Social anxiety is something we really

can help people with. Essentially, the

strategy is very simple. If you are

afraid of talking with a stranger or

having a deep conversation, the way to

get over that is not to simulate it or

to imagine. It's not like you get up and

you you give a pretend speech. That's

what psychologists were doing for years.

It doesn't work because it's still

pretending. It has to be real. You send

people out in the world and to do the

thing for real. You're worried about

getting rejected. Go out and start

asking people for help and you'll learn

that your fear is misplaced, that you

get accepted more often than you might

guess. Exposing people to that thing

that they are anxious of. When the

belief is misplaced and with social

anxiety, it is usually wildly misplaced.

That's what we find over and over again

is a mistaken barrier to connecting with

other people. That's how you you ease

that social anxiety and get rid of it.

Not because you do you dull your anxiety

so much. It's because you change your

beliefs about what other people are

like. Welcome to the Hubberman Lab

podcast where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday life.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. My guest

today is Dr. Nick Epley. Dr. Nick Epley

is a behavioral scientist at the

University of Chicago and an expert

researcher on the science of social

connection. What's different about

today's conversation in the context of

social connection is that it doesn't

just center on improving relationships

with friends or family or co-workers. We

do talk about that, but we also talk

about the smaller everyday conversations

that we have with people that we don't

know so well and the positive impact

that that can have on mental and

physical health. Now, I want to be

clear. We're not talking about engaging

in small talk for small talk's sake.

We're talking about taking opportunities

to connect with people once or several

times per day and the tremendous

benefits that can have for people's

mental and physical health, including

yours. We also talk a lot about the

assumptions that we tend to make about

other people, both in real life and

online, and how those actually match up

with reality. We also talk about Nick

Epley himself because his life strongly

has informed his research. We talk about

his biological and his adopted children,

raising a child with additional needs,

and the incredible joy and growth those

choices have brought him and his family

by virtue of the sorts of social

connections that they've brought. I must

say, today's conversation went a lot of

places that I did not anticipate. And it

certainly inspired me to look

differently at everyday interactions as

far from trivial and in fact key to the

fabric of social connection and our

mental and physical health. Before we

begin, I'd like to emphasize that this

podcast is separate from my teaching and

research roles at Stanford. It is

however part of my desire and effort to

bring zero cost to consumer information

about science and science related tools

to the general public. In keeping with

that theme, today's episode does include

sponsors. And now for my discussion with

Dr. Nick Epley. Dr. Nick Epley, welcome.

>> Thank you so much for having me.

>> We make a lot of assumptions about other

people and in my case cuz I have a new

puppy about animals. You know, we're

always thinking that we know what other

beings are thinking.

>> Yeah.

>> But as you've pointed out and as a

colleague of mine in neurosciences, Dr.

Carl Dyeroth has pointed out, most of

the time we don't even know what we're

thinking.

>> Like there's stuff going on in there,

but like we're we're not that good at

thinking, oh, that last thought was a

complete sentence that means blank.

That's not how the human mind works.

>> So,

>> usually when we hear the word

anthropomorphism, we're talking about

humans making assumptions about other

animals. M

>> but humans are animals.

>> We just happen to be the curators of the

planet.

>> So why and how do we anthropomorphize

about other people and how does it hurt

us and how does it help us?

>> Yeah.

>> So I think the way to think about

anthropomorphism is that what we are

doing is we're trying to understand

what's going on within another agent

essentially. And so anything that acts

independently, right? You got a ball

rolling across the table. If something

else bumps into it and it moves in

perfect, you know, perfect deflection

off of it, you don't need anything to

explain why that ball moved as it did.

But if this ball is coming across the

table and another one hits it and it

just keeps going or goes some other

direction, well then it seems like

there's something going inside that

thing that might be driving it, right?

And that in that thing that's inside

that ball might be a mind, right? Might

be a set of thoughts or beliefs or

attitudes, some kind of psychology

that's pushing it. At least that's the

way we interpret what an independent

agent might be doing. We do this when we

think about other people, right? You're

nodding your head now. I think you're

thinking about something, right? You

move this way or that. You wanted to do

this thing or that thing. We do that

same kind of mind readading, right? With

non-human agents, animals, gods,

sometimes the planet, even ourselves,

right? We reflect on ourselves. We have

experience at least with having certain

mental states come to mind and we use

that experience as a guide to what's

going on in other people too. That kind

of anthropomorphism, that kind of mind

readading, right, where we infer others

thoughts or beliefs or attitudes, that's

helpful to us for at least two reasons.

One is it gives me some sense of why

you're doing what you're doing now. It

allows me to understand what you're

doing right now. Are you trying to be

kind? You're trying to be uh aggressive?

Are you trying to be friendly? But it

also is pretty good at allowing me to

predict what you're likely to do next.

>> So if I think you feel hungry, well,

you're going to go try to eat something.

If I think you don't like me very well,

you're going to behave a particular way

towards me. So this kind of mental state

inference, this kind of mind readading

serves us pretty well for getting around

in a social world. Um, don't always get

it right, but in general, it's better

than not doing it at all. So as we make

assumptions about others and their

intentions and their past

>> choices in some cases, right? Like if

somebody hits somebody else, we we make

an assumption about the certain things

might have led up to that.

>> Yes. Right.

>> Are we mainly paying attention to

behavior

>> and or are we paying attention to

what they seem to be paying attention

to? Soal theory of mind.

>> Yeah. So it depends a lot on what kind

of environment we're in. We think about

the minds of others in lots and lots of

different contexts. My wife right now is

back home in Illinois. I can think about

what she might want for dinner, right?

Or what she's feeling at any given time.

We can think about people when they're

not present. We can think about

strangers, people we know nothing about.

I write a book. I'm trying to think

about how will people understand this

book. Right? These are all cases where

there's not somebody in front of us at

all. Right? And when we're doing that,

particularly with strangers, people we

know nothing about, things we know

nothing about, then the one thing we

have at our disposal is ourselves. We

can use our own minds. Right? So, if I

walk into a classroom and I think it's

kind of cold in here, well, I can assume

that other people will think it's cold,

too. I'm using myself as a guide. Once I

know a little more maybe about you,

right? I learned that you are, you know,

you're a PhD from Stanford. I learn that

um, you know, somebody is a is an

athlete or whatever. I learn something

about you. You're you're a doctor or

you're a lawyer. Then I can use that

information, my beliefs about groups of

people as a guide. That's stereotyping.

And stereotypes contain a fair bit of

accuracy to them. If I know that you're

a Democrat or a Republican, I can make

some reasonable inferences about other

thoughts you might have, other beliefs

you might have. Not perfect, but better

than chance guessing. And then once I

see you like what we're doing right now,

if I can see you, then I'm watching your

behavior. And then behavior dominates.

Behavior though is tricky. I'm watching

you, right? You could have two people

kissing. They seem, you know,

delightfully in love, right? They seem

just so nice together. And you can you

you can make one set of inferences. When

you see that that happening based on

that, you can infer what's going on

behind that based on what you're seeing.

And when we can see the behavior in

front of us, that's then what we're

paying most attention to. But each of

these different mechanisms, egoentrism,

stereotyping, and behaviorism, we might

think about working backwards from your

behavior. They all gain give us some

accuracy, but they also create some

error. Egoentrism creates egocentric

biases. I assume that you think more

like I do than you actually do.

Stereotyping tends to create a different

set of mistakes. I tend to think that

groups are more distinct and different

from each other than they actually are

because stereotypes are about the

defining features of groups which tends

to exaggerate the differences between

groups. And when it comes to behavior, I

tend to assume a simpler, more

simplistic um uh mind behind that

behavior than exact actually exists.

Psychologists refer to this as the

correspondence bias. I tend to infer an

intention or set of beliefs or attitudes

that corresponds with your behavior as I

see it. So if I see you hit somebody, I

might assume you are an aggressive

person. That's how I interpret right

away. Had I known it was in

self-defense, then I would interpret it

very differently, right? But we tend to

leap to mental states or intentions from

behavior. Sometimes that can get us into

trouble when the relationship between

intentions or thoughts and behavior is a

little complicated. So each of those

gets us some accuracy, but each of them

also creates some error. If you are

willing, I'd like to return to the

example you gave at the beginning of of

a ball rolling on a table and another

ball striking it or not. You know, in

the second example you gave that the

ball simply takes off on a different

trajectory, you said that we're going to

make some assumption that the ball has

something like a mind, something

controlling its decisions.

>> What I'm about to say reflects a a a

strong bias, which is that I've long

been interested in the visual system

>> of non-human and human primates because

we are so visual and the eyes are two

pieces of the brain. They're the only

pieces of the brain in healthy

individuals that are outside the cranial

vault. And they give us a lot of

information. And I think people know

that,

>> but I don't think they appreciate just

how much information they give us.

>> Not just pupil size and whether or not

our gaze is is locked with theirs. All

that's true, too. But if I could just

alter your experiment for a second.

Let's say that first ball had eyes.

>> Oh, yeah. and it's rolling forward, but

then the eyes shift to the left and then

the ball goes to the left. Now I have

additional information. I have a window

literally into the brain where I can say

what's over there that might have

motivated that decision. And I think

with humans, we do this, right? Like if

somebody's going down the street just

swinging their arms wildly and hitting

people, we think this person's out of

control, they're crazy. Whereas if they

see somebody then they orient to their

their gaze toward them. Now we we start

making all sorts of assumptions about

the operations of that mind. And in my

worldview no pun intended the eyes are

the best source of

>> information about intent about goals

etc. So limiting the conversation to

conditions where we can see the other

person and what they see. Are there any

examples of our judgments about other

people's thoughts and behavior and etc

improving by virtue of Sure. Yeah. I

mean so the eyes are do provide a lot

valid information. Absolutely. The voice

also contains an awful lot. So that's

the other thing we spend a lot of time

studying. But

>> we we are the most socially

sophisticated primate species on the

planet. We have a brain uniquely

equipped for connecting with the minds

of others. And that means that we are

hyper sensitive to certain things. The

eyes are one of them. There's this great

paper in 2008 on the cultural

intelligence hypothesis. It's a science

paper where they compared, you know,

they try try to assess what is it that

makes humans sort of unique on this

planet. Um, and they compared a little

over 100 two-year-old toddlers, right?

Imagine running this experiment if you

would. A little over 100year-old

toddlers. This was done at the Max Blank

Institute in Germany. one of the max

blanks over a 100 chimpanzees and then

just for good measure another 36

orangutans who apparently had nothing

better to do.

>> What a funny Yeah, it's crazy.

>> Exhausting.

>> Exactly. Men, I can't Yeah, I I would

like to know the background of of

details of this, how it was actually

done and how long it took. But what they

did essentially is ran each of these

groups through two different kinds of IQ

tests. you might think of them as one

was an IQ test involving physical

objects, right? So things like, you

know, tracking where a reward was placed

under a shell game or using a tool to to

solve some kind of problem. Jane Goodall

once, you know, psychologists once

believed, biologists once believed that

tool use was what made humans unique

until Jane Goodall watched the

chimpanzees using twigs to get termites

out of a termite mount. Right? On the

physical IQ test problems, the human

toddlers, the adult chimps, and the

orangutans performed equally well. There

wasn't a difference. It's not reasoning

about physical things in space that make

us unique.

>> The other group of IQ problems were

social problems where it required

reasoning about the mind of another

person. And this involved doing things

like tracking where someone's eyes are

looking in order to monitor what

somebody is thinking because we tend to

look at things we're thinking thinking

about and think about things we're

looking at. If I want to know what's on

your mind, what's governing your

attention, I want to be really good at

tracking your eyes. And we are amazing

at this as human beings. I can tell

whether you're looking at me right now

or looking at my right ear from this far

without any trouble. I can tell from 50

feet away, whether you're looking at me

or looking at, you know, 10 feet above

me. We're amazingly good at this. super

sensitive this I couldn't calculate the

angle on a roof if you gave me a month

and an arm load of protractors to do it

but I can detect the angle in your eyes

in an instant also involve things like

being able to understand somebody's

intentions from their actions right so

if I reach out to for this glass of

water and I miss it you can infer I'm

thirsty and I want a drink you could oh

you could hand me the glass Nick right

if if I wanted a drink and because

that's you could read my mind

essentially you could infer my thoughts

when And they tested the two-year-old

toddlers, the chimps, and the orangutans

on in these social IQ tests. That's

where the 2-year-old toddlers were

shining. That's where we were crushing

the competition on those social IQ

problems. You can do this, you know, in

front of a chimpanzeee all day long and

they will do nothing for you, right?

Nothing for you. I do that in front of

you and you can hand me the glass of

water super easily. So yes, the eyes

give us a lot and we are extremely

sensitive to all of those social cues

that convey might convey what's on the

mind of another person because it allows

me to anticipate what you're doing

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And you mentioned voice. Um, I'm going

to make an assumption, I'm sure it's

wrong, um, or at least partially wrong,

that voice offers a lot of information

about autonomic tone, how stressed or

how relaxed somebody is.

>> Uh, and I'd be curious to know a, if

that's true, what else it conveys, and

also how much prior exposure to voice

matters. Today's the first time I've met

you. I don't know what your voice

normally sounds like in this context, so

I'm just operating off what I've got.

>> So, what's in voice? what's not in voice

and and what what are we aware of? What

are we not aware of?

>> Yeah. So, there are lots of things

contained in the voice because it is

very closely connected to your mind. You

notice that your eyes are right. Your

eyes are closed, but your your voice is

also very closely connected to your

online conscious experience. You are

speaking while you are thinking. And as

you're having thoughts, your voice can

reflect authentically what's going on in

your mind. So, when I speed up, you can

tell I'm kind of excited about

something. When my voice varies in

pitch, you can tell if I'm enthusiastic

or not or kind of sad about something.

You can pick up a lot about what's

actually going on in the mind by

listening to a person's voice. And there

are a couple of things that we've

studied in in our research. One is voice

just contains a lot of information that

allows us to understand other people

better. Right? So, if you compare typing

to somebody versus talking to them, the

voice allows you to to determine things

like intentionality to to differentiate

when you're telling a joke or being

sarcastic than when you're not. Right?

We'll type this email.

This is so funny, right? We think when

we're sending off an email to somebody,

it seems funny to us because we know

this is meant to be a joke. Person on

the other end doesn't realize the

comment about this person's aunt or

brother or whatever was meant to be a

joke and they're all offended, right?

But if you say this in your voice,

sarcasm is crystal clear. Interestingly,

what we find, and this is because of

egoentrism in part, we're not always so

sensitive to how our own communication

is interpreted by another person because

we know what we're thinking when we're

conveying something. We tend to think

we'll be understood equally well whether

we're typing or talking, but of course

on the receiving end, it varies a lot.

So voice contains a lot of information

that allows us to understand what

somebody's saying better. But what we

also find which I think is at least from

my perspective also interesting is that

the voice also conveys the presence of

mind. I don't have access to your

thinking to your reasoning to to what's

going on between your ears. I can only

watch from the outside right and I get

cues. I can see your visual gaze but I

can also hear you. The voice contains a

lot of cues to the presence of mind.

When you're really thinking hard about

something, your voice slows down and you

deliberate. And that variability in the

pace of your voice kind of tells me that

your mind is alive. Just like I can tell

that you're biologically alive because

you're moving, your voice also moves.

And it tells me you got a lively mind.

It conveys the presence of emotion. It

can pre convey the presence of thinking.

So when we have partisans, for instance,

we did this, this was with Juliana

Schroeder, who was one of my amazing PhD

students from years ago. She's now on

the faculty at Berkeley at at HOS. We

had people, this was on the eve of the

2016 election between Donald Trump and

Hillary Clinton. We had people who were

voting for Trump or Clinton

say why they were voting for the

candidate they were voting for and they

gave a verbal pitch. And we could get a

few different cues from this. We could

get an audio recorded clip so we could

see and hear the person. We could just

get their voice and we could also strip

out their voice and just see the content

of their text, right? To see the words

they were saying. They also wrote a

pitch about an explanation for why they

were voting for this particular

candidate. Okay. What we then did is we

had people

watch and listen listen read the

transcript or read the the written uh

explanation and say

essentially how mindful is this person?

How thoughtful are they? How thoughtful,

how intelligent, how rational, how

capable of experiencing emotions are

they? Essentially they're asking are you

a mindful intelligent person or are you

kind of just like a mindless idiot? are

you humanlike or are you kind of not

humanike like a more like a rock? And

what we found was that when people could

hear what the person had to say either

while also seeing them or just with

their voice, they rated the person

particularly when they disagreed with

them when there was person on the other

side as more thoughtful, more

intelligent, more rational. this

tendency to dehumanize the other side to

think of them as mindless idiots was

dramatically reduced when you actually

heard what the other person has to say.

So I think the voice along with the eyes

along with eyes ga eye gaze but the

voice allows us gives us a lot of

information allows us to understand

what's on somebody's mind and it also

allows us something deeper allows me to

tell you that you've got a mind that you

have one it's very interesting I the

vision piece I'm familiar with for

reasons I stated before the physical

behavior piece makes a lot of sense the

the voice piece as a reflection of an

active mind is something I I really

haven't considered you know we'll hear

sometimes

that the content of people's words is

less informative than, you know, the

tambber of their voice or something like

that. I I don't know that I completely

believe that. I I think that that's a I

think that's a '9s that's like an 80s9s

pop psychology.

>> Absolutely. That is a highly stylized

experimental result.

>> Right. So, you will sometimes hear in

this popsych world that 80% of what's

communicated is communicated through

paral linguistic. That obviously is not

true. you're not going to I'm not going

to be able to tell you about my book

>> just by using the tone of my voice.

Right. Right.

>> So that is that certain

>> words matter.

>> The words certainly do matter. But above

and beyond that, there are other things

that matter in a person's voice that at

least we find people aren't so sensitive

to. So when we ask, for instance, when

we ask our MBA students to give an

elevator pitch, as Juliana and I did in

in one of our one of our experiments,

give an elevator pitch for their their

their desired job, the job they want

most, right? Why should this company

hire you? They can give it with their

voice. So, we do the audio and visual.

Uh we do just the audio. We pull out the

transcript, just get the words or they

type their pitch. We then have people

watch and listen listen or read these

pitches and say, "How intelligent does

this person seem to be? How hirable does

this person seem to be?" And we've done

this both with people who imagine

working for companies and also with

Fortune 500 recruiters, too. the person

seems more intelligent, more rational,

more thoughtful, more hirable when you

hear what they have to say. And yet the

MBA students themselves think they'll be

judged equally on those two. They're

not. And when we ask a separate separate

group of people, if you wanted to

communicate with somebody in a way that

would make you seem most intelligent,

overwhelmingly people say, I'd rather

write. And the thinking behind that, I

think, is that people think they can

edit and such, but what they're missing

is that the sound of your voice conveys

a lot more. It conveys the fact that you

have a mind because I can't see it and I

can't read it in your dead text. Right?

Your dead text has none of the paral

linguistic cues or features. Really

talented writers, novelists can do this.

But mostly your text is dead. It doesn't

have intonation. It doesn't change its

pitch. It doesn't show me thinking while

it's actually happening and people don't

seem to realize that.

>> What does this reveal to us about AI? Um

because

>> people are spending more and more time

with AI on AI

>> and what comes back is text. I mean

there are versions of it and soon I

imagine there will be elaborated

versions of it with

>> um avatars or even uh video AR. Are you

generally enthusiastic about what that

could bring in terms of better

understanding other humans? Because I

could imagine a world where, you know, I

can't reach you, but I could go on AI

and say, "Hey, Nick." I would just do it

directly. Hey, Nick. Uh, I'm really

curious. I'm going to the Midwest where

you're from, and I'm I'm super

interested in like culturally what's the

best way that I could connect with

someone around this, this, and this.

given the content on the internet,

>> the uh LLM should be able to have a

video of you

>> deliver to me what you would say or

pretty close to it. Is that that can be

better than than a bullet point list?

>> It will. Yeah. So people will find it

more believable. I think, right? But a

lot of the things that people turn to AI

for now are for facts, right? For actual

information, for text. But I do think

increasingly it's going to be used for

social stuff.

>> Yeah. People feel lonely, disconnected,

they need a friend. And I'm friends with

Liz Dunn who's a fabulous psychologist

at the University of British Columbia.

And she told me um that they're starting

to do research about allowing people to

to practice having conversations with AI

before they actually have a conversation

with another person like a conflict.

>> I can see ways in which AI could be used

to do to do lots of things. I can also

see obvious problems with it. If I'm

connecting with the AI and I'm not

connecting with other humans, I can see

problems with it. But I think in terms

of the presence versus absence of of

voice, um I do think voice will allow us

to the extent that it's good and

perfect, right? Sounds like a human

voice. Our predict my prediction would

be that you can trust it more when you

hear what it has to say as long as it

mimics really well a human voice

>> because you'd anthropomorphize it just

like you do another person.

>> I don't want to spend too much time on

politics, but I can't help but ask this

next question. um way back when uh Bush

was president,

>> second one,

>> um I recall there was a lot of

discussion around um people who voted

for him saying he's the kind of guy

you'd want to have a beer with.

>> Yeah.

>> Right.

>> Yeah.

>> Which I interpreted as there's something

about his style of speech

>> which was very everyday.

>> Yes.

>> And we don't have to talk about current

candidates and politicians. Not to avoid

it. I don't tap dance around on anything

these days, but I think it nowadays we

have a lot of access to people talking

on video. They, you know, when you and I

were growing up, I think we're more or

less the same age. You know, there would

be a pres presidential address or

there'd be a campaign and you'd hear

from people, but it was it was very

limited. You didn't get so much exposure

to people.

>> So now we have more and more information

about voice, about behavior, about

decisionm um depending on the

resolution, where their eyes are going.

Um, do you think that we're getting

better at assessing

public figures or are we getting worse

at assessing public figures?

>> That's a good question. I think that'll

take me too far out on a limb. I don't I

don't know. I don't know the answer to

that. I mean, there's so much

information that we have now. Um, but

the other thing too is that the way we

evaluate other people, and this is this

is central to a lot of our research,

other people are ambiguous, right?

They're not crystal clear. that same

thing that I say to you that I mean to

be a joke can sound really hostile or

violent to another person, right? Can

sound really awful and be taken as

offensive. So I think that that's what

make my makes my work as a psychologist

so so interesting. In the early 1900s

psychologist you know when social

psychology my field in cognitive

psychology started it came out of you

know basically biology and vision

sciences and and basic sensory

perception thinking that we could

understand human thinking and measure it

measure our judgments about each other

in the same way that we measure how

people evaluate hot and cold and stuff

like that. But it turns out that other

people are very ambiguous. It's not

always so crystal clear. And so two

people with a different set of beliefs

or attitudes or perspectives on the

situation can look at the very same

stimulus and see totally different

things. Right? A lot of our judgment is

not happening out there coming to us.

It's happening in here interpreting what

we're seeing. And in the world of

politics, everyone who's listening to

this podcast knows just how ambiguous

things are. Somebody says something and

the right will, you know, think

interpret it this way, the left will

interpret it that way. It's known as my

side bias. Even the very same stimulus,

right? So there is this sense that if we

get more and more and more information,

then we'll understand people better

better. That's not necessarily true. If

we come into these perceptions, into

these viewing these things with very

different starting points or very

different perspectives to begin with.

>> You've worked a lot on this notion of

under socialization.

>> If I may, I'd like to invert it for

today's conversation and uh talk a

little bit less through the lens of how

bad it is if we're undersocialized and

um explore instead how good it is if we

do socialize. um not because I I have to

make things positive, but because

ultimately I think actions to socialize

more are going to be useful. And um I'm

tempted to set this up as an experiment.

>> So as with the the example of the balls

you gave before, in the most deprived

>> condition, a human is in total

isolation.

>> Okay. So um another condition is they

can let's just say text with somebody

else, but they can't see them. They

they've never seen them. And we can

ratchet that up, right? They've seen

them before. They can make a phone call.

They can do video chat. They're in

person. I can see a million excellent

arguments for why why in-person

interaction is good. But what is the

evidence that the other forms of social

interaction are good also? We hear so

much about how they're bad,

>> but we also hear about the isolation

crisis. And so we've sort of I've lumped

>> the more deprived versions of

socialization in with isolation. And I'm

not sure that I accept that. I'm not

trying to counter your work. I don't

know enough about to do it. I'm not

qualified to anyway. But is texting with

a friend healthy?

>> Yes.

>> As opposed to spending time alone?

>> For sure.

>> Okay. In person time clearly being the

best.

>> It's a little better. Although going

from no contact to some contact is the

big leap.

>> Tell me more.

>> So being isolated, so spending a day

alone is pretty is pretty miserable. So

when psychologists look at this, this

comes from a from a famous uh uh paper

by Danny Conorman and Angus Deon, both

Nobel Prize winners in economics,

neither of them economists, that looked

at the Gallup daily uh well-being poll,

right? And the they call they they call

people up every day and they ask them

how you're feeling today in a number of

different ways. Were and they actually

ask you about the day before. Yesterday,

did did you enjoy yesterday? Did you

feel enjoyment yesterday? Were did you

smile yesterday? Did you experience

sadness yesterday? Right? Did you

experience stress yesterday? And they

they so they ask about these different

measures of well-being. They also ask

about all kinds of other things like how

much money you're making? Are you

religious or not? Uh they know how much

insurance you have, whether you're

surveyed on a weekend or a weekday. They

also ask you um did you spend yesterday

entirely alone or not? And when they do

that, you can compare the effects of

things like social isolation, you know,

being alone versus not against these

other things. It turns out the

difference between spending yesterday

alone versus somebody else. The

difference in your well-being on these

other measures is about seven times

bigger than being relatively high or low

on their income measure, which is about

a $60,000 difference between these two

groups. That being alone is bad. That's

a bad day. Okay. And having connections

with other people improves it pretty

dramatically. Above and beyond that, you

know, it it does matter. It can be. It

it's it's it is better those

interactions, but now you're you're

you're adding good things to what was

already somewhat a good thing. Plus, we

also need to we need to unpack a little

bit what these different media do.

They're good for different things. And

we don't always use them for in the ways

that are right. But I think, you know,

in many ways we do. Like if I send you a

text or I send my wife a text, right?

She's she's back in Illinois today.

We've been married for nearly 30. It'll

be 30 years in August this year. We know

a ton about each other. I can send her,

you know, a heart when I'm feeling, you

know, love and I want to send her to let

her know that and she's going to feel

that's going to lift her up a little

bit. That's gonna feel good. We already

have a relationship that's establishing

just some some contact. Texting is great

for that. It can allow us to stay in

contact with somebody. It is not good

for building a relationship necessarily

over time. Like if we're going to spend

a half hour typing to each other is not

a good way to spend that half hour. I'd

be much better at picking the phone and

talking to you to help establish that

relationship. But absolutely, the

ability to reach out and connect with

other people frequently as texting is

used out in the world can allow us to

stay connected. Now, if that's the only

thing we're doing, if we're not actually

spending time developing more meaningful

relationships with people, that's not

going to be as good as it as it could

be. But you started this by asking about

sociality more generally. And why is

being social good for us? The fact of

the matter is even with our

imperfections and thinking about the

minds of others, we are highly social.

Just the ability to think in the level

of sophistication that we do about the

minds of other people shows how

important sociality is for us. And you

see the importance of sociality just

almost everywhere you look. The way our

brain is organized, right? So our

neoortex is massive relative to the rest

of our brain compared to our nearest

primate relatives to the chimpanzees. A

lot of that stuff is good for social

stuff, right? For theory of mind use,

for keeping track of who knows what and

who you should trust and who you should

avoid. Living in large social groups is

complicated, right? And the size of our

brain reflects a complication. If you

look across primate species, the size of

the neoortex relative to the rest of the

brain is correlated with this is this is

uh this is work on the social brain

hypothesis, right? The size of the

neoortex relative to the rest of the

brain is correlated with the social

complexity of the group the primate

species lives in. Our brains are built

to be social. Also, for most of human

history, being alone and isolated is a

death sentence, right? You can't live on

your we depend on each other for

survival. That also means that we have a

neural architecture that is desperately

trying to keep us connected with other

people. And so when you spend a day

alone, the reason why it feels like crap

as my uh as my late colleague and friend

John Casiopo who was at the uh

University of Chicago studied loneliness

really is the world was the world's

expert on loneliness noted that that

your neural architecture is screaming at

you when you are feeling when you are

alone to reach out and connect with

other people. That's why loneliness

feels bad, right? And that's why the

opposite of loneliness feels so good.

Like getting like getting a hug that

feels good. Your brain is trying to tell

you, get out there and connect with

other people. So, when you're lonely,

you get spikes in cortisol in your

bloodstream that compromises your

cardiovascular functioning, that

compromises your immune system. That's

why being lonely can make you sick and

why it can shorten your life, right? You

also see that the opposite of

loneliness, connecting with other

people, just feels darn good, right?

That's your brain telling you, that's

your body telling you, "Yeah, do this a

little more often. This is really good."

Right? So when you have that little

conversation with a with a stranger like

I did coming, you know, coming in, I had

this amazing conversation. It was

actually a very deep hard conversation

with my Uber driver who was Iranian, uh

had lost a son in a protest, shot in the

neck years ago in Iran. Yeah. Very

painful, but also very meaningful.

Connected us to each other, felt a very

strong bond with each other in the

moment. That's your brain telling you

that's the kind of thing that we're

built for, right? Because living alone

for most of human history was a bad bad

thing. So we are hypersocial agents

interested in connecting with other

people. It doesn't always mean we know

exactly how to do it or that we we get

it right. But going from nothing to

something is a huge leap for us. And

texting can sometimes help us do that.

>> One comment, one question. Um sometimes

I like a day alone. Yeah, I don't get

it, but that's because I I don't spend

time around lots of people, but I spend

a lot of time around

>> certain set of people. I adore them, but

you know, sometimes it's nice to get

that space. But one thing that I've

noticed because when I was a graduate

student, I'd run these experiments often

during the holidays because I worked on

developmental neurobiology. I didn't

have a choice if that, you know, if my

experimental subjects were a certain

postnatal age, I was working that day.

It was my after all. Yes. And there's

this kind of interesting idea that I'm

not sure I subscribe to, but well that I

do subscribe to, forgive me, that

there's something about us as humans

that we really like to create action at

a distance, you know, and I don't know

if there's a sex difference here, but I

think it's like, you know, young boys

like create like a rocket. It's a remote

control car, you know, you have boys,

you know, or see something happen over

there um that you controlled in in a in

a meaningful way. And it doesn't have to

be violent, right? that we did rockets

and guns, but it it could have could be

something else. But

>> this is somewhat philosophical more than

it's scientific. But could it be that if

we spend too much time alone, we've got

all this stuff in our mind and it's very

hard to create some sort of

reverberation or a or action it at a

distance that we know reflects us. And I

wonder if our unconscious mind actually

gets to the question like, do I even

exist? Now, of course, we know we exist.

we can touch our limbs, but the social

isolation fear,

>> you know, if I've got fridge full of

food and I've got music and I've got

audio books, that's all incoming. But at

some point, you do get a little I know

cuz I've spent days upon days doing

experiments back when by myself. You you

get a little

>> weird.

>> Your thoughts get a little distorted and

and it's almost like

>> you know there's stuff out there, but if

you spend enough time away from it, it

it kind of messes with your head a

little bit. Yeah.

>> And then of course we think of like the

Ted Kazinski types and these extremes of

people that have gone into isolation.

There's that movie about the the true

story that um

>> the guy that goes into the wilderness.

>> Oh yeah. Right. Um

>> yeah. Eddie Veter wrote the soundtrack

to that movie. Right. And I love into

the wild.

>> That's right. And um

>> McCannis, right? Mckennus.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> And I think he wrote at the end, you

know, the connection with people is the

thing. you know, he had this romantic

view of going out into the wilderness by

himself or we think of, you know, Walden

Pond and, you know, we romanticize this

thing about being alone for long

extended amounts of time.

>> But I think it raises real questions

about whether or not we're

>> even there. It's sort of the the most

existential version of like if a tree

falls in the woods, you know, and no

one's there, did it make a sound? It's

sort of like if we have thoughts and

emotions and experiences and there's no

one else around

>> Yeah.

>> to reflect those

>> for them to have impact on. like do we

even exist?

>> And this might be some hard wiring here.

I'm getting like almost Freudian and so

forgive me. I'm not a psychologist, but

I'm I'm curious what what your thoughts

are about the relationship between the

fear of isolation, our need for for our

thoughts and desires and behaviors to to

have some sort of reverberation

>> out there, some responsiveness to us.

>> Yeah. Some confirmation that we're

actually here. I think the closest

research to this to the extent that

there is research on this is what

happens to people prisoners who are put

in solitary confinement. It is not good

for their mental health. It's not good

for their sense ofelves for who they

are. They do lose a sense of themselves.

There's not great research on this

because you can't randomly assign people

to be isolated for long periods of time.

Right. Yes. Thank goodness. Yes. That

that's why we have IRBs, right? But that

experience I think is very real. What

when you were talking about this, it

made me think of um research in the

early 1900s, these theories from

sociologists um that the way we

understand ourselves is through other

people. The way I know who I am, what

I'm like as a person, who Nick is is

from talking with you, Andrew, and when

we are in conversation, that's when I'm

learning about myself. You're telling me

about myself. I'm having thoughts that

I'm sharing with you. And that's what

gives me a sense of self, this looking

glass self. and our sense of self-esteem

in fact is highly highly tied am I a

valuable person is highly tied to how

well we're getting along with other

people psychologists uh believe that it

is a monitor in fact for how well you're

getting along with people your very

sense of selfworth and so when there is

nobody out there I think you're

absolutely right that's a that you can

you can lose your sense of of who you

are and people who go out to the woods I

remember when I was a when I was a kid

um I actually wrote this I I won an

early career award from APA, which is a

great honor for me. But in the in the

bio that they asked you to write, I I

wrote in that that uh about my childhood

dream, my childhood before I was 9 years

old, I believed I was going to be a

mountain man. Like I grew up in the

woods in Iowa, hunting and fishing,

being outdoors. All my extended family

were farmers, watching Grizzly Adams on

TV. Like I thought that was a legit job.

Like you could I could actually go do

this, right? And I was about 9 years old

when I don't remember quite how this

happened, but I learned that this was

not a real job. Like it was this was not

a legit thing that I could do, right?

But yes, I had romanticized it as well

that this is going to be a wonderful

thing to be able to do. But when people

actually go out and do that, they mostly

go insane for, you know, a wow.

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media, which I spend a decent amount of

time on because I teach there and I

learn there. Um, you know, we know has

healthy aspects and unhealthy aspects.

Bunch of variables there. Age, what

people are looking at, etc. how much

time on it. Yeah. But social media

offered people this opportunity to get

out of aloneeness

>> through a different form of connection.

And so if we just kind of hypothesize

that having our words or our thoughts

have an a visible a known impact on

somebody else's words or thoughts

provide some sort of confirmation that

we're there. It kind of explains why,

you know, taking the most aggressive or

out uh or outrageous thought and

>> putting a comment and then somebody

responds or other people dogpile or they

respond and then you're like, I'm having

an effect out there also safely behind a

wall, right? There's no um I think we're

critical of that safely behind a wall

piece. you know that the the stereotype

that you hear online is like you know um

you know Apple 7689 in his mom's

basement like you know trolling people

you know and but that we forget like

that person's alone in their basement

why are they doing it like why is it so

satisfying to them I don't actually

believe that most of these people are

evil some of them might be but probably

they want to see their words and

thoughts have an effect and the best way

to do that is to poke or to say

something outrageous and so I'm hoping

that

>> whoever runs these platforms will try to

create incentives for um more positive

interactions because I think what

ultimately what most people want is the

interaction to feel that their thoughts

and their feelings matter out there. So

if we can go to something even a little

more concrete, if we just think about

conversation, right, the back and forth.

Why is it the conversation is often such

a pleasant thing? It is because there is

back and forth responsiveness in the

conversation that allows me to detect

that you're paying attention to me.

Right now you're looking at me, right?

You're nodding at me as I'm speaking and

you'll give a mhm or a right or a yeah

as I'm going along. And that allows me

to recognize my thoughts are having an

effect on you in a way that's having a

positive effect in return on me. And so

I think very much the that action action

at a distance as you put it.

Psychologists talk about that as

responsiveness or being in synchrony

with another person is part of what

makes conversation feels so good.

>> I have some friends who are recording

artists and the only reason they still

tour

>> it is it's not for the money. leaving

the money's in some cases is good, but

it's not as good as money they can make

doing other things. It's a huge hassle.

>> Yeah.

>> Um takes them away from families.

There's security issues. There's all

this stuff. But they get to experience

the apex of collective human action at a

distance based on their

>> their inflections, their things. You

mentioned Eddie Veter, right? There's

and then there stories of what whatever

he like scaled the the at at some

concert, right? He scaled up and like

grabbed the microphone got stuck up

above and then and then he actually I

actually watched it. It was pretty

dangerous and then he and then he

actually repelled down on the microphone

wire. Yeah. This was all spontaneous. So

he's doing these things. I don't know

how much he's conscious of the fact that

he's, you know, exciting people and, you

know, but but recording artists love to

do this. They don't just love to sing.

They love to see the response of of the

people they sing to. And people go to

concerts,

>> right?

>> I believe because whether they

understand it or not, they're having an

impact on what's happening up on stage.

>> They understand that that reciprocity.

So, I think we're just driven to do

this. I I have to believe that that this

is

>> part of our core wiring. When when we're

kids and we round up in preschool, like,

all right, everyone round up. and

everyone tries to sit still and the

girls generally can and the boys

generally can't for a little until a

later age. There's a lot of learning to

let others speak to kind of like hold

things in. So as a human psychologist,

if you were to play pimeatlogist for a

moment and we are human oldw world

primates, what are the sort of core

components that

>> social connection are built on? We

talked about dialogue, we talked about

vision, we talked about sharing. Is it,

you know, but

>> we don't get a whole lot of training in

this if you really think about it. We we

just kind of go through school. We learn

to sit. We learn to listen. You're not

supposed to hit people. You're not

supposed to yell at people. You know,

you run around at recess and and and so

on and you do what other people do. But

>> like what is the socialization in in

human primates? What are the core

features that make somebody able to

>> function really well socially or not? I

think the thing to keep in mind at least

is the reason why we think social

connection matters so much, why it's so

important is that it allows us to

coordinate with other people.

>> And if I can coordinate with you, then

you and I are better able to survive and

to exist and pass along our genes. And

if we can't coordinate with each other

and that groups that are able to

coordinate with each other collectively

cooperate with each other in ways that

are that are good for the common good,

those groups outperform groups where

people are just at each other's throat.

Nobody's cooperating. Right? This is why

corporations

function effectively. You get a

collection of individuals all operating

as a single unit all oriented towards

one common goal. And you can get a

collection of people of individuals then

doing things that are way more advanced

and way bigger than any individual would

do on their own. This is why the East

Indian Trading Company was able to send

ships all around the world because they

had resources tied up in corporations so

that they could send ships out into the

world and if a one went down you

wouldn't lose all of your all of your

resources. You wouldn't lose all your

riches as an investor. So all of social

connection, at least evolutionarily

speaking, this is the idea, is pushing

us toward cooperation and coordination,

particularly with non-kin. That's what

makes us truly social on this planet is

our ability to cooperate and to care for

non-kin. You don't need coordination

with family members. Uh you know, you

don't need any any special evolutionary

mechanism to get coordination with

family members. They have your they have

your genes, right? They have your genes.

So that makes perfect sense. you're

leaving genetic offspring, but you need

something else to explain why I'm so

friendly with you and why we coordinate

so well out there in the world. We drive

on the right side of the road where we

befriend people uh who we're not related

to. And that's where I think all of this

that's what all that's what social

connection is ultimately trying to serve

is that coordination function. Do you

think there are hardwired mechanisms

that set us up for cooperation with our

genetic offspring and siblings and so

forth more so than with non- genetic? Uh

I know you have adopted kids. Uh we have

adopted kids in our family as well and

and it's sort of weird to say this cuz

it's kind of a duh, but for people that

don't have adopted family members, like

the notion that they're not like

>> really part of your family is is insane.

I for privacy reasons I don't want to

disclose who these people are but I can

tell you that um I have a younger family

member who was adopted and

>> I never ever ever think for a moment

that she's not part of our family right

lay down and traffic for her the same

way I would for any other member of my

family and I wasn't the one that raised

her. Do you think there's something

hardwired about our genetic offspring

then? And the other stuff fortunately

develops adopted children, uh, close

friends, um, community members.

>> Yeah.

>> I don't know the answer to that exactly.

That's not what I study per se. What I

what I can tell you though as a social

psychologist is that what we study is

the power of context and roles to drive

behavior. And the thing that you are

speaking to and the thing that we have

experienced as parents, we have three

adopted children. What really matters is

the role you play, right? And that is

magical. When we adopted our first two

children

um from Ethiopia, we made a decision to

do this. And and when you adopt, there's

there's a point where you move from this

being hypothetical to being this being

real. Okay? And the way this worked for

us was that we were shown pictures of

these children who we could adopt. And

of course, once you're once you're in on

it, like you're all in, you're not

really making a choice. I'm not sure.

They said, you know, we called we called

up the agency. We said we were ready to

go. And and they said, "How about

these?" And they put a picture up for

us. And when we first making this

decision, it was hypothetical.

And the pictures look different to us.

These kids have come from our kids have

come from very very hard places in life.

You don't end up in an orphanage another

part of the world unless you've come

through hard places. They had come

through very hard places. They were in

the second and third percentile in the

WHO heightened uh weight charts. They

were in tough shape. As soon as Jen and

I said, "Yeah, we can do this." I I so

vividly remember this. They just looked

better. They just they looked more. You

just felt more love. They looked

different

>> the second we decided, yes, this is it.

Here we go. We have committed.

>> And then once you bring people into your

family, anybody who's done this knows

the huge effect is your dad or your mom.

And that's what matters. We will

sometimes I don't know if your family

has done this but I will sometimes very

gently note to people they will

sometimes talk to me as a as another

father of of my kids and not my kids

right as if the biological and adopted

children are different and I very try to

gently say they are all our children and

you don't you don't feel differently so

I think what's interesting not as if

there is there any subtle difference

that's left is how almost completely

imperceptible or completely

imperceptible. It actually is. That's

what makes us remarkable as human beings

that we can do that. There is no other

species we know of that does that kind

of thing that loves beyond their kin in

the way that we can. In fact, it's led

to a a total reshaping in many ways of

the field of economics. Even economists

believe that humans are fundamentally

self-interested. They only care about

themselves. The only rub is when you

actually look at the data, people are

just a lot nicer to each other than

standard models of economics would

predict. We give money away to charity.

We give away kidneys to random

strangers. We care. Like if if if I give

you $10 in an experiment and tell you

you can divide it with another person

however you want. You can keep all of

it. Give uh you know give none of it or

give it all away. The standard

prediction from economic theory is

you'll be purely self-interest. you

won't care anything about this person

you know nothing about. You'll give them

nothing. That's not what real people do.

They give something 30%, 50%, typically

depending on the context that you're in.

And that's the thing that I think is

remarkable in this particular case. Not

is there any any bit left of of the this

this biological hard wiring, but how

much of it is about the role that you

play and how much our love for another,

our ability to connect with another

person is a function of the role that we

play in their lives.

>> Incredible example that the moment you

made this decision, you and your wife

made the decision that these were the

children you were going to adopt, that

they your visual perception of them

changed.

>> Different.

>> Yeah. It's almost like two circuits

merged in that moment and and I I can

attest from a parallel experience. Um

although I'm not the parent of this

family member that it you never go

there's it's a it's an instant and you

never go back.

>> There's never a reconsideration that you

know and I think some people assume that

like well in especially hard times you

know it's actually it kind of just

leaves the room that like the question

it's a fascinating and reassuring aspect

of of our brain wiring. Other people

might imagine that you think this. It

just doesn't. You just you're you're

just a parent. That's it.

>> Wild and very cool.

>> It is very cool. And and and I think an

underappreciated aspect of our sociality

is how much we and and we often we kind

of take it for granted. You know, people

are mean to each other. Yeah. Yeah.

People can be mean to each other, but we

also love each other way beyond what we

should in some way based on just pure,

you know, kinship relationships and

biological offspring would predict we

would. And that's because we're highly

social. We got to cooperate with each

other in order to get along successfully

in life. And so we got these really hard

uh hardwired kind of circuitry to care

and love and connect with each with each

other when we try. what I'm about to

describe might be different now.

>> Um, but a good portion of my family is

in South America. And I'll never forget

when I was in my like late teens, early

20s, I went down there and I I went out

with my cousins to a bar. It was like a

club, right? Um, and it was so

interesting because they spoke to their

friends. We met up with their friends

there. People danced, people drank, did

all the things that we were also doing

back in California,

>> but there was no communication with

other people at this club or this bar

that they didn't already know.

>> Oh,

>> this may have changed,

>> but the then and there the the culture

was one where you go out with the people

you already know and you have a really

good time, but people weren't exchanging

numbers, hitting on people, looking at

other people, cross it was it's that

there were these little pockets across

the room. So it wasn't this idea that oh

when you go out in public you go to a

club or you drink or something you might

meet somebody else that there wasn't a

fear of other people that wasn't the

reason you go out you go out to see your

friends and the interesting thing also

was that many of these friendships had

been lifelong friendships.

>> Oh yeah. So in some sense I wonder is

this one version of how humans evolved

because we always think about this

village of like a hundred people you

know um you know Bob Sapolski talks

about this and you know we we evolved in

these cultures of 100 or 200 folks and

you knew everyone and everyone's in each

other's business and that's how our our

species evolved. At the same time we we

have different examples of of sociology

>> and that strangers weren't around as

much was the idea.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. It's it's hard to say. I don't

know. Certainly today, if you look

around the world, there is and always

has been some anxiety about connecting

with strangers. And it can vary

depending on where you There's some

places where there's more sociability

than in others, but there's always been

some anxiety about the other, the one

you don't know, right? Because you don't

know necessarily if I can trust you or

not in this moment, whether that comes

from our evolutionary heritage or not,

or just unfamiliarity with anything,

right? So, if you know, if you give me

something to drink here, I don't know

what's in it. I'm going to be a little

nervous. I want to find out before I

drink it. If I trust you, I'll drink it.

But if I don't, you know, I'm not so

sure. I'm going to want to see what's in

there first. There's always some anxiety

about the unknown or uncertainty. And it

could be a lot of stuff about strangers,

a reluctance to connect with other

people, desire to keep with the folks we

already know comes simply from that,

right? Which which also would apply to

non-human interactions too or non-human

objects as well. We just like what's

familiar because we know it. and and we

trust it and we're comfortable with it

as a result. Everything else by

comparison is a little bit riskier.

>> I can't say I'm particularly outgoing or

not, but I was taught manners

>> that had me ask how people's day was

going. Like if I'm checking out the

grocery store, it's like, "How's your

day going?" And I'm interested like it's

not just an icebreaker like how's your

day going? You hold the door for people.

You say please and thank you. I I think

a lot of people assume that manners

equates to small talk equates to

superficial

>> and that it's all a bunch of fluff that

it's not about deep connection. But when

I'm moving through the, you know, the

checkout line at Whole Foods,

>> I don't have a lot of options.

>> Y

>> if I say nothing, okay, these days no

one would notice. They could be on their

phone. No one no one would call that

abnormal. If I say, "How's your day

going?" and they go, "I'm pretty good."

If I say, "What did you do before you

got here?" That's that's getting a

little bit further down the line, right?

Um, if I say like, "What's the hardest

thing that ever happened?" You know,

they're going to look at me like I'm

crazy, right? So, what I wonder is when

we talk about manners and etiquette,

which I believe there's been a real kind

of erosion of at the level of

>> kind of what is standard, right? Um, for

whatever reason, we just don't have an

etiquette everyone follows. All it used

to be all men wore jackets and ties or

at least ties to work. I mean now you

show up and whatever, right? I do think

that as manners have

>> become less common or common manners

have become less common

>> that the opportunities for casual

low-level exchange have evaporated.

>> Yeah.

>> And so there's less of a stepping stone

to deeper exchange.

>> Yeah. So I would think about manners

kind of as habits, right? That's kind of

what they are. and and some

sensibilities about about other people

being kind and decent to other people

but understanding how those manners

might be affecting day-to-day behavior

is a little bit tricky. So one of the

things for instance we find like in in a

lot of public spaces people are

reluctant to engage with other people

because they don't want to interrupt

they don't want to be impolite. There's

a version of that that is about manners,

right? And we have some sometimes we're

getting signals of that tech gives us

signals that somebody doesn't want to be

bothered perhaps like we put ear buds in

or we look at our phone, right? And so

some of that could be coming from what

you might think of as as manners. In the

UK, for instance, one of the reasons we

we find just well just this true in the

US too, but even a little more so in the

UK, there's this norm of politeness that

I it's not okay for me to get into your

business. In Japan, it's even stronger.

Right? I don't want to. And that's seen

as being polite.

>> Right? In those contexts, I am with you

though that this general norm of saying

hello or hi to people has gotten

diminished a little bit in part because

people I think are getting out of the

habit because you got these you got

these got these phones on you all the

time. But I think I think it's a little

trickier. It's a little harder to say

maybe that manners have eroded because

they're complicated out in the world.

stuff that looks like could be a lack of

manners in one context could in people's

own minds be no I'm I'm being polite to

you by not interrupting. It's tricky.

>> Yeah. I mean I hear from a lot of

podcast listeners that the challenges

with, you know, finding a romantic

partner nowadays center largely around

people not wanting to be seen as creepy,

but also people not wanting strangers to

talk to them. So there's a little we're

a little bit of an impass right now. I

also hear from people who wonder why uh

guys aren't

>> asking them out just kind of randomly or

asking them for a coffee or for a number

or something like that. I think there's

a lot of fear right now is what I hear.

>> Yes.

>> And that fear is probably well it

certainly is on both sides.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, you said you had an in-depth

conversation with your Uber driver on

the way over here.

>> I mean I used to be that I would get

into

>> deep conversations on airplanes. It just

seems like we're we're stuck in this

cap. I did last night coming out to

>> the only downside being sometimes uh if

your neck is turned to one side, you

couldn't get off that plane with a with

a stiff neck. But in all seriousness, so

are you one to just open up conversation

with people at random? Yeah.

>> In part because we got to we could go

back a long way to start. I'll start at

the beginning of our research, but I'll

keep this simple. I've interpreted

reaching out and connecting with other

people differently. We find in our work

that people underestimate how interested

others are in engaging with them. So

you're sitting next to somebody on a

plane or on a train and people if you're

not already talking, you assume this

person doesn't want to talk to you, but

that person is more likely to say

they're interested in talking to you

than you would guess. But if you got two

people that aren't talking to each

other, this gets back to our earlier

conversation, how I can use somebody's

behavior as a guide to their thoughts.

in this case, making a mistake. I can

infer you're not interested in talking

to me if you're not. And you could be

thinking, well, Nick's not talking to

me. He's not interested in it either. We

can both then sit there, both be

interested in talking to each other, but

nobody's saying a word because we

misunderstand what silence is like,

right? Or we assume that people don't

want to have meaningful conversations

when in fact, most people say that's

actually what they want. So, I've

adopted a different way to think about

manners here in a way that I think

attends more to both my own well-being

and the person who I'm connecting with.

I think about social connection as an

opportunity or an invitation to connect

with somebody. And to your point about

fear, we find over and over again people

are overly pessimistic, overly afraid

about how positively other people will

respond to them when you reach out to

them in a positive way. So like with the

Uber driver on the way here today, I

just he was Iranian. I asked him, "How

do you feel about the war? Can you can

you tell me about it?" And it was clear

that I was not wanting some superficial

response. I cared. I was taking an

interest in him and he recognized I was

taking an interest in him and he

responded by taking an interest then in

me and feeling comfortable sharing. And

he I mean he shared that his son died in

a protest in Iran and that he had been

imprisoned in Iran. And I mean it we

were crying but together at the end of

that at the end of that ride it's 23

minutes to get here.

>> The fact that you're able to connect for

a short while. I'm assuming you didn't

exchange numbers. You're not going to be

in touch. Yeah. So so the point is not

to create a lasting relationship. The

point is to connect

>> to make that moment better. Yeah. I

mean, and I think actually this is a

really important way to rethink how you

think about well-being.

Well-being is not just about the

intense, you know, the the really

impactful moments in your life.

Happiness and well-being is a little

more like a leaky tire. Like you just

got to keep pumping it up because you

adapt to things, right? You you go on

this amazing trip, you know, to out into

the beautiful Sonoran desert or

something, right? And that's great. You

come back the next day and then you got

traffic coming to work and that sucks,

right? you're right back to where you

were before. It doesn't last. I mean,

nothing really lasts for that long.

Obviously, relationships can last, but

but moments come and go, right? And what

that means, I think, for our well-being

is that we want to start paying

attention to creating good moments,

right? Positive moments that can lift us

up and the people around us as well. And

you can take I could have gone 23

minutes here uh to talk with you today

and had a perfectly boring ride or I

could have heard one of the most amazing