WEBVTT - #2063 Concept Creep - Prof. Nick Haslam 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:02.320 I'll get a team. Welcome to another installment of that 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:06.320 you project Professor Nick Haslam is here. We just met 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:08.479 thirteen seconds ago, so we're going to get to know 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:10.800 each other over the next forty five fifty sixty minutes. 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.640 Who knows, could be three hours. I mean we could connect, 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.480 we could start something that goes on forever. But before 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:19.800 I predict that, I'll say hi to Nick. Hi, Nick, 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:21.200 How are you very well? 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:21.599 Craigan? 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:24.360 Well, thanks very much for doing this? How often do 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.840 you you were just marveling at the amount of podcast 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:30.720 or the lack of life that I have and the 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.480 amount of podcasts that I do seven a week. How 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:35.040 often do you do something like this? 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.280 Very rarely? You know, I do the occasional podcast, but 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:41.239 I don't have my own gig. I mean, we run 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:43.760 a podcast in my department, and I think we do 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:45.600 something like seven episodes a year, So I think we 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.760 must be just very lazy compared to you. So I'm 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:49.720 not sure how you manage it. 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:51.960 I'm sure it's a much better product than what I 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.840 churn out here at typ Central on a daily basis. 0:00:54.880 --> 0:00:57.240 But fortunately for me, I do have a good team 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:00.279 around me who know how to make me look and 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:02.640 sound smarter than I actually am. So I think that's 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.959 always good to have good people in the background. Tell 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:07.679 us a little bit about you. If you could tell 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:09.600 my audience who you are and what rather than me 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:14.200 read some potentially stale bio that could be outdated, which 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.280 I've done in the past, could you just give my 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.640 audience a snapshot of who you are, what you're doing, 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:20.680 what lights you up? 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:25.520 Maybe sure. I'm a psychology academic at the University of Melbourne. 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:29.200 I've been here about twenty four years. Before that, I 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.200 taught at a university in New York City, and I 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.560 did my PhD before that at the University of Pennsylvania 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.160 with people you and your listeners may know, people like 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.440 Marty Seligman, my team, Aaron Beck, the founder of Cognitive Therapy. 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:43.520 I worked in his unit for a while. So I 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:47.520 trained as a clinical psychologist, but then sort of moved 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.760 away from actually helping people to doing social psychology, and 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:54.000 so I do a lot of research on things like 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:58.360 stigma and prejudice and how concepts have harm have changed 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:03.520 through time and metric classification and all sorts of things. 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:08.320 So I'm basically a university egghead, but also do quite 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:11.440 a lot of science communication, so I write widely for 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:16.720 The Conversation, Australian Book Review, Inside Story. I try to 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:21.160 get the word of psychology out there to the intelligent 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:22.720 lay public. 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.079 A self aware egghead, though, I'm going to say that, 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:27.280 you know that's good. 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:29.960 We aspire to him. If you're not self aware as 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.040 a psychology person, I think you're probably in the wrong business. 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.160 I tell you what, there's a few. There's a few, 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:37.880 and you know a few, and I know a few. 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.760 But anyway, let's hope that we're not in that group. 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.040 I don't know, but I love the fact that you 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.120 said a science communicator. One of the challenges for me, 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.480 I'm not really I'm a pseudo academic. I'm more a 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:54.040 pro academic. You're an actual academic. But for me, trying 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:57.960 to share thoughts and ideas and concepts and science in 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.720 a way which makes sense the public. So it's not 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:05.320 only you know they can understand, but also they can 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:09.080 potentially operationalize it, they can do something with it. It's like, well, cool, Craig, 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.400 you're talking about all this stuff with a really smart dude. Yeah, 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:14.600 I'm not understanding half of it. And if I can't 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.600 understand it, I can't do something with it. So every 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:22.240 time I talk, I'm trying to have at least a 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.880 vague awareness of what is the listener experience or the 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:30.519 observer or the viewer experience, so that this might be Yeah, 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:32.959 it's a good conversation, but more importantly, it's a good 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.360 conversation for them, not us. Hopefully it's good for us, 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.680 but more importantly it's good for them, so that there 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.600 might be a light bulb moment, or there might be 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.240 some door that opens on awareness or understanding or insight 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:48.720 that actually is a value to people. 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.480 Yeah, it's so important to communicate. And again I mean 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:54.360 I think you're doing a fine job of that and 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.800 making it smart but also accessible, I mean, not dumbing 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:04.520 things down, but also so you know, not losing some 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.480 of the fine texture of the detail. And look, I 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:09.840 think in my business in the university system, a lot 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:11.640 of us are writing for one another. A lot of 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:13.880 us are writing in a jargon y kind of way. 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:17.919 There's so many exciting things happening in psychology research, but 0:04:18.200 --> 0:04:22.320 not everyone feels the need to disseminate it or to 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:25.960 learn from how the public receives it. So often things 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.680 you think are very smart. You mention it to your 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:33.719 strange uncle at Christmas and they think it's common sense. 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.839 So I think there's a two way street, really, and 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:38.400 I think it's so important that we do it, and 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:39.040 we do it well. 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:44.839 How much of about how much of understanding human behavior 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.120 happens in, for one of better terms than laboratory, and 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.160 how much happens just out in the real world at 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:56.760 the interface of humanity, just situation, circumstance, environment, conversation, resolving conflicts, 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.160 solving problems. For me, who's kind of I straddled both 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.480 worlds a little bit. I love what I'm doing with 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:08.360 my research, and I love my academic journey that's been 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:12.599 quite interrupted over the years. But for me, I feel 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.520 like I'm a better teacher and educator and communicator and 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:21.119 coach more based on my experience than anything I've even 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.680 researched personally or my own studies. 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:27.039 Yeah, look, I think you're right, and I think that's 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.640 true of everyone. Really. You know, no matter how many 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.960 degrees you have and how much time you've spent doing research, 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.000 you still learn most about people just from interacting with them. 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.480 I mean, that's the thing. All of us are psychologists 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:40.280 only some of us are allowed to call us a 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.919 psychologist because we've been through registration, and I haven't, so 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.680 I don't call myself a psychologist. But yeah, we're all 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.200 sort of learning about human behavior from the moment we're born, 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.159 and we're all learning how others stick, how others behave. 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.800 We're incredibly good at sucking up information from the environment 0:05:56.839 --> 0:06:01.800 about thinking, feeling, emotion, action, all of these sorts of things. 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:04.720 And really the academic side to it is really just 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.200 trying to make some of that unfamiliar and strange and 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.080 try to sort of take steps beyond that kind of 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.839 common sense. But generally the common sense is right. I mean, 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.800 you know, often you know the fact that we've spent 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.880 so much time immersed in social interaction, learning about people 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:23.200 and introspecting about ourselves means that we are experts even 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.320 without having done psychology degrees. So I think you're spot 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:29.320 on that that's where we get most of our wisdom. 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.520 But you would hope that there are some things which 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.440 we don't have common sense about. We don't know how 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:38.039 the brain works, we don't have intuitions about brains. We 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.279 have brains, and our brains help us have intuitions but 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.400 we don't have intuitions about how the brain works, so 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:44.640 you have to do neuroscience to find that out. And 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:46.920 I think it also we don't know what sort of 0:06:46.920 --> 0:06:49.640 treatments are most effective for certain sorts of problems, and 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:51.800 we might have guesses, but unless you do the research, 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.000 you don't know. So there's a place of research. But 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:55.919 I completely agree with you that we get most of 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.800 our knowledge about might have behavior just from interacting with 0:06:58.880 --> 0:06:59.360 other people. 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:06.160 Yeah. Yeah, My background before my current PhD and psyche 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:10.480 is excise physiology. And it's funny coming from that background 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:13.200 where I'm working with bodies and teams and athletes, and 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:18.560 it's like the protocol or the prescription or whatever for 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.720 one person that will be highly effective will be totally 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.600 inappropriate for somebody, even if somebody else, even if they've 0:07:24.600 --> 0:07:27.400 got what seems to be similar needs and similar goals, 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.520 you know, And so this kind of what's the best 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.000 process or what's the best program, or what's the best 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.080 dose or what's the best prescription for this or that? 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:40.720 It's it's almost like, yeah, for who like you and 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:42.600 I could go to the gym tonight and we train 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.000 and we're probably similar ages and maybe I'm older than you, 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:47.560 but you know, we do the same workout and we've 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.119 got to say, yeah, we want to be fitting strong 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.600 and you pull up great and I can't move for 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:53.120 four days, or vice versa. 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:54.840 It's like, well, it's not vice versa. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.440 I'm guessing, Well, it's trying to figure out, you know, well, 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:00.400 what's best for Craig, what's best for Nick? That could 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:03.200 be anything from you know, what's the best job, or 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:05.600 what's the best work environment, or what's the best breakfast 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.720 or what's the best relationship context or what's the best 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.000 way for you know, for me, I have a certain 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.520 model of study and research and remembering and like managing 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:17.400 my mind around this task of study and research that 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.040 works well for me, but it wouldn't work well for 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:23.920 someone else. So I think, on top of the you know, 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.480 the research that comes out of all of the labs, 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.040 also trying to figure out on an individual level, how 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.120 do I work? Like what is my body? Tell me? 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.920 What is my energy? Tell me? What are my results? 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.520 Tell me? You know that N equals one thing? 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.400 Yeah, and look at you know, research just takes care 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:43.760 of that as well, though I have to say, look, 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:47.800 I do personality psychology, that's what I teach at first 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.840 year level, and it's all about how people vary. And 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.239 I've always thought that the variation, you know, the variability 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:56.360 between people is the most interesting thing. You know, what 0:08:56.480 --> 0:09:00.640 makes us unique. How you describe our differences, how you 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:07.280 tailor treatments or careers or whatever to human individuality. And 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.040 as you say, our bodies are highly individual, but of 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.800 course so are our minds. And understanding and measuring and 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.720 thinking hard about individual differences, I think is just one 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.160 of the most fascinating things about doing psychology. 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.599 I'm sure there's a million answers to this question, or 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:26.800 multiple answers anyway, But what are some of the biggest 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.960 kind of breakthroughs or perhaps even one eighties that we've 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:34.000 seen in psychology in the last I don't know, as 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:36.520 long as you've been involved, where we've really become aware 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:39.800 of something else or something profound that we didn't realize 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:43.319 or perhaps changed our thinking about something. Has there been 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:47.959 any kind of big shifts in research and understanding of 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:50.800 not only human behavior, but the mind in general and 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:51.240 the brain. 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:54.760 They've probably been thousands. It's so hard to pick something. 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.880 I mean, I'll just do the ecocentric thing and pick 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.679 on something that I've been part of Perfect Perfect, and 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:05.040 that's I think this idea in the mental health space 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:09.200 that we used to believe that people either had one 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:12.840 condition or they didn't, that it was a matter of kind. 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.400 You know, you had depression, or you had schizophrenia, or 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.400 you had anorex cinerversa or you didn't. And you know 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:25.040 DSM Diagnostic Institutical Manual American you know, Psychiatric Association's classification 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.559 of mental illness puts of synboxes. It believes that we 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:33.240 have mental illnesses as categories. And one of the big 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.800 I think revolutions of the last twenty years is realizing 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.600 that pretty much everything's on a spectrum, everything's a matter 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.000 of degree. Was sort of moving away from this categorical 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.679 mindset the differences between people types, and that goes for 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.280 personality types as well as mental illnesses, and that everything 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.680 is really on the bell curve. And at some level, 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:52.280 once you say that, you think, wow, wasn't that sort 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.679 of obvious? Well, no, it wasn't obvious to smart people 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.880 for a couple of centuries. It's still not obvious today. 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.880 People are often saying I have you know, condition X, 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.000 as if it's something that makes them categorically different from 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.560 everyone who doesn't have a condition X. But the reality 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:09.800 is everything's a blur, everything's a smear, And that's a 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.400 sort of revolution in thinking. That's changing how we formulate 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.079 cases in psychotherapy and how we do research on the 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.640 underpinnings of mental illness, on the treatments of mental illness. 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.320 I think that's quite a radical change. May not sound 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:26.400 so radically. It's not that we suddenly found a new 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.600 part of the brain or that we overturn some theory, 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:31.679 but we sort of had this common sense that people 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:33.520 fall into boxes and they just don't. 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.199 Yeah. Yeah, And I think it also, I could almost 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.720 I reckon if you tested me, depends on when you 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:43.160 tested me, what time of day, what day of the month, 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:47.280 what I'm going through, you might deduce a whole lot 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:50.720 of different things for me, depending on you know, It's 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.240 like if you tested my IQ, sometimes it might be 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.800 decent and other times it might be very low, depending 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.520 on my level of fatigue and my level of distraction 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.880 and my level of dress and anxiety. And yeah, so's 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.360 it's kind of a lot of it's fluid, not so 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:07.600 much fixed. 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.360 Yeah, and you said that beautifully. You know, I think 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:15.679 understanding that everything is dynamic. The thing is things very 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.360 even when you say someone's personality, even if you know 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:20.640 saying you know, back in the old days, you'd say 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.280 she's an introvert or he's an extrovert. That sort of 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.000 categorical language, which doesn't recognize the fact that people you know, 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:29.800 exist on the bell curve, but beyond being on the 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.160 bell curve, like you say, we can vary along that 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:35.960 spectrum on a daily basis. That doesn't mean some people 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.160 on average aren't more introverted than others. But you're right, 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:43.000 context really matters. Everything's fluid, everything's dynamic, and understanding that 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.240 sort of dynamics, I think is something that's happening more 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:48.040 and more so if you just allow me to give 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:50.280 a plug to some colleagues. You know, back in the 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.720 old days again, we used to measure a lot of 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:58.079 individual differences like personality, characteristics or you know, abilities, using 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.480 some sort of static tests and assume that the score 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.880 that you got was some fact about how you would 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:07.640 be for eternity. And you know, now what they do 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:10.080 is they have smartphone measures and you can sort of 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.600 measure things continuously throughout the day. You know, you just 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.800 randomly send people sort of twenty prompts during the day 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:17.920 on their smartphone and say, how are you feeling now, 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:20.720 what are you thinking about now? What are you observing 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:22.640 now in the world, And you can get a much 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:26.040 more sort of fluid, continuous idea of how people's mental 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.280 processes are changing in real time, rather than just people's 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:31.960 summaries on a questionnaire form, which might be biased in 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.040 all sorts of ways. So we're sort of getting at 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.400 the texture of experience, I think a lot more directly 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:37.000 than we used to. 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:42.920 Yeah. Yeah, even something like that we get introduced to 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:47.560 when we're young, you know, the concept of intelligence. I'm like, well, 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.160 he's he or she is intelligent? Oh, he's he's one 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:54.440 for his IQ is one forty his genius. Yeah, but 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:56.160 he can't catch a ball, and he can't hold a 0:13:56.160 --> 0:14:01.120 conversation and he can't clean a floor. And you know, 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:03.880 it's like, well, you know this whole thing that it's 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:07.120 all myost situation or task dependent. It depends what we're 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.439 doing and where. You know, sometimes I go into a 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:12.320 room and I feel like I'm pretty smart. I'm pretty smart. 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:14.880 But I go to another room, I'm like, no, I'm 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:19.000 actually a moron. It's just like when I started my PhD, 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:21.760 right and I'm doing it at Monash in what's called 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:27.320 Brain Park, which is a neuroscience neuropsych lab, and you know, 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.600 and I'm not a genius anyway, but I've never felt 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:34.720 so stupid as my first six months in that environment 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.880 with those people and trying to learn the language, learn 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:43.440 the culture, learn the you know, just just how it worked. 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.440 And I'm like, I am actually in the wrong place. 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:50.280 I'm too stupid to be here. But over time you 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.040 kind of adapt and you start to learn how to think, 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:56.680 how to think differently, how to do research, how to 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.480 speak that language, how to write that language. Because my 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.160 last he was twenty years ago, right or twenty years 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.760 before my PhD, And so it was like, oh, I 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.160 went to Italy twenty years ago for three months and 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.400 I could speak one hundred words. But now I'm back 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:12.880 and I'm living here and it's like, I don't get it. 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.760 So for me, such a steep learning curve, but it's like, oh, 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.880 well now actually, and I submit in about four weeks, 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:23.800 so I'm really at the pointy end. So but I 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.120 will say six years later because I've been kind of busy. 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:28.520 But six years later, so the same guy with the 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.080 same brain, arguably the same brain and the same potential 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:34.480 and all of that. Oh, now it's like, oh, it's 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.200 very familiar. It's it's not easy, but it's like, oh, 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:39.440 I understand this now. I understand the protocol and the 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.120 process and the culture and the language and the dynamics, 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.920 and I understand all. You know. It's like, ah, so 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.880 I can even at my old age, you can still adapt, 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:50.960 you can still learn, you can still evolve. But I 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.640 think a lot of these things are a bit context 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:55.840 dependent and situation dependent. 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:58.520 Oh absolutely, But I think also what I'd say is, 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:02.040 you know, you might have thought that your early cluelessness 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:03.560 was a sign of low intelligence, but it was just 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.120 a matter of low knowledge. You know, you didn't know 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.080 the rules, and the fact that you climb that learning curve, 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.880 you know, steeply, is what the intelligence was. It's your 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.320 capacity to learn. And I think we often confuse ignorance 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:19.760 with stupidity. You know what you don't know, and you know, 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.040 I think what I've always found is the best cue 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.800 of feeling not smart enough or an impostor, which most 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:26.600 of us feel at some point in life. I think 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.360 is just when someone even younger and stupider comes up 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.840 underneath us and we realize, actually, I do know more 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.760 than this individual, and maybe it's more about of acquiring 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.400 knowledge rather than having some sort of fixed amount of 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:41.280 skill or ability or intelligence. 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.840 Do you think that do you think that the average person? 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.360 And I'm not this not a loaded question, and I'm 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.200 trying to throw anyone under any bus, but do you 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.960 think that typically we think about how we think? Like 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:57.360 do you think about what do I think this way? 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.000 Why do I see the world this way? Where does 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.680 this story come from? Why do I process that experience? 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.880 Do you think that people think about what's going on 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.280 cognitively and emotionally and mentally. Do you think that the 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.200 average person ponders that at all? 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.320 Yeah? I do, Actually, I mean I think some more 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:16.440 than others, of course, like everything else, but I think 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.359 most of us are curious, are about our own minds, 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.600 and have theories about our own minds, are always forming 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.840 ideas about who we are. I mean, you can think 0:17:24.840 --> 0:17:29.000 about that as being sort of adolescent self focused if 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:30.480 you like, But I think we're always trying to get 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.119 a sense of what sort of person we are, you know, 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.160 and again, it can take unhealthy forms or healthy forms. 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.639 So I think it's entirely healthy to be psychologically minded 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:43.440 and to always be interested in this lump of meat 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:45.919 in our head which is capable of doing incredible things, 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.639 and you know, learning from our mistakes and reflecting on 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:52.600 our values. I think that's really important. I think most 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:54.720 of us do that to some point, maybe lesser as 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:59.200 we get older, I don't know. But they're also the 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.240 unhealthy form of rumination. So I think you could also say, 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:04.800 you know, getting stuck in a rut thinking constantly about 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:06.199 why did I say that? Why did I say that 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.520 dumb thing? Does she love me? Does he love me? 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:11.400 A lot of that kind of repetitive thinking is also 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:15.320 thinking about one's own mental process, but it's completely unproductive. 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:17.680 But I guess the short answer is I think I've 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:19.080 got a lot of time for the late person. I 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:25.240 think everyday people are sophisticated. They care about their own 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.840 thinking as well as other people's thinking. I think it's 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:28.720 just part of being human. 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.280 How do we I know there's no three step plan, 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.199 but I'm just you're a straight up smarty pants, So 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:37.120 while you're here, I'm just going to exploit you how 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:42.159 do we start to understand how other people think, you know, 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.159 theory of mind. Obviously, it's really important that we at 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:47.720 least have an insight into how not that we need 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.880 to agree with them or align with them or support 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:55.760 them necessarily whatever their ideas are. But how do we 0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:00.960 begin to understand others thinking that we might be able 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:05.399 to build you know, greater apport connection, trust, respect, better 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.439 into personal experiences. Where would we start with that? 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.480 Here are my three steps, Greig, Actually I'm joking. 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.400 Look, I think they thought there were four that I 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:17.040 was surprised. I thought there was four. 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.480 Yeah, yeah, No, if it's four, people can't at least 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.439 I can't remember more than three things at once, So 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:23.960 it has to be three steps. Look, I think there's 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:25.560 no straightforward answer to that, but I think a really 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.400 good start point is one of humility, where you think, 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.359 you know, they're probably a little bit like us. Other 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.440 people's minds probably not that different from our own. There's 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:37.359 probably a default tendency with many people to imagine that 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.280 other people are sort of less sophisticated, less thoughtful than others. 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:45.880 We've got this, you know, this set of of biases 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:47.560 where we tend to think that we're a little bit 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:49.600 better than average, and other sort of bit people a 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:52.520 little bit less, less, less clever and thoughtful. But get 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:54.800 over that bias and recognize, maybe you know, the other 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.280 people's mental life is as complicated as us. Recognize that 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:01.879 you have your own. So we know from social psychology, 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:07.080 for instance, that people tend to over attribute their own 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:11.720 behavior to their context, but other people's baby too much 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:14.640 to their personality. So recognize that maybe we're a bit 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:19.120 too quick to imagine that other people's behavior reflects their 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.600 character rather than just how they're responding to the environment 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:24.920 as they see it. So I think partly just giving 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:28.239 people the benefit of the doubt, some humility, recognizing that 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:30.840 other people are responding to the world as they see it, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.080