A discussion with Marta Kowal on beautification and what predicts it. Marta Kowal (PhD) is a post-doctoral researcher at the IDN Being Human Lab, Institute of Psychology, University of Wrocław, Poland. Marta's academic background is in evolutionary psychology, and her research primarily focuses on mate attraction, physical attractiveness-enhancing behaviors, and romantic love, particularly from a cross-cultural perspective. During her PhD program, under the guidance of her supervisor, Professor Piotr Sorokowski, Marta secured a grant from the Polish National Science Centre to explore beauty-enhancing behaviors across different cultures. Marta takes one of the leadership positions in an extensive international consortium of over 400 scientists from more than 100 countries passionately committed to facilitating large-scale cross-cultural research projects. Marta's website: https://martakowal.com/ If you want to listen to my audio course on human evolution, you can find it here: https://mackenmurphy.gumroad.com/l/humanevolution?layout=profile If you want to donate to support Species, you can do so, here: https://donorbox.org/keep-species-free If you want to keep up with my work, everything is here: https://linktr.ee/mackenmurphy Timestamps 0:00 Intro 5:08 231 minutes daily on beauty? 10:38 The Benefits of Beauty 12:23 Beauty: Not (Just) a Social Construct 19:35 Collecting Big Data 23:34 Gender & Beautification 48:51 Age & Beautification 54:28 Social Media & Beautification 1:08:25 The Beautiful Beautify More 1:12:57 Wealth, Education, Politics & Beauty 1:24:32 Intrasexual Competition All The Way Down 1:28:44 The Pathogen Prevalence Hypothesis 1:36:57 Cultural and Individual Differences in Strategies 1:47:14 Conclusion 1:50:10 Outro