WEBVTT - Be more social, with Nicholas Epley 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:09.360 Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning. 0:00:10.000 --> 0:00:14.640 This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.520 episode is going to be a slightly longer one part 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.520 of the series where I interview fascinating people about how 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.360 they take their days from great to awesome and any 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.720 advice they have for the rest of us. So today 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.760 I am delighted to welcome Nicholas Epley to Before Breakfast. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.199 Nick is a professor at the University of Chicago. He 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.400 is the author of the brand new book A Little 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.600 More Social. So, Nick, welcome to the show. 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:39.040 Thank you so much for having me. 0:00:39.080 --> 0:00:41.000 Laura, Yeah, excited to have you on. Why don't you 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:42.800 tell our listeners a little bit about yourself? 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:45.680 So, I'm a professor of behavioral science at the University 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:47.960 of Chicago's Booth School of Business, and I study mind 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:50.720 reading for a living. My reading, I am I study 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.280 how we make inferences about each other's thoughts and beliefs 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.240 and attitudes, and mostly I am interested in how we 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:57.600 screw that up and misunderstand each other in all kinds 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.120 of ways. That compromises our social relationship and our happiness. 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:03.800 All right, Well, that leads directly into your new book, 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.200 which is all about a misperception that people have about others. 0:01:07.720 --> 0:01:10.520 Your new book is a little more social. What are 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.160 you trying to convince people to do with this book. 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.760 To test their beliefs a little bit? That is, to 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.040 recognize that social connection is a choice we make, but 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:23.240 whether we reach out and engage with other people or 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:25.800 hold back and avoid them. And before we make that 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:28.600 choice to reach out or to hold back, we play 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:31.240 out thoughts in our heads about how this interaction might go, 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:33.480 Whether this stranger really wants to talk to me or 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:36.560 is scary, Whether you want to go deeper in this 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.200 conversation or not, whether you'll respond favorably if I reach 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.759 out and express gratitude you, or pass along a compliment 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.039 or ask for help. Social connections and just choice. And 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:48.800 what we find in our work is that often people's 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:53.520 beliefs are their expectations about social interaction are overly pessimistic. 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.280 And I would like readers to test some of those 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.000 beliefs to see if in fact they might be overly 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.279 pessimistic in their own lives in ways that are choosing 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.520 them to be less making them less social than they 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:04.640 might otherwise be. 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:06.400 So it's interesting Nick. 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:09.680 When I heard about your book and I came to 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:11.720 it first, I thought it was going to be that 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.000 you were going to convince me that I needed to 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.680 make plans more often with my existing friends, right like 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:19.200 that I needed to get out of the house and 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.240 go see them, like have the lunch date or whatever. 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:22.839 And we'll get to that in a minute, and making 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:25.560 time for that. But your book is largely about talking 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:26.360 to strangers. 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:28.600 There's a big chunk about it. That's certainly the part 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.840 that I think hits people the most, because that's where 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.360 people are often the most pessimistic and anxious and nervous, 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:36.080 or they think it's not going to be very meaningful 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:39.560 or valuable. And it's also the place that we're where 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.440 we're most consistently wrong. I think about how well these 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:43.040 interactions torue. 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.040 Yeah, well, what do we get out of talking to strangers? 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:46.560 Like, I mean, I've been told as a child not 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.400 to talk to strangers, So why should I talk to strangers? 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.240 Yeah? Well, you get two things. One is you learn stuff, 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.919 so you sometimes be amazed about what you'll learn from 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.520 other people. I've been on a plane with one of 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.520 only a handful of people who been inside the North 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.200 Korean nuclear arsenal. For instance, I've been in a cab 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.160 with a guy who grew up a few miles from 0:03:08.240 --> 0:03:12.240 where my two kids, who we adopted from Ethiopia grew up. 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.320 You know, you learn things when you have conversations with 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:18.679 other other people. So that's one. But the other thing 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.720 is that you create connections that just feel good in 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.440 that moment. You develop a brighter sense of what other 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:27.600 people are like. You learn that other people are mostly 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:31.079 kind and decent and interesting, and you make those moments, 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:33.680 you can make those moments that are otherwise dull and 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:36.600 kind of boring better. And it turns out your happiness 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.360 is really a function of how you're spending your moments. 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.920 Are those moments relatively good or bad, And so you 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:47.680 get better days, better weeks, better months, better years when 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.880 you choose to reach out and connect a little more often, 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:51.120 even with strangers. 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:51.400 Even with strangers. 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.480 So that's true, even if I don't see these people again, 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:55.360 Like even if I have a conversation on the plane 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.600 with this gentleman, you never see them again, I'm still 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:58.320 going to be happier. 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.360 You're happier in that moment, and that matters, right, That's 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:03.640 what happiness is is to keep doing that kind of 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.480 thing that if you think about psychologists have learned that 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.200 happiness is really a function of the frequency of positive 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.680 experiences you have, not the intensity of them. It's a 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:15.360 little like exercise, right, You kind of got to go 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.719 every day, and going one day isn't going to be 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:19.919 enough to keep you fit for a long time. Having 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.080 a nice meal with a friend isn't going to keep 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:25.720 you happy for a whole week or two. You need 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:27.680 to pay attention to those moments, and when you do, 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.840 it makes your days days better than they'd otherwise be. 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.760 So, what are the biases that keep us from talking 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.599 to strangers? You go into this and sort of systematically 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:38.080 in your book. 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.320 Yeah. So, one is that we tend to think about 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:43.720 ourselves in terms of our competency, where other people care 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:47.200 about our warmth, and that means that we underestimate how 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.479 positively things will turn out when we just reach out 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.960 to other people in warm, friendly kind ways. That stranger 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.320 you turn to with a smile and a hello and 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.640 tell me a little bit about yourself, right, they tend 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:04.120 to react to that warmth and that makes that conversation 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:06.520 go well. But if we're focused on our competency, we'll 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.000 underestimate how well this is going to go. So that's 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:12.600 one bias. Another one is that we have a hard 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.800 time imagining how social interactions will actually play out. We're 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.680 too focused on the initial part, so we focus a 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:21.719 lot on who are we talking to, what are we 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.120 talking about. We're focused on kind of the core aspect 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:28.240 of the action itself, not so much on the reciprocal 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.160 back and forth that happens in social interaction. The reason 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.680 why conversations, for instance, tend to be pleasant is because 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.440 we go back and forth in conversation and that's what 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.920 creates connection. But our expectations miss that right. The other 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.520 bias that we have is that we don't learn from 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.760 choices we avoid. We don't learn when we avoid interactions, 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.159 and that means that if you're pessimistic upfront, that belief 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:53.960 can be self fulfilling, because if I think talking new 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.240 is going to be unpleasant, I won't try it and 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.599 I'll never find out I might be wrong. Optimism gets 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:02.920 calibrated because I try, pessimism doesn't. It stays, and it's 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:05.680 kind of pernicious that way. So those are three biases 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.039 that keep us I think overly pessimistic about how reaching 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:09.760 out will go. 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.320 I wonder if there's any sort of way that, like 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:18.599 public spaces could be structured to encourage more sort of 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:19.760 random conversations. 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:20.960 I know you mentioned in the. 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:23.000 I mean obviously I love my quiet cars. By the way, 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.120 I just don't want to hear people's cell phone conversations. 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.320 Yeah, but nobody like the half a log Yeah. 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:29.039 The half a log I will talk to it stranger. 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:30.440 I don't want to hear their half of their content 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:34.600 strators conversation. But like having a bar car or something 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:36.400 that's the chatty car, like people sit in that they 0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:37.279 want to talk to people. 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.240 I mean, what can you envision in public spaces? 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.840 So the key for these public spaces that we find 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:44.880 at least and this is something that you know I've 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:49.120 talked to architects about that's easy to overlook, is when 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.960 we think about public spaces, we often think about creating 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:55.480 spaces where people can come together, right as if if 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.560 you just create those spaces, it will happen. What we 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.360 find is that you're willingness to reach out and engage 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.400 with other people is really a function of your beliefs 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.840 and your expectations about how interested other people are in 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.920 engaging with you. And if you don't overcome that part, 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.760 that sense that other people are willing to engage with you, 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.000 it's not going to be enough to keep people make 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:16.880 people connect. So I mean, how many times have you 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.559 been in a sporting event and you've never said anything 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:21.720 to the people sitting around you? Right, You talk to 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:23.880 the person you're with, but you don't talk to the 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:26.480 people in front of you or behind you. Imagine that 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:29.840 a public service announcer asked you, you know, during the 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.680 first halftime break or something, or during a timeout, ask 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.560 you to stand up and greet your neighbor a little bit, right, 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:40.200 or like you created a bar car where you go 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.000 where you understand that the norm is that we're going 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:44.880 to engage with each other a little bit. I was 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:48.080 having dinner in Kansas City last night. I was by myself. 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:50.160 I sat at the bar and there, you know, people 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:51.600 who come up and sit next to you are kind 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:53.960 of open to conversation because we're all kind of alone, right. 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:57.720 So it's overcoming those norms believing that other people don't 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.360 want to talk to you or engage with you. That's 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.480 also in these public spaces. So having things that signal 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:03.800 that is going to be important. 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.840 So you'll be happy to learn my church just reinstated 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:08.040 the passing of the piece. 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:11.720 A Lutheran church that did that as well, my favorite 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:13.000 moment of the whole service. 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:17.120 Right, we have some strong feelings about it. We're Presbyterians, 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:17.640 so you know. 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:19.760 People aren't wild about it. 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:20.480 Or maybe not. 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:20.920 Maybe not. 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:24.560 Well, We're going to take a quick ad break and 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.360 then I'll be back with more from Nick Eppley. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.199 Well, I am back talking with Nick Epley. 0:08:36.720 --> 0:08:39.880 So we've been talking about talking with strangers and random places, 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.120 and I wonder some bit about the safety aspect of it. 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:45.600 You know, I certainly, like I. 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:47.599 Said, you know, as a child, don't talk to strangers 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.640 many years ago, when I was young and cute, I 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.520 did not like sitting in bars randomly because of. 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.440 What would happen. So I wonder if you could address 0:08:57.600 --> 0:08:58.600 that part of it. 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:04.360 Yeah. So, so our data suggests that not that reaching 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.400 out to engage with other people always turns out well, 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:08.240 or that it turns out the same way for everybody. 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:10.680 I'm a man, you're a woman. The ecologies that we 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:13.760 live in are a little bit different, right, and they 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:15.839 don't Then our data also don't suggest that you should 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:17.800 be reaching out all the time to engage with other 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:20.640 people right. What our data suggests is that when you're 0:09:20.760 --> 0:09:25.440 in situations where you'd like to reach out and engage, right, 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.000 you're a little worried about whether the other person is 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.360 interested in engaging with you. Those are the cases where 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:32.160 we're misplaced. So we're not telling you to go out 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.679 and talk to people in back alleyways or you know, 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.840 things where you feel somehow unsafe. Although our data also 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:41.240 suggests that just like you know, we have a lot 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:44.120 of fears, like you know, fears of sharks in the 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.920 ocean and things like that that are exaggerated. I think 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.680 a lot of these fears stranger danger was a was 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.920 a wildly miscalibrated fear about what other people are like, 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.200 you know. But our data suggests that you should reach 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:59.679 out in places where you feel comfortable but you're just 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:01.880 unsure whether somebody would like to talk to you. So 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:03.960 I talked when I was writing this book to people 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.120 who talk to people a lot. A lot of the 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.000 women that I talk to said that they try to 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.160 talk to other women mostly, and that's great. So if 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.560 you just do that right, just engage with other women 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:17.679 more often where you feel a little more comfortable, that 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:19.920 would improve the quality of your life. So that's I 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.840 think what we're suggesting is to just test in the 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:24.920 context where you do feel safe and comfortable, but you 0:10:24.960 --> 0:10:26.960 just think maybe now the time isn't right, or that 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.200 person doesn't seem interested. Check it. Check those beliefs in 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:31.760 those contexts. Gotcha. 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.719 So let's talk a little bit about in person conversations 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.040 versus the electronic communication that a lot of us rely 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:44.320 on these days. What is it about conversation itself that 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:45.959 is so inherently pleasant? 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:48.200 So this is one of the things that our expectations 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.560 miss when we're interacting with people live that tends to 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:54.760 pull us together, in part because it essentially synchronizes our 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.760 thinking and our behavior with one another. So we often 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:01.560 think of conversationisted too. For a long time, think of 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.520 conversation as a back and forth, like a tennis match. 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.920 One person is speaking, then the other person responds, and 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:10.520 it goes on that way. When you actually look at 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:14.160 what social interaction is like, it's not that one person 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:16.840 is engaging while the other person is sitting there totally dead. 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.400 The other person is also very actively engaged it's more 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.760 like a band playing together. Right, one person's taking the lead, 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.720 the other person's playing the background rhythm, and that background 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.720 rhythm or things like backchanneling. Right, So when I'm talking, 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.200 somebody will be saying mmm, yeah, uh huh. Right. That's 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.000 signaling to us that they are interested in us, that 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.720 they are with us, that they are thinking with us together, right, 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:42.880 And that synchrony is what pulls us together. They're also 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:46.320 giving us constant feedback when we're talking to them. Sometimes 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:48.920 we can see it, right, like you're nodding at me 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.319 when I'm talking with you, or you're smiling, right, And 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.720 it's that stuff that pulls us together. Also, in conversation, 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.960 we go back and forth. We're like cooperating with each other, 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.040 and we get the people when we're cooperating with them. 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:06.160 Social interaction has this reciprocal back and forth component to it, 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.800 where not only is the way you reach back to 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:10.719 me determined by how I reach out to you. I 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:12.480 reach out to you in a positive way, you tend 0:12:12.480 --> 0:12:14.560 to reach back to me in a positive way, but 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:16.640 the fact that you are reaching back and we're going 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:19.280 back and forth like that, that's what pulls us together. 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:23.960 When we're connecting typing to each other is dead almost 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.480 in that particular way. There are words there that we're 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.480 communicating to each other, and that matters, but it lacks 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.920 the rhythm and therefore the synchrony that you get in 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.720 live conversation, and therefore it doesn't connect us nearly the 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.960 same way that connecting live with each other does. 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:41.000 It's interesting. 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.480 Yeah, when I learned to interview people for podcasts, I 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:49.280 had to learn to stop back channeling it in audio fast, 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.120 because if you have a ton of like me going 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:56.440 uh huh huh, that's great, Nick, it's horrible to listen to. 0:12:57.679 --> 0:12:59.600 But we can see each other. Our audience is just 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:01.120 listening to us, but we can see each other. And 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.360 so I am nodding my head to my guests all 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:06.280 the time to encourage them in a sort of visual 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:07.240 back channeling. 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:11.280 So podcasting has made you a worse conversationals. You have 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:12.560 to turn that off when you're out in the. 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:14.920 Real You don't have to shut up anymore, Laura. You 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:17.320 can let them, let them talk, and you can go 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:18.000 back and forth. 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:22.000 Although you know you mentioned so when we wereciprocate going 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:23.680 back and forth and even joke about it, this is 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:25.680 sort of like the oh, you've been in Cleveland. 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:26.880 I was once in Cleveland. 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.520 I mean, there's certain elements you're trying to find common ground, 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:31.600 but many of us are not that great at finding 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:35.480 common ground. I wonder you've developed a couple questions that 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.720 you found get people very engaged with their conversation partner. 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.600 I wonder if you can talk a few about those 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:42.679 and how you came up with them. 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.840 So so let me just say first about these questions. Essentially, 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.760 what we're doing is we're testing what happens when we 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.760 have the kinds of conversations we'd actually like to be having. 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:54.959 When you ask people how deep are the conversations you're 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:57.760 typically having, they say, not that deep. How do you 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.199 the conversations you'd like to be having? They typically say 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:02.680 notably deeper? And the question is why aren't you having 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.840 those conversations? Right? I don't think it's actually because we 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:07.760 don't know how to have them. When we ask people 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.079 to generate deeper questions, they can do it, and when 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.760 they then have a conversation about those deeper questions that 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:18.120 they can generate, they have better conversations. They enjoy them 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.200 more than when they ask their typical ones. So I 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:23.760 think much of it is is we're not asking the 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.360 questions we could be asking. But in our experiments, what 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:30.200 we do is we pair people up randomly, tell them 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:32.480 you're going to have a conversation with somebody just a minute, 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.480 and we give them questions that are notably deeper and 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.840 more meaningful than they would typically talk about. And these 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:43.200 come from an experiment experimental procedure developed by Art in 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:45.760 the Lane Aaron known as the fast Friends procedure that 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:48.600 psychologists use to pull people together. They thought it took 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:51.600 thirty six questions, a ton of questions. It doesn't. You 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.040 can get deep really really quickly. The questions we have 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.560 people discuss are things like, what are you most grateful 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:58.760 for in your life? Please tell me about it? If 0:14:58.800 --> 0:14:59.960 I was going to become a good friend of yours, 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:01.760 what would be most important for me to know about you? 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:03.920 Can you tell me one of the last times you 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.440 cried in front of another person. Going into these conversations, 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.240 people are pretty nervous. They're pretty anxious about how they're 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:11.720 going to go. They think it's going to be pretty awkward, 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:13.600 right jumping right into the deep end of the pool. 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.360 They think it's going to be kind of mediocre. They're 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:17.720 not going to have a whole lot in common with 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.560 the person. When they come out of these conversations, they 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:22.880 go way better than they thought, not nearly as awkward 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:25.880 as they imagined, and they feel much more connected. They 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:27.800 enjoy the other person a lot more than expect and 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:30.080 have more in common than they imagine, because we tend 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.160 to talk about things that we have in common. That's 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:35.800 the way conversation works. But I don't think the magic 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.960 is in the questions. My advice to folks to have 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:41.960 the kinds of conversation you'd like to be having is 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.480 to change your mindset a little bit when you're going 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.760 into these conversations, to actually allow yourself to think about 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.200 and then ask these kinds of meaningful questions that you 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:54.640 actually like to be discussing. So the way to do 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:57.080 that is to actually take an interest in getting to 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:58.720 know other people a little bit, even if it's only 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:01.320 for a moment, even it's just a single serving friendship. 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:03.560 Right you're just on a plane like I was this 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:05.400 morning coming in from Kansas City, or I'm on a 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:07.560 train r at home, I can find out, you know, 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.360 I can get deep pretty quickly, and I can ask people, 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:12.840 you know, what is it you do for a living, 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:15.080 And then I can ask do you love your job? 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.920 And right there on the second question, I've gotten to love. Right. 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.360 If you can work love into your second question, you're 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:24.160 on the right track, right, Or one thing that I 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.720 like to do when I'm taking interest in really getting 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.960 to know somebody is I'll often just start. You don't 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:32.560 even need a second question, you're just doing your first. 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.520 What's your story, Lauren? Tell me, what's your story? How 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:39.720 did you get here today? And typically when you ask 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.520 that question, people recognize that they're not talking about your 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.400 commute into work or whatever you're talking about kind of 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:48.280 you know, just tell me about your life and how 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:52.120 you got to where you are today. Right, And when 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:55.880 you take an interest in other people, then meaningful questions 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.280 about who they are, what they care about, what they 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.840 hope for in their future. That stuff, I think often 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.480 comes spontaneously to mind and more willing to ask for 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.240 it when you've when you've thought about these questions. 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:09.320 So what is an illuminator? 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.600 Because I imagine that people who are illuminators have good 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:14.000 intries into conversation. 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.000 Yeah, so this is David Brooks's term, which I rather 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.479 like you wrote a book called How to Know a 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.879 Person that was based to some extent on a lot 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.040 of research that I talked about my first book, mind Wise, 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:30.240 and David talks about. I don't think you want to 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:32.280 think about this as a personality trade. This is something 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.399 that we can all do in any given conversation, which 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.960 is to engage with people in ways that kind of 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:43.199 light them up, that allow you to see another person 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.080 for who they are. Ask meaningful questions that that they 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.360 care about, right, that that kind of shine a light 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:54.520 on who they are, rather than just talking about superficial 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.960 things that actually don't allow you to know or understand 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.159 somebody that's an illuminator. And you can adopt that approach, 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.879 that illuminating approach in conversation when you ask people about, 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:07.679 you know, what do you love to do, what are 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:09.760 your hopes for your future? What's tell me about one 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:11.920 of the most interesting things you've done in your life. 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:13.520 I'd love to hear about it. I know you've got 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.320 a story to tell me. That's what being an illuminator 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:16.720 looks like. 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:17.600 Excellent. 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:19.360 All right, Well we're going to take a quick ad 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.440 break and we'll be back with more from Nick Epley. 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:31.199 Well, I'm back talking with Nick Epley, who is a 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.199 professor at the University of Chicago, the author of the 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:37.080 brand new book A Little More Social. So I want 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.040