Listen
17:24
What’s your pleasure?
We crave food and sex like other animals. Yet humans find pleasure in an assortment of unusual ways—why do we like scary movies so much? What’s the appeal of abstract art? And, how can we explain masochism? Paul Bloom explores the ins and outs of satisfaction—sensorial and otherwise—in his book How Pleasure Works, celebrating our desires and fulfillment in a singularly human fashion.
We crave food and sex like other animals. Yet humans find pleasure in an assortment of unusual ways—why do we like scary movies so much? What’s the appeal of abstract art? And, how can we explain masochism? Paul Bloom explores the ins and outs of satisfaction—sensorial and otherwise—in his book How Pleasure Works, celebrating our desires and fulfillment in a singularly human fashion.
Guest:
Paul Bloom, author of How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like (Norton), and Professor, Department of Psychology, Yale University