In short
How unconscious drives, habits, and context shape decisions people believe they could control—especially around temptation, dieting, and sexual infidelity. The episode argues that people often rationalize their choices after the fact and that changing the environment is more effective than relying on willpower.
Guest backgrounds
Glenn Hutchinson is a clinical psychologist and author who studies decision-making and behavior change. He references research by Timothy Wilson (Princeton/Nobel; “Thinking Fast and Slow”) and Timothy Wilson & Richard Nisbett (“Telling More Than We Can Know”), plus Daniel Kahneman, Jonathan Haidt, and Helen Fisher.
Key claims
Conscious explanations are often deceptive; urges come from unconscious systems (e.g., hunger, sex drive, attachment). Willpower fails over time because behavior becomes automated. People vary in how strongly reward/risk systems activate, so temptation differs by person. Motivated reasoning and biased assimilation operate outside awareness. For prevention, alter environments and reduce exposure to triggers.
Notable examples
GLP-1 weight-loss meds reducing food urges; dieting advice to remove ice cream; “infant left in the backseat” due to routine/autopilot; a case of an advertising executive whose “marketing” frame overrides her home values; a high-sex-partners-to-marriage infidelity example; lab studies linking brain reward activation to later overeating/weight gain.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOUnderstanding Unconscious Decision-Making
1:13 to 1:48
Explore how our unconscious mind influences decisions and urges.
“you have no idea on Earth why you did it.”
The Complexity of Infidelity
1:48 to 3:16
Delve into why good people may cheat, including psychological factors.
“You've studied people who cheat on their partners that they genuinely love, not liars or sociopaths, but good people.”
The Struggles of Willpower and Temptation
3:16 to 6:32
Discuss the challenges of resisting temptation and the role of willpower.
“What's going on in these moments where so many of us feel like, hey, I have the executive function.”
Understanding Behavioral Change
6:32 to 14:01
Examine the difficulties people face when trying to change their behavior.
“And this was a point that Daniel Kahneman made very often before the GLP ones came out.”
Understanding Unconscious Influences on Behavior
14:01 to 18:48
Explore how unconscious processes vary among individuals and affect behaviors like infidelity.
“They're in a bad mood and that's this thing they've tried to change and they just can't.”
The Complexities of Infidelity
19:37 to 25:58
Discuss the emotional connections that can lead to infidelity beyond just physical attraction.
“Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when the network is busy.”
Exploring the Need for Attractiveness
28:00 to 28:40
Discusses the psychological challenges of needing validation through attraction.
“But they still had this just intense need to feel attractive.”
Understanding Motivated Reasoning
30:41 to 35:06
Delves into the concept of motivated reasoning and how unconscious processes shape our beliefs.
“So Timothy Wilson, a famous social psychologist who wrote one of the most, he and Richard Nisbet wrote one of the most famous papers in the history of psychology in 1977 called Telling More Than We Can Know.”
Habits and Autopilot Behavior
35:06 to 37:16
Examines how routines and autopilot behavior can lead to dangerous situations.
“Yeah, I think some of these beliefs feel good.”
The Disconnect Between Attitude and Behavior
37:16 to 42:00
Explores how love and positive attitudes may not always translate into actions due to activation issues.
“The autopilot saves calories, saves processing power.”
Show all 15 chapters
Understanding Attitudes and Activation
42:00 to 45:56
Explore how attitudes towards parenting and work can conflict based on context.
“And so this person has a very positive attitude toward their child.”
The Unconscious Mind and Relationships
45:56 to 51:24
Learn about the dynamics of unconscious behavior and its impact on relationships.
“So this metaphor is one that I borrowed from Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist who's done a lot of work, about with kids and smartphones and stuff like that.”
The Complexity of Love
51:24 to 56:03
Discover the different systems in our brain that influence sexual and romantic behavior.
“relationship and occasionally you could say it was a better than ever was before because it motivates them to just be more intimate emotionally and more transparent with one another thereafter.”
Understanding Infidelity: Emotional vs. Opportunistic
56:03 to 1:02:15
Explore the differing motivations behind infidelity and the surprising dynamics of relationships.
“Now, a lot of men and women both say, it's more men than women, but a lot of both of the sexes say that they were really happy with their marriage when they had an affair.”
Understanding Infidelity: Emotional vs. Opportunistic
1:02:40 to 1:03:08
Explore the differing motivations behind infidelity and the surprising dynamics of relationships.
“The Devil Wears Prada 2 is now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Johnny:If you've been thinking about starting a business, the hardest part isn't the idea. It's getting everything else set up. That's exactly what Shopify solves. Everything you need is already there from day one. Launch your store in a few steps. Shopify's AI site builder handles the design. Their sidekick AI walks you through the whole process, so you're not figuring it out alone. ShopPay makes checkout easy. People actually complete the purchase instead of dropping off at the last second. Whether you're launching something new or you already have a business and need a better platform, Shopify handles the backend so you can focus on the work.
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0:38Johnny:That's shopify.com slash charm. Go start something. Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu is now streaming on Disney+. What are you waiting for? Hop on. The must-see galactic adventure comes home on Disney+. This is the way. Our only chance is to work together. I like this kid. Always wear your seatbelt. Star Wars The Mandalorian and Grogu, now streaming on Disney+. Read PG-13. And they have a million experiments showing that you think you know why you did it, you have no idea on Earth why you did it. they did all these experiments and and and also wrote about ones that other people had done where the experimenters you know they manipulate some aspect of the environment they watch how people's decisions change and then they ask people why they did what they did and they give some answer it has absolutely nothing to do with what the experimenter knows was the reason that they did it
1:47Johnny:welcome to the show it's great to have you Thank you for having me. Now, walk me through this. You've studied people who cheat on their partners that they genuinely love, not liars or sociopaths, but good people. What's going on inside their head the 10 seconds before they make that choice? Wow. Well, that differs so much based on each individual case. I think maybe you're suggesting that sometimes it's impulsive and sometimes it kind of is. I mean, a person, particularly if they're drinking and they're in a situation where they're really tempted, then maybe not a whole lot goes on in their heads, not as much as we would want to go on in their heads.
2:30But other times people, you know, have, they're very aware of what they're doing and they just have felt so tempted for so long that they eventually give in. Their executive function is not up to saying no at that point in time.
2:50Johnny:So, obviously, it is a scarlet letter in our society. It is an act that's looked very badly upon. It wrecks lives, wrecks relationships. But good people do it. People who are honest, people who are moral, people who outside looking in, you would think, would never put themselves in that situation or make that choice. But they are also responsible in the situation. What's going on in these moments where so many of us feel like, hey, I have the executive function. I know better than to give in to temptation. Yeah, well, I think one of the really interesting things is that there are some people, this is not everyone, but there is a subgroup of people who experience chronic urges that are, to them it's almost as if there's an alien that is creating these urges, right?
3:45So they have an unconscious mind that is generating desires, intense desires and urges on a frequent and chronic basis. And yet they, their conscious self, they is very upstanding. They genuinely hold maybe even to very conservative values. And so they see themselves one way and normally they live according to that. but they just feel tempted so chronically that it's very distressing to these individuals. And I think for them, sometimes eventually they give in. You know, the fact is we all feel like we should be able to say no and we can. But the problem is that what the research also shows is that when we are facing a strong temptation that is right before us, that none of us are good at consistently saying no over time.
4:49Okay? So, if brute force suppression of your desires is something that you might pull off every now and then, but not over and over, over time. So this is why people who start diets, you know, very often find themselves, you know, not living up to what they planned. They're still eating the ice cream late at night. And it's because they have these urges, and those urges are very, very powerful. Again, we feel like we should be able to say no. Sometimes we can, but not really over time. And I think the release of the GLP-1 medications lately has really made this point very starkly. So we had millions of people who for years tried to lose weight and they just couldn't do it.
5:39They couldn't stick to their diet or they would stick to it for a while. They'd lose weight and then they would gain it all back, right? And what was, you know, therapists had all kind of theories about why they overate. Some said, well, it's low self-esteem or whatever. But now the GLP-1s, what the GLP-1s do is they turn down the urges that come from that part of your unconscious mind that tells you to eat. And so as soon as these people got on these medications and it turned down those urges, all of a sudden they were actually able to stop eating and they lost weight. And so I think it's a good illustration of the way that we believe we should be able to say no, and we can.
6:23And the person on the diet sometimes does say no, but over time we're not able to do it consistently enough. And this was a point that Daniel Kahneman made very often before the GLP ones came out. He's been deaf for a couple of years, but he was a famous professor at Princeton and Nobel Laureate and wrote the book Thinking Fast and Slow. That was a really great book. And what he said is, you know, our conscious mind is able to evaluate and say no to many of the suggestions or urges that come from our unconscious mind. We do have the ability to do that. But he emphasized the fact that that is not what usually happens, that we are really inclined to go along with the suggestions that come from our unconscious mind and that those suggestions are, in effect, our default behaviors.
7:23So if you are confronted with temptation over and over and over, you're going to fail sometimes.
7:31Johnny:Yeah, I think what we're talking about here is willpower. and many of us just feel like this is a willpower scenario. Like you should have enough willpower to never, in the face of any temptation, eat the ice cream if you're dieting or do something worse to your relationship or the people you love. And what's actually happening here is it's not the conscious act. There are all of these forces that are working against us unconsciously. So if you can unpack what those forces are that are this unconscious mashup that's leading to this urge that for the rational person who feels they have a great willpower and they have upstanding character they will consciously say well i would never do that i i would never give into that temptation right right well i think one of the things that's so fascinating one of the themes that that i have that runs throughout my book is just how deceptive uh our uh conscious experience is we we feel like all kinds of things are true that that actually are not the not the the way things really happen, right?
8:33We feel like we understand how we make decisions and it turns out the way they come about is just simply quite different than we believe that they are. So I guess to answer your question there is that, you know, our brains evolved over eons and we are ancestors in the very distant past, long before we were human. And, you know, I'm talking about neural networks that are like sex drive and attachment and hunger and thirst, all kinds of systems that were required to keep our ancestors alive. And so those evolved. And then much, much later, we evolved a cerebral cortex and the conscious self that we have today.
9:22And there is some integration, to be sure. But the fact is, is that most of our desires, our passions, the things that interest us, the things that motivate us, they come from our unconscious mind, right? We might know what it is that we're attracted to. That could be sex. We might know that we're attracted to people who look a certain way. Or we might know that we're attracted to people with a certain personality characteristic. Or we might know that I really want to eat that entire box of cookies. or we might know, I want to go get drunk. But we don't know why. We cannot introspect and look at the processes that are causing us to want to do that thing and not some other thing.
10:07And so that's something that we often fail to appreciate. And so the way it works is that these very ancient systems are triggered by external circumstances. Well, it can be by internal circumstances too. These systems get triggered. They get activated. We don't know that they're activated. They're running in the background in our minds. And once they reach a certain level of activation, they produce an urge to do a certain kind of thing that they evolved to make us do. And so that is where the urges come from. And as they pop into our conscious mind, and most of the time we simply act on them, and it doesn't do any harm.
10:53It's not some big deal, right? Oh, I grabbed a bag of cookies and I ate them. You know, okay, so what? Okay, so I ate the cookies. Who cares? But it's really the same thing. So this urge is coming from deep down. We don't see it coming oftentimes. And our conscious self, it feels like we should just be able to say no. But there is just a huge mountain of evidence that says we're not really nearly as capable of saying no on a consistent basis as we believe that we are.
11:28Johnny:let's unpack some of that evidence because i think so many of our audience members are saying that's not me i'm a top performer i have really strong willpower and i can combat all of those urges well i i guess i would challenge the the people i mean the fact is i think everyone is in touch with the fact that they've tried self-improvement right i don't think i've ever met anyone who didn't get frustrated by that. Changing your behavior is hard, right? I mean, it's like, and I work with a lot of clients who struggle with this. Sometimes changing a behavior, it's like trying to change a 30-year-old golf swing, right?
12:11When we do something over and over, our unconscious mind kind of takes it over and automates it. And that makes it very powerful. and you know if it's if that in the kind of behavior I'm talking about could be anything and it can even include a thinking pattern so sometimes a person develops a habit that when they're in a situation where they doubt their ability they get a whole bunch of negative thoughts about themselves that becomes an automatic thing so every time they go into a situation where they doubt themselves they get flooded with their consciousness gets flooded with these negative thoughts.
12:50So, but any kind of behavior can, looking at pornography, I mean, anything can become something that is automatic in a certain situation. And what most people have experienced is how difficult it is to change these behaviors. If you are, if you have easy access to, well, if you have easy access to the pornography, you're probably going to start looking at pornographies, right? It goes back to the dieting thing. If you have easy access to ice cream, well, you're going to eat it. And that's why before the GLP-1 meds in particular, when people were trying to lose weight, we said, you can't buy the ice cream.
13:34If it's in your house and you get the urge, you are going to eat it because everybody does. And so the fact, and, you know, some people may, oh, I don't do that. Okay. Well, there's something else then that tempts you, right? Because what tempts me is a little different than what tempts you and what tempts somebody else. Some people, the thing that they're trying to change is the way they talk to their kids. They get home at night and their kids start racing around and doing stuff and they find themselves just not being nice, right? They're in a bad mood and that's this thing they've tried to change and they just can't.
14:07They change it for a while and then as soon as they stop paying attention to that thing, they go right back to the old ways. So I think all of us have, if we're being honest with ourselves, we know how hard it is to change certain behaviors. And I think that if you are, and going back to sort of the infidelity thing, I think that it's just simply much harder for some people than others. And the reason for that is that we're all different. And in the same way that some people that we vary in terms of height and weight and intelligence, every one of the unconscious or hidden processes in the human brain varies a little bit from person to person.
14:52So if you take it, you could pick any of them, but say sex drive, for some people, that system gets activated easier than it does in other people. For some people, that system produces urges that are stronger than it does in other people. And for some people, once that system gets activated, that activation lasts a long time, whereas for other people, it might go away very quickly. So there are many systems that influence our romantic and sexual behavior. And each one of those systems is a little bit different from person to person. So what that means necessarily is that some people are just simply destined to experience a lot more temptation than others.
15:34There are a couple of other ways in which our unconscious minds vary that I think are relevant here too, that people should think about. So some people's unconscious minds are very oriented toward reward and other people's unconscious minds are very oriented toward risk. So some people's unconscious minds will tend to make suggestions that they go for it and go after this reward, even if that puts them in great danger or might destroy their relationship. Other people's unconscious minds will urge them to be very cautious even if that means they have to give up rewards that would be very valuable.
16:14So just one more example here of a way that our unconscious minds vary that make it so different. So each of us, we get a different amount of charge or reward out of each different kind of stimulus we might encounter. So in studies, when we bring people into the lab one at a time and show them a video or just pictures of, say, desserts or lobsters and other delicious things, on brain imaging, some people simply get, you see a lot more activation in reward networks in response to those stimuli than the other people get. The same thing happens when you bring people in and show them sex-related stimuli, pictures of sex or something related to that.
17:00And in studies where they have followed these people for six months later, what they find is that the people who got more activation in response to the foods, well, they ate more food over the next six months and they gained more weight. and the people who got more activation in response to the sexual stimuli, they had more sex over the next six months. So these things are deep, they're powerful, and we do underestimate them. And that is not to say that we should excuse the behavior. It is to say that we should get smarter about how we try to prevent it. we are going to have more success if we try to alter our environment than we are if we try to succeed in refraining from behaviors just by this, you know, by sheer willpower.
17:57So what you want to do is not have the cookies around so that you don't start thinking about them and or even you do think about them, they're harder to get to. If you are a guy who has had had many sex partners and you're now married, you want to stay away from situations that are going to remind you of what it was like to go out and look for a one night stand. You want to stay away from situations that are going to trigger that desire inside of you. And you most especially want to stay away from situations where you're actually going to have the opportunity to do that. So you have to, the way we should deal with it is by dealing with the environment way ahead of time.
18:37Because when we are face to face with the stimulus that really is the one we like, whatever that happens to be, our real power is not as great as we think it should be.
18:48Johnny:All right. Real talk. What are you paying for wireless right now? Whatever it is, I guarantee you're overpaying. That's the game these big carriers play. They hook you in with a deal and then the bill quietly climbs every few months. Mint Mobile doesn't do that. All of their plans right now are$15 a month, even unlimited. 15 bucks, high speed data, unlimited talk and tax on the T-Mobile 5G network. And you don't even have to give up your phone or number. You bring both. No monthly bill either. You pick a three, six, or 12-month plan up front. That's it. There's no catch. Mint Mobile just took what's wrong with wireless and fixed it.
19:25Johnny:Get your new wireless plan for just$15 a month at mintmobile.com. That's mintmobile.com. Cut your wireless bill to$15 a month. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for 12 months required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when the network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot. Capable device required. Availability speed and coverage varies. See mittmobile.com. Here's something we learned building the art of charm. You cannot be the expert at everything. We found marketing support and dev talent on Upwork.
20:09Things we were not experts at, taken off our blade by people who are.
20:14Johnny:We've shipped projects faster, gotten more traffic to our website, and even freed up our time for the work that only we can do. That's what Upwork does. It connects you with specialists, software development, marketing, design, AI implementation, whatever your business needs. Over 170 ,000 freelancers with five-star ratings. Browse profiles, review past work, and hire with confidence. There's no full-time commitment required. Post your job for free right now at Upwork.com. That's U-P-W-O-R-K.com. Go post your job. Well, let's unpack that further because it sounds on first read then that maybe if we want to be in a committed monogamous relationship, it's not good to have a partner with high sex drive.
21:06Johnny:But I'm assuming it's not just high sex drive that leads to infidelity. I'm assuming there are other reasons that people will step out. Right, right. So the other, right. And many a fair, what happens the way that many of them happen is that what the person really wants is it's not sex, but it may be just a great, a strong emotional connection, right? And so they meet somebody that they just really like. And oftentimes this one is really insidious, right? You don't think you're doing anything bad. You are, you just really hit it off with this person. They work near it with you and you, you know, this unconscious part of your mind is just, and you don't even really think about it.
21:51It's just driving you every day to go say hello and maybe have coffee. And it just builds from there, right? And people can really get into trouble, that is develop a really strong emotional connection that way and be deep in the woods before they realize it.
22:09Johnny:Yeah, are there other paths to this? I think there are certainly many people who have high sex drive and that alone does not drive them to infidelity. Oh, absolutely. There's a combination of things that lead to this. Yeah, there's so many factors that come into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So there are, one of the risk factors that we know for sexual infidelity, it's not the only one, but it seems to kind of fit what you're talking about here, is having had lots of sex partners before you get married or before you get into a committed relationship. and it makes a lot of sense here, right?
22:52Because if you go out and you, so in my book, I talk about this guy. I give a really good example of this. He was just, he was sort of a cliche, but there are a lot of guys like him. He was a really good looking guy. He was a really smart guy, a really good athlete. And he, from the time he was about 16 on, he just had many sex partners. Nobody ever criticized him for it because he wasn't in a serious relationship with anybody else. He had a great time. It just, it became something that was very close to his self-image, right? It made him feel good about himself that women wanted him this way.
23:33And he developed what psychologists would call a very well-elaborated concept. And I don't know what you would call it, just, you know, sexual fun or something like that. But it really amounted to a mindset, right? And so for him, he was unfaithful years later when he met the woman he would ultimately marry. And it happened when he was away from her and was on the West Coast working with some colleagues. and they had a big victory. They were attorneys and had a big victory and they went out celebrating. And they were out while they were partying. This beautiful woman just kind of came up and attached herself to this guy the way that had happened since he was 16.
24:21And that's how he got in trouble the first time. And it's not to excuse it, but I think that we make a mistake when we underestimate the power of these unconscious forces. We get into a certain mindset and we can be remarkably blind to things that we think you can't possibly forget about or fail to think about and appreciate your partner if you love them under these circumstances. And I don't know whether he totally wasn't thinking about his, at that time they weren't married, his girlfriend or not. But you can see that for him it was just such a natural and easy thing. And statistically, we know that what I'm saying is true because it is a fact that people who have a lot of sex partners before they get married, they are more likely to have affairs.
25:20So having a high sex drive by itself doesn't mean that you're going to cheat. It's one risk factor that you've got to look out for. But if you're married and you are in a good relationship, yeah, most people who have a high sex drive, they don't cheat.
25:39Johnny:Yeah, so it goes both ways. It sounds like there's a validation piece to that example of having other partners validate his self-esteem and his worth regardless of who he's partnered with. Yeah. And I see this in some very different kinds of cases where, and this is an interesting one. So some people have, they maybe did not have much success when they were younger dating. Maybe they were ostracized. And I've had two cases in particular that come to mind. And they grew up to be very successful people. And one of them, you know, in high school, he was this nerdy musician in the band. And he grew up to be a really good-looking, successful performance artist.
26:34And he loved his wife. He really did. But he, you know, women would come up to him all the time. And after his performances. And he periodically, for a time, gave into these things. He felt terribly guilty and eventually stopped doing that. But it was an incredible struggle for him. Now, I think for him and for the other guy I had in mind, the attention of other women was particularly powerful. The first guy, yeah, it was part of his self-image, but he had a good self-image. He wasn't struggling with self-doubt. The musician guy and the other one that I was telling you about, they were plagued by self-doubt because they had been rejected so much when they were teenagers and in college.
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27:28And they felt so badly about themselves. Getting attention from an attractive woman, which happened later in their lives, that was just like this magic elixir, right? And it was this thing that just quieted all of the self-criticism inside their heads. These guys, you know, they were married and they loved their wives. And what they told me was they thought that, well, once I get married and I have somebody I love, I'll feel better about myself and I won't need that. But it didn't work out that way, right? I mean, they did love their wives. That did help some. But they still had this just intense need to feel attractive.
28:15And if attractive women showed interest in them, it just was this charge, this incredibly exciting experience. So it became something that was a real challenge for them. and not because they were the arrogant, cliche kind of guy, but because they had exactly the opposite experience when they were in high school.
28:38Johnny:All right, real talk. What are you paying for wireless right now? Whatever it is, I guarantee you're overpaying. That's the game these big carriers play. They hook you in with a deal and then the bill quietly climbs every few months. Mint Mobile doesn't do that. All of their plans right now are$15 a month, even unlimited. $15 high-speed data, unlimited talk and text on the T-Mobile 5G network. And you don't even have to give up your phone or number. You bring both. No monthly bill either. You pick a 3-, 6-, or 12-month plan up front. That's it. There's no catch. Mint Mobile just took what's wrong with wireless and fixed it.
29:15Johnny:Get your new wireless plan for just$15 a month at mintmobile.com. That's mintmobile.com. slash charm. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month. Upfront payment of$45 for three months, $90 for six months, or$180 for 12 months required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when the network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot. Capable device required. Availability speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Here's something we learned building the art of charm. You cannot be the expert at everything. We found marketing support and dev talent on Upwork.
29:59Things we were not experts at, taken off our blade by people who are.
30:04Johnny:We've shipped projects faster, gotten more traffic to our website, and even freed up our time for the work that only we can do. That's what Upwork does it connects you with specialists software development marketing design ai implementation whatever your business needs over a hundred and seventy thousand freelancers with five-star ratings you browse profiles review past work and hire with confidence there's no full-time commitment required post your job for free right now at upwork.com that's upwork.com Go post your job.
31:11Johnny:that nothing insidious happened here. Oh, yeah, yeah. So Timothy Wilson, a famous social psychologist who wrote one of the most, he and Richard Nisbet wrote one of the most famous papers in the history of psychology in 1977 called Telling More Than We Can Know. And later, Timothy Wilson wrote a book called Strangers to Ourselves. And what they found and demonstrated was the fact that we readily come up with explanations for our behavior. It's just we don't even have to think about it most of the time. And we believe what we say. And they have a million experiments showing that you think you know why you did it, you have no idea on earth why you did it.
31:57They did all these experiments and also wrote about ones that other people had done where the experimenters, you know, they manipulate some aspect of the environment. They watch how people's decisions change, and then they ask people why they did what they did, and they give some answer. It has absolutely nothing to do with what the experimenter knows was the reason that they did it. And so it really came, this is another one of the huge shifts that's occurred in the way that, in the way scientific psychologists see human beings in the last 50 years. We just don't know ourselves nearly as well as we think we do.
32:35And then you raised another point a minute ago, which was sort of the rationalization. And so motivated reasoning is kind of the underlying phenomenon that allows us to rationalize. And so a lot of people probably think that motivated reasoning is something that a person does consciously and intentionally. But what the science shows is that most of what happens in motivated reasoning involves processes that are occurring outside of our awareness. And so, for example, if you are motivated to do something or to believe a certain position or viewpoint, you don't know it, but your unconscious mind really takes charge of your attention.
33:27and it brings to your attention all the facts that appear to be consistent with it, and it causes you to overlook the things that are not consistent with it. There's another phenomenon that's unconscious called biased assimilation, and that is that if you're considering some big issue like am I a good spouse or whatever, there's probably a huge body of information that's potentially relevant. it. And as you look at each individual shard of information in that, on an unconscious level, we have an emotional reaction to each little piece of information. And that unconscious emotional reaction is positive if it seems to support what we want and negative if it seems to not support it.
34:13And that causes us to either accept that piece of information or toss it out. And so you can imagine that by the time you get through a huge body of information and develop your ultimate position on this topic, you have an incredibly biased, warped perspective, and you have no idea that it is. And so these are the kinds of phenomena that go on and sort of feed into what we experience as what is sometimes conscious rationalization, right? So all of this motivated reasoning has sort of provided the fuel and the grist, the information that our conscious self can kind of take and mold it even further into something that justifies our actions.
35:02And some of it might be conscious, but a whole lot more of it than we realize happened unconsciously.
35:09Johnny:Yeah, I think some of these beliefs feel good. Like character determines behavior. But I know there's like so many interesting studies around this, Like thinking about judges who by character would say, I'm very fair and honest and I weigh both sides. But in a situation where they're hangry and they haven't eaten, they're more likely to make the wrong decision or be unjust. Or if we're in a hurry, slight perturbances in our schedule will shift entirely all of our values and our behaviors in ways that I don't think we recognize influence us. You're exactly right. And to me, the starkest and most bewildering example that a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their brains around is something that just happened in Atlanta again a few weeks ago.
35:56And that is that sometimes people leave their infant in the backseat on a summer day and the kid dies. And usually what happens here in a lot of these cases, what happens is that the person, the adult was not used to taking their kid to daycare. That was not part of their routine. And so, but that day, that's what they were supposed to do. And so this person gets in the car with their kid. They, you know, they just go on automatic pilot. They start listening to music or they start thinking about some presentation they got to do at work. And they never think about their kid again. And they just go to work and get out of the car and go in their office like they do every day.
36:39You know, we believe that, oh, if you love your kid, surely you'll think about them. It's just not how it works. And so what the people who have studied this, you know, counsel people is, if you are going to do that, if you're taking your kid to work and that's not part of your routine, you should put your briefcase in the back seat because your unconscious mind is going to remind you to get your briefcase because that's part of your routine every day. But your child, no matter how much you love them, is not part of that routine. And your unconscious mind simply may not remind you of them.
37:15Johnny:Yeah, I think, again, it's going back to the cost savings that our brain is doing by not having to run through all of these other processes. The autopilot saves calories, saves processing power. And in certain moments, we can then access it. But for many of us, we're running on stacks and stacks of autopilot that we're not even recognizing. And it's happened to me. Like, I'll hop in the car and I know every morning that I go to the same gym. But this morning I grabbed my wife and we're going to get coffee before we go to the gym. And she's asking, why are you turning left? We're supposed to go right.
37:49Johnny:And it's just like, oh. Well, because I always go left. I don't even think about, oh, the coffee. Oh, yeah, we're getting coffee. And we laugh about it. But there are so many of these autopilot responses that we're running on day to day. Yeah, I think the one you mentioned is a great illustration, and that is driving without paying attention. I mean, because to me what's fascinating is if you pause and you think about everything that your brain has to do for you to drive without paying attention. I mean, your brain has to track all the other cars on the road. It has to look out for pedestrians and bicycles and listen for horns and sirens.
38:26It has to integrate all this information, make decisions about what to do, speed up, slow down, turn right. you know, change lines, whatever. And it's doing all of this without your conscious self at all. And to me, that's a really good demonstration of, you know, your unconscious mind is pretty powerful and we really underestimate it.
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40:53Johnny:So, I think we also link a lot of our actions to love. So, I act in a certain way because I love you. The intent is there and therefore my behavior is linked to my attitude. But the science actually says that's not how our brain works. Well, yeah. I think what you're getting at, and you're right, the science says that a lot of times we engage in behavior that's not consistent with our attitude. Right. But I think that it's not that we're always going to act in a way, and I know you're not saying this, but it's not that our attitude never influences our behavior. What matters is, does the attitude get activated in the moment when we need it to get activated, right?
41:42And the problem is that sometimes the concept that we need, that we hold the attitude about, that we need to get activated, just doesn't get activated. And that's what happens when people leave their child in the back seat, right? So love is really an attitude. And so this person has a very positive attitude toward their child. And the problem is that the concept of their child doesn't get activated, so neither does the attitude toward the child. And that's why they just walk off like the kid's not there. But if there was anything that reminded them of the child, well, they would instantly go running back to the car and make sure their kid was okay and take them to safety, right?
42:25And so the problem, the reason that we so frequently engage in behaviors that are inconsistent with our attitude, or I should say it's one of the reasons, is that the concept and attitude that are relevant for the moment simply don't get activated. So I'd love to unpack. Go ahead. Go ahead.
42:48Johnny:You can finish that thought. Oh, I was just going to say, sometimes the problem is which attitude gets activated. So sometimes there is a whole realm of research about people acting in ways that violate their values in certain situations and they don't realize it. And that arises from something that's very interesting. And it is the fact that every single object in the world and every behavior can be categorized in multiple different ways, right? And so an example of this that I give in the book is a woman named Madeline. I may have her name, of course, but she's a very successful advertising executive.
43:27She's really creative. She comes up with these great ads that motivate people to buy lots of snack food that is not good for them. She regards her work as great marketing. That is, when she's at work, that's the hat she's wearing. She's been rewarded for seeing it that way, and that is how she sees it, and she's proud of it. Well, Madeline also has a 10-year-old daughter. And when Madeline is at home helping her daughter and her daughter's friends organize and publicize a bake sale, she's not wearing that hat. She doesn't have the concept of great marketing activated in her head. And she would never dream of suggesting to her daughter that they mislead people about the nutritional value of the food that they're selling.
44:13If she did, if anybody suggested that, she would think that was horrible. She would think like, well, that's so dishonest and deceitful. But in reality, that's exactly what she does all day, every day at work. But the fact that when she's at work, she is viewing it through this lens of great marketing. It's because this category, this concept is activated in her head and it serves as a lens. And it causes her to not recognize that her behavior at work is really in conflict with the values that she maintains. in the rest of her life.
44:50Johnny:Yeah, that's why I think frame is so important to understand. And in certain contexts, we can view something entirely differently than we would, and especially when we're around our peers. So there's the peer pressure then of being at work and everyone being in that frame of this is great marketing. It's even harder for her to say, well, wait a second, we're pushing sugar to kids. It's easier to go along with the group and be like, yeah, this actually is and sales are up, so this message is working. Absolutely, that's right, yeah. I'm in it now. And we all do this in the world. Let's talk about the conscious and unconscious mind and what's going on there.
45:33Johnny:Because I think now we're at a point where the audience is like, okay, I get it. There are these forces. But I think the visualization of the elephant and the rider really contextualize it in a way that you can understand what we're up against here. because I think we might be viewing it after listening. Oh, these are equal forces and I just have to lean a bit more into the conscious. And now I understand the unconscious, but I'm in more control than I might realize. Yeah, absolutely. So this metaphor is one that I borrowed from Jonathan Haidt, social psychologist who's done a lot of work, about with kids and smartphones and stuff like that.
46:06But he came up with this metaphor to represent the relationship between a person's unconscious mind, the elephant, and their conscious self, which is a person on the elephant's back. And it's intended to communicate to us what we are up against, as you said. It's not that we can't ever influence the elephant at all, but we're really foolish if we think that our conscious self is a match for our unconscious mind. And again, we see, where do you want evidence for that? Well, look at the GLP-1 meds. To me, it's just a really good crystallization of what we are. It exemplifies what we face in so many areas of our life when we're trying to change our behavior or we feel that we should be able to do something differently.
46:59And yet we keep getting pulled back into the old ways. So I really appreciate Height's metaphor. It's the reason I used it.
47:09Johnny:So with all of this, how should we be thinking about this? because it is, for many of us, monogamy, a committed relationship is the goal. And being with a partner who does not stray is a big part of that. And where do we start to look at forgiveness? And okay, someone's just acting unconsciously and can't control the elephant. Should I stay with them then? Can they change? I think this then brings up a lot of muddled questions around what do we do if we are with someone who has strayed on us, who has behaved in this way? How do we approach it thereafter? What's the healing process like? And why is it?
47:52Johnny:We'll unpack that and then we'll go later deeper. Sure. Yeah. So the first thing I would say is that, as I was saying earlier, in terms of controlling the behavior, I think everybody, for people who want to be monogamous, You know, it's important to keep in mind what I was saying earlier, which is you can control your environment. And so you want to avoid situations that put you at great risk, right? So that's a way that we can help ourselves a lot. So if you or your spouse have been unfaithful, yeah, so what do you do? What do you think about it? Well, and this is something I should have said earlier.
48:30There are many people who cheat simply because they can and they don't feel guilty about it. If that's what you discovered you're married to, then get out of the relationship and find somebody else. If you are with somebody who seems to be deeply sorry for what they did and they love you and that's what they want to be with you, well, then I think you have to – it makes sense that you take time to rebuild trust. And that person has to show you that by avoiding circumstances and situations where, you know, that are ones that maybe they could cause them to slide back into the same kind of thing again.
49:17You would need them to show willingness to be open with you. Like, you know, are they hiding their phone from you or do they say you can look at anything you want to see? So I think that there are ways to know whether your partner is being serious when they say they mean to stop and that they value your relationship. If they do, then I think, you know, I mean, some people, they just want to leave anyway, and that's their right, and I won't criticize that. But if you loved your partner before this incident and you thought they loved you and they say they did and they still do, and they're showing signs of being completely open with you and determination to never let that happen again, well, I mean, you know, I think a lot of us would like to say that that's something worth hanging on to.
50:13so um but i think you know you just have to read these things uh day by day um every case is different there's no blanket rule about whether someone should stay or go go but i do think it all comes down to for most people at least the ones that i see and i have to be careful because you know as a as a psychology a clinical psychologist i have a biased sample i see a certain kind of people come to therapy right and and and yeah there's some people that want to
50:42Johnny:change get help want to take control of this area versus the sociopaths who find no issue with their behaviors right for sure yeah and so i think that that and and some people just don't want to deal with it they're they're out of there as soon as they learn their partner cheated they're gone but but i think for for as you said the people who um come to therapy they're people who maybe they they really value that relationship um and um you really have to look at the individual circumstances of that and um i think there are ways for nsc people do this um is to rebuild trust and that absolutely can happen and and people do some people do go on and continue to have a great relationship and occasionally you could say it was a better than ever was before because it motivates them to just be more intimate emotionally and more transparent with one another thereafter.
51:42So every case is different.
51:45Johnny:And I would imagine more conscious of their unconscious and more conscious of their biases and their proclivities and environments and situations they should not find themselves in, that recognition comes from these moments of contrition and then working on themselves absolutely yes exactly so you mentioned love and i think there's it's such a broad word that has so many different meanings for many of us but i'd love to unpack the triadic love system and and what's going on there with these dynamics where you can feel like we love someone but we're attracted to someone else we're interested infatuated what are we talking about here especially in committed relationships because It's a love.
52:25This is very interesting. So, you know, earlier we were talking about the fact that we have all these different systems in our brain, and most of them evolved before we even had a conscious self the way that we do now. So Helen Fisher was a prominent biological anthropologist who died recently. But what Fisher said, that if you want to understand the romance, And she said that many systems, of course, in our brain can influence our romantic and sexual behavior. But if we want to understand this part of our lives, we primarily need to focus on three of them. And one of them is sex drive. It's just the system in your brain that makes you want to have sex.
53:03Another is romantic love or infatuation. It's part of your brain that makes you feel like you have a crush on somebody or that you're in love with them. And the third one she had in mind was long-term attachment. And that's the part of your brain that causes you to feel a really deep sense of connection to someone. It's the kind of connection that gives your life meaning, and you can't imagine your life without them. But it's also not generally as exciting as being in love or falling in love. So what Fisher said was that these systems, they evolved a long time ago. They have different purposes.
53:37They're not in sync necessarily. They tend to operate relatively independently. So this is why a person who has a healthy, long-term attachment kind of love for their spouse and wants to spend the rest of their life with them, that's not going to stop their sex drive system from causing them to experience intense desire for an attractive stranger. And most people accept that that happens because they've had it happen. But what's a little bit more surprising to many people is that for some people who have a really healthy long-term attachment love for their spouse, that also doesn't turn off the romantic love part of their brain.
54:17And they may still get a crush on other people. And I have met couples where they both said, hey, we've had a great relationship for decades. But one or the other one of them periodically had crushes on other people. you know i think that i was talking earlier about the fact that everybody's for eat for everyone every one of these unconscious systems in our brain is a little bit different so i my theory is is that you know there's this whole idea of love addiction as well and you know my theory about that is is that there are people who um they have that romantic love part of their brain that causes them to have infatuation or a crush.
54:58It's just overactive. It gets triggered too easily. And so even though they love their partner, they meet somebody that has certain characteristics and they just, all of a sudden, they're like back in middle school, they have this crush on this person. And most of them don't ever act on it. And the crush goes away and they continue in their marriage and it's fine. But some people, they do act on it and they destroy their relationship. And when they do it over and over, I think these are the people that get called love addicts.
55:32Johnny:So what are the gender differences here? I think there are stereotypical ones around why men or women stray. But what are you seeing the science actually shows? And what are some of the differences you've heard in your office? Yeah. Yeah. Well, in the surveys, when you ask men, most men, a majority of men say that the reason that they strayed was for a sexual opportunity, not necessarily anything emotional. Women, most women say that they got involved with somebody else because they needed something emotionally that they weren't getting in their marriage. Now, a lot of men and women both say, it's more men than women, but a lot of both of the sexes say that they were really happy with their marriage when they had an affair.
56:25They weren't looking to get out of it. But there is a gender difference, it does seem, and it's pretty consistent in what motivates people to be unfaithful, what the thing is that pulls them away from their partner enough to get involved with somebody else. I think, you know, just I do think that this, you know, it's not necessarily a popular thing. There are people in our world today who really want to deny that there are sex differences. I just think there's no, I think it's dangerous to deny basic sex differences. I do see differences. I think that when you see women versus men who get into like 12-step programs for sex addiction or love addiction, they're also very different.
57:14The men, they tend to use sex as a drug. It's just a hit. There's nothing emotional for most of them at all. For women, it tends to be much more emotional. It's getting some kind of emotional need met that they just weren't getting in their marriage. and and maybe uh that maybe what i was talking about before too they just have crush after crush after crush or whatever but um i do see a sex difference there uh for sure um and i just think
57:48Johnny:we should uh acknowledge that i want to unpack that that thing that you shared around most people identifies in a happy relationship would not like i would think most people would consider that it's usually when the relationship's rocky or at its breaking point that this is most likely to happen. Yeah, it's about half and half, right? So because a little more than half of men and a little less than half of women say that they were happy with their partner. So that means about half overall of the people who are unfaithful were not. And so I think it is absolutely true that people who are unhappy in their marriage, that is something that can promote infidelity for sure.
58:31Yeah.
58:31Johnny:So in the other half, I'm curious, like that to me sounds very confounding. It feels like that is sort of the initial step that there's strain, there's stress, but it sounds more like this is exactly what you're arguing around the unconscious, the opportunistic situations that lead to the infidelity. So in the people that are happy with their marriage, I do think it's more of the opportunistic. Yeah. And the people that are unhappy, it can be very different because the over time relationship distress is an incredibly toxic thing and it can really be destructive and it can lead to infidelity for many reasons, most of which are pretty obvious.
59:12Johnny:So what was the most surprising to you and all of the research for the book and then seeing actual clients in your office? You know, I think it is, I too, even to this day, I am surprised at how many people who are unfaithful love their spouse. It wasn't because they had ceased to love them. It wasn't because they didn't want the relationship to continue. It was for some other reason. And I think I continue to be fascinated by the people who really experience their urges either to have sex with somebody besides their spouse or to have some sort of emotional connection with somebody besides their spouse, even though they love their spouse and they experience these urges as kind of an alien force.
1:00:14That's just a fascinating thing to me. And I think it really illustrates very starkly the fact that we have these unconscious systems in our brain that make suggestions that, and our unconscious mind does not consult with our conscious self. It certainly doesn't consult the moral values that our conscious self holds before it issues its dictates or suggestions about what we do. So I think I remain fascinated with that. And that's probably the main thing. Yeah, I think what's also, you know, what's come out of this conversation for me is then the opportunity there is to change the forgiveness to heal and not necessarily that all of these situations are basically incompatible
1:01:07Johnny:or cannot heal or are broken. But there's a lot of opportunity and infidelity for both partners to grow in a relationship to heal. Absolutely. I mean, I think that's well said, and it's exactly right, and that's what you hope happens in couple therapy. And yeah, it sometimes takes something pretty tragic and painful to make people stop and pause. And maybe this may particularly be true for men, to make them really look inside themselves and be able to share that. A lot of men, that doesn't come naturally to. but sometimes when their relationship is on the line, all of a sudden they are able to do that.
1:01:56And I think many of them discover that it is a very positive thing, that they develop a stronger connection to their spouse and really do love them more than they did before. So there absolutely can be some very happy endings that come out of it.
1:02:14Johnny:Thank you so much for joining us, Glenn. And where can our audience find out more about your work in the book? Well, I have a website. It's glenhutchinson.net. And thank you so much for having me. It was great. Thank you so much. Thank you.
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From the publisher
You think you know why you make the choices you make. Your unconscious mind may have gotten there first.
AJ and Johnny sit down with psychologist Glenn to explore the hidden forces behind temptation, habits, infidelity, and self-control. Glenn explains why willpower often fails when we repeatedly face powerful urges, how unconscious processes can drive behavior without consulting our values, and why we’re surprisingly good at inventing explanations for decisions after we’ve already made them.
You’ll learn why changing your environment can be more effective than relying on self-control, how past experiences shape what feels rewarding, why rationalization often happens outside our awareness, and how love, attachment, and sexual desire can operate as separate systems. The conversation also explores what causes infidelity, why people can betray partners they genuinely love, and what rebuilding trust can look like afterward.
Episode Resources:
https://glennhutchinson.net/my-book/
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