Peter Burchardt

Peter Burchardt writes about one subject: what happens when you put an ancient animal in a modern world. His work sits at the intersection of evolutionary psychology, behavioural science, and the practical question of how to live well with the mind you were actually given.

Designed to Feel is the foundation — a complete evolutionary account of human emotion, from the survival problems each feeling was built to solve to the ways it misfires in modern life. Override explores the tension between evolved instinct and artificial intelligence. Hooked by Design examines addiction as the purest case of evolved reward machinery turned against the person carrying it.

The Happy series applies these insights to the arenas where they matter most: Happy Children and Born to Feel decode your child’s emotional operating system. Happy Couple, Happy Wife, and Happy Husband trace relationship conflicts to the different survival software men and women are running.