0:00

This is Hidden Brain. I'm

0:02

Shankar Vedantam. Ask yourself

0:04

what makes you happy. Many

0:07

people would say, spending

0:09

time with close friends,

0:11

quality moments with family,

0:13

playing with a pet. Most of

0:15

us can agree, relationships are

0:18

at the heart of a

0:20

life well-lived. Social science research

0:23

bears this out. Countless studies

0:25

suggest that our emotional ties

0:27

to others shape our well-being.

0:30

Long-running analyses that track

0:32

people over time show that

0:34

social connections are not just

0:36

about our emotional well-being, they're

0:39

important determinants of our

0:41

physical health. But it's one thing to

0:44

say that relationships are important.

0:46

It's another to go about

0:48

getting them or preserving them.

0:50

Lifelong friends move away to

0:52

other towns and countries. Romantic

0:54

relationships come undone. Relatives pass

0:57

away. and especially as people

0:59

get older, many find it

1:01

difficult to form new relationships,

1:03

even as they yearn to

1:05

feel close to others. New

1:07

psychological research suggests a solution

1:09

to this problem, or at

1:11

least a partial solution, and it's

1:13

one that's easily accessible

1:15

to everyone. Last week in

1:18

our Relationships 2.0 series, we

1:20

looked at the common mistakes we

1:22

make when negotiating with other people.

1:24

This week on Hidden Brain, we

1:27

bring you a user's manual on

1:29

how to boost your social

1:31

connections and your happiness.

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people feel they don't have others

3:05

in whom they can confide. Making

3:07

friends can be hard, especially if

3:09

you're someone who is naturally shy.

3:11

At the University of Sussex, psychologist

3:13

Julian Sandstrom studies what we can

3:15

do to combat the growing challenge

3:18

of social isolation. Julian Sandstrom, welcome

3:20

to Hidden Brain. Hi, thanks for

3:22

having me. Julian, I understand that

3:24

you were... somewhat introverted and shy

3:26

as a child. Can you describe

3:28

the younger version of yourself to

3:30

me? I was definitely a shy

3:32

kid, very bookish, and so I

3:34

remember, you know, any time we

3:36

went to my grandma's house for

3:38

Christmas and all the cousins and

3:40

aunts and uncles were there, I

3:42

would be off in a room

3:44

somewhere with a book just finding

3:46

the quietest. place in the house

3:49

just sitting there reading. And my

3:51

dream when I was a kid

3:53

was that I would grow up

3:55

and I would live on an

3:57

island. I don't mean like a

3:59

tropical island, I mean an island

4:01

that was just me. My own

4:03

island where I had a big

4:05

library and that was my dream.

4:07

As a teenager, Jillian's shyness intensified.

4:09

It got to the point she

4:11

found it difficult to even have

4:13

routine phone conversations. Oh gosh, that

4:15

was the worst. And I felt

4:17

like every time I did it,

4:20

I would get off the phone

4:22

as quickly as possible. And then

4:24

my mom would say, well, did

4:26

you ask this? Did you say

4:28

that? And of course, I never

4:30

did any of those things. And

4:32

so it just felt really stressful

4:34

and anxious about talking to someone

4:36

on the phone. And I understand

4:38

this must have been especially hard

4:40

for you because you had one

4:42

member of your family who was

4:44

the polar opposite of you. Tell

4:46

me about your dad. Yeah, actually

4:48

I feel like my whole family

4:50

was the opposite of me, but

4:53

especially my dad. So my dad

4:55

is just, I think he's sort

4:57

of a king of talking to

4:59

people. He had this knack for

5:01

approaching people and figuring out how

5:03

to connect with them and start

5:05

a conversation. And so anywhere we

5:07

went with... take a really long

5:09

time. You know, grow them to

5:11

the grocery store would take three

5:13

hours because he would stop and

5:15

talk to everybody. Especially kids. He

5:17

loves talking to kids. He'd always

5:19

tease them and get them talking.

5:21

But he would ask a kid

5:24

who looked like they were about

5:26

five or six years old. He'd

5:28

say, how old are you? 12,

5:30

13? You know, just something ridiculous

5:32

that would make them. feel like

5:34

they had to sort of disagree

5:36

with what he'd said or he'd

5:38

asked them you know if they

5:40

had any pets at home and

5:42

and you know ask if they

5:44

had a pet alligator or a

5:46

pet hippopotamus you know just ridiculous

5:48

things that would that would make

5:50

them respond. And did you really

5:52

feel like you were embarrassed when

5:55

he did these things? Did you

5:57

did you try and prevent him

5:59

from doing? this dad they don't

6:01

want to talk to you you

6:03

know they're doing their grocery shopping

6:05

you know why would someone want

6:07

to stop and talk to a

6:09

complete stranger and what would he

6:11

say in response I think he

6:13

would just ignore me and enjoy

6:15

his conversation because he was having

6:17

such a good time he likes

6:19

to say you know everybody has

6:21

a story so he just loves

6:23

meeting people and having a chat

6:25

began to have real consequences. So

6:28

I was I think about 25

6:30

and I was on the plane

6:32

on my own on this business

6:34

trip which seemed quite exciting and

6:36

and I just recently gotten married

6:38

so I and I'd taken on

6:40

my husband's surname and they were

6:42

making an announcement about a bunch

6:44

of different people's names being called

6:46

out something to do with baggage

6:48

I didn't know what was going

6:50

on but at some point they

6:52

said you know would passenger Sandstrom

6:54

please identify themselves. And I thought,

6:56

well, they couldn't mean me because

6:59

that's not my name anymore. And

7:01

I knew I should have checked,

7:03

but I was too anxious and

7:05

embarrassed to push that button and

7:07

call over the flight attendant, so

7:09

I didn't say anything. And so

7:11

of course what happened is I

7:13

got to the other end, got

7:15

off the plane, went to the

7:17

belt to collect my luggage, and

7:19

of course it wasn't there. And

7:21

so I had to go and

7:23

buy a tourist t-shirt, which is

7:25

what I wore to the first

7:27

day on this business trip. Several

7:34

years after the luggage incident, Julian

7:36

signed up for a graduate program in

7:38

Toronto. She had been working as a

7:40

computer programmer for a decade, but wanted

7:43

to try something new. She decided

7:45

to get a master's degree in psychology.

7:47

Julian was in her 30s. As she

7:49

looked around at her graduate school cohort,

7:52

she worried she wasn't smart enough.

7:54

But on top of all that, I

7:56

had the feeling, you know, I'd given

7:59

up this other career. that had been

8:01

going really well, you know, did I

8:03

make the right decision? Should I be

8:06

here? You know, all these people

8:08

are so much younger than me. So

8:10

it's just this feeling, you know, the

8:12

kind of imposter syndrome feeling of, you

8:15

know, did I make the right

8:17

decision? Should I be here? Soon enough,

8:19

however, Jillian settled into a routine. It

8:21

gave her more than structure. It gave

8:24

her an insight. I would go

8:26

to the research lab to do my

8:28

studies. But then my supervisor had an

8:30

office in a different building and so

8:33

when I walked between those two

8:35

buildings I would pass on the street

8:37

corner There was a hot dog stand

8:39

because I was at a university right

8:42

downtown Toronto and I started to

8:44

develop sort of accidentally, developed a relationship

8:46

with a lady who worked at the

8:48

hot dog stand that I would pass

8:51

by. And seeing her there and knowing

8:53

that she recognized me, you know, we'd

8:55

smile, we'd wave. I don't even

8:57

know if we talked to each other,

9:00

but we just had this relationship built

9:02

on these little minimal signs. On some

9:04

days, as Julian crossed the street,

9:06

she noticed something curious. The hot dog

9:09

lady was not at her usual spot.

9:11

That wasn't what was curious. The thing

9:13

that struck Jillian was her own

9:15

emotional reaction. So on a day when

9:18

I didn't see the hot dog lady,

9:20

I would feel disappointed and kind of,

9:22

not lonely, but sort of unmoored,

9:24

you know, because I think it came

9:27

to think that... the hot dog lady

9:29

and people like her like the kind

9:31

of we have lots of relationships

9:33

like that these little tiny relationships that

9:36

maybe don't seem particularly important but I

9:38

feel like they kind of you're kind

9:40

of woven into the social fabric you

9:43

know and so I felt a bit

9:45

unmoored and uncentered when she was

9:47

missing. So Julian when you think about

9:49

these relationships that you're talking about like

9:52

your relationship with the hot dog lady.

9:54

They're different than the kind of

9:56

relationships you would have with a spouse

9:58

or a child or even a colleague

10:01

at work. And sociologists have come up

10:03

with names for these kinds of

10:05

relationships. Can you talk about the different

10:07

terms they use for these kinds of

10:10

relationships? Yes, so a sociologist in the

10:12

70s named Mark Granoveter coined these

10:14

kind of relationships, weak ties, and as

10:16

opposed to strong ties, which are the

10:19

ones with close friends and family. And

10:21

it's tricky to come up with

10:23

a definition, because one of the original

10:25

thoughts was there people that we see

10:28

less often. But I don't think that's

10:30

necessarily true, because people like the hot

10:32

dog lady I would see here on

10:35

a very regular basis, or you

10:37

might run into someone at the school

10:39

drop-off every day. So I don't think

10:41

frequency is necessarily a fact to hear,

10:44

but definitely close friends and family

10:46

are the people that you feel the

10:48

most comfortable with, and you'd be most

10:50

willing to sort of share your deepest

10:53

darkest secrets secrets with. weak ties

10:55

or you know you can feel fondly

10:57

towards them positively but you're probably less

10:59

likely to feel like you'd want to

11:02

confide in them and share something

11:04

that feels very personal. So a little

11:06

while later you were starting a PhD

11:08

and I believe this was in the

11:11

lab of Elizabeth Dunn who we've

11:13

previously had on Hidden Brain as a

11:15

guest and Liz Dunn asked you what

11:17

you wanted to study and how did

11:20

you respond? I said I

11:22

wanted to study the hot dog lady.

11:24

She said, what makes you happy? Her

11:26

lab is the happy lab. What makes

11:29

you happy? And I said, well, the

11:31

hot dog lady makes me happy. Having

11:33

these little interactions throughout my day with

11:36

people that I'm not really close to

11:38

and would never invite over for a

11:40

drink or anything, but having this familiarity

11:42

and feeling of connection with those kind

11:45

of people. just really feels good to

11:47

me and I wanted to know, you

11:49

know, is it just me or is

11:52

this a more general thing? Do people

11:54

generally feel good from having these kind

11:56

of relationships? One,

12:23

two, three, four. Those are numbers.

12:25

But you already knew that. If you

12:27

want to know what number you're

12:29

going to pay each month for

12:32

your car, use Kelly, Blue Book,

12:34

My Wallet on Auto Trader. They're

12:36

really good at numbers. Auto Trader.

15:14

So, Jilline, we talked earlier about the

15:16

sociologist Mark Granovetta and his work on

15:18

weak ties. If I recall correctly, he

15:20

had a famous paper called The Strength

15:23

of weak ties, looking at how, in

15:25

some ways, our connections to people who

15:27

are peripheral in our lives are actually

15:29

very important to us, and this has

15:32

been borne out in lots of studies,

15:34

looking at how, if you're searching for

15:36

a new job, for example, you're much

15:39

more likely to find that job, through

15:41

a network of people who are very

15:43

close to you. veteran others have looked

15:45

primarily at the power of weak ties

15:48

in the context of professional relationships, but

15:50

in some ways what you were realizing

15:52

from the clicker study was that the

15:54

strength of weak ties might also affect

15:57

our social lives and our emotional well-being.

15:59

So yeah, I was looking at weak

16:01

ties as having other advantages that maybe

16:03

hadn't been looked at before. So these

16:06

well-being benefits and emotional benefits. So the

16:08

biggest source of weak ties comes from

16:10

the world of strangers or people we

16:12

don't know. Can we talk a moment

16:15

about whether there's a difference between strangers

16:17

and weak ties? I mean, what's the

16:19

difference between someone who we would call

16:22

a weak tie? I

16:24

think the difference is actually pretty

16:26

small. So I think a weak

16:28

tie, my definition is just someone

16:30

with whom you have sort of

16:32

mutual familiarity. So the hot dog

16:34

lady was a weak tie. The

16:36

first time I talked to her,

16:38

she was a stranger. But when

16:40

we saw each other again and

16:42

she recognized me and I recognized

16:44

her, I think at that point

16:46

she's no longer a stranger, she

16:48

is a weak tie. You started

16:50

to conduct other studies besides the

16:52

clicker study looking at the power

16:54

of weak ties. Can you talk

16:56

about some of that work? One

16:58

of your studies, I understand, took

17:00

place in a coffee shop. Right.

17:02

So I, you know, sort of

17:04

inspired by the hot dog lady.

17:06

I thought the closest thing I

17:08

could think of, you know, I

17:10

really wanted to study that phenomenon.

17:12

lots of people have sort of

17:15

their favorite barista at the coffee

17:17

shop and people go into the

17:19

coffee shop and the person knows

17:21

their name and knows what their

17:23

regular order is and it makes

17:25

you feel really good. And so

17:27

I really wanted to study that

17:29

phenomenon. So I asked people, I

17:31

recruited people walking past a Starbucks

17:33

in Vancouver, gave them a gift

17:35

card, and I said the only

17:37

catches that when you go in

17:39

to buy your coffee, you have

17:41

to follow some instructions. And some

17:43

people, the instructions. where when you

17:45

go in, try to turn it

17:47

into a real genuine... social interaction.

17:49

So smile, make eye contact, and

17:51

have a little chat. And you

17:53

know, plenty of people said they

17:55

do this anyway. And I said,

17:57

well, just amp it up. You

17:59

know, it did even more than

18:01

you usually do. And so people

18:03

bought their coffee, followed the instructions,

18:05

and then when they came out,

18:07

I asked them to fill out

18:09

a short survey. And what we

18:11

found was that people who'd had

18:13

this... In Julian Study, people had

18:16

an incentive to talk to strangers.

18:18

In the real world, talking to

18:20

people who knew their name and

18:22

knew their order. If they had

18:24

that social interaction, they were in

18:26

a better mood and they felt

18:28

more satisfied with their Starbucks experience

18:30

and they felt a greater sense

18:32

of connection to other people. In

18:34

Julian Study, people had an incentive

18:36

to talk to strangers. In the

18:38

real world, talking to people you

18:40

don't know can be awkward. We

18:42

worry our small talk won't be

18:44

well received. We feel that people

18:46

will think we're obnoxious, silly, or

18:48

unlikable. We've talked about this trepidation

18:50

on the show before. In our

18:52

episode featuring the psychologist Erika Boothby,

18:54

she called it the liking gap.

18:56

It's the gap between how we

18:58

believe others see us and what

19:00

they actually see. Julian has found

19:02

evidence of the liking gap phenomenon

19:04

in her own research. What we

19:06

find is that after two people

19:08

talk for the first time, they

19:10

each tend to think that the

19:12

other person liked them less than

19:14

they actually did. So, you know,

19:17

we have this negative voice in

19:19

her head that says, oh, you

19:21

know, why did I say that?

19:23

Why did I not say that?

19:25

Did they understand me? Did I

19:27

embarrass myself? And we tend to

19:29

listen to that negative voice and

19:31

think that everything went horribly wrong.

19:33

But our partner doesn't have that.

19:35

say, you know, they're probably doing

19:37

the same thing, right? So they

19:39

don't even notice the thing that

19:41

you think went horribly wrong because

19:43

they're stuck in their own head

19:45

thinking about what they did wrong.

19:47

And so I read the abstract

19:49

that Erica was part of where

19:51

she was talking about the liking

19:53

gap and I thought, oh, I

19:55

have data, we should talk. And

19:57

so I reached out to her

19:59

via email and we've been collaborating

20:01

ever since. So. It's a great

20:03

example of reaching out to a

20:05

stranger. I'm wondering, Julian, if you

20:07

can talk a moment about how

20:09

our intuitions and forecasting errors are

20:11

sometimes compounded by the messages we

20:13

receive from society. I want to

20:15

play you an all-public service announcement

20:18

about how children should think about

20:20

strangers. Most people love a little

20:22

child. Some grown-ups though are bad.

20:24

The bad ones look like good

20:26

ones, like any mom or dad.

20:28

So that is why you must

20:30

not talk to strangers that you

20:32

meet. Don't let them give you

20:34

any toys or anything to eat.

20:36

If someone that you do not

20:38

know should offer you a treat,

20:40

remember how he looks and talks,

20:42

but run fast, stop the street.

20:44

Run fast. So it's not just

20:46

our internal messaging that gets it

20:48

wrong, Julian. Sometimes the external messaging

20:50

is also saying, keep to yourself.

20:52

Yes, absolutely. And I think norms

20:54

and those kind of cultural messages

20:56

make a huge difference to what

20:58

we do. I think it's really

21:00

hard, isn't it? nuanced message that

21:02

we want to convey because we

21:04

don't want to make people scared

21:06

to talk to others but you

21:08

know we do need to be

21:10

aware of our personal safety and

21:12

you know I'm not I'm not

21:14

suggesting that people you know go

21:16

down a dark alley and start

21:19

talking to people but you know

21:21

in most situations if you're in

21:23

a public place surrounded by other

21:25

people you know there's so many

21:27

benefits to talking to strangers. I'd

21:29

like to talk about some of

21:31

those benefits that you yourself have

21:33

realized in your own life. You've

21:35

actually tried to walk the talk

21:37

of your research and practice what

21:39

you've preached. Tell me about a

21:41

time that you had an interesting

21:43

conversation on the train with a

21:45

woman who was carrying a very

21:47

fancy cupcake. Yes, this was one

21:49

of the first conversations that I

21:51

can remember sort of deliberately starting

21:53

with a stranger. And if I

21:55

think about it, I've definitely had

21:57

conversations before then, but this is

21:59

one that was really memorable to

22:01

me. I think because I felt

22:03

like I deliberately done it rather

22:05

than it just sort of happening

22:07

accidentally. And so I was on

22:09

the train in Toronto and it

22:11

was sort of during the time

22:13

when all these very fancy cupcake

22:15

shops were coming out. And this

22:17

woman on the train had this

22:19

beautiful, just delicious-looking decadent cupcake. And

22:22

so I couldn't help but ask

22:24

her about it. Basically, I just

22:26

wanted to comment on how... beautiful

22:28

this cupcake was. And so we

22:30

started talking and I think maybe

22:32

it was her birthday or something

22:34

and she was reminiscing about other

22:36

birthdays and she told me that

22:38

in the past she had gone

22:40

on a trip to South Africa

22:42

and when she was there she

22:44

had ridden an ostrich and you

22:46

know you think about it how

22:48

did we get from cupcakes to

22:50

ostriches? I don't know. And so

22:52

I was really hooked. I just

22:54

thought, this is amazing. Like, I

22:56

would never have known this if

22:58

I hadn't talked to a complete

23:00

stranger. Jillian, being a psychologist, went

23:02

a step further. She realized that

23:04

weak dies are a source of

23:06

novelty in our lives. Once she

23:08

had this insight, it started to

23:10

pop up all the time. Yeah,

23:12

I've learned all sorts of things

23:14

that I found interesting. Like, I

23:16

remember talking to someone on a

23:18

plane who was from Slovenia, who

23:20

told me that Slovenia is 70%

23:23

forest, and I thought, okay, someday

23:25

I need to go to Slovenia,

23:27

because that sounds awesome. Forests are

23:29

a great place for an introvert,

23:31

right? I remember talking to someone

23:33

on the bus out at the

23:35

university who told me that there

23:37

was... a region in China where

23:39

the majority of people, or there

23:41

was a huge number of people

23:43

who have red hair like me,

23:45

and I went home and googled

23:47

it right away and found that

23:49

indeed it was true. I have

23:51

had free vegetables from people. I

23:53

got a ride from a couple

23:55

ones that saved me from having

23:57

to, you know, the train wasn't

23:59

running, and so they gave me

24:01

a ride so that I didn't

24:03

have to take the bus instead

24:05

of the... train late at night.

24:07

I was with my husband, I

24:09

felt very safe about it. Again,

24:11

not suggesting people get in a

24:13

stranger's car, but I felt comfortable

24:15

having talked to them for ages

24:17

first. I joined a book club

24:19

after talking to a stranger. I've

24:21

talked all sorts of different interesting

24:24

kinds of people I've talked to.

24:26

freemasons. I talked to someone who

24:28

made theatrical wigs. I've talked to

24:30

children's book authors and a poet

24:32

and I don't know, I've just

24:34

met all sorts of really interesting

24:36

people and just had some really

24:38

interesting conversations and also a lot

24:40

of just sort of average meh

24:42

conversations. We worry that people won't

24:44

like us. We assume that small

24:46

talk is empty talk. In reality,

24:48

these interactions have a subtle but

24:50

significant effect on our happiness. Weak

24:52

ties, it turns out, offer tremendous

24:54

value in our lives. But during

24:56

the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us

24:58

have experienced a catastrophic loss of

25:00

these connections. During the pandemic, people

25:02

generally found ways to stay in

25:04

touch with the people they were

25:06

closest to. But with acquaintances, sometimes

25:08

we don't even know how to

25:10

reach them. They're just the people

25:12

that we happened to cross pass

25:14

with during the course of our

25:16

day. So because the patterns of

25:18

our day changed, we just didn't

25:20

see them. You know, I had

25:22

a... bury at the pet store

25:25

who would remember me and recognize

25:27

me and ask about my cats.

25:29

You know, I wouldn't reach out

25:31

to Barry at the pet store,

25:33

would I? I mean, I don't

25:35

even know how to do that.

25:37

So I think we've kind of,

25:39

you know, the pandemic sort of

25:41

disproportionately affected our relationships with weak

25:43

ties. And at the same time,

25:45

Julian, I think a lot of

25:47

people are reporting. You know, even

25:49

people who enjoy working from home

25:51

and feel like working from home

25:53

has actually allowed them to spend

25:55

more time with family and better

25:57

have a better... work-life balance, many

25:59

people then report, you know, I

26:01

somehow feel cut off from the

26:03

world in important ways. And perhaps

26:05

part of what they're experiencing is

26:07

what you're talking about here. You

26:09

know, your spouse is still your

26:11

spouse, your child is still your

26:13

child, your co-worker is still your

26:15

co-worker, and you have fixed ways

26:17

of dealing with them. Weak ties

26:19

are what bring in surprise and

26:22

unpredictability into your life. I

26:24

think that's true. Bigger or maybe

26:26

different impact than people think so

26:28

talking to our close friends We're

26:30

probably already watching the same shows

26:32

on Netflix where you know, we

26:34

already know all their opinions We

26:36

sort of have nothing new to

26:38

talk about because nobody was able

26:40

to go out and do new

26:42

things And so I think you

26:44

know, it's it's the weak ties

26:46

that sort of get us access

26:49

to new kinds of information or

26:51

new stories or new adventures and

26:53

because we were cut off from

26:55

them portion of the novelty that

26:57

we tend to get day-to-day.

26:59

As we go about

27:01

our daily routines there

27:03

are countless opportunities to

27:05

connect with others. We

27:08

often take these opportunities

27:10

for granted. When we

27:12

come back techniques and

27:14

strategies for making the most

27:17

of our week dice. You're

27:19

listening to hidden brain, I'm

27:21

Shankar Vedanta. This

27:38

is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

27:40

Across a number of research studies,

27:42

psychologist Jillian Sandstrom has found that

27:44

people are happier when they have

27:46

lots of casual conversations with strangers

27:49

or people they know only slightly.

27:51

The cafeteria worker who makes you

27:53

a sandwich, the lifeguard who watches

27:55

over your kids at the swimming

27:57

pool, and usher at the... the

28:00

theater. Most people don't prioritize

28:02

these relationships, perhaps because they

28:05

are fleeting. Jillian grew up

28:07

shy, but has tried to become more outgoing

28:09

in conversations with strangers. In

28:11

recent years, she has developed

28:13

something of a science on

28:15

how to go about talking to strangers.

28:18

She has discovered that

28:20

there are distinct psychological

28:22

problems in starting conversations,

28:24

maintaining conversations, and

28:26

ending conversations, and each

28:29

problem requires its own solution.

28:31

She explained to me the challenge

28:33

involved with breaking the ice. When I

28:35

was doing my PhD, I used to talk

28:37

to people on the bus all the time.

28:39

And it wasn't a common thing to do.

28:42

You don't talk to people on the bus.

28:44

So when I would do that, I think

28:46

people's original reaction, their initial gut reaction is,

28:48

do I know you? I think that's, you

28:51

know, they think... Maybe that's why you're

28:53

talking to me. Maybe I've met you

28:55

before. And then they realize, uh-oh, I

28:57

don't know you. And then they think,

29:00

uh-oh, what is happening here? What do

29:02

you want? What is going on? And

29:04

then I think you get to the

29:06

third phase, which is just, oh, you're

29:09

being friendly. Cool. And then you have

29:11

a nice chat. So I think sometimes

29:13

people, you know, you have to be

29:15

aware that there is going to be

29:18

that awkward moment because unfortunately it is

29:20

just not the norm and so people

29:22

have to sort of make sense of

29:24

what's going on. But I think if

29:27

you can be a little bit patient,

29:29

you know, you almost always get to

29:31

that stage where people can accept

29:33

that you're just being friendly.

29:36

You have to accept there are going to

29:38

be a few moments where the other

29:40

person might be wary. There may also

29:42

be situations where someone clearly

29:44

does not want to be engaged

29:46

in a chat. As they say, read the room. I

29:49

can think of a time not too long

29:51

ago when I was on the tube in

29:53

London, and the unwritten rule is that you

29:55

do not talk to people on the tube.

29:57

So it's just breaking all of the norms

29:59

to do. But I've had some really great chats

30:01

on the tube, so I just keep doing

30:04

it. But I remember once being on the

30:06

tube and turning to the person sitting on

30:08

my right and trying to start

30:10

a conversation. And you know, she was

30:12

polite. She, you know, I think I

30:14

started just saying, you know, how are

30:16

you if you had a busy day?

30:19

And, you know, she responded, but it

30:21

was very clear from her body language

30:23

that she just did not want to

30:25

talk. She was getting out a book

30:27

and sort of getting herself set up

30:29

and plugged in, whatever. And so I

30:31

thought, okay, that's fine. You know, I

30:33

don't think we should push ourselves on

30:35

people. And so I literally turned my

30:37

head to the person sitting on my head.

30:41

People worry too much about rejection

30:43

because, first of all, I don't know

30:45

why that woman didn't want to talk to

30:47

me, but, you know, there's a hundred

30:49

reasons, and I could choose to believe

30:51

that she didn't like me or something

30:53

about me, but I could also choose

30:55

to believe that, you know... Like I

30:57

said, maybe she's shy, maybe she's anxious,

30:59

maybe she just really is

31:01

reading an amazing book and, you

31:03

know, I get it. So, you know,

31:06

I can choose to believe something that

31:08

isn't so personally negative and just,

31:10

you know, most people do want

31:12

to talk and, you know, it didn't

31:15

surprise me that the person on my

31:17

left was a bit more willing. The

31:22

second problem people face in

31:24

talking to strangers is in

31:26

maintaining the conversation. If breaking the

31:28

ice feels scary for many people,

31:31

awkward silences can be terrifying.

31:33

I think it helps to sort of

31:35

pre-think, you know, what might I do

31:37

if that happened? And it could be

31:39

things like... Well, I'll share something about

31:41

myself, or I'll comment on something that

31:44

was in the news today, or I'll

31:46

ask them a question, or I'll take

31:48

a breath and just wait a moment.

31:50

It'll be fine, but I have to

31:52

make sure I don't panic. That would

31:54

be a good thing to think about.

31:56

Sometimes Jillian says, the problem is

31:59

not an awkward... silence, but

32:01

a perfectly interesting conversation

32:03

that suddenly goes sideways. I

32:05

saw this man with a net and

32:07

he was scooping up fish and I

32:09

thought, what in the heck is he

32:11

doing? And so I went up and

32:13

I asked him, I said, what are

32:16

you doing? And he said, he lived

32:18

nearby and he said, you know, this

32:20

happens sometimes we get a heavy rain

32:22

and the fish sort of washed downstream

32:24

and they get stuck somewhere and then

32:26

the water goes down and they're in

32:28

big trouble. you know, catching the fish

32:30

and moving them to somewhere where they're

32:32

safe. And I thought, oh, this is

32:34

amazing. This guy's a fish hero and

32:36

what a cool story, you know. And

32:38

so we continued talking and

32:41

the conversations shifted away from

32:43

the fish and, you know,

32:45

it was early days in

32:47

the pandemic, so inevitably we

32:49

ended up talking about that. And

32:51

I discovered that that he, he

32:53

thought that the pandemic was a

32:56

hoax and, you know, the government

32:58

was making up stories

33:00

and you know that's not my

33:02

view I couldn't couldn't understand why

33:05

someone would would would think that

33:07

way you know why would the

33:10

government do that and so you

33:12

know I started to think you

33:14

know I don't who is this person

33:16

and what's going on here here they

33:18

are a fish hero how you know

33:21

how is the fish hero also having

33:23

these you know you just

33:25

never know someone do you? You

33:28

know, I just think that we

33:30

can serve a benefit to

33:32

other people by talking to them

33:34

and by listening to them. I

33:37

think it's pretty rare, at least

33:39

in my own experience. I don't

33:41

tend to get into any kind

33:43

of heated topics when I'm talking

33:46

to a complete stranger. It's usually

33:48

fairly innocuous and fun. It doesn't

33:50

get into politics and religion and

33:52

all the heavy stuff that we

33:55

avoid at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

33:57

I'm just seeking out a fun

33:59

interaction. So I just let him talk

34:01

a little bit, but yeah, it just sort

34:03

of drew to a natural close and I

34:06

moved on. Can you talk a little

34:08

bit about how when we have

34:10

conversations that are awkward or conversations

34:12

that start off being interesting but

34:15

end up in an odd place,

34:17

many of us draw the wrong

34:19

conclusion from this, which is that

34:22

the next conversation is also likely

34:24

to be unpleasant. In some ways,

34:26

we overcount the likelihood of negative

34:28

interactions. So yeah, I've run a bunch

34:31

of studies in the lab where I've

34:33

asked people to predict how a conversation

34:35

will go. Then they actually have a

34:37

conversation with a stranger, and then they

34:39

tell me how it went. And the people's

34:41

worries before the conversation are quite high,

34:43

but after having the conversation, they say,

34:45

you know, none of those things actually

34:48

happened. But if you asked them to

34:50

predict what would happen if they had another

34:52

conversation right now, those fears sort of creep

34:54

back up. Not all the way to the

34:56

level that they were at that they were

34:58

at. before the study, but definitely

35:01

higher than they should be based

35:03

on having just had a pleasant

35:05

conversation. So it seems that people

35:07

have trouble generalizing, and you know,

35:10

it makes some sense because every

35:12

human is unique, right? So it

35:14

would be easy to think, well,

35:17

just because I had a nice

35:19

conversation with the next person. Jillian

35:22

wanted to figure out if she

35:24

could override people's tendency to undercount

35:26

the likelihood of good conversations and

35:28

overcount the risk of bad conversations.

35:31

The only way I can think of to

35:33

fix this would be to get people to

35:35

have a lot of conversations so they can

35:38

start to see a pattern, start to see

35:40

that most of these conversations are pleasant. But

35:42

how am I going to do that when

35:44

people don't even want to have one conversation

35:46

with a stranger, let alone lots? And so...

35:48

I kind of stole an idea. I was

35:50

thinking, you know, I need people to, I

35:52

need to turn it into a game. I

35:54

need to make it fun somehow. And so

35:56

I was thinking, oh, maybe I could turn

35:59

it into a big. game or something,

36:01

but a researcher in my department

36:03

had placed posters around the building.

36:05

They were recruiting people for a

36:08

study involving a scavenger hunt, and

36:10

it was a study about memory,

36:12

but I thought, oh, scavenger hunt,

36:15

I could get people to do

36:17

a scavenger hunt game that

36:19

involves talking to strangers. I

36:21

thought scavenger hunts are about

36:24

finding treasure. Well people

36:26

and conversations with strangers are a treasure come

36:28

on So yeah, I came up with a

36:30

list of missions that were things like You

36:32

know find someone who's wearing a hat or

36:35

find someone who's drinking a coffee I came

36:37

up with a whole list of missions

36:39

about 30 of them and you know I

36:41

wanted them to be easy. I didn't

36:43

you know most scavenger hunts. You're trying

36:45

to make it a little tricky so people

36:47

can't find everything right, but I wanted

36:49

people to be able to be able to

36:52

accomplish every single mission Some

36:55

volunteers were asked to merely

36:57

observe the strangers they found.

37:00

Others had to engage the

37:02

strangers in conversation. We found that

37:04

over the course of the study,

37:06

every day people reported being less

37:08

and less worried about being rejected

37:11

by the people they approached and

37:13

more and more confident in their

37:15

ability to start and maintain and

37:18

end the conversation. And so it

37:20

really did seem that there was

37:22

this gradual improvement and that repeated

37:24

practice was important. conversation was not

37:27

enough. It was this gradual improvement

37:29

over time that stuck even a

37:31

week after the scavenger hunt had

37:34

ended. People still had more

37:36

positive feelings towards talking to

37:38

strangers. Julian began to see

37:40

how important it was to not

37:43

just have the insight that talking

37:45

to strangers could be fun, but

37:47

to actually practice doing it. She

37:49

has developed a workshop to

37:51

get people to practice these skills.

37:53

It's called... how to talk to strangers.

37:56

The workshops sort of became research

37:58

and then the research fed back. into

38:00

the workshops, but really it's just a

38:02

big practice session. You know, you've bringing

38:04

in a bunch of people who think

38:06

they'd like to learn more how to

38:08

talk to strangers. And so before the

38:10

workshop starts, it's very quiet in the

38:12

room. There's crickets, because everyone feels a

38:15

bit awkward and they don't know what

38:17

to do, what's going to happen. And

38:19

so I always start the workshop by

38:21

just saying, okay, you have to turn to

38:23

someone sitting next to you and just. have

38:25

a conversation right now. And then it's

38:27

just this beautiful moment because there's this

38:29

buzz in the room and it's just

38:31

like, oh my God, people are talking.

38:34

And then it's really hard to shut

38:36

people up. Do you have icebreakers yourself

38:38

that you've used, Julian, in terms

38:40

as you've become a better conversationalist and

38:42

better at talking to strangers? What do

38:44

you go up and talk to strangers

38:47

about? How do you start a conversation?

38:49

What do you do? Yeah, I have a few

38:51

different go-to methods now. So maybe it's

38:53

especially an English thing. They joke about

38:56

it all the time, but it's talk

38:58

about the weather, right? And I think

39:00

the reason we do that is because

39:02

it's a shared circumstance, right? It's something

39:04

we're both experiencing at the same time.

39:06

So I think that principle can be

39:09

used more broadly. If you're in the

39:11

same place as this person at the

39:13

same time, then you have various things

39:15

in common with them already. So you

39:17

can comment on the shared situation that

39:20

you happen to be in if you're

39:22

on a bus or something. something unusual

39:24

happens, then all of a sudden you're

39:26

all on the same team, aren't you?

39:28

Everybody talks when they never would have

39:30

talked before because you've experienced this situation

39:32

together. But sometimes I do it in

39:34

a different way, which is by pointing

39:37

out something that I'm seeing in the

39:39

environment. So sometimes I'll point out happy,

39:41

playful dogs to someone else that's walking

39:43

past me in the park and just

39:45

draw their attention to it. Or I've

39:47

pointed out the spring flowers that are

39:49

popping up. But that's also linked to

39:51

sort of the last sort of main

39:54

technique I use, which is just to

39:56

tap into your curiosity. So I can't

39:58

tell you how many conversation. I've started

40:00

just by going up to someone and

40:02

saying, what you're doing? Like I did

40:04

with the fish hero, you know, I

40:06

saw him scooping up fish in a

40:08

net and I thought, what is he

40:10

doing? And so I've gone up to

40:12

lots of different people. I think you

40:14

have to be a little careful because

40:17

you don't want it to come across

40:19

as accusatory. It has to come across

40:21

as curious, so you have to do

40:23

it with this sort of, you know,

40:25

lightness in your voice that it's just

40:27

out of curiosity, So there

40:29

have been studies that found that conversations

40:31

don't end when one party wants them

40:33

to end, and they don't even

40:35

end when both parties want them

40:37

to end, partly because people are

40:39

so uncomfortable with terminating conversations. Conversations

40:42

can go well past the point.

40:44

They're enjoyable for either party. How

40:46

do you get out of conversations

40:48

with strangers, Julia? Yeah, I really am

40:50

still trying to work that out. I mean

40:52

most of the time that I talk to

40:54

strangers I'm out, you know walking around the

40:56

park or something and it's really easy to

40:58

just sort of you know, walk away when

41:00

you're finished as opposed to being on a

41:03

bus or, you know, sitting next to someone

41:05

on the plane, you know, people don't talk

41:07

until it's 15 minutes before the landing because

41:09

otherwise they're stuck there for the whole flight,

41:11

right? But I've definitely gotten stuck in conversations

41:13

and I feel like I'm still not very

41:16

good at figuring out how to get out

41:18

of them. And, you know, I've run these

41:20

how to talk to strangers workshops and I've,

41:22

like I like I said earlier, people can

41:24

come up with 100 ways to start a

41:27

conversation to start a Nobody really knows how

41:29

to end them. Most of the time when

41:31

people are brainstorming, it's just a list of

41:33

lies. It's just, you know, I need to

41:35

go to the bathroom, I need to make

41:38

a phone call. Or texting a friend and

41:40

asking a friend to call you in

41:42

the middle of a conversation so that

41:44

you can be pulled away. Right. Yes,

41:46

we've all seen those episodes on TV,

41:49

haven't we? If you haven't heard from

41:51

me, call me in seven minutes and

41:53

help me get out of this. It

41:55

depends on the situation, like if it's

41:58

a mix or a networking of... where

42:00

it's sort of intended for people to

42:02

have, you know, talk to multiple partners,

42:04

then there are some sort of clever

42:07

things you can do, like introduce the

42:09

person to someone else and then move

42:11

on. But when I've taught these workshops,

42:14

there's always one person, and I think

42:16

it's literally one person, who says, you

42:18

know, that they just thank the person

42:21

for the conversation and sort of signal

42:23

that it's over and it's time to

42:25

move on, and maybe even explicitly. say

42:27

that, you know. It's been nice talking

42:29

to you, but I think it's time

42:32

for us to go now. And everyone

42:34

looks at this person and kind of

42:36

says, you can do that. So, you

42:38

know, that tells me how uncommon it

42:41

is, but, you know, why not? So

42:43

I've definitely been trying to do

42:45

that more often is to just, you

42:47

know, thank the person, acknowledge, you know,

42:49

I think that's what we want, right?

42:52

We don't, it's very unpleasant when you're

42:54

talking to someone and instead of saying

42:56

that, they just start looking around and

42:58

you can see them kind of fidget

43:00

like, that's the worst, right? It would

43:02

be much better if someone just said,

43:04

thank you and, you know, I'm going

43:07

to move on now. I'm wondering if at

43:09

these workshops, Jillian, anyone ever brings up

43:11

the question of gender? And I

43:13

asked this question because sometime ago

43:15

we came by an interesting post

43:17

on Reddit, a transman named Lysander

43:19

Baker wrote that he had transitioned

43:21

from female to male over the

43:23

course of the pandemic and he'd

43:25

noticed that his social interactions had

43:28

changed. I want to play your

43:30

clip of what he told us. It made

43:32

me realize. how difficult it

43:34

was to try to socialize

43:36

just casually as male because

43:38

everybody around me was perceiving

43:40

me as a threat. And then it struck

43:43

me, it's like, oh, it's because

43:45

I'm now being perceived as male

43:47

and suddenly it's a whole different

43:49

ballgame. So Lysander told us,

43:52

Julian, that he felt that his

43:54

license to talk to strangers

43:56

had suddenly expired. My interactions

43:59

was... strangers change mainly because

44:01

the rules changed completely before I could

44:04

get by with light-hearted jokes you know

44:06

you know one-off like zingers but after

44:08

that started to become much more poorly

44:10

received so what do you make of

44:13

this Julian this this mandated talk to

44:15

strangers is it some ways harder if

44:17

you're a man compared to a woman

44:19

how to talk to strangers workshops that

44:22

I've run. I've heard those kind of

44:24

comments from both genders, actually. So women

44:26

are nervous about talking to a man

44:28

because they don't want to send the

44:31

wrong signals. And men are worried about

44:33

talking to women because they don't want

44:35

to have. their behavior interpreted in the

44:37

wrong way. So yeah, I think everybody's

44:40

sort of nervous about talking to each

44:42

other and it's really a shame, isn't

44:44

it? Because we don't want to not

44:46

talk to half of the human population.

44:49

But I don't think we have to

44:51

get stuck there. Like I think there's

44:53

probably things we can do in our

44:55

body language to signal that, you know,

44:58

by keeping some distance, maybe, you know,

45:00

less intense eye contact. I think there's

45:02

probably some things we can do. to

45:04

signal that we're just being friendly and

45:07

not, you know, or we could, you

45:09

know, explicitly say it, like, look, I'm

45:11

not hitting on you, I'm just, you

45:13

know, being friendly. We started this conversation

45:16

Julian by talking about how you thought

45:18

of yourself and perhaps still think of

45:20

yourself as being introverted But I understand

45:22

that you know partly maybe learning from

45:25

your own experience as an adolescent or

45:27

as a young person at parties You

45:29

now make it a habit to go

45:31

up to the person who is standing

45:33

by themselves in a corner at the

45:36

party the person who is You know

45:38

clearly the introvert and actually strike up

45:40

a conversation with them Yeah, and there's

45:42

a few reasons for that. One is

45:45

completely selfish because, you know, I'm very

45:47

much an introvertant, so that's still an

45:49

environment that I don't feel comfortable in

45:51

when there's a lot of people, especially

45:54

when and there's lots of people I

45:56

don't know, or it's a really kind

45:58

of noisy environment, that's when I feel

46:00

the most uncomfortable. And I know that

46:03

the way to fix that, to make

46:05

myself feel better, is to get into

46:07

a one-to-one conversation with someone. But then,

46:09

in addition to that, I'd like to

46:12

think that there's a pro-social motive as

46:14

well. You know, you look around the

46:16

room and you see someone else who

46:18

doesn't have anyone to talk to. You

46:21

know, I know now that so many

46:23

of us feel anxious, you know, socially

46:25

anxious or socially awkward. So, you know,

46:27

there's guaranteed to be somebody else who

46:30

doesn't really know anybody and doesn't have

46:32

someone to talk to. And so I'll

46:34

look around for that person and go

46:36

and start a conversation with them. And

46:39

so I'd like to think that it's

46:41

helping both of us. So in many

46:43

ways Jillian you grew up thinking of

46:45

yourself as being shy and introverted and

46:48

in some ways It's it's kind of

46:50

remarkable how far you've come you've really

46:52

practiced changing your own behavior Do you

46:54

ever you know think to yourself? It's

46:57

remarkable how far I've come and how

46:59

much I've changed Just recently actually a

47:01

couple of weeks ago. I had a

47:03

moment where it really struck me how

47:06

far I've come. So I was at

47:08

the opera and I had come back

47:10

from the intermission and I started chatting

47:12

with the people who were sitting next

47:14

to me sort of farther in from

47:17

the aisle than I was. And I

47:19

said, how are you doing? And they

47:21

said, fine-ish. And I thought, oh, something

47:23

is really wrong if a complete stranger

47:26

admits that they're not just fine, right?

47:28

And I said, you know. what's going

47:30

on? And it turned out that the

47:32

woman had Parkinson's and she was feeling

47:35

very uncomfortable sitting where she was, and

47:37

she was worried that she might need

47:39

to leave partway through the second act,

47:41

but she was so far in from

47:44

the aisle that it would mean disrupting

47:46

everybody. She had thought that she would

47:48

be sitting on the aisle, and so

47:50

she was very upset to find out

47:53

that she wasn't. And so I said,

47:55

would you like me to ask if

47:57

people would be willing to move over?

47:59

so you could sit on the aisle.

48:02

And I offered this thinking, you know,

48:04

probably she's gonna say no because it

48:06

will feel like a big deal. But

48:08

surprisingly, she said, yes, that would be

48:11

wonderful. I would feel so much more

48:13

comfortable. And so I said, no problem.

48:15

And so I talked to two couples,

48:17

and I asked them if they'd be

48:20

willing to move over. And of course,

48:22

they were happy to do it. You

48:24

know, most people are kind. And if

48:26

you ask them, they'll do something like

48:29

that. I'm sure they felt good to

48:31

be able to do that. So we

48:33

all moved over and the couple moved

48:35

over to the aisle. And as her

48:38

husband passed me, he said, you know,

48:40

thank you so much. I couldn't have

48:42

done that. It really just struck me

48:44

in that moment. Like past Jillian couldn't

48:46

have done that either. And so it

48:49

was really a moment where I realized,

48:51

wow, somehow everything has changed in these

48:53

baby steps. You know, I'm a complete

48:55

introvert. I never would have thought of

48:58

talking to strangers years ago and here

49:00

I am and asking people to move

49:02

over and their seat was just not

49:04

a problem at all. Didn't even think

49:07

twice about it. You know, like it

49:09

just has no... fear for me anymore

49:11

because I've had so many pleasant conversations

49:13

with people over the years that you

49:16

know I knew it would go well.

49:18

Your dad would have been proud of

49:20

you Jillian. My dad would have been

49:22

proud. Yeah I did tell him this

49:25

story. I think he was quite proud.

49:32

Julian Sandstrom is a psychologist at

49:34

the University of Sussex. Julian, thank

49:36

you for joining me today on

49:38

Hidden Brain. Thank you for having

49:41

me. After the break, we're trying

49:43

something new on the show. For

49:45

the last several months, we've been

49:47

running a feature called Your Questions

49:49

Answered in our Hidden Brain Plus

49:51

feed. It's a feature by listeners

49:53

post follow-up quest. to some of

49:56

our favorite guests. Because our listeners

49:58

are amazing, they regularly ask the

50:00

most thoughtful and thought-provoking questions. We've

50:02

decided to run some of these

50:04

conversations in our regular feed. Today,

50:06

after the break, we pose your

50:09

questions to researcher Erica Bailey, who

50:11

studies authenticity and what it means

50:13

to present our true selves to

50:15

the world. I love both the

50:17

questions and the answers, and I

50:19

think you will too. You're listening

50:21

to hidden brain. I'm Shankar Vedanta.

50:24

This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar

50:26

Vedanta. It's a Friday evening, and

50:28

you've made it to the end

50:30

of a long week. You're settling

50:32

on the couch with your favorite

50:34

takeout order and turn on the

50:36

TV. It's time for an episode

50:39

of the show you don't admit

50:41

you watch, but secretly love. You

50:43

know the one. You take a

50:45

deep breath and let it out.

50:47

You feel relaxed, unhurried, completely yourself.

50:49

Now here's a question. Who's allowed

50:52

to see this authentic version of

50:54

yourself? Your partner or spouse? Your

50:56

roommate? If your boss were to

50:58

call unexpectedly, would you be embarrassed

51:00

to tell her about the show

51:02

you're watching? If your mom surprised

51:04

you at the front door, would

51:07

you panic about the stack of

51:09

unwashed dishes in the kitchen sink?

51:11

Being authentic, even with people who

51:13

ostensibly know us well, isn't always

51:15

easy. It can feel scary to

51:17

show our true selves to others.

51:20

And sometimes, we aren't even sure

51:22

what it means to be our

51:24

true selves. who studies authenticity at

51:26

the University of California Berkeley. If

51:28

you missed our initial set of

51:30

conversations with Erica, you can find

51:32

them in this podcast feed. The

51:35

first is called Wellness 2.0. yourself

51:37

and the second for subscribers to

51:39

Hidden Brain Plus is wellness 2.0,

51:41

the us in authenticity. Erica Bailey

51:43

returns to the show today to

51:45

answer your follow-up questions. Erica, welcome

51:47

back to Hidden Brain. Thanks so

51:50

much for having me again. It's

51:52

so good to see you. Erica,

51:54

I'd like to start by talking

51:56

about a space where many of

51:58

us spend a lot of time

52:00

and it's also a space that

52:03

can feel... sometimes inherently inauthentic, which

52:05

is social media. You once posted

52:07

a self-revealing message on Twitter that

52:09

seemed to strike a nerve in

52:11

the academic community. Can you tell

52:13

me the story of what happened?

52:15

So I had just had my

52:18

very first paper accepted, and that's

52:20

a huge accomplishment as a PhD

52:22

student. You're obsessed with getting a

52:24

certain number of publications in my

52:26

mind. This is one step towards

52:28

my dream job. And... You usually

52:31

share these papers or these announcements

52:33

with people, other academics. This used

52:35

to be a space on Twitter.

52:37

We called it academic Twitter. Now

52:39

I think we're sort of migrating

52:41

to different platforms. But usually you'll

52:43

have an announcement. This is the

52:46

paper I just published. This is

52:48

who I worked on it with.

52:50

And it can be a sort

52:52

of self promotional impression management self-expression.

52:54

And I... felt that drive to

52:56

tell everyone how amazing I was

52:58

that I had just gotten this

53:01

paper accepted. But what I thought

53:03

would be even better is to

53:05

sort of poke fun of at

53:07

the whole idea, right, that we're

53:09

constantly trying to show other people

53:11

this badge of our worth that

53:14

we get externally. And so I

53:16

tweeted, I just had my first

53:18

paper accepted, and I'm happy to

53:20

report that my self-esteem is now

53:22

perfect and everything that's broken in

53:24

me is fixed. And as you

53:26

can imagine that kind of went

53:29

viral in its own way because

53:31

I was poking fun at this

53:33

idea that of course we want

53:35

to share our accomplishments with other

53:37

people but at the end of

53:39

the day we're still here living

53:41

with ourselves. kind of didn't feel

53:44

any different two days later after

53:46

that paper got accepted. You know

53:48

in some ways your story reminds

53:50

me of that researcher who wrote

53:52

a failure resume that included all

53:54

the jobs that he didn't get

53:57

and academic programs that rejected him.

53:59

You know I can I get

54:01

why it can be powerful for

54:03

other people to hear failure stories

54:05

and to know they're not alone

54:07

but your research suggests that there's

54:09

a benefit to the people who

54:12

are sharing those stories as well.

54:14

You found that when people are

54:16

actively prompted to be more authentic

54:18

in their self-presentation on social media

54:20

they feel happier? Yeah, part of

54:22

the pressure of social media that

54:25

is so maladaptive and harmful for

54:27

people is this pressure to always

54:29

be sharing positive things and to

54:31

only see the positive things that

54:33

are going on in everyone else's

54:35

life. This also happens at academic

54:37

conferences. I go to talk after

54:40

talk of an amazing paper and

54:42

then an amazing experiment and a

54:44

crazy keynote speech that summarizing someone's

54:46

entire career. And that pressure that

54:48

can make you feel like everyone

54:50

is living this. perfect glamorous life

54:52

because you don't see all the

54:55

messy details that went into what

54:57

people are going through or the

54:59

steps that it took for them

55:01

to get to where they are.

55:03

And sometimes sharing that information can

55:05

be really powerful especially from people

55:08

who you think have really figured

55:10

it out. So I try and

55:12

do this with PhD applicants or

55:14

people that want to work in

55:16

my lab is to explain, you

55:18

know, I look a certain way

55:20

to you. And let me show

55:23

you how much consternation there was

55:25

to get to this point and

55:27

how much of it is messiness

55:29

and figuring it out and luck

55:31

and chance and that's as much

55:33

a part of successes as hard

55:35

work and timing and effort. Hmm.

55:38

So whether on social media or

55:40

face-to-face, I think many of us

55:42

feel torn between presenting what feels

55:44

like an authentic version of ourselves

55:46

and a more idealized version of

55:48

ourselves. Is this tension a bad

55:51

thing, Erica? It's an aspect

55:53

of life beyond social media. It's

55:55

something we feel in many social

55:57

contexts. It's a almost a quintess...

55:59

feature of being human is balancing

56:01

this need for impression management concerns

56:03

with wanting to share with people

56:05

who you really are on the

56:08

inside and maybe your deeper insecurities

56:10

and criticisms. And what we want

56:12

to try and find is the

56:14

right balance between those things. So

56:16

you talked about people showing their

56:18

failure resumes. Sometimes I have to

56:20

look at my own success resume,

56:22

my actual resume to remind myself

56:24

that as much as these like

56:27

stories of grandeur are not true,

56:29

so too are sort of the...

56:31

overdue criticisms that we kind of

56:33

put on ourselves. So there's a

56:35

balance between being aware of your

56:37

shortcomings and how you can grow

56:39

and the messiness of being human

56:41

as podcasters like to say with

56:43

kind of being aware of your

56:46

growth and the potential that you

56:48

have. Are there situations where you

56:50

think in fact it is smarter

56:52

to only show the polished version

56:54

of ourselves? In a job interview,

56:56

I would say that's a classic

56:58

experience where people tend to feel

57:00

very in authentic and I think

57:02

those pressures are normalized because we

57:04

expect that in a job interview,

57:07

it's only self promotional or a

57:09

networking context is something where people

57:11

feel that they really cannot be

57:13

authentic. And sometimes what I like

57:15

to do is just name that

57:17

pressure. It can help relieve that

57:19

for all of us involved if

57:21

I'm at a networking event to

57:23

tell someone I know this is

57:26

awkward, but we're here to meet

57:28

strategic strategic. This is not like

57:30

a normal social setting. And just

57:32

by saying that somehow it relaxes

57:34

the impression management concerns that we

57:36

have. Let's turn now to listen

57:38

to our questions. The first is

57:40

from Booland, who wanted to ask

57:42

about a specific memory that you

57:44

discussed in our earlier conversation. You

57:47

talked about driving down the road

57:49

in high school with your friends

57:51

singing along to the radio, and

57:53

it was a moment that made

57:55

you feel particularly authentic. Here's Boeland's

57:57

question. To me authentic moment feels

57:59

like the times when the friction

58:01

that we feel in the environments

58:03

that we are. in to be

58:06

as close to zero as possible

58:08

so that the emotional labor that

58:10

we spend for our inner cells

58:12

to come out is almost zero.

58:14

My question is what are the

58:16

ingredients of those authentic moments that

58:18

make them an authentic moment? Is

58:20

it the feeling of feeling happy?

58:22

Is it the feeling of feeling

58:24

free? Are there any other things?

58:27

Thank you. So Erica, take us

58:29

back if you were to that

58:31

moment in the car with your

58:33

friends and say more about why

58:35

it felt authentic to you and

58:37

then respond, if you could, to

58:39

Boulan's broader question about the ingredients

58:41

of an authentic moment. Bouland is,

58:43

I'm going to hire him to

58:46

work on this paper together. I

58:48

think the sense of freedom is

58:50

related to autonomy or the ability

58:52

that you have, the sense that

58:54

you have that you're making deliberate

58:56

choices of your own free will.

58:58

he also mentions this sense of

59:00

frictionlessness or feeling like there's not

59:02

that external pressure and that's what

59:04

I was getting in that moment

59:07

in the car from my friends.

59:09

I could sing with my not

59:11

amazing Adele-like voice and we're all

59:13

laughing we're all doing this together

59:15

so I felt that I could

59:17

share some part of myself without

59:19

having to worry how I was

59:21

coming across so that's absolutely part

59:23

of it. One thing I found

59:26

in my research is it tends,

59:28

authenticity also tends to emerge in

59:30

these social environments where we feel

59:32

very safe or connected to other

59:34

people. We are social animals, we

59:36

really feed on each other, and

59:38

we really desire to share our

59:40

inner world with other people. So

59:42

other people can be an important

59:44

conduit towards feeling more like yourself.

59:47

We've talked in many different contexts

59:49

on the show about how the

59:51

culture in which we live can

59:53

shape us as individuals. A listener

59:55

named Kelly had a question about

59:57

how culture might shape our sense

59:59

of authenticity. I've read about how

1:00:01

different cultures around the world vary

1:00:03

in how How much they prioritize

1:00:06

emotional expression versus social cohesion? The

1:00:08

example I often hear is how

1:00:10

America differs from Japan? My question

1:00:12

is, how does your authenticity research

1:00:14

translate across different cultures? Do people

1:00:16

in more emotionally controlled cultures experience

1:00:18

more negative effects? Or is authenticity

1:00:20

conceptualized differently in different parts of

1:00:22

the world? So this is an

1:00:25

important question, Erica. What does the

1:00:27

research tell us about how authenticity

1:00:29

is conceptualized in different parts of

1:00:31

the world? I

1:00:33

think of authenticity as really this

1:00:36

important alignment between your inner sense

1:00:38

of self and how you're expressing

1:00:40

yourself in the world. And when

1:00:42

I think about how that's experienced

1:00:44

in different cultures, the end product

1:00:46

to me that end authenticity is

1:00:48

the same, but it's that content

1:00:50

of either the self aspects that

1:00:52

are really salient or the situations

1:00:54

that make you feel really authentic,

1:00:56

those might differ depending on cultural

1:00:58

norms or backgrounds or experiences. So

1:01:00

for example. the listener mentioned cultures

1:01:02

that are maybe more individualistic versus

1:01:04

a culture that's more collectivistic. And

1:01:06

in an individualistic culture, maybe these

1:01:08

moments where you feel like, I've

1:01:10

really found myself, I've really expressed

1:01:12

myself, I've reached the pinnacle of

1:01:14

self-individualization, that moment might make you

1:01:16

feel really authentic. And for someone

1:01:19

in a more collectivistic culture, interdependent

1:01:21

culture, social harmony or moments where

1:01:23

they feel really embedded in their

1:01:25

social group, or that there's a

1:01:27

high level of social positivity among

1:01:29

all of us in the room,

1:01:31

maybe that's a moment that draws

1:01:33

out this experience of authenticity. So

1:01:35

it gets us to the same

1:01:37

place, but maybe different pathways to

1:01:39

get there. Another important cultural belief

1:01:41

is about how we think about

1:01:43

the self as something that's really

1:01:45

fixed or stable versus something that's

1:01:47

really fluid and evolving. And so

1:01:49

that can also be a predictor

1:01:51

or a moderator on the situations

1:01:53

that people feel the most authentic

1:01:55

in. or the types of self-aspects

1:01:57

that they relate the most to.

1:01:59

What happens if the culture that

1:02:01

you're in in some ways is

1:02:04

out of step with your own

1:02:06

personality? Does it become harder then

1:02:08

in some ways to be authentic

1:02:10

because it's harder to get that

1:02:12

inside version of yourself to align

1:02:14

with the outside perception of you?

1:02:16

It could be for the individual.

1:02:18

It also might not be. One

1:02:20

thing we know from research is...

1:02:22

People do tend to take their

1:02:24

own cultural lens and apply it

1:02:26

to whether they think you're being

1:02:28

authentic. So if you're someone who's

1:02:30

living in a culture that's very

1:02:32

different than your own, people often

1:02:34

might be confused about why you're

1:02:36

doing, what you're doing, what you're

1:02:38

doing, or if you're not as

1:02:40

emotional when we're in a highly

1:02:42

emotional situation, people might be curious

1:02:44

about that emotionality that they're used

1:02:46

to seeing in. what you're doing.

1:02:49

So national identities are of course

1:02:51

only one way that culture shapes

1:02:53

who we are. We may have

1:02:55

different ways of being at work

1:02:57

compared to when we are with

1:02:59

family or friends. listener Jennifer had

1:03:01

a question about being authentic when

1:03:03

you're inherently uncomfortable at work. My

1:03:05

question is what do you suggest

1:03:07

if I really want to be

1:03:09

in my authentic self, but I'm

1:03:11

in a work environment where I

1:03:13

am constantly on edge and feel

1:03:15

like everybody's expecting me to do

1:03:17

badly. Therefore I'm always nervous and

1:03:19

timid. I don't feel comfortable to

1:03:21

speak up and be the person

1:03:23

that I know that I am.

1:03:25

It makes me less articulate, it

1:03:27

makes me seem less intelligent, and

1:03:29

I know that I want to

1:03:31

be... me and I think that

1:03:34

everybody would appreciate the real me

1:03:36

a lot more but I can't

1:03:38

seem to bring that person out

1:03:40

of me in that environment. What

1:03:42

would you suggest? just for that.

1:03:44

Thank you. So this is an

1:03:46

interesting predicament. Erica, what do you

1:03:48

make of Jennifer's story? I feel

1:03:50

for Jennifer. I really hope she

1:03:52

can find a new environment that

1:03:54

helps her feel more comfortable. I

1:03:56

have felt this absolutely as a

1:03:58

woman in academia, as a younger

1:04:00

professor, there are some people who

1:04:02

you just cannot. tap into that

1:04:04

sense of self. You can't relax

1:04:06

or be comfortable, and it's so

1:04:08

frustrating to know that you have

1:04:10

more than you're able to surface

1:04:12

in those moments and in those

1:04:14

environments. It's really a shame, and

1:04:16

it's a struggle because work is

1:04:19

such an ever-present part of our

1:04:21

lives. It's a huge part of

1:04:23

our time and our energy, and

1:04:25

for a lot of people where

1:04:27

we get a lot of meaning.

1:04:29

If I was going to give

1:04:31

Jennifer advice, I would say... try

1:04:33

to find buddies or allies at

1:04:35

work for whom she feels that

1:04:37

she can be herself and find

1:04:39

those moments to sort of relieve

1:04:41

that tension and see if there

1:04:43

are ways that they can team

1:04:45

up. Maybe in these meetings she

1:04:47

needs to look at a friendly

1:04:49

face or a smile or even

1:04:51

after the meeting decompress and talk

1:04:53

to someone about how she came

1:04:55

across. Did you hear what that

1:04:57

person said? Did you hear this

1:04:59

other person repeating what I just

1:05:02

said and that made me feel

1:05:04

like? Did they even see me?

1:05:06

The other thing I would recommend

1:05:08

is, you know, there is a

1:05:10

narrative that I hear a little

1:05:12

bit in what Jennifer is saying,

1:05:14

that other people on the one

1:05:16

hand are waiting for her to

1:05:18

fail, and at the other hand,

1:05:20

maybe they could benefit from her

1:05:22

being her authentic self, and I

1:05:24

would sort of interrogate those narratives.

1:05:26

Most people want other people to

1:05:28

be authentic, and most people... don't

1:05:30

think about other people that much.

1:05:32

And that kind of always makes

1:05:34

me feel a little bit better.

1:05:36

Like most people you're talking to

1:05:38

are really wrapped up in their

1:05:40

own heads. They're thinking about whether

1:05:42

they're being authentic, whether you think

1:05:44

they're competent, whether you think they're

1:05:47

intelligent. And kind of a moment

1:05:49

you realize most people are not

1:05:51

thinking about you at all? Maybe

1:05:53

that will help her feel some

1:05:55

of this freedom and autonomy to

1:05:57

express herself authentically and take a

1:05:59

risk and see, you know, are

1:06:01

people excited when she steps forward

1:06:03

or does she face that backlash

1:06:05

that she's expecting? And then how

1:06:07

can she recover? I love the

1:06:09

suggestion of trying to find elements

1:06:11

of the job where you can

1:06:13

feel authentic as a way to

1:06:15

feel more at home in the

1:06:17

workplace, but do you think it's

1:06:19

the case that if someone truly

1:06:21

feels they can't be themselves in

1:06:23

some environment, is that really a

1:06:25

signal to them that this is

1:06:27

not the right environment for them?

1:06:29

So when we feel like we

1:06:32

are constantly being inauthentic in some

1:06:34

situation, is that a way of

1:06:36

us telling ourselves? Maybe I need

1:06:38

to find a different situation? I

1:06:40

love taking cues from your environment to

1:06:42

learn more about yourself. It might tell

1:06:45

you the people you don't want around

1:06:47

you. It might tell you that you

1:06:49

don't like this job that much or

1:06:51

maybe that you're just new at your

1:06:53

job and you need some time to

1:06:55

sort of relax and acclimate. I do

1:06:57

think it's important to pay attention to

1:06:59

when she can find authenticity at work

1:07:02

and what are the features of that

1:07:04

situation. Maybe she can approach those situations

1:07:06

or tailor her existing job to fit

1:07:08

that. We also know from the research

1:07:10

that that kind of environment is ultimately

1:07:12

not going to be productive for her

1:07:14

manager or her team. It sounds like

1:07:16

it's not a place where there's high

1:07:19

psychological safety where people feel that they

1:07:21

can take risks. So to the extent

1:07:23

she could maybe surface this with her

1:07:25

manager or her leader and say, you

1:07:27

know, I have a lot more to

1:07:29

give and you're not maximizing on my

1:07:31

potential, what can we do, how can

1:07:33

we break down these barriers that are

1:07:35

either perceived but still feel very real

1:07:38

or maybe are really real and preventing

1:07:40

not just me but likely other people

1:07:42

at the table from sharing what could

1:07:44

be really valuable for the company. This

1:07:49

is your questions answered our segment

1:07:51

in which we bring back researchers

1:07:53

we featured on the show to

1:07:55

answer listener questions after the break

1:07:57

We'll continue our conversation about authenticity

1:08:00

with Erica Bailey. You're listening to

1:08:02

Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantu. This

1:08:04

is Hidden Brain. This is Hidden

1:08:06

Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantu. At the

1:08:08

University of California, Berkeley, Erica Bailey

1:08:10

studies authenticity. and how being true

1:08:12

to ourselves shapes our personal and

1:08:14

professional lives. We featured Erica's work

1:08:16

in a series of conversations in

1:08:18

December. You can find the links

1:08:20

to those conversations in the show

1:08:22

notes for today's episode. Erica, here's

1:08:24

a question we received from listener

1:08:26

Lauren who writes, The whole time

1:08:28

I was listening I was hoping

1:08:30

she would address the disconnect that

1:08:33

people of color feel in the

1:08:35

world they live in in America.

1:08:37

We often feel completely different in

1:08:39

a home or church or community

1:08:41

group setting compared to a work

1:08:43

setting. We are still a very

1:08:45

racially divided country, unfortunately. We often

1:08:47

feel we are our authentic cells

1:08:49

at home, but somehow are constantly

1:08:51

fighting to be someone else in

1:08:53

the workplace, molding to the values

1:08:55

of the majority and the cultural

1:08:57

norms of the majority, which are

1:08:59

slightly different from those with which

1:09:01

we grew up. If I could

1:09:03

learn to bring my authentic self

1:09:06

to work and stop worrying about

1:09:08

those small perceived judgments or slights,

1:09:10

I believe I could be a

1:09:12

much more productive and integral part

1:09:14

of my work team. What are

1:09:16

your thoughts on Lauren's email, Erica?

1:09:18

It's such a great question. It's

1:09:20

very layered and complex. And I

1:09:22

have some research that I'm working

1:09:24

on that I would love to

1:09:26

talk to her about, but it's

1:09:28

going to be about a couple

1:09:30

years before that gets through the

1:09:32

peer review process. But she's absolutely

1:09:34

right that there are these norms

1:09:36

about professionalism and this idea of

1:09:39

what researchers call the ideal worker

1:09:41

stereotype that are basically built around

1:09:43

highly competent white male. techy workers

1:09:45

that sort of have dominated the

1:09:47

professional workplace. And those are difficult

1:09:49

for many people to live up

1:09:51

to. I think even people who

1:09:53

sort of fit that prototype feel

1:09:55

that they might not always be

1:09:57

the ideal worker. And these pressures

1:09:59

can really, really limit our ability

1:10:01

to feel authentic, to feel safe

1:10:03

with the people that are around

1:10:05

us. And I think from some

1:10:07

of the researchers that I know,

1:10:09

you know these... boundaries between our

1:10:12

personal and professional lives can be

1:10:14

really important for people to stay

1:10:16

safe, to protect their mental well-being,

1:10:18

to engage in self-care. I don't

1:10:20

think everyone has to be authentic

1:10:22

all the time and for some

1:10:24

people that can be a life-or-death

1:10:26

decision with whom they share certain

1:10:28

identities that they have. for others

1:10:30

it becomes a barrier that people

1:10:32

see you with a visible identity

1:10:34

like your race or ethnicity, your

1:10:36

age, your gender, visible disabilities, and

1:10:38

they make assumptions about you. And

1:10:40

it's really a shame because they

1:10:42

miss how complex each person is

1:10:45

and the value that you bring

1:10:47

both from people's own perspectives, but

1:10:49

also your competence and warmth and

1:10:51

everything else that you could bring

1:10:53

to your company. So it's the

1:10:55

company that's really missing out, I

1:10:57

would say. This next listener question

1:10:59

adds an extra layer of complexity

1:11:01

to our conversation. What does it

1:11:03

mean to be authentic when you

1:11:05

may have multiple and perhaps competing

1:11:07

identities? This comes from listener Guadalupe

1:11:09

who writes, All my life I

1:11:11

have had to edit or censor

1:11:13

which parts of myself I'll need

1:11:15

to leave outside the door when

1:11:18

I enter a room. I'm Separdic

1:11:20

Jewish, Mexican Latina. part of the

1:11:22

indigenous tribal people of Kuala Khan

1:11:24

and a lesbian identified nun. I'm

1:11:26

also an elder with disabilities. I've

1:11:28

worked very very hard to live

1:11:30

authentically and it's not always been

1:11:32

easy. Because I'm a Roman Catholic

1:11:34

nun, I've had the benefit of

1:11:36

a spiritual director who insists that

1:11:38

part of my spiritual path is

1:11:40

to live authentically. God can only

1:11:42

work through us as a vessel

1:11:44

to the extent that we name

1:11:46

and claim all our identities. I

1:11:48

wonder if there's a place on

1:11:51

your program to discuss the gifts

1:11:53

and challenges of living authentically with

1:11:55

multiple strong identities. Erica, does this

1:11:57

conversation become more complicated when our

1:11:59

true cells are multifaceted? It becomes

1:12:01

complicated to the extent that you

1:12:03

perceive maybe boundaries or conflictions between

1:12:05

these identities. So researchers call this

1:12:07

self-concept complexity. So we all have

1:12:09

lots of aspects of ourselves. Some

1:12:11

pieces feel like they fit together.

1:12:13

They're really overlapping and others feel

1:12:15

really far apart. In part of

1:12:17

what authenticity can emerge from is

1:12:19

where you make sense of those

1:12:21

identities or the narrative that you

1:12:24

tell about how they got you

1:12:26

to where you are now. So

1:12:28

even if these identities might feel

1:12:30

far apart, what I'm hearing from

1:12:32

the listener is there's some logic

1:12:34

to how she created her life

1:12:36

now, and there's some path that

1:12:38

she feels that she's followed that

1:12:40

has allowed her to express these

1:12:42

various identities in different ways, and

1:12:44

I think, what a rich tapestry

1:12:46

to connect with other people on.

1:12:48

What a way to surprise people

1:12:50

about something that you wouldn't have

1:12:52

expected. And maybe that will allow

1:12:54

them to share something that they

1:12:57

have that's unexpected. And then how

1:12:59

does that inform how we see

1:13:01

our sense of self and our

1:13:03

identity and our ability to grow?

1:13:05

It's all about that way that

1:13:07

we think about our overlapping senses

1:13:09

of self and how different situations

1:13:11

pull these things out of us.

1:13:13

Some research about this topic that

1:13:15

the listener might find interesting is

1:13:17

about code switching. So this is

1:13:19

where people speak slightly differently or

1:13:21

express themselves differently when they're in

1:13:23

different cultural frames. So for example

1:13:25

with different people, that can be

1:13:27

confusing to outsiders who see inconsistency.

1:13:30

So you speak like that with

1:13:32

these people and then when you're

1:13:34

with me, you speak differently. and

1:13:36

that I don't know what to

1:13:38

make of that. And a very

1:13:40

simple intervention in this paper is

1:13:42

just to say. well I have

1:13:44

different cultural identities and this is

1:13:46

a part of me and now

1:13:48

welcome to my backstage where I'm

1:13:50

going to tell you more about

1:13:52

who I am that's going to

1:13:54

help you make sense of this

1:13:56

and most people understand what it's

1:13:58

like to have multiple identities and

1:14:00

it could even be a creativity

1:14:03

exercise for another person to connect

1:14:05

with you to realize oh yeah

1:14:07

I actually I guess I do

1:14:09

sometimes talk about football with this

1:14:11

one person and then I talk

1:14:13

about mathematics with someone else. So,

1:14:15

Erica, one of the realities embedded

1:14:17

in this conversation is that as

1:14:19

humans we are social creatures and

1:14:21

we face enormous pressure to conform

1:14:23

to the expectations of the people

1:14:25

around us. That may be particularly

1:14:27

true for people with autism spectrum

1:14:29

disorder. A listener Peggy says that

1:14:31

she was only recently diagnosed with

1:14:33

autism and ADHD. She writes, what

1:14:35

happened to me and most young

1:14:38

girls and some boys is that

1:14:40

during the young years of inner

1:14:42

personal expiration, we are watching how

1:14:44

others behave so we will fit

1:14:46

in and have some friends. I

1:14:48

always felt like a pretender and

1:14:50

didn't know why or how to

1:14:52

become authentic, that is now an

1:14:54

enormous challenge. to how daunting it

1:14:56

can feel for many people, including

1:14:58

those who think of themselves as

1:15:00

neuro-divergent, to present their true cells

1:15:02

to the world. First of all,

1:15:04

you have to figure out what

1:15:06

it means to be your true

1:15:08

self. And then the next step

1:15:11

is to move through a world

1:15:13

that may penalize you for behaving

1:15:15

in ways that feel authentic to

1:15:17

you, but may be frowned upon

1:15:19

by society more broadly. That feels

1:15:21

difficult, doesn't it, Erica? Absolutely, and

1:15:23

I think you're getting a sense

1:15:25

for why authenticity is such a

1:15:27

fun topic to study and so

1:15:29

complicated because these questions, you know,

1:15:31

it sounds really good to just

1:15:33

be your true self or bring

1:15:35

your true self to work or

1:15:37

yeah, be you. And then the

1:15:39

second you start to realize, oh,

1:15:41

that you is really complicated sometimes

1:15:44

or maybe the you doesn't fit

1:15:46

in this environment in quite the

1:15:48

right way, which I think most

1:15:50

people don't feel like there's that.

1:15:52

perfect fit. It starts to get

1:15:54

much more complex of a question.

1:15:56

Again I would sort of go

1:15:58

back to this idea and I

1:16:00

have some empirical data that shows

1:16:02

this that people's perceptions of whether

1:16:04

someone is authentic are all over

1:16:06

the place. The judgments that I

1:16:08

make about one person's authenticity are

1:16:10

almost completely different than the judgments

1:16:12

that someone else makes of the

1:16:14

same person, even if we sort

1:16:17

of know that person together in

1:16:19

the same social group. And in

1:16:21

that same research, I looked at

1:16:23

outcomes of well-being. And what I

1:16:25

found is other people's ratings of

1:16:27

your authenticity really don't relate to

1:16:29

your well-being. It's really the sense

1:16:31

of authenticity that you have is

1:16:33

really important for your own well-being.

1:16:35

So going around and trying to

1:16:37

convince other people that you're being

1:16:39

authentic, maybe it would work for

1:16:41

one person at a time, but

1:16:43

trying to convince everybody in your

1:16:45

workplace that you're authentic. No, I'm

1:16:47

really authentic. Don't I really mean

1:16:50

this. So this is how I

1:16:52

am. to some extent can be

1:16:54

a way to connect with other

1:16:56

people, but it's really difficult to

1:16:58

convince people that you're being authentic,

1:17:00

especially if they have it in

1:17:02

their heads, that they're not going

1:17:04

to try to understand you or

1:17:06

they're not going to take your

1:17:08

perspective or they're going to view

1:17:10

you through a stereotypical lens. And

1:17:12

so what I usually tell people

1:17:14

is authenticity is worth pursuing for

1:17:16

its own sake, for you, for

1:17:18

your well-being, in places where you

1:17:20

feel that you can be authentic

1:17:23

safely. What other people think about

1:17:25

you, that's their business. All I

1:17:27

can say is create healthy distance

1:17:29

between other people's perceptions of you

1:17:31

and your authentic pursuits to discover

1:17:33

who you are and to find

1:17:35

places where you can bring that

1:17:37

forward. We had several listeners who

1:17:39

reached out asking for books and

1:17:41

other resources on living authentically. I'd

1:17:43

love for you to share any

1:17:45

reading materials that you would recommend,

1:17:47

Erica, and before you do, here's

1:17:49

a related question we received from

1:17:51

listener Lori. As someone who was

1:17:53

born with a disability, I've never

1:17:56

found any kind of counseling or

1:17:58

discourse that explores this. self-esteem and

1:18:00

coming to terms with who you

1:18:02

are when you are very different

1:18:04

from your peers. I grew up

1:18:06

having to work a lot harder

1:18:08

than my peers because of my

1:18:10

disability and being deaf. I would

1:18:12

love if you could explore this question

1:18:14

a little bit more or just

1:18:16

guide me to some kind of

1:18:18

references or information so I can

1:18:20

learn more about being myself as

1:18:23

a person with a disability. Any

1:18:25

suggestions, Erica? Well, it

1:18:27

sounds like she has a book to

1:18:29

write that I want to read. That's

1:18:31

also close to my heart. My advisor

1:18:34

is blind and always talking to her

1:18:36

about her sense of self and how

1:18:38

she's viewed in the world and how

1:18:40

she experienced going to grad school in

1:18:42

the 90s, for example, is just completely

1:18:44

different than the way that I've experienced

1:18:46

the world and is so fascinating to

1:18:49

understand people who experience the world differently

1:18:51

than you do. So I would love

1:18:53

to read her book should she ever

1:18:55

write it. I'm kind of a funny

1:18:57

academic where I mostly read fiction

1:19:00

books and I kind of don't

1:19:02

read academic-y self-help books even though

1:19:04

they might be very helpful. I

1:19:07

would say the one academic book

1:19:09

that I'll recommend is a classic.

1:19:11

It's Irving Goffman's The Presentation of

1:19:14

Self and Everyday Life. A lot

1:19:16

of these ideas about society

1:19:18

as a social performance about people

1:19:20

with stigmatized identities where other people

1:19:23

would judge them or make inferences

1:19:25

about them because of a visible

1:19:27

or invisible identity are really something

1:19:29

that he thought about in the 60s. But

1:19:32

in terms of books like fiction books I

1:19:34

feel are a really great place to

1:19:36

explore narratives by being in someone else's

1:19:38

head. You get to experience the world

1:19:40

through someone else in a safe environment,

1:19:43

you know, sitting on your couch, but

1:19:45

you're fighting dragons or you're, you know,

1:19:47

in the 1960s in Poland and you're

1:19:49

experiencing the world through another person's lens.

1:19:52

And I've really found that books help

1:19:54

you kind of pick up who you

1:19:56

are and look at it from different

1:19:58

angles and think... Oh, I would

1:20:00

have never realized that that's

1:20:03

how someone else experiences the

1:20:05

world. So some books that I

1:20:07

jotted down that, you know, are

1:20:09

about this self- exploration and communicating

1:20:11

yourself with others is all the

1:20:14

light we cannot see, which is

1:20:16

incredible, very timely. The other two books

1:20:18

I really like are The Safe Keep,

1:20:20

which is about sort of someone who

1:20:23

grew up in a very particular type

1:20:25

of household who finds it really difficult

1:20:27

to connect with other people until like

1:20:29

sort of a rambunctious woman comes into

1:20:31

her life and you know destroys all

1:20:34

these nice boundaries as she's set up

1:20:36

for herself and through the process she

1:20:38

learns a lot more about who she

1:20:40

is both literally her history but

1:20:42

also who she could be. And then the

1:20:44

last book is called The Power is about...

1:20:47

What would happen if gender roles were

1:20:49

sort of flipped? And what parts of our

1:20:51

gender are sort of core to who we are

1:20:53

and really important and predictive?

1:20:55

And what parts are just sort

1:20:57

of society's story that it's told about

1:20:59

who you are in your place and how

1:21:01

you view other people? And I think all

1:21:03

three of those books helped me look at

1:21:05

aspects of my own identity in a new

1:21:07

way and think about Who really am I

1:21:10

and sort of how do I relate to

1:21:12

these different aspects of the self? So that's

1:21:14

part of why I love fiction books and

1:21:16

I'll come back with some good academic E

1:21:19

books for you next time So Erica in

1:21:21

our earlier conversation you talked about growing

1:21:23

up in a fundamentalist church and

1:21:25

making the decision to leave that

1:21:27

community We received a question from

1:21:30

a listener named Hannah who says

1:21:32

she experienced a similar religious upbringing

1:21:34

and has since left her church I

1:21:37

think the hardest part for me has

1:21:39

been trying to reconcile my new set

1:21:41

of values with a way to live

1:21:43

a purposeful life that feels as fulfilling

1:21:46

as the religion did. As I'm sure

1:21:48

that she understands religion was not just

1:21:50

like a part of my life, it

1:21:53

was my entire life and it dictated

1:21:55

the entire trajectory of where I thought

1:21:57

I was going. And without it sometimes...

1:22:00

it feels like a normal life with

1:22:02

my career and things like that,

1:22:04

they almost don't hold up to

1:22:06

the meaning that religion gave me.

1:22:09

So I guess my question is

1:22:11

coming from that context of a

1:22:13

very religious upbringing that basically

1:22:15

defined your identity and

1:22:17

your life for you. Do you

1:22:19

have any specific suggestions or advice

1:22:21

on how you were able to

1:22:23

find meaning and purpose and an

1:22:26

ultimate goal to your life that

1:22:28

feels as fulfilling? as religion did.

1:22:30

So what I take from Hannah's questionnaire

1:22:32

is that they can be a very

1:22:35

painful trade-off when we make the decision

1:22:37

to live more authentically. In Hannah's case,

1:22:39

being true to herself meant giving up

1:22:41

the sense of purpose that religion had

1:22:44

given her. Is that something that you

1:22:46

experienced as well after leaving your church

1:22:48

and how did you cope with it? Absolutely,

1:22:51

it's a dizzying feeling to kind of

1:22:53

come out of that world that has

1:22:55

a very strong narrative about who you

1:22:57

are and where you're going. And, you

1:22:59

know, it's like to this day, the

1:23:01

idea, oh, I could just go to

1:23:03

France tomorrow. Like there's no one

1:23:05

to ask, right? You could just do

1:23:07

it. There's no sort of set plan

1:23:09

for my life. I make that plan.

1:23:11

And that's empowering and also scary. Like

1:23:13

I hope I figure it out. I

1:23:15

hope I make the right choices choices.

1:23:18

what I found is you figure it

1:23:20

out by doing, not as much by

1:23:22

thinking. It's really hard to know what's

1:23:24

going to give you purpose and

1:23:26

meaning or what you're going to

1:23:29

find fulfilling before you actually do

1:23:31

it. So there's some experimentation that

1:23:33

you can do to learn what

1:23:35

gives you meaning, what matters, sort of

1:23:38

what helps you find a sense of

1:23:40

authenticity in your daily life. And then

1:23:42

I also try and be realistic that

1:23:44

Almost anything I do, I'm gonna get

1:23:46

annoyed with it. There's gonna be a

1:23:49

day where I'm like, I do not

1:23:51

want to do this dream job that

1:23:53

I worked so hard for. I think

1:23:55

that's common. People adapt really quickly to

1:23:58

their environments, both good and bad. And

1:24:00

so there's not a day where you reach

1:24:02

the pinnacle of who you are and

1:24:04

you're happy forever. And that kind of

1:24:06

can help take the edge off these

1:24:08

difficult days where you think, I should

1:24:10

feel happier, right? Or I just got

1:24:12

tenure. I just got to this point

1:24:14

in my career. I should kind of

1:24:16

finally feel something that I thought was

1:24:18

there. And it's just still you. It's

1:24:21

still you. That's kind of still with

1:24:23

you and you have to make peace

1:24:25

with that. The other piece of advice

1:24:27

that I love is from Tignataro, and

1:24:29

she talks about the joy of the

1:24:31

phrase Nothing Matters. and how it can

1:24:33

be really sad to be like, oh, nothing

1:24:36

matters, you know, at the end of the

1:24:38

day. Maybe my job is super fulfilling, but

1:24:40

what's going to be left of it in

1:24:42

a hundred years. But there's also something so

1:24:45

freeing about that, that you know what? Nothing

1:24:47

matters. I made a mistake at work. My

1:24:49

life will go on. You know, I write

1:24:52

expensive PDFs for a living. And that's funny.

1:24:54

It is very rewarding for me, but at

1:24:56

the end of the day, you know, it

1:24:58

is silly. My great grandparents who are farmers

1:25:01

who are farmers. would look at what I'm

1:25:03

doing and say, what is this bright

1:25:05

screen you're tapping into all day long?

1:25:07

So I think it's healthy to have some

1:25:10

sense of like life is partially

1:25:12

meaningless and partially deeply infused with

1:25:14

meaning that we bring it and

1:25:16

that we give to it and

1:25:18

that we give to our relationships

1:25:20

along the way. Erika

1:25:24

Bailey is a social scientist

1:25:26

at the Haar School of

1:25:28

Business at the University of

1:25:31

California Berkeley. Erika, thank you so

1:25:33

much for joining me again on

1:25:35

Hidden Brain. Great talking to

1:25:37

you. Hidden Brain is produced

1:25:39

by Hidden Brain Media. Our

1:25:42

audio production team includes Annie

1:25:44

Murphy Paul, Kristen Wong. Laura

1:25:47

Correll, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes,

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Tara Boyle is our executive

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