Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: We've been celebrating five years of the Happiness Lab by
Speaker 2: resurfacing five of my favorite episodes of the show. We've
Speaker 2: already gone all the way back to when we started
Speaker 2: out in twenty nineteen, but this final episode brings us
Speaker 2: nearly up to date, and my producer Ryan Dilly has
Speaker 2: it ready to go. Ryan, what's episode number five?
Speaker 3: So this is from twenty twenty three, and it's called
Speaker 3: The Introverts Guide to Extraversion. So why do you want
Speaker 3: me to get this one out?
Speaker 2: Oh? This is one of my favorites because it's also
Speaker 2: about the benefits of social connection, even for people who
Speaker 2: might not think they get a lot of benefit out
Speaker 2: of social connection.
Speaker 3: It was a really popular episode, as I remember, and
Speaker 3: did really well in terms of download but it also
Speaker 3: prompted lots of complaints. Why didn't that work?
Speaker 2: Well? I think it triverts really felt that we were
Speaker 2: attacking them, but that wasn't really the case. All we
Speaker 2: were doing was showing the benefits of social connection, even
Speaker 2: for folks who have persons that might not really resonate
Speaker 2: with social connection. We got to interview this lovely guest,
Speaker 2: Jessica Pan, who talked about her book Sorry I'm late.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to come The Introverts Guide to Extroverting
Speaker 2: and she did this lovely experiment where as an introvert,
Speaker 2: she tried engaging in a little bit more extroverted activities
Speaker 2: for a whole year, and she found there are many
Speaker 2: more happiness benefits than she expected.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a subject really dear to my heart.
Speaker 3: I've always been quite nervous about talking to new people,
Speaker 3: and I don't think like doing this recording now, So
Speaker 3: I worked really hard to try and overcome some with that.
Speaker 3: I think it's been really good for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was wondering if your behavior has changed because of
Speaker 3: this episode of twime.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure, As you know, I'm not the kind
Speaker 2: of person that tends to talk to people. But in
Speaker 2: part because of this, I realized that there are many
Speaker 2: more benefits than even I expected. And so it's definitely
Speaker 2: been something that's affected how I act.
Speaker 5: In the world.
Speaker 1: And I hope it might give our.
Speaker 2: Listeners some food for thought as well. And so here
Speaker 2: is the last episode in our birthday celebration reruns, The
Speaker 2: Introverts Guide to Extroversion.
Speaker 1: I feel like college was a real struggle for me.
Speaker 1: This is author Jessica Pan. I always felt like, when
Speaker 1: you know college kids would go out and party or
Speaker 1: go to clubs, I thought we were all secretly waiting
Speaker 1: to like come home and then you know, get our pajamas.
Speaker 2: Jessica had many close friends in college, she couldn't always
Speaker 2: relate to how outgoing her buddies were. Her besties seemed
Speaker 2: to seek out noisy parties and busy dance floors, but
Speaker 2: Jessica was much more at home with small gatherings.
Speaker 1: And intimate conversations.
Speaker 2: Jessica's friends adored her, but they couldn't always relate to
Speaker 2: her preferences and just assumed Jessica would want to go big.
Speaker 2: To celebrate. When she turned twenty two.
Speaker 1: They threw me this surprise birthday party.
Speaker 2: Friends and family members gathered secretly and waited in Jessica's
Speaker 2: dark bedroom, ready to pop out and scream.
Speaker 1: As soon as she got home and I walked in,
Speaker 1: there was like fifty people staring at me, and I
Speaker 1: burst into tears. It was my worst nightmare. That's one
Speaker 1: of the times I felt very much like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: am slightly different from my extroverted friends.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't just those extroverted friends Jessica also felt
Speaker 2: different from the people she grew up with.
Speaker 1: I often say that my parents are like the two
Speaker 1: chattiest people in America because they absolutely love talking to
Speaker 1: strangers to the point where it is embarrassing. You'll be
Speaker 1: in line for a restaurants, or you'll be on the
Speaker 1: plane or anywhere, and my mom is talking to someone,
Speaker 1: and then my dad's joining in, and there it's just,
Speaker 1: I don't know. They're the complete opposite of me.
Speaker 2: Jessica knew her social needs different from the people around her,
Speaker 2: but she wasn't sure why.
Speaker 1: So when I was growing up, the labels introvert and extrovert,
Speaker 1: they were not these buzzy terms that everybody knew about,
Speaker 1: so I'd never heard of them. And I think I
Speaker 1: found out in my twenties what an introvert was, and
Speaker 1: I immediately recognized myself.
Speaker 2: The American Psychological Association defines introversion as an orientation towards
Speaker 2: the internal, private world of one's inner thoughts and feelings,
Speaker 2: rather than toward the outer world of people. Compared to extroverts,
Speaker 2: introverts are more with your reserved, quiet and deliberate.
Speaker 1: Someone who concentrates really well is a good listener likes
Speaker 1: to be alone, gets exhausted, over stimulated by lots of people,
Speaker 1: and I felt really seen by that definition. I would
Speaker 1: never raise my hand in a class. That would never happen.
Speaker 1: I would fake sick if there was a presentation I
Speaker 1: had to give. I think I got a solo to
Speaker 1: sing in a choir and I didn't tell my mom
Speaker 1: about it, and I just pretended that I had a fever.
Speaker 1: I don't even think she knows about that to this day.
Speaker 2: And so Jessica began referring to herself as an introvert
Speaker 2: with a capital I. It quickly became a badge of honor.
Speaker 1: But I began to use that label of introvert as
Speaker 1: an excuse to say no to anything that gave me
Speaker 1: any sort of social anxiety.
Speaker 2: Jessica sat out important social events, even ones that she
Speaker 2: knew might be good for her or for her career.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to give speeches. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: host parties. I didn't want to lead workshops because I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, no, I'm an introvert. Introverts don't do
Speaker 1: things like that. And I was completely limiting who I
Speaker 1: was and who I could.
Speaker 2: Come at times Jessica did question what she was passing up,
Speaker 2: like the time she went to a friend's wedding.
Speaker 1: The bride stood up and she gave this amazing speech
Speaker 1: and she was crying and her parents were crying, and
Speaker 1: I felt like, why didn't I give a speech at
Speaker 1: my wedding? And I didn't do it because I was
Speaker 1: too anxious. I was scared I would not sound articulate.
Speaker 1: I would be scared that I wouldn't look good. I
Speaker 1: was scared that I embarrassed myself, when actually I wish
Speaker 1: I had done that, because I think the benefits could
Speaker 1: have tremendously outweighed the negative consequences.
Speaker 2: But the negative consequences of Jessica's introversion became even clearer
Speaker 2: when she and her husband moved to London.
Speaker 1: It's notoriously not the most friendly place in the entire world,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to make friends as an adult. And
Speaker 1: also I was a freelancer, so I was working from home,
Speaker 1: so it seemed absolutely impossible to make these connections and
Speaker 1: get out of my shell.
Speaker 2: And that was when Jessica decided to embark on an
Speaker 2: innovative personal experiment, one that wound up changing her life forever.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, if I really want to commit to this,
Speaker 1: I have to do this.
Speaker 2: Listen to other episodes in this new season on getting
Speaker 2: more social. Then you've probably already heard about the benefits
Speaker 2: of connecting with other people. Pretty much every study ever
Speaker 2: done on the relationship between well being and social interaction
Speaker 2: shows that more people time makes us happier. But what
Speaker 2: if you, like Jessica, dread parties and crowds and spontaneous
Speaker 2: conversations with strangers. Are you doomed to less happiness than
Speaker 2: your more talkative friends. Or is there a way that
Speaker 2: the introverts among us can also get the happiness benefits
Speaker 2: that come from more social connection. Our minds are constantly
Speaker 2: telling us what to do to be happy, But what
Speaker 2: if our minds are wrong? What if our minds are
Speaker 2: lying to us, leading us away from what will really
Speaker 2: make us happy. The good news is the understanding the
Speaker 2: science of the mind can point us all back in
Speaker 2: the right direction. You're listening to the Happiness Lab with
Speaker 2: doctor Laurie Santo's.
Speaker 4: Hi, Laurie, I'm having trouble connecting my mic, so give
Speaker 4: you just a.
Speaker 2: Sec I wanted to unpack what psychologists have learned about
Speaker 2: the science of introversion and the unintended consequences it can
Speaker 2: have for our happiness. And that meant there was one
Speaker 2: person in the field I really needed to call.
Speaker 6: My computer's rejecting the Bluetooth connection.
Speaker 2: Sonya Lubermirski is a professor at the University of California
Speaker 2: at Riverside. She's the author of The How of Happiness,
Speaker 2: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want. Sonya
Speaker 2: is a world expert on the science of happiness, so
Speaker 2: not surprisingly, she's very much in demand.
Speaker 6: I've been crazy busy, so I'm like, this is like
Speaker 6: I don't even have time to say hi, Like I bet,
Speaker 6: I'm going from one meeting to another.
Speaker 2: I was super grateful that Sonya made time for us
Speaker 2: and that she put up with a few technical problems.
Speaker 6: Do you can you just keep talking? It's working that great.
Speaker 2: In order to share a key finding from her decades
Speaker 2: of work in positive psychology.
Speaker 6: After many years of research, we landed on this cliche,
Speaker 6: which is that the key to happiness is really connection,
Speaker 6: and so if you want to increase happiness, you want
Speaker 6: to make people feel more connected.
Speaker 1: It really is that simple.
Speaker 2: You will be happier if you interact with more people
Speaker 2: even if you're an introvert.
Speaker 6: What's interesting is clear if the studies have shown that
Speaker 6: actually both extrots and introverts benefit by more social interaction.
Speaker 2: Most introverts predict that social interaction will feel exhausting, anxiety provoking,
Speaker 2: and crummy, so they don't engage in this activity nearly
Speaker 2: as much as extroverts do, and the science shows that
Speaker 2: this choice can have big negative consequences for introverts. Happiness
Speaker 2: research since the nineteen eighties has shown that, on average,
Speaker 2: introverts are less happy than extroverts, presumably because they consistently
Speaker 2: miss out on the well being benefits that social connection provides.
Speaker 2: But that leads to an even bigger problem, because introversion
Speaker 2: isn't just some flippant label we throw on when we
Speaker 2: don't feel like going to a party. Introversion is one
Speaker 2: of the five core dimensions that make up our personalities,
Speaker 2: the other four being openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Psychologists
Speaker 2: have long assumed that these so called Big five personality
Speaker 2: traits are stable. They don't change all that much across
Speaker 2: our lifetimes or across different situations. If you were outgoing
Speaker 2: in the center of attention as a teenager, then psychologists
Speaker 2: would assume that you're still likely to be extroverted decades later.
Speaker 2: But if you spent your teen years like Jessica Pan
Speaker 2: wishing you could run home to be alone, well, most
Speaker 2: psychologists would probably assume.
Speaker 1: That you're unlikely to be a social butterfly today.
Speaker 2: But does that mean that introverts are doomed by their personality,
Speaker 2: destined never to share the joy of connection that extroverts
Speaker 2: take for granted?
Speaker 1: Sonia didn't think.
Speaker 4: So, what is a trade? Is basically ahavior? You know,
Speaker 4: like when you do something over and over again. If
Speaker 4: I'm like always making my bed and I'm organized and
Speaker 4: I'm always on time, people say, oh, Sonia's h conscientiousness.
Speaker 4: But if you're not high on constanciousness, theoretically you can
Speaker 4: try to make your meetings on time and make your
Speaker 4: bed every morning, and so the same thing for extroversion.
Speaker 2: Sonia reason that introverts could engage in what she called
Speaker 2: volitional personality change. If they simply behaved in a more
Speaker 2: extravert way, maybe they could reap the happiness benefits that
Speaker 2: come with having a more extroverted personality. To test this theory,
Speaker 2: Sonya teamed up with her graduate student Seth Margolis and
Speaker 2: recruited over one hundred college students to take part in
Speaker 2: a new study. Some of these students were naturally introverted,
Speaker 2: whereas others were more extroverted, but all of the subjects
Speaker 2: were randomly divided into two groups. The first group was
Speaker 2: told that for the next week they needed to be
Speaker 2: as talkative, assertive, and spontaneous as possible. Essentially, they had
Speaker 2: to act extroverted, but the second group was told to
Speaker 2: do just the opposite. They were asked to act as deliberate, quiet,
Speaker 2: and reserved as possible. They were going to be more introverted.
Speaker 2: Both groups then filled out surveys to measure their overall
Speaker 2: well being and how much positive emotion they experienced over
Speaker 2: the week.
Speaker 1: So what did Sonya find.
Speaker 6: We found that both introversied extroverts during the week that
Speaker 6: they were asked to act more extroverted got hugely happier.
Speaker 2: Sonia says the boost and happy piness she observed in
Speaker 2: this be more extroverted condition was one of the largest
Speaker 2: effects she's observed in decades of studying happiness interventions. But
Speaker 2: just as acting more extroverted had a significant upside, Sonya
Speaker 2: also observed an effect of doing the opposite. Subjects who
Speaker 2: were asked to act reserved in shy showed statistically reduced
Speaker 2: levels of well being. Acting introverted for a week appears
Speaker 2: to significantly reduce our happiness, But Sonya says the most
Speaker 2: shocking finding from her study, especially for researchers in the
Speaker 2: field of personality psychology, was that subjects were able to
Speaker 2: do what she asked them to. People could change their
Speaker 2: personality traits if they tried, at least for short periods
Speaker 2: of time, and that finding was very good news to
Speaker 2: author and introvert Jessica Pan.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, so we can change, we don't
Speaker 1: always have to be the same, and yeah, I found
Speaker 1: that really freeing.
Speaker 2: When we last left Jessica, she was sad and lonely
Speaker 2: in her new life in the UK, and that's when
Speaker 2: she began and reading about the psychology of introverts and
Speaker 2: happened upon Sonya's new study. Learning that people could volitionally
Speaker 2: change their personality traits led Jessica to try something radical.
Speaker 1: I thought, look, I'm not that happy right now in
Speaker 1: my life, and I'm a hardcore introvert. What would happen
Speaker 1: if I live like the other half of the world.
Speaker 1: What could I gain from that?
Speaker 2: Jessica decided to begin her own experiment, but rather than
Speaker 2: behaving more spontaneously and assertively for just a week, as
Speaker 2: Sonya's subjects had done, Jessica pledged to act like an
Speaker 2: extrovert for an entire year.
Speaker 1: Her twelve month.
Speaker 2: Journey turned into a new book, Sorry I'm late. I
Speaker 2: didn't want to come one. Introverts Year of Saying Yes,
Speaker 2: and Jessica's big Year of saying Yes didn't just involve
Speaker 2: becoming a bit more talkative. Jessica committed to trying out
Speaker 2: some of the most terrifying social encounters.
Speaker 1: Possible, talking to strangers, public speaking, doing improv comedy, things
Speaker 1: like that. That were my nightmares and.
Speaker 2: As you'll hear when we get back from the break,
Speaker 2: Jessica found that pushing herself to make every social connection
Speaker 2: possible required getting more vulnerable then even she expected.
Speaker 1: I would need to just go for it and embarrass
Speaker 1: myself again and again and again.
Speaker 2: The Happiness Lab We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: So I had this massive fear of talking to strangers.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: Introvert Jessica pan was ready for an entire year of extroverting.
Speaker 2: But where should she start. Jessica figured that some expert
Speaker 2: advice might help her. First call went out to psychotherapist
Speaker 2: and Boston University professor Stefan Hoffmann.
Speaker 1: He specializes in exposure therapy, so he'll have his patients
Speaker 1: do really humiliating things like stand on the street and
Speaker 1: just sing, or ask someone on the subway for like
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars, things where they are guaranteed to be rejected.
Speaker 2: Jessica explained to Stefan that she was terrified of putting
Speaker 2: herself out there, especially with people she didn't know.
Speaker 1: If I was approaching a stranger, my heart would raise.
Speaker 1: I'd feel like I was gonna throw up. I just
Speaker 1: had so much anxiety around it. Stefan didn't advocate baby steps.
Speaker 1: He wanted Jessica to dive head first into the social
Speaker 1: deep end, and he said, okay, so you live in
Speaker 1: London and you're scared of strangers. It's what I would
Speaker 1: have you do is I would have you ask a
Speaker 1: really stupid question to a stranger. I would have you
Speaker 1: go up to somebody and say, excuse me, is there
Speaker 1: a Queen of England? And if so, what's her name,
Speaker 1: and as soon as he said this, I wanted to
Speaker 1: throw up, and I was thinking, there's no way I'm
Speaker 1: going to do that.
Speaker 2: Stefan was making Jessica ask strangers pretty much the dumbest
Speaker 2: question you could pose to a Londoner because back then
Speaker 2: everyone knew that there was in fact a Queen of
Speaker 2: England and her name was Elizabeth. It was an encounter
Speaker 2: that was set up to make Jessica look as stupid
Speaker 2: as possible, but as Stefan explained, that was kind of
Speaker 2: the point.
Speaker 1: Look, you know, no one's going to fire you, you're
Speaker 1: not going to get arrested, your husband's not going to
Speaker 1: leave you, you're not going to get thrown in jail,
Speaker 1: so you're just gonna look a little bit stupid.
Speaker 2: And to comp I owned her discomfort. Jessica headed to
Speaker 2: one of London's least welcoming locations.
Speaker 1: So I think one of the most awkward places to
Speaker 1: talk to stranger in London is on the underground because
Speaker 1: people they don't want to be bothered.
Speaker 2: Jessica was ready to push herself, just like Stuffhanhead advised,
Speaker 2: so she sought out the least approachable stranger she could find.
Speaker 2: She picked a busy looking businessman in an expensive suit.
Speaker 1: I was like, excuse me, and he was like what,
Speaker 1: And I said, is there a Queen of England? And
Speaker 1: he was like the Queen of England? And I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: who is she? And he said it's Victoria and then
Speaker 1: he walked off.
Speaker 2: That wasn't the answer she was expecting. Victoria hadn't been
Speaker 2: queen for over one hundred years. Was the man walking
Speaker 2: Jessica giving a stupid answer to her stupid question. Jessica
Speaker 2: wasn't sure, so she fled down another scary looking businessman
Speaker 2: and posed the same question again, and.
Speaker 1: He also said Victoria. And I didn't know if it
Speaker 1: was they were just messing with me or what was happening.
Speaker 1: But then I flagged down a few more women and
Speaker 1: they told me it was Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Looking idiotic in front of total strangers in a noisy,
Speaker 2: dirty subway station might not sound like fun, especially for
Speaker 2: an introvert, but the experience left Jessica feeling elated.
Speaker 1: I felt like I could fly. I felt insanely exhilarated
Speaker 1: because it was so embarrassing and there are other people listening.
Speaker 1: It was my worst fear, and Stefan was right. Nothing
Speaker 1: bad happened.
Speaker 2: To take her extroverting to the next level. Jessica tagged
Speaker 2: in yet another expert, one who may sound kind of
Speaker 2: familiar if you've listened to other episodes in this special season.
Speaker 1: Should call him Nick? Or what should I call him?
Speaker 5: I'm Nicholas Epley, you can call me Nick.
Speaker 2: Nick is a professor of behavioral science at the University
Speaker 2: of Chicago's Booth School of Business.
Speaker 1: I had read his research that said that when two
Speaker 1: commuters are forced to talk to each other, they are
Speaker 1: happier than they would have anticipated.
Speaker 2: You might remember this study from an episode we ran
Speaker 2: in our very first season entitled Mistakenly Seeking Solitude. In
Speaker 2: the experiment, Nick found passengers who were about to hop
Speaker 2: on a train from the Chicago suburbs on their way
Speaker 2: to work.
Speaker 5: We gave them an envelope that had a five dollars
Speaker 5: Starbucks gift card in it, which turns out to be
Speaker 5: the most valuable incentive that we know on the planet.
Speaker 5: People will do anything for a five dollars Starbucks gift card,
Speaker 5: including doctor strangers on trains.
Speaker 2: Nick then told one group to spend the entire train
Speaker 2: ride enjoying their solitude. They weren't allowed to talk to anyone,
Speaker 2: which is pretty much what most of us usually do.
Speaker 5: And almost nobody talks to strangers on the train.
Speaker 2: But Nick asked a second group of commuters to do
Speaker 2: something a little more radical. They had to spend the
Speaker 2: entire train ride talking to someone.
Speaker 5: We asked them to try to make a connection with
Speaker 5: the person who sits down next to you this morning
Speaker 5: on the train. Try to get to know something about
Speaker 5: him or her. So they were going to have a conversation.
Speaker 2: After the ride. Nick surveyed the commuters to find out
Speaker 2: how they were all feeling. The results were striking. People
Speaker 2: who were forced to spend their entire train ride talking
Speaker 2: to strangers felt happier than the ones that were told
Speaker 2: to enjoy their solitude. When I first read that recon,
Speaker 2: I was like, what is he talking about? That sounds
Speaker 2: insane to me. Nick says that Jessica's not the only
Speaker 2: one with that reaction.
Speaker 5: I get a lot of pushback on this because the
Speaker 5: expectations are so strong.
Speaker 2: Nick has even tested these mistaken expectations directly. In a
Speaker 2: second study, Subjects were asked which would feel better talking
Speaker 2: to some random stranger on the train or just enjoying
Speaker 2: the ride.
Speaker 1: In silence.
Speaker 2: People overwhelmingly thought that being in the talkative condition would suck.
Speaker 2: They predicted the exact opposite of what Nick's results showed.
Speaker 2: Like Jessica, most of us think that connecting with strangers
Speaker 2: will feel awkward, but we're wrong.
Speaker 5: That's not what people's experience actually is.
Speaker 2: Nick's subjects also mispredicted how much the stranger they chatted
Speaker 2: with would enjoy the experience of being talked to.
Speaker 5: That is, they underestimated how social other people were. And
Speaker 5: notice that belief then becomes a kind of self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 5: If I think, Glori, you don't want to talk to me,
Speaker 5: then you know I'll sit down next to you at
Speaker 5: a conference, say I won't talk to you. You will
Speaker 5: sit there and we'll not talk to me. You'll look
Speaker 5: to me, and because I'm not talking to you, you
Speaker 5: will infer that I'm not interested in talking to you either,
Speaker 5: and we'll both then sit there in silence, next to
Speaker 5: each other, and we will both then confirm our expectations
Speaker 5: that talking to you would have been unpleasant. We don't
Speaker 5: ever get data that would tell us that those beliefs
Speaker 5: are wrong because we don't try it.
Speaker 2: But author Jessica Pan was ready to try it. She
Speaker 2: met with Nick and quickly realized that he really practices
Speaker 2: what he preaches.
Speaker 1: Nicholas has no issue talking to strangers.
Speaker 2: Nick talks with people on trains and planes and buses.
Speaker 2: He chit chats with waiters and baristas and cafes and
Speaker 2: cashiers at his local grocery store.
Speaker 5: We know all of them now, often by name. They
Speaker 5: know our kids, and that's fun. Once you start the conversation,
Speaker 5: it's pretty easy to make it go. That's not hard.
Speaker 5: It's starting it that's hard. It's like a speed bump
Speaker 5: at the top of a hill, and you have to
Speaker 5: get over this speed bump to actually get things going.
Speaker 2: Speed bump what Nick thought of as a bump in
Speaker 2: the road a mountain. To an introvert like Jessica, I
Speaker 2: felt like he.
Speaker 1: Could not relate to my anxiety at all, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't relate to his total nonchalance about chatting with people.
Speaker 2: But Nick did share one fact about social connection that
Speaker 2: put Jessica a little more at ease. He said, look, Jessica,
Speaker 2: nobody waves, but everybody waves back. Like you have to
Speaker 2: be the first person to make a move, and if
Speaker 2: you do that almost one hundred percent of the time
Speaker 2: people will If you wave to someone, they'll wave back.
Speaker 2: You say hi to someone, they'll say hi back. Jessica
Speaker 2: began to realize how rarely she put in the work
Speaker 2: to make that all important first move.
Speaker 1: So I feel like in the past, I'd go to
Speaker 1: a party and I'd linger in the hallway or the doorway.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to go fully in. I would hover
Speaker 1: near the cheeseboard or the drinks and the kitchen, or
Speaker 1: look at my phone, and then I would probably leave.
Speaker 2: But if Jessica was committed to being the one to
Speaker 2: open a conversation, what she wondered should she start talking about?
Speaker 2: Are there particular topics that are more effective for really
Speaker 2: connecting people. In the rare cases in which Jessica did
Speaker 2: talk with someone new, she usually stuck to the easy stuff,
Speaker 2: what Nick calls shallow or surface talk.
Speaker 1: Surface talk is like we talk about our commutes or
Speaker 1: what we had for dinner or the weather. In deep
Speaker 1: talk is our hopes and our dreams and our fears,
Speaker 1: and so much of our life is rooted in just
Speaker 1: doing surface talk. You know, you could see the same
Speaker 1: person every day for ten years and you might not
Speaker 1: actually know what's going on with them because you literally
Speaker 1: just talk about very topical things.
Speaker 2: But Nick has found that there's a much more effective
Speaker 2: style of conversation if your goal is to truly get
Speaker 2: to know someone, to truly connect. It's what he and
Speaker 2: other researchers have called deep conversation.
Speaker 1: It's sharing our human experience of struggling and loneliness and
Speaker 1: things that actually bring us together.
Speaker 2: In one study, Nick asked people to engage either in
Speaker 2: shallow talk talking about the weather or their favorite TV shows,
Speaker 2: or in deep talk. And the deep talk conversation starters
Speaker 2: were pretty heavy, things like can you describe a time
Speaker 2: that you cried in front of another person? And if
Speaker 2: you could undo one mistake you've made in your life,
Speaker 2: what would it be?
Speaker 5: And these deep conversations go much better than people expect
Speaker 5: they will, and they're much less awkward than people expect.
Speaker 5: People pretty dramatically underestimate how much they are going to
Speaker 5: enjoy deep conversation.
Speaker 2: Armed with all of Nick's advice, Jessica threw herself into
Speaker 2: the conversational deep end. She signed up for a professional
Speaker 2: networking event, and rather than hiding away in the corner
Speaker 2: like she'd normally do. She immediately headed over to a
Speaker 2: group of people, started chatting and, going against all her instincts,
Speaker 2: took the conversation deeper.
Speaker 1: I felt like people really responded to that, and they
Speaker 1: would sort of go, oh, this person's here to be real,
Speaker 1: to be honest, to actually make a connection.
Speaker 2: Jessica went from feeling like a shy wallflower to the
Speaker 2: life of the party. I could visibly see the difference
Speaker 2: in people's faces.
Speaker 1: They were having that dopamine hit two because we were connecting,
Speaker 1: we were laughing, we were bonding over something, and I
Speaker 1: realized that we all have the power to steer the
Speaker 1: conversation into something deeper. But Jessica knew that talking was
Speaker 1: only half the battle. She had succeeded in initiating deeper conversation,
Speaker 1: but it couldn't be a one way thing. You need
Speaker 1: to make a person feel like they're being listened to,
Speaker 1: not just waiting for my turn to talk or my
Speaker 1: turn to share my story, but actually listening to them
Speaker 1: and being a part of what they're saying. People like
Speaker 1: feeling paid attention to.
Speaker 4: It.
Speaker 1: Really is this underrated magic skill that we can all have,
Speaker 1: and that really transforms how they treat you because they
Speaker 1: like being treated that way, but they like being treated special.
Speaker 2: Jessica left the event feeling over the moon. She had
Speaker 2: proven to herself that she could not only talk to strangers,
Speaker 2: but also that it felt great. Her experiences inspired her
Speaker 2: to go even more hardcore in her quest to extrovert.
Speaker 1: I'm very much an all or nothing person, So I thought,
Speaker 1: if I'm going to do this insane year of torture
Speaker 1: and extroverting, then I'm not going to leave anything.
Speaker 2: Out exactly what torture was just planning for her introverted self.
Speaker 1: It felt like, Okay, if I can survive that, then
Speaker 1: I can survive anything.
Speaker 2: You'll find out when the happiness lab returns in a moment.
Speaker 1: I think I always thought that to be a good
Speaker 1: public speaker, you need to have total confidence when you
Speaker 1: get on stage and before you even do the thing.
Speaker 2: All if you're an introvert. Jessica Pan had always hated
Speaker 2: speaking in.
Speaker 1: Public when actually it's so obvious, but you have to
Speaker 1: be scared to do it, and then when you survive,
Speaker 1: that's where that confidence comes from, because you survive doing
Speaker 1: the scary thing.
Speaker 2: So for the pinnacle of her ear of acting like
Speaker 2: an extrovert, she decided to push herself to the limit,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 1: Thought, okay, so the final step in this is to
Speaker 1: perform for an audience where they're often encouraged to heckle you.
Speaker 2: Jessica was going to try stand up comedy. She signed
Speaker 2: up for a comedy course. When it came time for
Speaker 2: the first class, she was terrified, so terrified that she
Speaker 2: climbed into bed and assumed the fetal position. Is that
Speaker 2: not what other people do? That feels really natural to me,
Speaker 2: hoping somehow to muster the necessary courage. But that first
Speaker 2: comedy class went well, and in a few weeks it
Speaker 2: was time to perform for real.
Speaker 1: The first show I did was with my other fellow
Speaker 1: classmates and our friends and our partners at this pub
Speaker 1: downstairs in central London, and I was so nervous. I
Speaker 1: felt like, I don't know, I felt like I was
Speaker 1: on fire or something, and in a way, Jessica was
Speaker 1: on fire.
Speaker 2: She got a ton of laughs.
Speaker 1: The first performance went really well. My friend and I decided,
Speaker 1: let's go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is like
Speaker 1: the epicenter of comedy, and let's perform on an open
Speaker 1: mic night.
Speaker 2: Performing in front of a small crowd of friends and
Speaker 2: supporters at a low key gig isn't quite the same
Speaker 2: as getting up on stage at the premier comedy festival
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 1: It did not go as well.
Speaker 2: Jessica now admits that she was a bit unprepared for Edinburgh.
Speaker 1: In that particular act, I talk about living in England
Speaker 1: and loving living in England, and I forgot that Edinburgh
Speaker 1: is in Scotland, and I was like, yeah, loving and
Speaker 1: I love it here. And it was like an audience
Speaker 1: full of Scottish people who were like boo, like, get
Speaker 1: off the stage. You're not in England. And for a delicate,
Speaker 1: shy introvert, that's enough to kill you. But I didn't
Speaker 1: actually die.
Speaker 2: Jessica had made it through her year of living extrovertedly.
Speaker 2: She'd embarrassed herself on a tube train, talked candidly with
Speaker 2: strangers at parties, taken a comedy class, and had bombed
Speaker 2: in front of an angry crowd at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Speaker 2: But in spite of it all, she'd still emerged unscathed.
Speaker 1: The lesson from the year is that I learned a
Speaker 1: lot and nothing really bad happened to me.
Speaker 2: Jessica hasn't quit her day job to become a stand
Speaker 2: up regular, but she does still practice many of the
Speaker 2: social skills she learned during her year long experiment.
Speaker 1: I would say one of the biggest lessons from the
Speaker 1: year was to go deeper and be vulnerable and be
Speaker 1: willing to do it.
Speaker 5: First.
Speaker 1: Most people want to talk to you, and most people
Speaker 1: are nicer than we imagine in our heads, because I
Speaker 1: think we build up these big, scary judgments that oftentimes
Speaker 1: don't even exist.
Speaker 2: Jessica now uses a series of go to social hacks
Speaker 2: to overcome her introversion, little rules that she puts into
Speaker 2: effect whenever she feels daunted by a scary situation. The
Speaker 2: first involves breaking her usual cycle of avoidance. If she's
Speaker 2: invited to a party, she goes, and she even tries
Speaker 2: to show up early.
Speaker 1: If you show up late, everybody looks like they're already
Speaker 1: in those little clicks and circles, and you feel like
Speaker 1: you can't join in, and it's so intimidating. But if
Speaker 1: you're the first person there, like the second person there,
Speaker 1: it's not as scary.
Speaker 2: But Jessica also warns that you shouldn't underestimate the discomfort
Speaker 2: you might initially experience doing something new, and this means
Speaker 2: you need to give yourself a little self compassion and patience.
Speaker 1: You know, when you go swimming and you get in
Speaker 1: the water, it's absolutely freezing, but then your body adjusts
Speaker 1: to it and it doesn't feel so bad. I mean
Speaker 1: that's a cliche metaphor, but I think it really works.
Speaker 1: Like after you break the ice with one person, it's
Speaker 1: not as scary with the second one, and it's not
Speaker 1: scary with the third one, and by the fourth you
Speaker 1: know the life of the party.
Speaker 2: Jessica has learned to appreciate the benefits of social connection,
Speaker 2: but the extroverted habits she now engages in regularly haven't
Speaker 2: fully dismantled her true personality.
Speaker 1: I'm definitely still an introvert, like I definitely prefer to
Speaker 1: be at home or in a small group of people.
Speaker 1: But I now know I can give a speech, I
Speaker 1: can talk to a stranger, and that hard won social
Speaker 1: confidence that came from this year long experiment has had
Speaker 1: a big impact on Jessica's well being. I had more friends,
Speaker 1: I had less anxiety. I you know, in my neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Now I talk to tons of people. I recognize lots
Speaker 1: of people. That feels like the small little village in
Speaker 1: central London. I was a lot happier by the end
Speaker 1: of the year.
Speaker 2: When Jessica first encountered the extroverted psychologist Nick Eppley, she
Speaker 2: was floored by the ease with which he talked to
Speaker 2: complete strangers and how quickly he struck up friendships with
Speaker 2: the workers he met in stores and cafe. Jessica didn't
Speaker 2: think she'd ever be that comfortable in getting to know
Speaker 2: strangers herself, but a year into her experiment, she had
Speaker 2: really changed. A barista in her local coffee shop was
Speaker 2: one of the first to notice.
Speaker 1: And he said, I remember when he used to come
Speaker 1: in here, like a long time ago. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that too, and he said, you didn't talk
Speaker 1: it to us ever, like anybody, and I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: that's correct. And he's like, now you're like friends with
Speaker 1: each other and I was like, yeah, exactly. And you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't say here's the book and here's why, but
Speaker 1: he had noticed it. And it was really strange to
Speaker 1: be perceived as an extrovert. And by the end I
Speaker 1: just thought, I don't even recognize myself and I don't
Speaker 1: mean like that I was pretending to be someone else,
Speaker 1: or that I wasn't being true to myself. But it
Speaker 1: was more like I haven't let these fears and anxieties
Speaker 1: shackle me to the person I've always been. That I
Speaker 1: felt like I had grown and I had changed.
Speaker 2: The science shows that we can all enjoy the well
Speaker 2: being boost that comes from social connection, no matter what
Speaker 2: our personality type is. But to get those social connection benefits,
Speaker 2: we need to actually connect with the people around us,
Speaker 2: whether we know them well or not. So why not
Speaker 2: push yourself and get a little more social. You could
Speaker 2: talk to a local cashier, or a barista, or the
Speaker 2: person sitting next to you on your commute, and when
Speaker 2: you dive into conversation, try to push past the shallow
Speaker 2: stuff and get to topics that feel a little deeper.
Speaker 2: And remember psychologist Nick Epley's insight that not everyone waves,
Speaker 2: but people usually wave back. I hope this episode has
Speaker 2: given you some tips on how to extrovert a bit more,
Speaker 2: even and perhaps especially if it doesn't come to you naturally,
Speaker 2: And I hope you'll join me again next week for
Speaker 2: more in our series on getting more social. Next time
Speaker 2: on the Happiness Lab, with me, Doctor Laurie Santos