Speaker 1: Name anything that's important in society right now, and it's
Speaker 1: a coin toss whether it's an illusion. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the Psychology Podcast. Today is part two of my
Speaker 1: two part series with Todd Rose. Todd is the co
Speaker 1: founder and president of Populace, a nonprofit think tank that
Speaker 1: works to find solutions to redistribute opportunity so all people
Speaker 1: have the chance to live fulfilling lives in a thriving society.
Speaker 1: Prior to Populace, Todd was a faculty member at Harvard University,
Speaker 1: where he founded the Laboratory for the Science of Individuality
Speaker 1: and he directed the Mind, Brain and Education Program. Todd
Speaker 1: is the best selling author of Dark Horse and The
Speaker 1: End of Average, and his most recent book, which is
Speaker 1: the topic of this second part for the podcast, is
Speaker 1: called Collective Illusions. For this part of the interview, I
Speaker 1: talked to Todd Rose about this notion of collective illusions.
Speaker 1: You know, humans are a tribal species prone to conformity,
Speaker 1: and in a lot of instances we act according to
Speaker 1: what our in group wants rather than what we want
Speaker 1: as individuals. Ironically, Todd's research shows that we make poor
Speaker 1: inferences about the majority consensus and that failing to recognize
Speaker 1: collective illusions can have negative consequences on our identities, relationships, values,
Speaker 1: and society. To avoid falling into conformity traps, Todd encourages
Speaker 1: us to live congruent private and public lives that adhere
Speaker 1: to our personal convictions. Absolutely love this episode. Love this
Speaker 1: chat with Todd just as much as I like part one,
Speaker 1: which was about intelligence. I really like this notion of congruency,
Speaker 1: which is a topic that the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers
Speaker 1: talked about a lot. And as you all know, I'm
Speaker 1: a humanistic psychologist, so this really tickled my humanistic psychology side.
Speaker 1: So without further ado, I bring you Todd Rose. Hey, Todd,
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you about your new book,
Speaker 1: Collective Illusions as well. I know we had this amazing
Speaker 1: chat about intelligence, but I really want to cover this
Speaker 1: new idea. Why do you decide to write this book?
Speaker 1: You know, look, it's interesting. You know, at my think tank, Populace,
Speaker 1: we do a lot of what's called private research, right
Speaker 1: getting around the effects of social distortion, try to get
Speaker 1: at what people really think. And you know, I had
Speaker 1: known about this phenomenon which we call collective illusions historically
Speaker 1: has been called things like pluralistic ignorance, the illusion of universality,
Speaker 1: things like this. And because we'd known about it, we
Speaker 1: started asking people not only what they thought about certain issues,
Speaker 1: but what they thought most people thought right. And what
Speaker 1: was so shocking it was that actually, the first time
Speaker 1: we ever did it was in like twenty fifteen, and
Speaker 1: it was almost like a throwaway question and we weren't
Speaker 1: even sure what would get And what we found over
Speaker 1: and over again since is that it almost doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what topic we ask about if it's socially important, it's
Speaker 1: like a coin toss whether we're wrong about what the
Speaker 1: majority really believes. And so we're living in this time
Speaker 1: when these collective illusions may actually be one of the
Speaker 1: defining features of modern society. And as we can talk
Speaker 1: about they have such like damaging consequences for the end
Speaker 1: individual and the group. And I felt like this could
Speaker 1: no longer just be an academic conversation, like we need
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with the general public about this issue.
Speaker 1: So what is a collective illusion then? Right? So what's
Speaker 1: the definition? Simply? They simply stated, right, collective illusions are
Speaker 1: situations where the majority in a group ends up going
Speaker 1: along with something that they don't privately agree with, simply
Speaker 1: because they incorrectly think that most other people in the
Speaker 1: group agree with it, And as a result, entire groups
Speaker 1: can end up doing things that almost nobody really wanted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you say, here's a quote from you. You You say, when
Speaker 1: individuals conform to what they think the group wants, they
Speaker 1: can end up doing what nobody wants. That is the
Speaker 1: collective illusions dark magic. I actually really like that quote. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly. Wow, there's some deeply ingreened things in our
Speaker 1: human psyche of tribalism that pull us in that direction, right,
Speaker 1: Like what can you explain the psychological mechanisms why that
Speaker 1: draw is so powerful? Yeah? So, look, it's funny because
Speaker 1: you'd imagine if you accept that this is pretty widespread,
Speaker 1: and we can talk about all the evidence for that,
Speaker 1: the question is and why, like why are we so
Speaker 1: susceptible to being spectacularly wrong about the group and then
Speaker 1: end up like making something true that never was true?
Speaker 1: And it's really like two underlying mechanisms, right, So the
Speaker 1: first is this conformity bias, which that's not very novel,
Speaker 1: Like we know, we've known for a long time that
Speaker 1: is a species humans or a conforming species, right, like,
Speaker 1: and so as I read about in the book, I mean,
Speaker 1: study after study shows like it's not just a choice,
Speaker 1: like you are hardwired to all else EQL prefer to
Speaker 1: be with your group, not against it. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you can't overcome it, but we definitely
Speaker 1: have that preference. Right. In the book, I talked about
Speaker 1: one study which is my favorite, ones where you know
Speaker 1: even something like who you think is good looking? Right,
Speaker 1: which I kind of love because I always like to
Speaker 1: think about, like how did people get funding for certain
Speaker 1: kinds of studies like scanning people's brains and asking them
Speaker 1: showing them pictures of people and ask him to rate
Speaker 1: them in terms of facial attractiveness. Felt like one that
Speaker 1: was hot or not right, like, only it was okay
Speaker 1: because on a five point scale instead of a binary.
Speaker 1: But you know, in that one, it was like they manipulated.
Speaker 1: They showed people images and you'd rate them like this
Speaker 1: one to five, and then they would then say, oh,
Speaker 1: here's what the the average of the group of people
Speaker 1: who have done this before. How they rate big And
Speaker 1: that's not even a group you would care. Why would
Speaker 1: you care, right, and yet like systematically varying that so
Speaker 1: whenever your score individual score was consistent with the group,
Speaker 1: you would get that sort of dopamine reward response in
Speaker 1: the brain. They actually looked at the dopamine? Did they
Speaker 1: look at the dope wine flow? Not the flow? Unfortunately
Speaker 1: they're not as smart as you, Scott, But that'd be
Speaker 1: the follow up. But what was also interesting is when
Speaker 1: you were told that your score deviated significantly from the group,
Speaker 1: it would trigger an error signal, right, which is the
Speaker 1: sort of re enforcement learning mechanism that hey, your behavior
Speaker 1: is wrong and change it. So like this happens all
Speaker 1: the time. Now, great, okay, so we're a conforming species.
Speaker 1: That's again not new. What I think is interesting is
Speaker 1: and what's more relevant here is for conformity to work,
Speaker 1: whether you like it or not, you have to know
Speaker 1: what the group actually thinks, right, because otherwise what would
Speaker 1: you be conforming to? And this is the rub So like,
Speaker 1: as you know, the human brain is an energy hog
Speaker 1: like and you can learn a lot about a lot
Speaker 1: of our biases and problems from the kinds of shortcuts
Speaker 1: the brain takes in the name of energy conservation. Well,
Speaker 1: it looks like, estimating group consensus is one of those shortcuts, right,
Speaker 1: because all it's equal, your brain tends to assume that
Speaker 1: the loudest voices repeated the most are the majority. And
Speaker 1: I think about that, I think, wow, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like a good a good shortcut at all. But I
Speaker 1: guess if you go back through evolution and when most
Speaker 1: of our time was spent like seeming like the dumbbar
Speaker 1: number kind of you know, groups probably obviously had to
Speaker 1: work well enough, right to uh, to be here with us.
Speaker 1: But now when you think about with social media and
Speaker 1: these massive imaginary communities like nations, where you're never going
Speaker 1: to meet more than a tiny, tiny percentage of the
Speaker 1: people in your group, that shortcut becomes problematic and we
Speaker 1: can talk about it like, I mean, social media in
Speaker 1: particular makes it very very easy to distort perceived group consensus. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think about Instagram and how everyone appears to
Speaker 1: be wanting to be famous. But this study that you
Speaker 1: found that you reported on kind of blew my mind. Said,
Speaker 1: people think America ever won't be faus, but actually, in reality,
Speaker 1: Americas do not care about being famous. They think it's
Speaker 1: the north star for everyone else. But then that blew
Speaker 1: my mind, honestly, an we hadn't done We actually did
Speaker 1: that research. So we use these private opinion methods that
Speaker 1: you just can't fake. So and we were looking at
Speaker 1: not just straight questions like do you want fame because
Speaker 1: people know you're not supposed to say yes to that, right, like,
Speaker 1: but you looked at trade off priorities across seventy six
Speaker 1: different attributes for what success could mean in a life.
Speaker 1: And the method just because I'm on the right podcast here,
Speaker 1: so I can, I can? We can? We brought it.
Speaker 1: It's called conjoin and it's widely used in business. So
Speaker 1: like here, I have an iPhone, right, I'm not just
Speaker 1: plugging that. You know, nobody's stalking out. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you have to figure out what kind of combination
Speaker 1: of features and price point to put in a phone,
Speaker 1: you need to understand tradeoff priorities, right, So not just
Speaker 1: what people want, but what will they sacrifice for it?
Speaker 1: So we use that method looking at public opinion, right,
Speaker 1: like in this case privately, what do people whether trade
Speaker 1: off priorities for a good life? And what's so interesting?
Speaker 1: Like everything okay? With this method rather than just asking
Speaker 1: you point blank, it's kind of cool. What we do
Speaker 1: is say, out of those seventy six items, you would
Speaker 1: get a question and it would say, okay, here's person
Speaker 1: A and it would be six randomly grabbed attributes from
Speaker 1: that list of seventy six, or person B with another
Speaker 1: random six and say which of these two people is
Speaker 1: closer to your view of a successful life. You're like,
Speaker 1: I don't know A. And you do it again, and
Speaker 1: you do it again and again and again and over
Speaker 1: time you're trading off every attribute against every other attribute,
Speaker 1: but you don't know it, right, Okay. So that's that
Speaker 1: part of it with Conjoy. So what we did was
Speaker 1: we did we'd ask what do you think? And then
Speaker 1: the same exact thing, what do you think? Most people
Speaker 1: would say, what would they choose? And what was fascinating?
Speaker 1: In the aggregate? This idea of being famous shook out
Speaker 1: as the number one perceived priority for people and it
Speaker 1: was not even close like it was by far the
Speaker 1: most dominant attribute we think for other people. In private,
Speaker 1: it was dead last number seventy six. Now, illusions don't
Speaker 1: get much bigger than that, And that research has important
Speaker 1: implications because one of the of really really serious consequences
Speaker 1: of collective illusions is that this generation's illusions, unless you
Speaker 1: do something about them, tend to become next generation's private opinion.
Speaker 1: And here's here's what I mean by that with respect
Speaker 1: to fame. You know, some of our colleagues at UCLA
Speaker 1: have been studying the effects of media on middle school
Speaker 1: kids for years, just kind of understanding what values are
Speaker 1: they internalizing as their own, And up until a few
Speaker 1: years ago, whenever they looked, the dominant things that they
Speaker 1: were internalizing tend to be character related. It's kind of
Speaker 1: what you'd hope, right, I want to be a good person,
Speaker 1: I want to be honest, I want to have friends.
Speaker 1: A few years ago it changed and it hasn't changed
Speaker 1: back every year. Now the dominant theme is I want
Speaker 1: to be famous. I want to be a YouTube star
Speaker 1: like I remember one of the in the quality of
Speaker 1: interviews they did, one of the kids said I want
Speaker 1: to have a million followers, and they said, at what
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, right,
Speaker 1: And you know, it's it's pretty sad, right, because it's
Speaker 1: like it would be one thing if they were internalizing
Speaker 1: the actual values of society. But we've all learned the
Speaker 1: hard way that most of what constitutes that sort of wealth, status, power.
Speaker 1: It's really not a very fulfilling certainly not a self
Speaker 1: actualized life. Right, And our children are now internalizing that
Speaker 1: empty view of success as their own, all because we've
Speaker 1: allowed this illusion to propagate throughout society. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: so important. I'm so glad we're having this chat. I
Speaker 1: do want to ask you, you know, you said that
Speaker 1: it turned out it was actually theme was actually like
Speaker 1: seventy one or so, like what was number one? Like?
Speaker 1: What do people actually care about? Here's what's great. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, you might not be terribly surprised given
Speaker 1: our last conversation that at the individual level, the trade
Speaker 1: off priorities are unbelievably individual. Like it just there's no
Speaker 1: average you're saying, Yeah, there's no like when you looked
Speaker 1: at the average, Like no individual actually holds that exact profile, Right,
Speaker 1: I felt pretty good about that. It's like who. But
Speaker 1: what's interesting is you look at the things that cluster
Speaker 1: up top. They were things like relationships, character related things,
Speaker 1: and then like education, but not from I want to
Speaker 1: go to the most elite school possible. Just I want
Speaker 1: to They want to get they want to get training
Speaker 1: to do things that matter to them. Right, they wanted
Speaker 1: purposeful lives and they want to be good people. And
Speaker 1: let me give you one specific example. So in the aggregate,
Speaker 1: the number three most important trade off priority for people,
Speaker 1: this was, this was just in the United States, was
Speaker 1: to be viewed as trustworthy, like and yet they don't
Speaker 1: think anybody else really cares about it. It's the third
Speaker 1: most important thing to them, and yet they don't think that.
Speaker 1: It's like they think people would prioritize it very very low. Now,
Speaker 1: think about the problem, Right, I want to be trusted.
Speaker 1: I believe I'm trustworthy, but I don't think anybody else
Speaker 1: really cares and I don't really think they're trustworthy. How
Speaker 1: does a democracy function if we really don't think not
Speaker 1: only are people untrustworthy, but that they don't even care
Speaker 1: about it. And it's just not true. So this is
Speaker 1: the kind of damage that illusions do to societies. I
Speaker 1: hear you. I mean these implications are deep. You said,
Speaker 1: we have found that collective illusions flourished in just about
Speaker 1: every important area of social life in America. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's incredible. That's incredible. I mean, once you start
Speaker 1: going down that rabbit hole, do you kind of like,
Speaker 1: just see it everywhere? Now, Todd, do you just like
Speaker 1: can you not unsee what you see? I think I
Speaker 1: had to course correct a little because, Yeah, we found
Speaker 1: it so often that you just start assuming everything's an illusion.
Speaker 1: But everything is. Everything is what you're saying to you.
Speaker 1: It's a big matrix moment. No, I think that the
Speaker 1: thing I feel safe is saying is name anything that's
Speaker 1: important in society right now, and it's a coin toss
Speaker 1: whether it's an illusion, it's incredible. Well, let's talk politics
Speaker 1: is obviously very important on a lot of people's minds.
Speaker 1: You say in California, And I was surprised why you
Speaker 1: had to write in California, because this seems to apply
Speaker 1: probably everywhere. Both Democrats and Republicans assume the other side
Speaker 1: holds more extreme views than they actually do, creating a
Speaker 1: self fulfilling misperson option of political polarization. You found that
Speaker 1: that was especially problement in California. In that case, that
Speaker 1: was the best research that I had found when I
Speaker 1: was writing. I didn't like some of the methods in
Speaker 1: some of the other research. Whenever we'd like, especially when
Speaker 1: you're writing a book, as you know, it's like you
Speaker 1: want the things that have been replicated, You want some
Speaker 1: good methods. But that was rock solid. We've since actually
Speaker 1: confirmed that nationally. It's interesting right now. In the book,
Speaker 1: I tried to stay away from politics, mainly because what
Speaker 1: I found was if you don't understand the concept of
Speaker 1: a collective illusion, if your first introduction to it is
Speaker 1: something very polarizing, that issue tends to just be all
Speaker 1: the thing you can think about. Right, So it's like
Speaker 1: you want your head around the actual concept. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting from the political standpoint is, not surprisingly, our national
Speaker 1: politics are driving a lot of these illusions. And it's
Speaker 1: happening on both sides, but it's it's really leading to
Speaker 1: both seeing the other side as very extreme when it's
Speaker 1: not really true. But most importantly, and even more damaging,
Speaker 1: we're seeing within any one political party the misunderstanding of
Speaker 1: our own party. Oh my gosh, I mean, I can
Speaker 1: just so clearly now see how this dovetails so nicely
Speaker 1: with your work on intelligence, and that there's no such
Speaker 1: thing as averages, right to even just having that recognition
Speaker 1: that within your in group, there's no such thing as
Speaker 1: the average view, even in itself, right, I mean, the
Speaker 1: thread here is so obvious once you started packing this.
Speaker 1: But between your prior work and this work, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: But it's interesting too because it's like, no matter what
Speaker 1: we've looked at, so we've studied everything from you know again,
Speaker 1: what you mean by a successful life? Are aspirations for
Speaker 1: the future of the country, How do we want to
Speaker 1: treat one another? What do you want out of our
Speaker 1: key institutions like education and the workplace, criminal justice, these things?
Speaker 1: And it's just like we've got so much more in common.
Speaker 1: I know, it's so easy to say, right, and people
Speaker 1: try to say all demographics we share a lot in common.
Speaker 1: What I think collective illusions help us understand is why
Speaker 1: doesn't it feel like that? And I think this is
Speaker 1: important because you know, there's an old in social psychology,
Speaker 1: there's an old Thomas theorem, right, which is, if it's
Speaker 1: real in our imaginations, it becomes real in its consequences.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't matter that we actually share so much
Speaker 1: common ground. If we believe we are divided, then our
Speaker 1: behavior will act accordingly, right, and the consequences become self fulfilling.
Speaker 1: So I think this is a critical time for us
Speaker 1: to understand a concept like collective illusions because not only
Speaker 1: does it mean perhaps there's actually some common ground for
Speaker 1: us to build a free and flourishing society together, but
Speaker 1: that the way we would deal with some of our
Speaker 1: problems is different. Like, if we really are divided, so
Speaker 1: be it right, there are ways to bridge honest differences
Speaker 1: and still get somewhere. But if it is a collective illusion,
Speaker 1: then what we do next is different. And sometimes leaning
Speaker 1: into an allusion as if it's private opinion can literally
Speaker 1: make the illusion stronger. Yeah, I would rather people have
Speaker 1: a kind of best self bias in the other person,
Speaker 1: like see the best in them and be biased and
Speaker 1: be wrong then the other way or that other kind
Speaker 1: of error, because you're you're so right. It's true that
Speaker 1: when you actually lead with the bias of we're divided,
Speaker 1: you take ambiguous stimuli and you're more likely to view
Speaker 1: negativity in that it's like why why are you angry
Speaker 1: at me? And it's like no, I actually just have
Speaker 1: a neutral face right now, you know, Like do you
Speaker 1: know you're hitting on a really important point? Right, which
Speaker 1: is despite what most people think, most situations are pretty
Speaker 1: pretty ambiguous, right, like, and so true, we are projecting
Speaker 1: a lot of assumptions in interactions. And so if I
Speaker 1: am coming into it thinking all it's equal, someone I'm
Speaker 1: just meeting probably disagrees with me on really important things,
Speaker 1: and in fact, I might not even think their view
Speaker 1: might be. I might think it is even immoral or
Speaker 1: whatever I am I am, The way I'm engaging with
Speaker 1: them is likely to produce the very outcome that I
Speaker 1: didn't want. And so it matters that we get this right.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think what's so unfortunate, and we
Speaker 1: can talk more about this, but like it's really dangerous
Speaker 1: when you know two thirds of Americans admit to self
Speaker 1: silencing right now, and you know, I know Cato had
Speaker 1: done that research. We've replicated that it's a thing, and
Speaker 1: it cuts across all demographics. It's just like we're just
Speaker 1: not being honest with each other about what we think,
Speaker 1: in part because we believe most people don't agree with this.
Speaker 1: And so if we can get back to just having
Speaker 1: conversations treating one another's respect, I think we'll be shocked
Speaker 1: at the common ground that we find when we have
Speaker 1: those conversations. I completely agree. And I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you've come up with a like a chart like that
Speaker 1: just shows what people actually want and think. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like disseminating that information would be really valuable,
Speaker 1: you know, some kind of like white paper of like
Speaker 1: what people actually think, or a cool infographic infographic Have
Speaker 1: you thought about doing infographic? You know? So here's what's interesting.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, and this is going to be
Speaker 1: an important step. And we've published research and stuff like
Speaker 1: that what we find and what we have found and
Speaker 1: partly why I wrote the book is the trick with
Speaker 1: illusions is your brain is certain it knows what the
Speaker 1: group thinks. So if just being told it with data
Speaker 1: that it's not true. The number of times people say, man,
Speaker 1: I wish it were true, but I know it's not. Like.
Speaker 1: So what we found our strategy we felt like is
Speaker 1: the more that people came to understand the phenomenon of
Speaker 1: a collective illusion, the more likely it is that they
Speaker 1: were willing to take new data and say, okay, wait,
Speaker 1: now that I know that this is possible and I
Speaker 1: know that, like I can't really trust my brain to
Speaker 1: tell me what the group thinks. They were open to
Speaker 1: good data, where otherwise it just seemed like the data
Speaker 1: itself like and if you think about it, like, how
Speaker 1: many other organizations have shown us, like, look how much
Speaker 1: common ground we have, and yet it doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: move the need. So our bet is to socialize the
Speaker 1: concept of collective illusions, get people to understand this, and
Speaker 1: then hopefully we can now start to have the conversation
Speaker 1: with data about who we really are as a people.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, to me, it's it's come on us
Speaker 1: to actually meet people where they are, and I think
Speaker 1: this is an important concept. So it's on me to
Speaker 1: try to communicate in a way that people understand and
Speaker 1: can relate to. Yeah, no, I I think that's a
Speaker 1: that's really sensible. Yeah, there's some other findings here that
Speaker 1: boow my mind. So why is the moment you ask
Speaker 1: someone is a woman as electable as a man? How
Speaker 1: come the moment you ask that everything changes? Yeah? This
Speaker 1: is this was one of those really remarkable We didn't
Speaker 1: do this research so I can brag about it, right, right, Right,
Speaker 1: it's Regina Bates and this is really fantastic research looking
Speaker 1: at gender bias in politics, right, because it's unbelievable, Like
Speaker 1: women are so underrepresented in electoral politics. It's just you
Speaker 1: can't it's but like here's the thing, Like it's important
Speaker 1: to understand what's driving that. And for sure, let's just
Speaker 1: be clear, just straight up sexism certainly is involved sometimes
Speaker 1: like that, that's certainly the case. What doctor Bateson found,
Speaker 1: when I think, was really fascinating, is that given our
Speaker 1: winner take all like sort of two party system, so
Speaker 1: much is dependent on what the gatekeepers think. Because now,
Speaker 1: if we were doing something like ranked choice voting, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. I don't have to care what I
Speaker 1: think anybody else thinks, right, But in a winner take
Speaker 1: all system, I have to do a little bit of
Speaker 1: guessing about who do I think most people are going
Speaker 1: to vote for, right, because otherwise my vote is quote
Speaker 1: unquote wasted, right if I take a flyer on that.
Speaker 1: So what was interesting is if you look at how
Speaker 1: women perform when they are nominated in general elections, women
Speaker 1: win at the same rate as white men, which is
Speaker 1: so suggest obviously it's not a general election problem. And
Speaker 1: what she found was that it was like party leaders,
Speaker 1: especially donors right, They're like, well, wait a minute, I'm
Speaker 1: not sexist, but I think most people and the party are,
Speaker 1: so I don't think you're going to be able to win,
Speaker 1: and so they don't get the support they don't get
Speaker 1: the resources, and it becomes self fulfilling. It's so clear
Speaker 1: when you put it that way, how that becomes a
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy. But there is so much pressure within
Speaker 1: certain groups to say the dominant ideology and just like
Speaker 1: don't like if you can't, it's like a cult, right,
Speaker 1: because like the second you question, maybe you know, like
Speaker 1: what does the evidence actually show there? Like you're out,
Speaker 1: you're not being loyal. Yeah, so that's it's Actually in
Speaker 1: the book, I was looking at what you called these
Speaker 1: conformity traps, like these these three kinds of situations where
Speaker 1: you are likely to slip into blind conformity, and you
Speaker 1: are quite likely to do that under an illusion to
Speaker 1: begin with. And you know, this this sort of identity
Speaker 1: trap where you've got these groups that matter so much
Speaker 1: to who you are, right, and especially when it's just
Speaker 1: one group, that group has cult like power over you. Right.
Speaker 1: In fact, I actually opened a chapter talking about a
Speaker 1: cult and like people's willingness to even die rather than
Speaker 1: lose that sense of belonging to the group. And so
Speaker 1: that can be so powerful. And so once somebody gets
Speaker 1: control of that group, right, or the illusion going, you
Speaker 1: can lead entire groups astray in a hurry. Humans human, right,
Speaker 1: because like this is the worst. We're the worst. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're worse than turtles. They can
Speaker 1: be pretty cheeky. But the thing is about humans is
Speaker 1: that this this stuff generalize. The group stuff kind of
Speaker 1: generalizes from individual relational stuff. Like it's it's a you
Speaker 1: look at codependent relationships one on one, you start to
Speaker 1: see similar dynamics. You know, like you start to it
Speaker 1: just have you thought about it the individual like the
Speaker 1: individual illusion level and how those basic first principles reasoning
Speaker 1: for first principles here you know, yeah, your upstay correct.
Speaker 1: So so it's actually it's like fractal quality to it. Right,
Speaker 1: So you see illusion in in just between two people
Speaker 1: or small groups, right, you know, I wrote about it
Speaker 1: in the book, But it's even with people that you
Speaker 1: know really well, Like one of the it was kind
Speaker 1: of funny, but like I had one with my grandmother
Speaker 1: who was like my second mom who helped raise me,
Speaker 1: and it's like like and it was funny. The short
Speaker 1: version of it is as we talked about previously, like
Speaker 1: my upbringing, my family was great. My you know, I
Speaker 1: was a hard kid to raise and didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of friends, and so that it was my grandmother
Speaker 1: was was always there for me as a place I
Speaker 1: could always go. I'd sleep over there once a month
Speaker 1: and one time, and they didn't have very much money.
Speaker 1: I mean, they really didn't have a lot of money,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to just be there because I could.
Speaker 1: I didn't have the words for it then, but like
Speaker 1: that was the place I could be myself and like
Speaker 1: my Corse Hall levels clearly I'm sure dropped like in
Speaker 1: that environment. It was like my sanctuary. And one time
Speaker 1: we would go and she would make me a bloney sandwich,
Speaker 1: would play like yachtzi and board games, and they would
Speaker 1: watch TV together till I felt like that and I
Speaker 1: would have done that every time. It was amazing. One
Speaker 1: time she we decided, I don't even know how, they
Speaker 1: end up taking me this place called Sizzler, which was
Speaker 1: kind of like a cheap bacon salabar. Right. It it
Speaker 1: was loud, and you know, I see it was fine.
Speaker 1: I actually liked it, but like I really just wanted
Speaker 1: to be with my grandparents. Right. We did that like
Speaker 1: every month for years. Right, So a few years ago,
Speaker 1: pre pandemic, I went back and my grandmother was passing away,
Speaker 1: and I got to be by her side and we
Speaker 1: were talking and reflecting, and so I'm telling her about
Speaker 1: how how important she was to me and how important
Speaker 1: those sleepovers were, and I just wanted to let her
Speaker 1: know because it really was going to be like the
Speaker 1: last conversation we had. And she interrupts me as I'm
Speaker 1: She says, Todd, I know what you liked best going
Speaker 1: to Sizzler. And I was like, wait, no, I like,
Speaker 1: I didn't really, I just wanted to be home. So
Speaker 1: then she goes on to explain that that, like, no kidding,
Speaker 1: She's like, we didn't really want to go, but we
Speaker 1: know it meant a lot to you. And I was
Speaker 1: I was going, and I didn't really want to go
Speaker 1: because I thought it meant to them. And it turned
Speaker 1: out this is they didn't have enough money, so they
Speaker 1: had given up their date nights to get enough money
Speaker 1: to take me to Sizzler. So what I learned is
Speaker 1: I had crashed my grandparents' date nights, you know, for
Speaker 1: for a few years. And look, I mean it was
Speaker 1: so great we spent time together. But for me, it's
Speaker 1: like these kind of illusions can happen in individual relationships,
Speaker 1: even with people who know you the best. And if
Speaker 1: it can happen there, it's not terribly surprising that it
Speaker 1: happens in a country of like three hundred and something million. Incredible, Todd,
Speaker 1: I just had a revelation. Do you want to hear
Speaker 1: my revelation? I do. I actually didn't really care for
Speaker 1: Sizzler either. I think I think I felt social pressures
Speaker 1: to say, well of Sizzler, do you when you brought
Speaker 1: it up? But yeah, I think we just illustrated this point.
Speaker 1: I don't think I cared much for Sizzler, to be honest.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad that they're not a sponsor your podcast,
Speaker 1: is what you're saying, not anytime soon that you know?
Speaker 1: Like I remember the salad bar? But did I really
Speaker 1: like the salad bar? Did I really I really care
Speaker 1: for it? There was always like something else from a
Speaker 1: different side, a different item in this in the you know,
Speaker 1: like you know what I'm saying, like like Ida, if
Speaker 1: it was pasta, there'd be like salad remains from someone
Speaker 1: else's plate in the anyway. Anyway, So how did this
Speaker 1: play out in the twenty twenty presidential election? Yeah? So look,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you go back all the way to
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. We know, we knew about those sort of
Speaker 1: what they called like the sort of shy Trump voters,
Speaker 1: and right or wrong, it became something that you didn't
Speaker 1: say out loud, right who you were gonna vote for.
Speaker 1: And I think that the media did a good job
Speaker 1: of kind of framing if you were going to make
Speaker 1: this choice, this is what it means about you, right
Speaker 1: and fair enough for whatever I like. But so then
Speaker 1: the problem is is like we get to vote in private,
Speaker 1: and so you know, we had all I remember where
Speaker 1: I was when that when twenty sixteen happened, and it
Speaker 1: was like who saw that coming? Right? And in fact
Speaker 1: was that was the beginning. We didn't even do private
Speaker 1: opinion research before then, And in part because of the
Speaker 1: way that turned out, we realized so much of our
Speaker 1: model for populace depends on accurately understanding what the American
Speaker 1: public cares about, what their values are, their priorities are.
Speaker 1: And we said, we can't take for granted anything at
Speaker 1: this point. But you know, it's interesting, I will say,
Speaker 1: on the political side, one of the things that we
Speaker 1: found in our own data right now is the after
Speaker 1: effects of twenty twenty. Right, Well, you have one candidate
Speaker 1: who continues to say that it was stolen, right, and
Speaker 1: the way the media reports that is so public opinion.
Speaker 1: If you call Republicans, just do an attritional pull. We
Speaker 1: we just did this. We found fifty seven percent will say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was definitely stolen. Right. That number in private is
Speaker 1: closer to fourteen percent. Like it's just think about it, Like,
Speaker 1: but they believe that most Republicans think it was stolen.
Speaker 1: And the reason they believe it is you've got a
Speaker 1: very vocal minority, right, and an end of one who
Speaker 1: is saying it over and over again. And like if
Speaker 1: Republicans don't really care much for the media anyway, and
Speaker 1: so if somebody, some polster calls them from Gallup and says,
Speaker 1: do you think the election is stolen? What are you
Speaker 1: gonna say? You know, what you think your group thinks
Speaker 1: is the right answer. Right. So it's one thing this
Speaker 1: is important to me because it's like like I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to paint a rosy picture here, like the consequence
Speaker 1: can still be real, but you know, especially politicians. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting historically I can't remember who did the research,
Speaker 1: but like they found that Politicians were especially sensitive to
Speaker 1: collective illusions, even more so because if you think about it,
Speaker 1: all they want to do is get reelected, right. That's
Speaker 1: like the job of a politician is to get real
Speaker 1: elect So they are exquisitely sensitive to what they think
Speaker 1: their constituents believe, right, and so it makes them susceptible
Speaker 1: to this and so and you probably know this, like
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Like the number of at
Speaker 1: the national level, the number of Republican elected officials who
Speaker 1: will tell me privately, of course I know this wasn't rigged, right,
Speaker 1: but then they'll tell you. But but I think most
Speaker 1: of my constituents do. Now They're not going out and
Speaker 1: lying about it. They'll just say nothing, right, thinking that
Speaker 1: their silence isn't causing any harm, but in fact it's
Speaker 1: causing great harm. This is so eye opening because I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about other domains now. I'm just curious, like how
Speaker 1: many Christians actually believe in an afterlife, Like if you
Speaker 1: actually privately ask them, like go down the standard beliefs
Speaker 1: of like Christianity or I don't mean to pick on Christianity,
Speaker 1: by the way, any any religion, any religion. I'm so
Speaker 1: curious have you done that study. I'm curious. Oh, but
Speaker 1: that'd be a great study because here's one of the
Speaker 1: tricky parts with group belonging is that, you know, you
Speaker 1: think about groups, whether especially like political parties whatever, they
Speaker 1: aggregate a bunch of different dimensions of things, right like,
Speaker 1: Like if so it's funny, like why do I with
Speaker 1: our two party system, why do I have to be
Speaker 1: Why do I have to hate gay people to believe
Speaker 1: in free markets? Right like? Doesn't make any sense? But
Speaker 1: they so, you know, groups that pull together, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of different things. It's almost what we do
Speaker 1: find is it's the same kind of jagged profile thing
Speaker 1: we talked about last time, which is we know for
Speaker 1: sure there's no like average Democrat or Republican in terms
Speaker 1: of their own beliefs against the party's stated platform and
Speaker 1: so like, I would be shocked if that's not the
Speaker 1: case when it comes to religious identity, right but it's
Speaker 1: it's certainly something we can do, be good research. We'll
Speaker 1: work on it together. Scott, Yeah, that'd be It's exciting,
Speaker 1: like to know, I want to know what the truth is,
Speaker 1: you know, about what people think think about it? Like
Speaker 1: if I'm like, well, I definitely let's just pretend. Let's
Speaker 1: say I identify as Republican, and I'm like, because I
Speaker 1: believe in free markets and free people. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I actually don't mind. People should love who they want
Speaker 1: to love. But now I feel like if I say that,
Speaker 1: I might be ostracized from the thing for which I identify, right,
Speaker 1: And so you're going to lead a lot of people
Speaker 1: to stay silent or lie about what they believe what
Speaker 1: timmer Kurran calls preference falsification just in the name of belonging.
Speaker 1: So I'm always very leary of groups that aggregate that difference, right,
Speaker 1: Like why do I need a party that is here's
Speaker 1: our twenty things that you have to swallow a wholesale
Speaker 1: or you're not a Republican or you're not a Democrat.
Speaker 1: To me, that's always a sign that someone's trying to
Speaker 1: manipulate you. Yeah, for sure, this goes back right, Like
Speaker 1: didn't Seneca haven't talk about at the existential menace of
Speaker 1: collective illusions? Is that's why I open the book talking
Speaker 1: about because I love Seneca. I love Seneca mainly because
Speaker 1: like he's such a like a ball of contradictions, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember the first time I was reading
Speaker 1: him and I didn't know about him, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I imagine this person who rejected all material life and
Speaker 1: was like living in a cave somewhere right like like
Speaker 1: some esoteric Buddhist monk. Before. Yeah, he was the richest
Speaker 1: person in Rome. But I liked it because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, he was living in a time when when
Speaker 1: Rome became fabulously wealthy, and you know, now people had
Speaker 1: at the same time as you had these crazy emperors,
Speaker 1: right who Now suddenly you couldn't say what you thought.
Speaker 1: And he was trying to give people a good advice
Speaker 1: about how to live a purposeful life in an era
Speaker 1: of abundance, which was a sort of new phenomenon right
Speaker 1: at scale. And so I find it just endlessly fascinating
Speaker 1: his efforts. But he did. He was always worried about
Speaker 1: what we would now call collective illusions and the misread
Speaker 1: of the group to lead us as straight individually into
Speaker 1: lives that were purposeless and quite empty. Will we ever learn?
Speaker 1: I mean, why does every generation recreate the same human nature?
Speaker 1: I mean, I know the answer why, But right I'm saying,
Speaker 1: what can we can we change something some generation? I
Speaker 1: think that The trick is that you know, we are
Speaker 1: who we are. Evolution works on a much longer time scale,
Speaker 1: right than any given life, and so we need to
Speaker 1: we rely pretty heavily on helpful social norms, right, these
Speaker 1: cultural norms that actually teach us the right way to
Speaker 1: engage with each other, and that can transcend any one generation.
Speaker 1: And you know, we worked really hard in the West,
Speaker 1: you know that does I mean, this has happened everywhere,
Speaker 1: but you know where where we're from to acquire norms
Speaker 1: from from that we would have called you know, liberal democracy, right,
Speaker 1: the tolerance and respect and these things and individual rights,
Speaker 1: and you know, you see those things start to erode
Speaker 1: now and you start to see some of that base
Speaker 1: nature taking back over, the tribalism and the seeing the
Speaker 1: other as the enemy, the outgrouping of people, and we
Speaker 1: know from history it doesn't end well there, right, Like,
Speaker 1: the erosion of these norms not only will continue to
Speaker 1: exacerbate collective illusions, I think they're the biggest threat to
Speaker 1: free society that we face in a very long time. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you made a very convincing case for that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I once I read your book, I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: Todd is so spot on there about the urgency and
Speaker 1: vastness of this problem. I definitely agree. I have a
Speaker 1: question because I'm thinking, you know, I'm really interested individual differences,
Speaker 1: but I'm also interested in like group differences. Is like,
Speaker 1: so there's my question. Are Buddhists less likely to have
Speaker 1: collective illusions? That's my question? Have you studied that? Not
Speaker 1: Buddhists particularly, But like I will say, what we do
Speaker 1: know is that so at an individual level, as you know,
Speaker 1: like say something like conformity or need to conform or
Speaker 1: need to belong. Not surprisingly that exists on a continuum, right,
Speaker 1: It's not healthy for anything for us to be lumped
Speaker 1: into the same exact you know, you want difference. If
Speaker 1: you look at the need to belong, there's a difference.
Speaker 1: But this need for self expression they also want to
Speaker 1: continue them. And so people with high need for self
Speaker 1: expression are just less susceptible illusion, in part because the
Speaker 1: problem with illusion is not just that you might misread
Speaker 1: the group. It's that your behavior is affected by the
Speaker 1: misread of the group. So people with high need for
Speaker 1: self expression are just less likely to have the read
Speaker 1: of the group affect whatever choice they make. Right, And
Speaker 1: so what's interesting is not all of us are going
Speaker 1: to have super high need for self expression. You know,
Speaker 1: most of us are probably like me. I'm more of
Speaker 1: a people pleaser than I would even want to be right,
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm pretty sure it's sproat me from
Speaker 1: our last episode of conversation that you know about me now,
Speaker 1: Like I've worked to like try not to care as much.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is those social or cultural norms are
Speaker 1: actually what helped move a lot of people from like Essentially,
Speaker 1: if I want to belong, if the norms of my
Speaker 1: group are be honest about what you believe, then a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of people who would otherwise do whatever else
Speaker 1: the group wants them to are now being honest about
Speaker 1: themselves and essentially protected against the biggest downsides of these illusions.
Speaker 1: And when people, either because of their need for self
Speaker 1: expression or their adherence to to help the social norms
Speaker 1: that promote that, when we're all being honest and respectful
Speaker 1: about what we really think, illusions have nowhere to go, right,
Speaker 1: Like they're really hard to form in the first place. Wow,
Speaker 1: I can I bring up something off the record that's cheeky? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I have this ideam ahead of what women want, and
Speaker 1: I act that way, I'm not as successful than when
Speaker 1: I tell women what I actually want, and then they're
Speaker 1: more likely to say, oh, actually I want that too. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll keep us in. I'll keep us
Speaker 1: in todd about it. Let's just think about this, because
Speaker 1: it works both ways. You see what I'm saying, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we want, like we think we have some sense for
Speaker 1: like what women want or men want from the opposite
Speaker 1: sex or same sex. And you know, you're why would
Speaker 1: you be any more right about that than you are
Speaker 1: by these other things? And the thing is the same
Speaker 1: mechanisms that are driving illusions and other issues like are
Speaker 1: driving them here too, right, And so like we can
Speaker 1: all be saying that we want like as men, Like
Speaker 1: let's say, as heterosexual men. I'll say, oh, there's a
Speaker 1: certain ideal about women we want, so oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what we want, and privately we're like not really,
Speaker 1: I kind of like a really strong woman and I like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot like personally right, but there's
Speaker 1: some feminine ideal and we might say it out loud,
Speaker 1: but just to your point, I mean that that kind
Speaker 1: of misunderstanding. Think about how detrimental that is not only
Speaker 1: to individual identity, but to interpersonal relationships. Right, Like, I
Speaker 1: think this kind of stuff holds us back from having
Speaker 1: like self actualization not only for ourselves but in the
Speaker 1: relationships that we have. I completely agree we did. We
Speaker 1: all need to be more honest with each other and
Speaker 1: have more what you call positive deviance. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that phrase, which you define as deviation from
Speaker 1: a negative norm and a positive direction. So how can
Speaker 1: we empower people to have more positive deviance in society
Speaker 1: despite the consequences, Because sometimes there's consequences for your group, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are. Look, I think that there's like a there's
Speaker 1: It's important that when we say we've got to be
Speaker 1: honest with each other, I think sometimes people use that
Speaker 1: as an excuse to be an asshole. I agree. Look,
Speaker 1: we can disagree without being disagreeable. And like I will say,
Speaker 1: one one of the most interesting things we've found recently,
Speaker 1: we did this American Aspirations Index, looking at the trade
Speaker 1: off priorities people want for the future of the country.
Speaker 1: And they were everything from like being the richest country
Speaker 1: of a strong military, like anything our institutions could do,
Speaker 1: to our values, how we'd treat one another one of
Speaker 1: the top priorities across all demographics. It was in a
Speaker 1: top ten no matter how you cut the data, or
Speaker 1: top fifteen was we need to treat one another with
Speaker 1: respect despite our differences. Like this is like an aspiration
Speaker 1: for people, right, except for they thought it was in
Speaker 1: the bottom quarner of stuff for everybody else. So what
Speaker 1: happens if I'm like, I would like to get back
Speaker 1: to treating other people with respect, but I don't think
Speaker 1: they care about that for me. Back to that ambiguous
Speaker 1: interactions that we have all the time, I'm going to
Speaker 1: read disrespect into most everything I see, right, And so
Speaker 1: I think it's really critical, Like like I talked about
Speaker 1: this as like congruence, right, this need for our private
Speaker 1: selves and our public selves to be as closely aligned
Speaker 1: as possible. We've known for a long time that's that's
Speaker 1: a critical part of fulfillment and self actualization. I mean,
Speaker 1: how how do you get there? You're the expert on that, Like,
Speaker 1: how do you get there if you have a divided self?
Speaker 1: Like my private self is different than my public self.
Speaker 1: So we know that at an individual level. But given
Speaker 1: the fact of collective illusions, I believe this idea of
Speaker 1: congruence may be the most important thing you can do
Speaker 1: for other people, right, because it doesn't help anyone when
Speaker 1: we misread each other so profoundly. Yeah, you have this,
Speaker 1: I agree. And you have the sentence with a lot
Speaker 1: of like square quotes, and you say, take authentic responsibility
Speaker 1: for our congruence in the hidden sphere of our private lives.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love. Actually, they're probably not scare quotes,
Speaker 1: are probably all just quotes, but you put you put
Speaker 1: those things quotes. You were quotes because I was trying
Speaker 1: to a tribute it. I know, because it minds by
Speaker 1: other smart people that I didn't want to I know,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that. But I love those two I love.
Speaker 1: I love that phrase authentic responsibility. I love it. And
Speaker 1: again it's like, you know, like we're most people are
Speaker 1: dying to do this, Like there's just something hollow to
Speaker 1: living someone else's life, right, And if I could impress
Speaker 1: anything on Listener's reviewers, like a lot of reasons why
Speaker 1: we're doing this right now to ourselves is because we
Speaker 1: believe the group is against us. But just think, how
Speaker 1: would you behave if you knew that most people in
Speaker 1: groups that matter to you we're in agreement with you, Like,
Speaker 1: think about what that changes about your behavior and your
Speaker 1: your potential for happiness and flourishing. And I'm telling you
Speaker 1: it's just where we are right now in this society.
Speaker 1: And like, I think social media has a lot of upside,
Speaker 1: but with respect to collective illusions, it is a funhouse
Speaker 1: of mirrors. It is almost a guarantee to distort what
Speaker 1: you think the group consensus really is. So we just
Speaker 1: got to be thoughtful about the ways, not just that
Speaker 1: ways we engage online because that's just always going to
Speaker 1: be there, but learning about collective illusions and getting some
Speaker 1: skill and not letting those distortions affect how we treat
Speaker 1: one another in real life, because that's where it really
Speaker 1: really becomes a problem. It sounds like a lot of
Speaker 1: what you're saying is it starts from within making societal changes.
Speaker 1: You know, this idea of congruence was a big notion
Speaker 1: from one of my favorite psychologists, Carl Rogers, the humanistic psychologist.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you made that link. I did,
Speaker 1: and I got a little bit of our reference to him,
Speaker 1: and there was fun with the publisher because I feel
Speaker 1: like Rogers doesn't get the credit I agree in the
Speaker 1: same way. I think it's like he's one of the
Speaker 1: most under explored set of insights. But yeah, the congruis
Speaker 1: was central to Roger's view of things, and like when
Speaker 1: you like you think about and Rogers then swerves right
Speaker 1: into all the areas that you're the leading expert in.
Speaker 1: And so that's for me. I felt like you would
Speaker 1: like this, which is this congruence part of our ability
Speaker 1: to get to self actualization. It doesn't guarantee it, but
Speaker 1: I don't know how you live a self actualized life
Speaker 1: if you're incongruent. I completely agree, it's it's essential. And
Speaker 1: I just love the idea of setting an example for others.
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's that's the way out of this trap.
Speaker 1: You start doing that, and then other people in your
Speaker 1: group start doing it, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: your group's the whole illusion breaks down. The emperor has
Speaker 1: no clothes, or the emperor has the effort does have clothes. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Eventually is guess the one I'm trying to say. Eventually. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's great about illusions is that they're powerful when they're enforced,
Speaker 1: but they're fragile because they're social lives. Right, like you
Speaker 1: don't want it to be true. You wish it weren't true.
Speaker 1: And so what you're really looking for is wait a minute, Like,
Speaker 1: so for some of us, we just need one other
Speaker 1: person to speak up to give us the strength to
Speaker 1: do the same. Other people need more. But what you
Speaker 1: see is once you start getting the crack in the illusion,
Speaker 1: it affects what we call like bandwagon change, right, like
Speaker 1: it'll just swerve quickly and suddenly it looks like, almost overnight,
Speaker 1: the group has shifted its view. So whenever you see stuff,
Speaker 1: it's funny in politics they call it momentum. There's no
Speaker 1: such thing as momentum. That's not what that is. That
Speaker 1: is that is an illusion where people's private behaviors like,
Speaker 1: oh wait a minute, this is like I can now
Speaker 1: say what I really think, right, I feel comfortable saying
Speaker 1: what I really think. So when you see like sort
Speaker 1: of exponential change in public opinion, like that's usually that
Speaker 1: that's usually that there's an illusion underneath there because if
Speaker 1: people privately believe something, it is very hard to change that.
Speaker 1: And so you know, doing that is like one off, right,
Speaker 1: I have to change your mind. I changed someone else's mind,
Speaker 1: and so you'll usually sly slow linear growth or change
Speaker 1: in public opinion. When you see it change really quickly,
Speaker 1: like it did with marriage equality. Marriage equality, that the
Speaker 1: public approval for that, I mean, it's unreal since what
Speaker 1: since two thousand and three to today, it's basically flipped
Speaker 1: in terms of its its acceptance, Like that doesn't happen
Speaker 1: if privately most people were against it. It just doesn't.
Speaker 1: Such a good point so much. The reason why it's
Speaker 1: so hard is because, like the oxytocin bonding mechanism is
Speaker 1: run so deep in our DNA and our biology, and
Speaker 1: and overriding that is not easy. Because once we feel
Speaker 1: this social trust, we can why you know we can.
Speaker 1: We'll do anything, why cheat steal for our in group? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's why again, you know, I wrote a whole
Speaker 1: chapter on these like norms, because norms are invisible and
Speaker 1: we don't realize it, but it affects so much of
Speaker 1: our behavior. And when when norms break down, when they
Speaker 1: no longer represent our private values, they become unbelievably destructive,
Speaker 1: right because we think that they represent consensus and they don't.
Speaker 1: But norms at their best are supposed to hold us
Speaker 1: to our better angels right, Like, you know, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: like I want to live in a fair society, but
Speaker 1: like what, okay, great, let's have norms of fairness that
Speaker 1: in those moments when I'm tempted out of self interest
Speaker 1: to not be fair to other people, those norms act
Speaker 1: as powerful checking mechanisms on my behavior. Right, And so
Speaker 1: right now we are not being honest with each other
Speaker 1: about our values. And if that's happening, then we cannot
Speaker 1: form norms. You can't design norms. They happen out of
Speaker 1: human action, not human design. But they only emerge when
Speaker 1: there is a real consensus about our shared values. And
Speaker 1: so we've got to get back to that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems almost like self evident and we will due.
Speaker 1: But like if we're going to continue to self silence
Speaker 1: or even lie about our beliefs, like the results are
Speaker 1: going to be collective illusions at scale, and whole societies
Speaker 1: can be taken down by those, and listen, it would
Speaker 1: be something like a free society living in a democracy.
Speaker 1: Like we take that for granted. That is a blip
Speaker 1: in human history. The idea that it can't disappear overnight
Speaker 1: is silly. It can and it will, and it would
Speaker 1: be one thing if it disappeared, because privately, we collectively
Speaker 1: gave up on that experiment, right, But it's a tragedy
Speaker 1: if it disappears, not because of private change in values,
Speaker 1: but because of collective illusions. And that's what for me
Speaker 1: felt like the urgency to write the book right like that,
Speaker 1: It just felt like things were spinning out of control.
Speaker 1: And yet we have more data on private opinion in
Speaker 1: America than probably anybody else. I would argue, and I
Speaker 1: can tell you it's just not true, right, So I
Speaker 1: think that's both there's both a dangerous aspect of illusions
Speaker 1: but also a hopeful one, you know, because history has
Speaker 1: shown us that if you recognize the illusion and you
Speaker 1: take an effort to dismantle it, social change can happen
Speaker 1: at a scale and pace that would seem unimaginable otherwise. Well,
Speaker 1: I can't think of any other way to end than
Speaker 1: that message. So thank you so Todd, so much for
Speaker 1: this marathon you did with me in two parts. Thank you.
Speaker 1: We obviously have so much shared values and we're not
Speaker 1: as divided as people tell us we are. But now
Speaker 1: we know why, right now we know why it feels
Speaker 1: that way, and if we can recognize that we really
Speaker 1: can no longer trust our brain to accurately read group consensus.
Speaker 1: Then we can get back to this. It never really
Speaker 1: mattered right. Be who you are, learn to be authentic,
Speaker 1: discover your real self, and work really hard to be
Speaker 1: congruent between your private self and your public self. The
Speaker 1: rest takes care of itself. Carl Rodgers would have been
Speaker 1: very proud of this interview. I think, thanks Todd, Thank
Speaker 1: you thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to react in some way to something
Speaker 1: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
Speaker 1: at the Psychology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube
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Speaker 1: want to check that out. Thanks for being such a
Speaker 1: great supporter of the show, and tune in next time
Speaker 1: for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.