Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. I
Speaker 1: have a few announcements I'd like to make before we
Speaker 1: dive into today's episode. First, I wanted to let you
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Speaker 1: I wanted to let you know that my Transcend course
Speaker 1: is coming back in February. The next iteration of the
Speaker 1: course will offer even more ways to help you live
Speaker 1: more fulfilling, meaningful, creative, and self actualized life. There will
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Speaker 1: so you're gonna want to save your spot as soon
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Speaker 1: com to sign up. That's transcend course dot com. Okay,
Speaker 1: now let's dive into today's episode. Today, it's great to
Speaker 1: chat with Jennifer Aker and Naomi Bagdonus on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Jennifer is the General Atlantic Professor that Stanford Graduate School
Speaker 1: of Business and a leading expert on how purpose and
Speaker 1: meaning shape individual choices and how technology can positively impact
Speaker 1: both human wellbeing and company growth. Our work has been
Speaker 1: widely published in lead in scientific journals and featured in
Speaker 1: The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: The Atlantic, and Science. A recipient of the Distinguished Scientific
Speaker 1: Achievement Award, and the MBA Professor of the Year. Oker
Speaker 1: and I just said right. Awker counts winning a dance
Speaker 1: off in the early nineteen eighties among her greatest feats.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna have to talk about that one. Nail me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna to talk about that name nail me. Bagdonas
Speaker 1: is a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School Business. At
Speaker 1: the Stanford Graduate School Business and an executive coach. She
Speaker 1: helps leaders be more creative, flexible, and resilient in the
Speaker 1: face of change by facilitating interactive sessions for Fortune one
Speaker 1: hundred companies and coaching executives and celebrities for appearances ranging
Speaker 1: from Saturday Night Live to The Today Show. Formally Trained
Speaker 1: to the Upright Systems Brigade Theater, I did that once.
Speaker 1: Bagdonas performs at comedy venues and teaches improv in San
Speaker 1: Francisco's County Jail. Her constant stream of foster dogs describe
Speaker 1: her as global and full of treats. Well, it is
Speaker 1: so delightful to have both of you on the podcast
Speaker 1: and what is going to be the most complicated bio
Speaker 1: I've ever read in the history of the Psychology podcast.
Speaker 1: Oh well, thank you. We will take that as a compliment.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's on. It speaks to the
Speaker 1: amazing accomplishments you both have had and as well as
Speaker 1: your cheeky side, which I love. As you know, anyone
Speaker 1: who knows me knows that I love people who bring
Speaker 1: their whole self to the table. So let's bring our
Speaker 1: whole self, Well maybe not our whole self, but let's
Speaker 1: bring a lot of ourselves to the table today and
Speaker 1: really talk about why the world needs humor. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of people say the world needs love, love,
Speaker 1: but why humor? Talk to me? Well, I will I
Speaker 1: who's to go first? All the first cut at this
Speaker 1: is humor is love in some small fashion. The end
Speaker 1: of our book Humor Seriously, is written or sort of
Speaker 1: dialogue with Michael Lewis, who ends the book saying, when
Speaker 1: humor exists, love is not far behind. So you could,
Speaker 1: you know, you could say, when you laugh together, you know,
Speaker 1: neurologically you actually experience some of the same things that
Speaker 1: you experience when you actually experience love. And we can
Speaker 1: get into that if you want. But you know, that
Speaker 1: would be one way to look at it, neo may
Speaker 1: do you have a different way? I would say humor
Speaker 1: has a transformational effect on our behavior and in our psychology,
Speaker 1: on our mental health, creativity, our closeness with others, and
Speaker 1: even our sense of meaning in the world. And at
Speaker 1: the same time, it's a completely underleveraged asset at work.
Speaker 1: Our workplaces are humorless, and we think that this is
Speaker 1: going to help us get ahead, and in fact it's
Speaker 1: absolutely not. And the third thing is that it's a
Speaker 1: learnable skill. So we think of humor as either something
Speaker 1: that you have or you don't you're funny or you're not.
Speaker 1: But we know is that small shifts in behavior and
Speaker 1: mindset are all it takes to reap the benefits of humor,
Speaker 1: which are particularly important in hard times. Now why also yeah,
Speaker 1: also humor is love. But yeah, this is good. I
Speaker 1: wanted to set this up. I wanted to set wanted
Speaker 1: to set up a false dichotomy so you could you
Speaker 1: could stare me wrong. Wonderful. Well, now past Scott to uh,
Speaker 1: come on, you know everyone has the everyone has everyone
Speaker 1: has the expression one hundred percent. I want to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: eighty four point three percent. Okay, well I'm just going
Speaker 1: to bring eighty five point two percent and my whole
Speaker 1: self to this podcast. Yeah. Same, Yeah, No, I love
Speaker 1: it because no, I'm trying to be I want to
Speaker 1: be convinced by the end of by the end of
Speaker 1: this podcast, I want you to harms and coviits to
Speaker 1: me that humor is love. And I think that in
Speaker 1: answering this question, I think it braises a lot of question.
Speaker 1: I feel like it raises even more questions as you
Speaker 1: discussed in this book about cancel culture, for instance, and
Speaker 1: what about does does humor have a morality component to it?
Speaker 1: What if humor's done, you know, not with love, right,
Speaker 1: What if humor is is there's very uh, there's a
Speaker 1: very uh. Like Abraham asl. Wre my favorite humanistic psychologists,
Speaker 1: talked about philosophical humor, you know, which is this kind
Speaker 1: of existential humor where we make fun of human existence
Speaker 1: and we all we're all in on the joke, all humans,
Speaker 1: you know, but in what you know, what happens when
Speaker 1: things are really funny but they're at the expense of
Speaker 1: a certain group or something like that. What are your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that? Well, there are there are these four
Speaker 1: different you're bringing up an important point, which is that
Speaker 1: there are obviously different styles and different aims at humor,
Speaker 1: and in general we find that there are these four
Speaker 1: different styles. So there's the sniper, the magnet, the sweetheart,
Speaker 1: and the stand up and each of these styles is
Speaker 1: inclined to different kinds of humor. So so for example,
Speaker 1: you're what you are just describing the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of irreverent, ruffling feathers, maybe taking people down. That's
Speaker 1: the stand up form of style of humor. These people,
Speaker 1: you know, bold, irreverent, not afraid to ruffle feathers. And
Speaker 1: what's interesting about this style of humor is it can
Speaker 1: actually build intimacy depending on your relationship. So if you
Speaker 1: have a really strong relationship with a person, then teasing
Speaker 1: can be actually really connecting. If you don't have that
Speaker 1: type of relationship, or if you have a different goal
Speaker 1: with your humor, if you're if you're actually trying to
Speaker 1: use it to to tear down an individual or group,
Speaker 1: then it can have very real downsides. You have the sweetheart,
Speaker 1: the sniper, and the magnet or the other three styles
Speaker 1: which are less inclined to the kind that you're describing.
Speaker 1: So sweethearts, for example, earnest, honest, understated, they tend toly
Speaker 1: use humor that lightens the mood. Snipers are edgy, sarcastic, nuanced.
Speaker 1: They're sort of masters of the unexpected dig so they're
Speaker 1: not going to be sort of out there on stage,
Speaker 1: but they're going to give you that one line or
Speaker 1: that you sort of that's a that's a good singer.
Speaker 1: And then magnets are expressive, charismatic, really easy to make laugh.
Speaker 1: So this is the kind that's sort of most universally
Speaker 1: uplifting is the magnet. The magnet style humor, so they
Speaker 1: Scott would be the least likely to offend necessarily, right,
Speaker 1: And so you're you see these different risks associated with
Speaker 1: these different groups, but there's greater risks associated with stand
Speaker 1: up and sniper in terms of offending. So just to
Speaker 1: pause for a second, So, Scott, what are you well?
Speaker 1: I think I'm a sweetheart. Oh, you for sure think
Speaker 1: I think I've ever I don't think that were those
Speaker 1: three words have ever come out of my mouth in
Speaker 1: that order. You're definitely a three heart. You are correct.
Speaker 1: You got eighty four percent on that test. Yay, eighty
Speaker 1: four points. Yeah, like round eighty four round No, I
Speaker 1: do kind of it probably is, but then you know,
Speaker 1: I if I ever do stand up, it might be
Speaker 1: more sniper. You know, who knows what persona I'll take on,
Speaker 1: you know, for fun. But okay, so now I want
Speaker 1: to just step back a second and just how do
Speaker 1: you too know each other? How do what's thet's Let's
Speaker 1: do like the origin story of this book. Our audience
Speaker 1: loves hearing that kind of stuff. Okay, So the origin
Speaker 1: story of the book is that I had invited Naomi
Speaker 1: into guest lecture and a power of Story class that
Speaker 1: I was teaching, and that the idea was for her
Speaker 1: to bring in her past research from Deloitte and other
Speaker 1: places to talk about how data and story are integrated
Speaker 1: in order to persuade de bond teams to feel empty
Speaker 1: to lead, et cetera. So I'm watching Naomi Guest lecture
Speaker 1: in the back of the classroom as you do, and
Speaker 1: I'm watching all of the students and they're dying laughing
Speaker 1: for an hour and a half while she's talking about
Speaker 1: you know, igen value analysis and neurochemistry and so it
Speaker 1: was highly analytical and get through lacking the whole time.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was weird, But I thought it
Speaker 1: was more weird when ten weeks later I did ratings
Speaker 1: and she scored off the charts, and the way in
Speaker 1: which she taught made it so that the students they
Speaker 1: didn't just enjoy it, they actually learned a lot more than,
Speaker 1: you know, had they not been laughing. So that got
Speaker 1: me really intrigued by these properties of you know, what
Speaker 1: does humor do? When does it allow you to encode
Speaker 1: information differently? When does information seem more differentiated, can be
Speaker 1: more memorable if it's learned with humor? And then we
Speaker 1: ended up talking that even just a degree, how did
Speaker 1: the class go and we went into all sorts of
Speaker 1: areas of research that we both found to be incredibly fascinating,
Speaker 1: and then we were kind of on the humor journey.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that. Did you guys like
Speaker 1: early on in your friendship like laugh a lot together? Well,
Speaker 1: Naomi is hilarious and I am not. So that's not true.
Speaker 1: Jennifer is hilarious speaking she went down hill and I
Speaker 1: want to feel I mean, I think that, Yeah, it's been.
Speaker 1: Actually it's been when you put humor at the basis
Speaker 1: of a common you know, area of interest or passion,
Speaker 1: and that that actually fuel the relationship. I think it does.
Speaker 1: It breathes, you know, becomes infectious, It becomes a property
Speaker 1: of the relationship. So I would say that that's true.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that's sort of most I
Speaker 1: don't know, surprising about writing this book and having taught
Speaker 1: this class with you know, for the last six years,
Speaker 1: is that the cultures around us also become you know,
Speaker 1: more laughter filled, more generous with their laughter. They actually
Speaker 1: the people around us seem to value it more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a way in which we have to
Speaker 1: live out what we're what we're teaching, and if we're not,
Speaker 1: then we're obviously really doing something wrong. So I remember
Speaker 1: when we were writing the proposal for this book, and
Speaker 1: it felt like so much pressure to put down the
Speaker 1: perfect proposal on paper, or even to write a book
Speaker 1: felt like just kind of a you know, a big undertaking,
Speaker 1: which I recognize you won't identify with because you're like, eh, books,
Speaker 1: crank them out. But I, you know, I had personally
Speaker 1: never written a book. And so we were going to
Speaker 1: start this document and we realized that we were holding
Speaker 1: so much tension about it that it was feeling stressful,
Speaker 1: and so we titled the document a really shitty proposal.
Speaker 1: That was so that's what we titled it. What title?
Speaker 1: We kept it on the book for like two years
Speaker 1: until it was almost published. Yes, yeah, it became it
Speaker 1: became what we were doing. So when we even submitted
Speaker 1: it to the publishers as a really shitty proposal, and
Speaker 1: then when we started writing the book, we titled it
Speaker 1: a really shitty book, A really shitty chapter One Are
Speaker 1: we allowed to say this this much on your podcast?
Speaker 1: But it was this way of reminding us, right in
Speaker 1: everything we're doing, we're reminded that we're here to do
Speaker 1: really serious work. We're here to do a good job,
Speaker 1: and we're also here to not take it so seriously
Speaker 1: and laugh along the way. I love that. And you
Speaker 1: talk about like the bottom wine value of humor, you know,
Speaker 1: and I could you elaborate a little bit? Could one
Speaker 1: of you elabrate a little more on what that means? Sure?
Speaker 1: One thing that's really interesting is that, you know, because
Speaker 1: and later Naomi should share like her personal story about
Speaker 1: you know how you know, we're what she was doing
Speaker 1: before this. But one thing we find is that most
Speaker 1: people don't believe they can bring humor to work. You know,
Speaker 1: you probably laugh or use it on the weekends, but
Speaker 1: you don't really use it more generally. And in fact,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of data to back that up. One
Speaker 1: Larscale Gallup study of one point four million people over
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty six countries were involved. These subjects
Speaker 1: were asked a simple question, did you smile or laugh yesterday?
Speaker 1: And the answer is yes. When you're sixteen, eighteen, twenty,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden at twenty three, it plummets,
Speaker 1: like plummets. The effects size is gigantic, and it does
Speaker 1: it start to increase until you're tired, so like seventy
Speaker 1: and eighty, it starts to increase a little bit. So
Speaker 1: what's happening is we go to work and we stop smiling, laughing.
Speaker 1: But what's fascinating is if you start to look at
Speaker 1: the actual hard data that suggests the benefits are there,
Speaker 1: you start to wonder, you know, what's going on. For one,
Speaker 1: you know, work by Brad Bitterley and Allison Woods Brooks
Speaker 1: and Maury Schweitzer shows that when individuals are seen as
Speaker 1: having a sense of humor and it doesn't even be
Speaker 1: a good sense of humor, just a sense of humor,
Speaker 1: that they're about thirty thirty seven percent more respected, so
Speaker 1: they have higher levels of status and they're seen as
Speaker 1: more competent and confident. In another set of studies, managers
Speaker 1: who were seen as having a sense of humor, which
Speaker 1: is different than being funny. So these aren't people that
Speaker 1: were saying, like, you know, the manager is funny. It
Speaker 1: was just had a sense of humor. We're twenty seven
Speaker 1: percent more motivating and admired by their employees, and the
Speaker 1: employees were about fifteen percent more engaged and satisfied in
Speaker 1: their work. Teams that reported under these types of leaders
Speaker 1: report to be twice as creative. And not only that,
Speaker 1: but there's these mental health benefits that you know so well,
Speaker 1: right which are so important, especially right now. So for example,
Speaker 1: there was one large scale Norwegian study that looked over
Speaker 1: the course of fifteen years of people that say, get
Speaker 1: a sense of humor. Again, doesn't have to be even
Speaker 1: good sense of humor. It was in Norway, and nothing
Speaker 1: against Norwegians. I'm Norwegian, so I love the Norwegians, but
Speaker 1: like you know, a keen sense of humor, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if it's up there, that's right, I'm gonna blame
Speaker 1: my DNA. Anyway, what they found was that individuals with
Speaker 1: the sense of humor lived on average eight years longer
Speaker 1: than those who didn't who said they didn't eight years longer.
Speaker 1: And remember, Scott, those are high quality, funny years because
Speaker 1: you're finally starting to climb back out of the humor abyss.
Speaker 1: In that same study, the researchers found that individuals with
Speaker 1: a sense of humor were thirty percent more resistant to
Speaker 1: severe disease. So when you think about the actual ROI
Speaker 1: on this or the bottom line value of humor, especially
Speaker 1: in the workforce, it's significant. Yeah, you open my eyes,
Speaker 1: you know, a big time. When I was reading your
Speaker 1: book about the humor cliff, which is what you just described,
Speaker 1: and you call it the humor cliff in the book,
Speaker 1: and you know it's it's a bit depressing. I gotta admit,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is not this is really
Speaker 1: not good twenty three. I mean, we already had a
Speaker 1: had the bad news that intelligence starts to client at nineteen,
Speaker 1: but now now humor declines too. I'm like, what do
Speaker 1: we what do we got? You know? So that was
Speaker 1: really sad. But you know, have you thought about like
Speaker 1: interventions in like universities, you know, to like infuse more
Speaker 1: humor into the classroom for instance? Like I mean obviously
Speaker 1: you two, you embody that live that with the work
Speaker 1: you do, But what about all around the country, you know,
Speaker 1: not everyone's doing the kind of work you two are doing, right,
Speaker 1: you know what sort of like system wide level interventions
Speaker 1: or things you know, can be done to raise the
Speaker 1: tide for all society. I think in part it's oh
Speaker 1: go ahead, Jennifer, No, I was going to say, that
Speaker 1: was a great question, which nail me will take, thank you.
Speaker 1: So I think in part it's building awareness. I also,
Speaker 1: you know, my background is more in the corporate space,
Speaker 1: so I think about how do we bring this to
Speaker 1: groups of executives who are getting together for a board
Speaker 1: retreat or have their executive team off site where they
Speaker 1: only get together once a year. They need to accomplish
Speaker 1: a ton and they are not thinking about how do
Speaker 1: we get together and laugh. And in that context, because
Speaker 1: my work outside of teaching previously has been designing and
Speaker 1: facilitating these sessions for groups of executives, how do you
Speaker 1: get to break through? How do you get thirty people
Speaker 1: to have a breakthrough in eight hours? And in that context,
Speaker 1: I find that the most effective interventions are ones that
Speaker 1: are subtle and that allow allow invitations for play. So
Speaker 1: I'll give you an example. I facilitated an off site
Speaker 1: for the board of a two billion dollar utility and
Speaker 1: it was they were coming together to do a war
Speaker 1: gaming simulation. So everyone, So for those who don't know
Speaker 1: what a wargaming simulation is, it's essentially a bunch of
Speaker 1: executives get in the room and they say they take
Speaker 1: on the persona of their biggest competitors and then they
Speaker 1: try and tear down the company. So it's sort of
Speaker 1: it's it's role playing for executives and and also less
Speaker 1: fun than any other type of role playing you might
Speaker 1: be thinking of. All right, so they get into these roles.
Speaker 1: And what we did was we had little costumes at
Speaker 1: every breakout group. So the Silicon Valley, you know, utility
Speaker 1: nerds had these red hoodies that they could put on,
Speaker 1: and another group had, you know, granola bars because they
Speaker 1: were really environmentally had granola bars and bucket hats and
Speaker 1: like fishing, right, so just these sort of silly, light
Speaker 1: hearted things. But what we found was, you know, people
Speaker 1: get to the get to the breakout group, they start
Speaker 1: putting on their hoodies, and a shift happens where they
Speaker 1: start sort of joking around with each other. Someone reaches
Speaker 1: over and pulls back someone else's hoodie, and it shifts
Speaker 1: the dynamic and it unlocks are a more playful side.
Speaker 1: And similarly, when we do our report outs, instead of
Speaker 1: having people raise their hands if they have a good
Speaker 1: idea or if you if you hear something that's really
Speaker 1: insightful that you think we need to incorporate int our strategy,
Speaker 1: we passed out cowbells and kazoos. Right, so you have
Speaker 1: this you know all these CEOs of different companies that
Speaker 1: take themselves very seriously and their only way to communicate
Speaker 1: that they agree is to ring a cowbell or to
Speaker 1: buzz a kazoo. Right, and it just shifts, It shifts
Speaker 1: the way that we are able to bring a full
Speaker 1: arrange of ourselves and we're and we're invited to play.
Speaker 1: Are there like individual differences in responsiveness to that kind
Speaker 1: of inner mention? You know, there's obviously the obvious, like
Speaker 1: the grump, you know who's just like ba humbug, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to laugh if you make me. But then
Speaker 1: I feel like there's also another type that I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about that might respond to that kind of
Speaker 1: thing in a different way because they're they're almost like
Speaker 1: humorless and and the people that I have observed, and
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your opinion on this, because it's
Speaker 1: just an observation. I haven't done research on it, but
Speaker 1: appears to me like people who are like profound profoundly narcissistic,
Speaker 1: you know, like psychopaths, or even don't seem to have
Speaker 1: much of a sense of a humor like and if so,
Speaker 1: and they can't seem to mock them, they can't seem
Speaker 1: to uh bring themselves to even view themselves in a
Speaker 1: funny light in any moment. You know, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of self deprecation there. And and people who aren't
Speaker 1: capable of self deprecation, in my observation, don't tend to
Speaker 1: be very joyous people at all. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: is there is there any truth to this? Have you
Speaker 1: done any research on that? We haven't done any research
Speaker 1: on this, But it's such an interesting observation, right, It's
Speaker 1: that what you know, how do you define humor? Is
Speaker 1: it an ability to self reflect? Is it a propensity
Speaker 1: to you know, have self deprecating jokes, as a as
Speaker 1: an opportunity to actually you know, bond or diffuse tension
Speaker 1: sort of in a room. You know. The way that
Speaker 1: we think about humor is that, you know, there's these
Speaker 1: very different types of humor, and so instead of thinking
Speaker 1: about this as like you're either humor full, I guess,
Speaker 1: or humor less, we think about it in terms of
Speaker 1: these different types, you know, just thinking you know, even
Speaker 1: like in the early days of personality, right when Big
Speaker 1: five came out and we started thinking like you either
Speaker 1: have a personality or you have no personality, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, one of the worst things you could ever
Speaker 1: tell someone is that a they don't have a personality,
Speaker 1: or be they're humorless. So I think they're both kind
Speaker 1: of up there is like like a pretty brutal comment. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you know, we love good typologies, right Scott, And so
Speaker 1: I think one of the reasons we like typologies is
Speaker 1: because it dimensionalizes a construct that hasn't really been unearthed.
Speaker 1: It hasn't really been exploited or understood. And one thing
Speaker 1: that you know, people when you know, even in the class,
Speaker 1: when they think of this class, they think, oh, that's
Speaker 1: going to be this you know, non rigorous, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, sort of silly type of course.
Speaker 1: But it's highly rigorous. You know. What we're trying to
Speaker 1: do is really debunk perceptions of what humor is. It's
Speaker 1: not about being funny. It's definitely not about trying to
Speaker 1: be funny. It's about cultivating joy. The students actually do
Speaker 1: end up, you know, getting funnier at the end of
Speaker 1: the class, but that's not the goal. The goal is
Speaker 1: to sort of look at life in these really interesting
Speaker 1: ways and borrow secrets from comedians in order to sort
Speaker 1: of observe life in a sort of different way. And
Speaker 1: then as you observe life not necessarily just looking for
Speaker 1: funny things, but just like kind of interesting huh kind
Speaker 1: of things, then you can use these tools from comedians
Speaker 1: like exaggeration or contrast or rule of three in in
Speaker 1: pretty systematic ways that allow you to actually be able
Speaker 1: to make others laugh. And it's almost like math Sonomi,
Speaker 1: you want to give like one example. Sure, So so
Speaker 1: a rule of three example would be, oh, and what
Speaker 1: if we said, Okay, I'm trying to use something that
Speaker 1: we've said earlier, So you could say, I uh I,
Speaker 1: let's see. One thing that is great about us all
Speaker 1: doing this video conference is rather than you know, doing
Speaker 1: it in person, is you know we can be back
Speaker 1: to back from another meeting. You know, we don't have
Speaker 1: to make our hair looks good because we have virtual
Speaker 1: backgrounds and we only have to get dressed on eighty
Speaker 1: four percent of our bodies, right, So that's what implies
Speaker 1: that I'm maybe not wearing pants and also made a
Speaker 1: callback to what we've said earlier, which is we've said
Speaker 1: eighty four percent a couple of times. So what that
Speaker 1: does is rule of three is where we do something
Speaker 1: that's a little bit unexpected on the third element. And
Speaker 1: I also used a callback, which is where if there's
Speaker 1: anything we've said earlier that we've laughed about, the simplest
Speaker 1: way to get another laugh is just to refer back
Speaker 1: to that number. Now, that was an objectively horrible joke,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't quite ready to make. I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 1: I think I will notice, first of all, that was outstanding.
Speaker 1: I thought. Second of all, you know, even like, even
Speaker 1: if the listener right now is going, this is not
Speaker 1: necessarily overly comical, but there's something that happens among the
Speaker 1: three of us, because yeah, there is a bonding. And
Speaker 1: the idea is that the bar is so low, especially
Speaker 1: in the work place, especially in remote work, and so
Speaker 1: just being able to read the room or understand when
Speaker 1: something lighthearted might actually help, and then having these rules
Speaker 1: like rule of three, as Miami said, or these callbacks,
Speaker 1: remembering when you or I or Naomi said something and
Speaker 1: kind of noting that down, that something that made everyone
Speaker 1: else laugh, and then referring back to that later in
Speaker 1: the meeting. Something as risk free as that is sufficient
Speaker 1: enough to actually change the tenor of the room. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, you know the bar is I plan that?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I did. I didn't plan that. No,
Speaker 1: but but but I I was gonna when you said,
Speaker 1: you know, usually the bar is really low. I thought
Speaker 1: what you were going to say is for academics, because
Speaker 1: because because I was going to be like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's so true. Like if I go to like
Speaker 1: if a keynote or a talk or something like, they're expecting,
Speaker 1: you know, Professor Columbia, they're expecting you need to be
Speaker 1: the opposite of funny. So if I even say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, hello everyone, and then I trip and fall,
Speaker 1: they'll be like, oh my god, to be so funny,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's just you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: like the bars is so low for us. Really totally,
Speaker 1: it's so true and too yeah business, Yeah it's not.
Speaker 1: Yeah completely. We have one friend who actually is a
Speaker 1: big keynote speaker, and he tapes all of his lectures,
Speaker 1: like his keynotes, and then he just notes down when
Speaker 1: people laughed because you don't remember, right like you trip
Speaker 1: and everyone laughed and you're like you forget that immediately.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so what he does, he's just you know,
Speaker 1: tapes a few of them right, listens to them again
Speaker 1: and notes when people laugh, and then he just writes
Speaker 1: down a little signature story of what was it that
Speaker 1: made people laugh. The interesting thing about humor is that
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, you know, going to see your
Speaker 1: favorite band where they play the favorite song, everyone is
Speaker 1: so happy. Similarly, when you have your signature story, your
Speaker 1: signature jokes, and you play them again, you often think, oh,
Speaker 1: no one's gonna laugh. I've said this a million times,
Speaker 1: but that only happens in your house with your partner.
Speaker 1: Everyone else loves it. And so having that, you know,
Speaker 1: basically a signature story bank is an incredible asset for executives,
Speaker 1: for leaders, for anyone. I love that Professors, you know,
Speaker 1: like they should have it in the pocket, you know,
Speaker 1: when they're discussing complex, arcane information, you know, and the
Speaker 1: students have fallen asleep, and the best and then the
Speaker 1: best professors do. I mean that initial story I shared
Speaker 1: about Naomi, I think is illustrative. You know, Yeah, humor
Speaker 1: and intelligence and the ability to intake information and remember it,
Speaker 1: all of those things go together. Yeah, And I just
Speaker 1: want to circle back to Naomi for a second, because
Speaker 1: when you were giving your three things. I was like
Speaker 1: picking up an improv vibe vibe from you because I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, I can I can kind
Speaker 1: of do that with like I'm like, oh, I bet
Speaker 1: they did uc BE and so anyway, I kind of
Speaker 1: got that vibe from you a little bit. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little about your experiences with the UCB. Yeah? Wait, first,
Speaker 1: what was your experience with UCB? Oh? I loved it.
Speaker 1: My teacher was her name was Betsy Stover and she uh,
Speaker 1: it was in New York City and I had to
Speaker 1: do like you know, the end of the capstone that
Speaker 1: they have this capstone thing where you had to go
Speaker 1: in the stage and perform. And I just invite one friend,
Speaker 1: my best friend, because I trust him to never tell
Speaker 1: anyone about That's about what my stand up and improv
Speaker 1: experience there. But I I personally actually I loved it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me tell me about yours. Like you know, so,
Speaker 1: I I for about ten years was doing improv on
Speaker 1: my nights and weekends while I was doing you know,
Speaker 1: business by day and so and I love UCB. Have
Speaker 1: have trained it upright, Sin's a brigade have trains at
Speaker 1: BATS in San Francisco at the second city, so I've
Speaker 1: have sort of learned different methodologies. By the way you
Speaker 1: said you invited one friend, I trained and performed at
Speaker 1: uh in LA for six years. I was sort of
Speaker 1: splitting my time between San Francisco and LA, and I
Speaker 1: would never tell any of my friends when my shows
Speaker 1: were because it just for me. There is something so
Speaker 1: pure about improv and and sort of doing it for
Speaker 1: the love of it that I never wanted it to
Speaker 1: be something that was overly performative, like I never wanted
Speaker 1: it to be about having people come see me. And
Speaker 1: as long as I was getting joy and getting fulfillment
Speaker 1: out of just doing it for the sake of doing it,
Speaker 1: then that's when I knew that I, you know, it
Speaker 1: was it was sort of the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: And then what happened was I had a moment at
Speaker 1: work where I really I had this realization that I
Speaker 1: was really leading a double life, where by day I
Speaker 1: was perceived by my colleagues. Jennifer said that the worst
Speaker 1: thing you can be is Personalit listen humorless, and that
Speaker 1: is exactly how I was being seen by my colleagues.
Speaker 1: I had a client one day tell me that she
Speaker 1: basically thought that I was a lonely cat lady who
Speaker 1: spent my weekends alone and you know, just watched History
Speaker 1: Channel reruns by myself all weekend, and and so this
Speaker 1: really is it was rough. And so from that came
Speaker 1: this realization and belief that there there just has to
Speaker 1: be a better way that all of all of what
Speaker 1: I believe in so deeply outside of my work, that
Speaker 1: the power of humor, not just to have fun, but
Speaker 1: also to build meaningful relationships, to be resilient through some
Speaker 1: of the most challenging things in my life, to be
Speaker 1: more creative and and sort of resourceful, that all of
Speaker 1: those things were actually things that we need more than
Speaker 1: ever right now in our professional lives as well, which
Speaker 1: which of course set us set me on this journey.
Speaker 1: So you feel like you're more integrated now, I do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was my single focused goal when I
Speaker 1: went to Stanford for business school when I was a
Speaker 1: student there was to become a more integrated version of myself,
Speaker 1: which is part of why I went to work at IDEO,
Speaker 1: because I looked around and I was like, Okay, who's
Speaker 1: doing this well? Who is bringing their full, their full, creative,
Speaker 1: weird selves to work in a way that's really encouraged.
Speaker 1: And it's also part of why I really was excited
Speaker 1: to part with partner with Jennifer because I saw Jennifer
Speaker 1: tell stories of you know, her kids around the dinner table,
Speaker 1: and her life outside of teaching where she was doing
Speaker 1: this work, you know, around Dragonfly and trying to have
Speaker 1: real impact in the world, and I thought, Wow, these
Speaker 1: are people who that is someone who is feels fully
Speaker 1: integrated through her professional life and through her personal life.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was a that was a real goal.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like your mental health improved, because do
Speaker 1: you do talk in your book about the link between
Speaker 1: humor and mental health and did you personally feel a
Speaker 1: shift in that kind of consciousness? I did, I really did. Actually.
Speaker 1: I mean when I was at the point in my
Speaker 1: career in consulting when I had this realization, I felt
Speaker 1: really close to burnout. I knew that it wasn't a
Speaker 1: sustainable career path for me, and I thought that was
Speaker 1: because I maybe wasn't cut out for that work. By
Speaker 1: the way, I was doing great at work. I was
Speaker 1: getting I was in the highest ratings group in my
Speaker 1: among my peers, I was getting promoted, and I just
Speaker 1: felt like it was completely unsustainable. And the realization for
Speaker 1: me is it's not because it wasn't because the work
Speaker 1: wasn't right. I can make any work right if I'm
Speaker 1: able to be a more integrated version of myself, if
Speaker 1: I'm able to have fun and genuinely enjoy myself with
Speaker 1: my colleagues, and so as soon as that was removed,
Speaker 1: as soon as this this persona of who I thought
Speaker 1: I needed to be was removed, then it was incredibly freeing.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I can I can actually do anything
Speaker 1: and be joyful while I'm doing it, which frees up
Speaker 1: all of these things I can do with my career. Well,
Speaker 1: what a wonderful realization, you know. I try to create
Speaker 1: an environment with my podcast for every guest, I don't
Speaker 1: care who the guest is. I try to create a
Speaker 1: safe space for humor. I'll put it. I'll put it
Speaker 1: that way. So I hope you feel that feel that
Speaker 1: safe space for humor here as well. Totally so. And
Speaker 1: maybe I'll address Jennifer here because I don't want her
Speaker 1: feel left out here in this conversation at all. But
Speaker 1: it's fine, guys, talk amongst yourself. I was going to
Speaker 1: interject and go and So in contrast, you let me
Speaker 1: decided I need a career that's going to be much
Speaker 1: more sustainable, and so I said, I will write a
Speaker 1: book which is totally sustainable, and I will sleep all
Speaker 1: of the time. Let's I think, I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: not sleep for two years, get paid little to nothing
Speaker 1: for doing it, and we lose my health insurance and
Speaker 1: then just hope to God it comes back someday magically.
Speaker 1: You you too, like you should do like a YouTube
Speaker 1: comedy like routine. This is just her last week. So anyway,
Speaker 1: this is this is not a routine, scot her last week.
Speaker 1: This is her last week of what no do something
Speaker 1: you don't know? This is our last week on earth,
Speaker 1: last week. This is it, I understand, and I think
Speaker 1: that's a good way to end the podcast. All right, folks, No, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: what what did you mean by that? Jennifer? No, I
Speaker 1: was describing Naomi's last week, which was sleepless, last prior prior,
Speaker 1: fairly stressed, and she nearly lost while she did lose
Speaker 1: her health insurance. But we think it's back. So I
Speaker 1: was describing her last week. If not that you guys want,
Speaker 1: I can submit for the just for the show, notes Scott,
Speaker 1: I can submit just transcripts from my therapy sessions as well.
Speaker 1: If you think like that's it seems like that's what
Speaker 1: the listeners want to hear. The love. They love authenticity,
Speaker 1: They love it. They love authenticity. There, you know, there's
Speaker 1: an interesting relationship, you know, just talking you bring up
Speaker 1: a different topic from your book, because you had so
Speaker 1: many fascinating things in your book. Another thing that fascinated
Speaker 1: me and reading your book was talking about status and
Speaker 1: humor and how it's a very complicated relationship. And I've
Speaker 1: noticed that too. For instance, I'll tell you something I noticed,
Speaker 1: then please tell me how this whole relationship works. But
Speaker 1: I've noticed that in environments where there's like a higher
Speaker 1: power person like a boss or something like, everyone just
Speaker 1: like laughs at the person jokes, even though they're stupid jokes.
Speaker 1: You know, Like there's almost like you feel compelled to
Speaker 1: when someone has power over you. And it's always fascinating
Speaker 1: because I've always been the one that doesn't laugh, you know,
Speaker 1: and people like Scott, Scott you should laugh. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: but this person's not funny, you know. But that's where
Speaker 1: I get in trouble. I'm too honest sometimes but but
Speaker 1: but but I've just I've noticed that phenomenon. It's a
Speaker 1: fascinating phenomenon. So anyway, please tell me, you know what
Speaker 1: your research says on this absolutely, So a couple of things. One,
Speaker 1: you're completely right when you increase. The concern about humor
Speaker 1: is that as you increase in status that you still
Speaker 1: might get significant laughs when you try. You know, you
Speaker 1: know any any laugh line, but you don't know why
Speaker 1: people are laughing, and so there's you know, what you know,
Speaker 1: Scott is is kind of a Duchen laughter or you
Speaker 1: know Duschen's smile. And so you have to get as
Speaker 1: you increase in status, you have to really understand what's
Speaker 1: authentic exactly what's authentic laughter, and be able to read
Speaker 1: the room with emotional intelligence. That's potentially even more important
Speaker 1: than when you are lower levels of status. The other
Speaker 1: thing that we find is that, you know, as you
Speaker 1: increase in status, you are often more free to use
Speaker 1: self deprecation and not have it harm you. And this
Speaker 1: is particularly important if you look at humor through a
Speaker 1: gender lens. As one small example, we find that some
Speaker 1: of the female executives that we either have data on
Speaker 1: or have worked with they tend to be magnets or
Speaker 1: sweethearts to a greater degree. Again not a huge effect size,
Speaker 1: but it definitely is there. And then male executives tend
Speaker 1: to lean towards stand up and sniper, so as Naomi said,
Speaker 1: you know, oftentimes stand up since snipers often tease or
Speaker 1: you know, kind of like have a zinger. And partly
Speaker 1: because sometimes it's just a sign of affection, like if
Speaker 1: I tease you, it means I like you. But imagine
Speaker 1: you're in a room with you know, a variety of people,
Speaker 1: you can imagine how easily you can offend. And similarly,
Speaker 1: for our females, they tend to over index on self deprecation,
Speaker 1: partly because as a magnet or a sweetheart, you're trying
Speaker 1: to uplift others oftentimes, right and so, and at lower
Speaker 1: levels the status that's really you know, suboptimal for one's career. However,
Speaker 1: as you move up in the hierarchy and you increase
Speaker 1: levels of status, that's where self deprecation can be this
Speaker 1: incredible tool. And you said, people really know it. Used
Speaker 1: to be the leaders needed to be revered, We wanted
Speaker 1: to be you know, hold our leaders in respect. And
Speaker 1: now leaders need to be understood. And so that's why
Speaker 1: authenticity or like what do you know really like has
Speaker 1: become so important, and self deprecating humor is an incredible
Speaker 1: tool to reveal that, Yeah, I think that's that's that's
Speaker 1: that's quite right. And I guess like it depends there's
Speaker 1: an interaction there, right, Like if your lower status and
Speaker 1: you're self deprecating, that's not perceived the same way as
Speaker 1: a higher status person can be self deplicate. If you're
Speaker 1: a higher status person being self deprecating, I think that
Speaker 1: person gets respect in a way. It's like, oh respect,
Speaker 1: like that person doesn't. Is not abusing their power in
Speaker 1: a way. You know they're there. They can still be
Speaker 1: the laugh of their own jokes. Whereas I personally, my
Speaker 1: heartbreaks sometimes when I see a lower status person being
Speaker 1: self deprecating. I don't know why, why why it hurts
Speaker 1: me sometimes, Like sometimes I'll see like someone with a
Speaker 1: disability who does stand up and their whole shtick is
Speaker 1: making fun of themselves and their disability. And I know
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be funny and and maybe it's it's
Speaker 1: empowering for that person, you know, in some way, but
Speaker 1: for me, it almost hurts to watch it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm the only one. No, I I think
Speaker 1: it's such a good point. I I I think I
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're you know, you're saying, and I
Speaker 1: think I think that that The one thing that's really
Speaker 1: interesting about self deprecation is you know, this degree to
Speaker 1: which I think it's Hannah Gatsby. You had a great show,
Speaker 1: and she talked exactly about this very point, like I'm
Speaker 1: not going to self deprecate, and it was this incredible
Speaker 1: power to arms, especially for you know, females. I think,
Speaker 1: but maybe you know, just in general, just like saying
Speaker 1: like I'm not going to do that. That said, some
Speaker 1: of my personal favorite humor is self deprecation, especially among
Speaker 1: people that I don't necessarily know. And the reason is
Speaker 1: because it's the fastest way I've found to close the
Speaker 1: distance between two people. So if I have a set
Speaker 1: of people that really don't know me and and maybe
Speaker 1: you know, they see that really long bio and they
Speaker 1: go that person must be important, and so it's hard
Speaker 1: to actually have a conversation or be able to engage
Speaker 1: with ideas. And you do one self deprecating joke, which is,
Speaker 1: you know why we teach the students to use a
Speaker 1: levity line in their bio. For me, it's that she won,
Speaker 1: you know, Dance Off in the nineteen eighties. Obviously, that's
Speaker 1: not meant to be like something I'm really proud of,
Speaker 1: but something that people can kind of tease me about
Speaker 1: and invite me to dance and see exactly how bad
Speaker 1: I am now, et cetera. And so that ability to
Speaker 1: have self deprecation, you know, close the distance between two
Speaker 1: people is really powerful. Naomi is interesting because she also
Speaker 1: actually moves across different styles seamlessly. So that's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: also been kind of interesting to watch. Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: She's a humor chameleon, a humor chamelion. Yeah, as we
Speaker 1: can all be, actually, and it's exactly because of that,
Speaker 1: because humor, we code humor with all of We put
Speaker 1: so much like subconscious processing into ways into how we
Speaker 1: interpret humor. And so there's this. We interviewed a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of comedians and I and one of the things
Speaker 1: that we loved was this idea that humor exists in
Speaker 1: the space between the comedian and the audience because it
Speaker 1: is part of the relationship and part of the dynamic so,
Speaker 1: as one example, there's a principle in comedy never punched down,
Speaker 1: and that means you never want the target of your
Speaker 1: humor to be someone of lower status than you. And
Speaker 1: and so this, of course, this rule makes it very
Speaker 1: obvious why as you get more senior in an organization,
Speaker 1: your playing field gets narrower and narrower because everyone is
Speaker 1: getting you know, lower status. And God, the only person
Speaker 1: you could punch up to is God, yeah, exactly, which
Speaker 1: is why the butt of every joke really should be God.
Speaker 1: But but there's this, there's this other idea, which is
Speaker 1: we need to switch our style based on the context.
Speaker 1: So so again from my personal experience, I relatively early
Speaker 1: in my career. I was in my late twenties. I
Speaker 1: was designing and facilitating these workshops. So I was at
Speaker 1: the front of the room leading people through exercises who
Speaker 1: were mostly twenty years my senior and predominantly more male
Speaker 1: than me. Right, so there is an intrinsic status dynamic
Speaker 1: that's going on there. And in that context, sniper and
Speaker 1: stand up humor were extremely powerful for me. That if
Speaker 1: someone made a you know, an offhand comment, and I
Speaker 1: shot it down immediately with sort of a quick one liner.
Speaker 1: I remember, and I wrote this in the book, but
Speaker 1: that guy Craig, who you know, he made sort of
Speaker 1: an offhand comment like what I was designing a session
Speaker 1: or I was leading a session with, and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, when are you going to cut to the
Speaker 1: chase and tell me how to just get my people
Speaker 1: to do what I want them to do? And it
Speaker 1: was really uncomfortable. Everyone sort of froze, and I shot
Speaker 1: back immediately, that's a great question, Craig. You're thinking about
Speaker 1: the session that I run on mind control, and that
Speaker 1: one is actually next week, So come on back. We
Speaker 1: can go over mind control then, and it would just
Speaker 1: change the dynamic, right. Everyone laughed, even Craig laughed. He said,
Speaker 1: word for word, I respect you. You can continue. And
Speaker 1: so in that context, that style is really powerful. However,
Speaker 1: then when I'm in the classroom teaching, and you know,
Speaker 1: Jennifer and I were at the front of the room
Speaker 1: and we are quote the highest status people in that
Speaker 1: role that we're in right relative to our students, that
Speaker 1: type of humor will not fly. I need to use
Speaker 1: sweetheart humor. I need to use magnet humor. And in fact,
Speaker 1: and Jennifer knows this in the first couple weeks of teaching,
Speaker 1: I used a sniper like comment and it was like
Speaker 1: completely fell flat. It felt like I had kicked one
Speaker 1: of the student's puppies. And I very quickly was reminded, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm in a very different status role here than I
Speaker 1: am in my other context, and I better be aware
Speaker 1: of that and shift. It's a wonderful context. Jennifer, did
Speaker 1: you want to add anything to that? No, I was perfect,
Speaker 1: you know, one hundred percent. Yeah, we're all at one
Speaker 1: hundred percent now. The other the thing I was going
Speaker 1: to add to that is that also invites when you
Speaker 1: are able to be playful with each other, like Jennifer
Speaker 1: and I when we teach together, we are like we're
Speaker 1: constantly making fun of each other. Or Jennifer will have
Speaker 1: like a very impressive presentation and I'll put a random
Speaker 1: slide in the middle of the presentation that's like her
Speaker 1: dog with a graph that says, like, you know, growth,
Speaker 1: and Jennifer has to speak to that chart, like she
Speaker 1: has to get to it and be like, oh, and
Speaker 1: you know next time talking about growth. It's just a
Speaker 1: way to invite our students to be playful and which
Speaker 1: then they end up doing pranks on us, which is
Speaker 1: really a lot of fun. Oh I would love to
Speaker 1: hear an example like one prank, but you don't have
Speaker 1: to tell me, Jennifer, do you want to share or
Speaker 1: should I share? One prank was our students had on
Speaker 1: the on the second to last day of class. They
Speaker 1: had filled up all these water balloons and apparently they
Speaker 1: worked with our co lecturer, Connor demon Yaman, and so
Speaker 1: they knew the exact phrase that Connor a question that
Speaker 1: he was going to ask us. And so Jennifer and
Speaker 1: I are at the front of the room, we're lecturing,
Speaker 1: and then we said that phrase, and every like forty
Speaker 1: five students pull out water balloons and start throwing them
Speaker 1: at us. What yeah, you could get You could catch pneumonia.
Speaker 1: I feel like a mother all of a sudden. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, you're such a sweetheart. We will show you
Speaker 1: a video clip. It is highly comical, and we did
Speaker 1: not catch pneumonia. Thank goodness, Thank goodness. I always worry
Speaker 1: about getting wet in public. Anyway. You talk in your
Speaker 1: book about the biological basis of humor, and I was
Speaker 1: just trying to reconcile when you talk about that reconcile
Speaker 1: that with culture, the existence of cultural differences, and clearly
Speaker 1: in some cultures there are some things that shall not
Speaker 1: be joked about, right, they are more sacred than other cultures.
Speaker 1: It's important, by the way, to know that. So you
Speaker 1: don't go to a culture and give a keynote and
Speaker 1: you know, in India and happen to make a joke
Speaker 1: that's like off limits in India, you know, or something
Speaker 1: like that. But does that mean that still biologically, even
Speaker 1: though something maybe off limits culturally, people are still responding
Speaker 1: the same way. I don't know if I'm articuling my
Speaker 1: question in a way that is amenable to an answer,
Speaker 1: But I am curious in that interplay between the existence
Speaker 1: of cultural differences but also being kind of a universal
Speaker 1: biological basis to humor receptivity. Do you know what I
Speaker 1: mean totally? I mean laughter is universal. What we find
Speaker 1: is when people laugh together, you know, there's a cocktail
Speaker 1: of healthy hormones that are released, So increased levels of endorphins,
Speaker 1: decreased levels of cortisol, increased levels of oxytocin, which you
Speaker 1: know is used as a hormone that you experience, you know,
Speaker 1: in childbirth or sex and so this entire cocktail of
Speaker 1: emotions is something that's quite universal. Nuomia has this great
Speaker 1: line that we love so much, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: exercise and meditation and having sex. That's basically all three
Speaker 1: of those things together is the same thing as laughter.
Speaker 1: So it's like it's definitely a multiplayer anyway, that is
Speaker 1: a universal thing. What makes people laugh, what they find funny,
Speaker 1: to your point is obviously different. So one thing that
Speaker 1: we find in our data is, you know, sweethearts, for example,
Speaker 1: tend to correlate with interdependent cultures. So oftentimes in you know,
Speaker 1: the risk of hurting others feelings, especially you know, depending
Speaker 1: on in group out group status, and that would be
Speaker 1: like the worst thing to do, and so and so
Speaker 1: if you put that at a premium, you're going to
Speaker 1: over index on you know, sort of sweethearts or potentially magnets,
Speaker 1: depending on whether they're introverted or extroverted. But you know,
Speaker 1: what's going to be important is making sure you're not
Speaker 1: hurting or risking offending others in other cultures. You know,
Speaker 1: for example, you know, in Russia, there's less of a
Speaker 1: desire to have everything always be kind of necessarily happy,
Speaker 1: you know, Sonya Libermersky's work, for example a while ago,
Speaker 1: and that that looked at, you know, the propensity only
Speaker 1: only Americans really want to have, like you know, the
Speaker 1: story have you know, happy ending, for example. In that
Speaker 1: similar way that that notion of you know, the magnet
Speaker 1: that really always uplifts others that you know, you would
Speaker 1: hypothesize would would not be necessarily you know, as as
Speaker 1: common common in certain cultures that don't enforce it. So
Speaker 1: I think the thing that's interesting to test is that
Speaker 1: the humor types people have and what people laugh at
Speaker 1: would be related to the values that the culture has
Speaker 1: and the norms that they impose. So in America, what
Speaker 1: kind of jokes typically typically get the most positive reactions.
Speaker 1: It's a really good question, and we had I have
Speaker 1: a we have a small anecdote. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: have an empirical answer, MEMI Naomi does, but I don't.
Speaker 1: But one thing that was interesting, and this was anecdotal,
Speaker 1: but in one of our classes, we had a student
Speaker 1: that was from Singapore and he brought basically comedy clips
Speaker 1: from Singapore into the class. On the last day of class,
Speaker 1: he talks a little bit about what actually, you know,
Speaker 1: people laugh at and One of the things that he
Speaker 1: talked about was this whole idea of don't punch down
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily this universal kind of thing, and so there
Speaker 1: was a lot of like punching down in some of
Speaker 1: the clips that he showed by very popular comedians, and
Speaker 1: it was interesting to think about, you know, what was
Speaker 1: the different meaning in that. I would say in America though,
Speaker 1: that the kind of common belief that you don't want
Speaker 1: to punch down, that you want to laugh at life
Speaker 1: to a greater degree, or you want to be self deprecating.
Speaker 1: At least anecdotally, that seems to be true. What do
Speaker 1: you think, Naomi, Yeah, I think I well, first, I
Speaker 1: think that humor is such an interesting mirror to the
Speaker 1: values of a society, and in some ways, so Ann
Speaker 1: liber who okay, great, Yeah, so a Libra talks about
Speaker 1: these three elements of humor, truth, pain, and distance. And
Speaker 1: pain could be anything from stubbing your toe to a
Speaker 1: real taboo topic in society. Humor in some ways pushes
Speaker 1: on the edge of our cultural boundaries. And so if
Speaker 1: you look at what SNL Saturday Night Live is joking
Speaker 1: about today versus what Saturday Night Live was joking about
Speaker 1: ten years ago, or if you look at similar shows
Speaker 1: in other countries and what they're joking about, you get
Speaker 1: a sense of what is the shape of appropriateness for
Speaker 1: that culture because humor pushes on those boundaries. Humor pushes
Speaker 1: on like tiptoes over the line of appropriateness and can
Speaker 1: get away with it because it's cloaked in humor. And
Speaker 1: so I think my broader observation about about humor is
Speaker 1: that it is a deep reflection of a society. So,
Speaker 1: and there's a quote that I'm going to butcher, so
Speaker 1: I'm not going to try it, but it's basically, when
Speaker 1: you change cultures and you change languages, the first thing
Speaker 1: to go is your sense of humor because you're totally
Speaker 1: blind to what are the nuances of this culture, what
Speaker 1: are the what are the inside references that we as
Speaker 1: a society know, and you just lose all of that
Speaker 1: and so you're sort of floating blind and all you
Speaker 1: can do is just poke at whatever elements have shared
Speaker 1: you experience are universal to the human experience rather than
Speaker 1: are unique to that culture. So that would be sort
Speaker 1: of my broader, my broader view on why humor is
Speaker 1: so interesting when when not just as a way of
Speaker 1: us having fun together, but as a way of deeply
Speaker 1: understanding Scott, what is your truth about the world, and
Speaker 1: what is our truth about America? And what is you know,
Speaker 1: other culture's truths about the about their experience of the world.
Speaker 1: Do you think there should be moral codes for comedy
Speaker 1: or moral rules, you know, I think of I think
Speaker 1: of I saw Dave Chappelle bit and he was punching
Speaker 1: down at trans people and the audience found it absolutely hilarious,
Speaker 1: and I assume many trans people did not find it
Speaker 1: so funny, and they were you know, a large part
Speaker 1: of the trans community went on Twitter and said, like,
Speaker 1: cancel Dave Chappelle. You know, we he shouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to have the microphone. And I think it raises interesting questions,
Speaker 1: you know, like, you know, does a society want to
Speaker 1: condone certain types of humor? Should the trans people who
Speaker 1: were offended by that quote light and dut just lighten?
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean? And it's so many
Speaker 1: interesting questions about this. I don't have the answers. I'm
Speaker 1: just want to get your thoughts. Yeah you go, No,
Speaker 1: you go if you want. I was please edit this out,
Speaker 1: Scott rock Paper Scissor shoot, yeah, Jennifer, would you like her?
Speaker 1: Would you like me to go? Okay, I can go.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna talk about workplace. That was funny.
Speaker 1: You know, you take that one. No, I'm not taking
Speaker 1: that one. I'm like, I'll take it. I'll done the sword.
Speaker 1: You know what what dynamic Jennifer and I don't have
Speaker 1: is I'll go. No, No, I'll go. I want this one.
Speaker 1: It's always like no, no, would you like to go? Please? No,
Speaker 1: you go? You go? You go first, Jennifer, you go, Okay,
Speaker 1: got wait to take control. Scott. All right. So I
Speaker 1: think what we do, at least in our class which
Speaker 1: is very different than you know, if you're actually on stage,
Speaker 1: is we talk a lot about this idea of like
Speaker 1: just joking. You know, if your point is that someone's
Speaker 1: less good than you or different than you, even if
Speaker 1: it's arguably the point, it's not worth saying. You know,
Speaker 1: if you have to explain that you were just joking,
Speaker 1: you've already lost. It doesn't matter if your favorite comedian
Speaker 1: like Dave Chappelle gets away with it. So I'm not
Speaker 1: talking necessarily about that. I'm talking about more about what
Speaker 1: we try and do in the classroom and how we
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about it. It's that you know,
Speaker 1: your workplace is not one of those spaces. Now, you
Speaker 1: could argue when you enter a comedy club that there
Speaker 1: are a different set of norms than you know when
Speaker 1: you're in the workplace or the classroom, et cetera. And
Speaker 1: there's a common understanding of what we're doing in this
Speaker 1: place is we're going to put poke fun at this.
Speaker 1: And you know, Kelly Leonard and Libera talk about this
Speaker 1: as well. Right, is that your job, you know, to
Speaker 1: reveal humor in a situation is to do some poking
Speaker 1: around and there will be times where you actually cross boundaries.
Speaker 1: And the job there is to be able to have,
Speaker 1: you know, created this environment where people know the norms
Speaker 1: and there is an openness. One that we try and
Speaker 1: simulate that type of environment in our classroom is with
Speaker 1: an exercise that Connor de Mignhelman, who teaches with us,
Speaker 1: helped to create. He called it the spectrum exercise. And
Speaker 1: so the way you do it is all the students
Speaker 1: line up on an appropriate inappropriate dimension, so like half
Speaker 1: the students are kind of over on the right hand
Speaker 1: side of the classroom, the other half on the left
Speaker 1: and you show them one particular tweet or joke or
Speaker 1: comedy sketch, et cetera, and you ask them to go
Speaker 1: where on that spectrum they believe that joke was, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of appropriateness. Right, So let's say that you
Speaker 1: thought Dave Chappelle's joke was highly inappropriate, you would go,
Speaker 1: you know, to the anchor of inappropriateness next to the
Speaker 1: whiteboard there, and then people on the extreme sides are
Speaker 1: asked to discuss their viewpoint. Why did you think it
Speaker 1: was inappropriate? Why did you think it was appropriate? And then,
Speaker 1: because you're supposed to listen in a very open minded way,
Speaker 1: it's a very inclusive environment, the next step is to
Speaker 1: really move See if you are persuaded, see if you
Speaker 1: are open minded. So it's based on these things that
Speaker 1: stay open, you know, don't judge in a way that's
Speaker 1: like you know, claimed, and then allow other opinions to
Speaker 1: be heard. And then there's a real celebration for people
Speaker 1: shifting their perspective. And I think that you know, that
Speaker 1: type of activity actually allows there to be not its
Speaker 1: censorship per se, but an open dialogue of why exactly
Speaker 1: that was inappropriate and an openness to moving your perspective,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what we need in the world
Speaker 1: right now, right we need individuals to be more open
Speaker 1: minded to hearing very different opinions about what is appropriate
Speaker 1: or not. This is the least funny podcast you've ever done.
Speaker 1: And yes, moral code, okay, okay, before we close though,
Speaker 1: before we close out, we do need to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about I really love that point that the
Speaker 1: and we brought up about truth, because at the core
Speaker 1: of comedy, as you know, is truth and misdirection. So
Speaker 1: if people you know all over the world can kind
Speaker 1: of all understand this is the truth, then just better understanding,
Speaker 1: you know, what does misdirection mean, or how do you
Speaker 1: use these tools from comedians to better understand how to
Speaker 1: make others laugh and how to laugh with them. When
Speaker 1: people laugh with each other, they feel thirty percent closer
Speaker 1: and are more open to disclosing information about themselves. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, people that even reminisce about shared laughter versus
Speaker 1: just shared happiness tend to say that they're twenty three
Speaker 1: percent more satisfied in their relationships. So this stuff is
Speaker 1: really really potent and powerful. So one of my favorite
Speaker 1: tools after you know the truth, is thinking about misdirection
Speaker 1: or or even just like putting in a lighthearted line.
Speaker 1: So one of our favorite studies is where people came
Speaker 1: into the lab and it was a negotiations study, and
Speaker 1: there was confederate in ra in the lab, and they
Speaker 1: either ended a negotiation with like, this is my final offer,
Speaker 1: or this is my final offer and I'll throw in
Speaker 1: a pet fraud. And those individuals in that second condition
Speaker 1: received eighteen percent more money. So basically they were richer
Speaker 1: because they have a six word little laughline that wasn't
Speaker 1: even good, but it indicated, you know, that the person
Speaker 1: had a sense of humor and a sense of humanity,
Speaker 1: and that's enough to really shift things. And it has
Speaker 1: a very concrete ROI and oh my god, I forgot
Speaker 1: the best looking hat we have ever. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Technical difficult is we said? Technical difficult is
Speaker 1: nail me? Would you on that note on us trying
Speaker 1: to end on a humorous ending, NAILI? Would you like
Speaker 1: to have the last word? Oh I, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I always love the last word. What I want to
Speaker 1: point out is how easy what Jennifer just said is,
Speaker 1: so we think of humor as being this incredibly hard thing.
Speaker 1: But it is just naming what's true. So, right before
Speaker 1: Jennifer gave you that answer, she gave this whole line
Speaker 1: of thinking around the risks of humor and the downside,
Speaker 1: and she talked about the spectrum exercise that we do
Speaker 1: with our students. And then at the end of that answer,
Speaker 1: she said, isn't this the least funny podcast you've ever done?
Speaker 1: Or something like that, right, And what she was doing
Speaker 1: was naming the truth that we're all here to talk
Speaker 1: about humor and yet shockingly, it's actually a serious conversation
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of research underneath this, right, and so,
Speaker 1: but it was this great moment where all she needed
Speaker 1: to do was acknowledge that the little bit of tension
Speaker 1: that she was feeling, which was, oh my gosh, we're
Speaker 1: here to talk about humor and yet we're having a
Speaker 1: serious conversation about it. You notice that you name it,
Speaker 1: and that's it's just the easiest way to get a laugh.
Speaker 1: And so as you're thinking about how do you have
Speaker 1: more humor in your life, just ask yourself, what's true?
Speaker 1: What's going on for me right now? What is weighing
Speaker 1: on me? What am I irrationally excited about? And it's
Speaker 1: those places where we're going to be able to unlock
Speaker 1: more humor, both with ourselves and how we view the world,
Speaker 1: but also with the people around us. I love that.
Speaker 1: I think that it was a serious conversation. But I
Speaker 1: the word that sticks in my mind more about today's conversations,
Speaker 1: that it was an important conversation. And I think that
Speaker 1: you two are shining a really important spotlight. And there's
Speaker 1: a time and place to be funny, and you two
Speaker 1: can be very funny, trust me. But I'm glad you
Speaker 1: came on here and you could have this important conversation
Speaker 1: with me today. So thank you one eighty four, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thanks Thanks. Next time, we'll all wear our
Speaker 1: matching cats. Thanks for listening to this episode of The
Speaker 1: Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way
Speaker 1: to something you heard, I encourage you to join in
Speaker 1: on the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast dot com. 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.