give terrible advice on parenting. Does parenting affect happiness, relationship satisfaction, and meaning? Does parenting screw with prospective decision making because it leaves the decision maker utterly transformed? We next discuss perversity. Why do we enjoy doing transgressive things? Who is likely to be perverted? Is perversion ever a good strategy?

Bonus: How would Paul rate Yoel on a scale of 1 to 5?

Special Guest: Paul Bloom.

Links:

• Parenthood and Marital Satisfaction: A Meta‐Analytic Review - Twenge - 2003 - Journal of Marriage and Family - Wiley Online Library — This meta‐analysis finds that parents report lower marital satisfaction compared with nonparents
• Long-term effects of pregnancy and childbirth on sleep satisfaction and duration of first-time and experienced mothers and fathers. - PubMed - NCBI — Following the sharp decline in sleep satisfaction and duration in the first months postpartum, neither mothers' nor fathers' sleep fully recovers to prepregnancy levels up to 6 years after the birth of their first child.
• In Defense of Parenthood: Children Are Associated With More Joy Than Misery - S. Katherine Nelson, Kostadin Kushlev, Tammy English, Elizabeth W. Dunn, Sonja Lyubomirsky, 2013 — The results indicate that, contrary to previous reports, parents (and especially fathers) report relatively higher levels of happiness, positive emotion, and meaning in life than do nonparents.
• A Reassessment of the Defense of Parenthood — In this Commentary, we report a reanalysis of the data, which suggests that it is premature to abandon the idea that children reduce happiness
• WHAT YOU CAN’T EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING — It seems natural to choose whether to have a child by reflecting on what it would be like to have one. I argue that choosing on this basis is not rational, raising general questions about our ordinary conception of how to make this life-changing decision.
• Idealizing Parenthood to Rationalize Parental Investments - Richard P. Eibach, Steven E. Mock, 2011 — Although raising children has largely negative effects on parents’ emotional well-being, parenthood is often idealized as a uniquely emotionally rewarding role.
• Break Music: St.Vincent - Smoking Section
• The Strange Appeal of Perverse Actions — Why do we enjoy doing things for no good reason?