Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology.
Speaker 2: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
Speaker 2: the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in
Speaker 2: the world, it is so great to have you here.
Speaker 2: Back for another episode today, I have something a little
Speaker 2: bit different for you. I'm really excited about this because
Speaker 2: it is not what we typically do on the show.
Speaker 2: Most weeks, we pick two topics that we encounter in
Speaker 2: our twenties and we break down the psychology behind them.
Speaker 2: Obviously you guys know this, But this week I want
Speaker 2: to do the reverse. I want to start with the
Speaker 2: psychology and the research and the studies and show how
Speaker 2: that applies to our lives. So yeah, I thought it
Speaker 2: would be a little bit fun. In all honesty, I
Speaker 2: have been experiencing a bit of a creative block recently,
Speaker 2: and I thought kind of the best way to counteract
Speaker 2: that is to just get back to the core of
Speaker 2: why I love this podcast and this job, which is
Speaker 2: because of the science and how fascinating human behavior and
Speaker 2: psychology is, and how as humans we are really really
Speaker 2: you know, great and really creative at observing this and
Speaker 2: measuring this and you know, studying ourselves also. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes there isn't enough space in an episode or a season,
Speaker 2: or it's like kind of never the right time to
Speaker 2: bring up a study that I'd love and want to share.
Speaker 2: So that's what we're going to do today. I'm going
Speaker 2: to talk about my five favorite psychology papers psychology studies
Speaker 2: of all time and what they can tell us about
Speaker 2: our twenties. Now, these five studies that I have for
Speaker 2: you today, they are not going to be like your
Speaker 2: classic psychology studies that people tend to think of. I
Speaker 2: think we all have some idea of you know, have
Speaker 2: Havelov's Dogs and the Stanford prison experiment and the bystander
Speaker 2: effect or the Bobo Doll study. I think that those
Speaker 2: are part of our like regular psychobabble and like collective memory.
Speaker 2: But I want to go a little bit deeper, kind
Speaker 2: of pass the classics into not the every day but
Speaker 2: into the stuff that you would typically stay like published
Speaker 2: in a journal in this day and age, the studies
Speaker 2: that don't necessarily make headlines, even if they deserve to
Speaker 2: I have a study on jam, I have a study
Speaker 2: on friendship, one on mental escapism and binge watching television shows.
Speaker 2: I've got one on gender and imposter syndrome. And as
Speaker 2: a finale, my favorite study on something totally out of
Speaker 2: left field, really, which is the ocean and the ancient
Speaker 2: Greek concept of the lasso therapy. Okay, reading that through,
Speaker 2: I'm like, that's quite a mix back. But hopefully there
Speaker 2: is like something for everybody, there's something for you to learn.
Speaker 2: I'm so pumped to get into it and hopefully just
Speaker 2: give you some fun new party facts, some fun new
Speaker 2: psychology trivia. So let's get into it. So, I know
Speaker 2: I promised some lesser known studies, but I'm going to
Speaker 2: start off with the most well known one that I
Speaker 2: kind of have for you. It is known as the
Speaker 2: Stanford Jam experiment. If you are a longtime listener of
Speaker 2: the show, I have talked about this before, but never
Speaker 2: in its entirety. You would kind of think of all
Speaker 2: the ways that we can study human psychology, that a
Speaker 2: condiment we put on toast isn't going to be one
Speaker 2: of them. But I think psychologists and research is one
Speaker 2: thing that they do have is like a very creative
Speaker 2: knack for fine really like different ways to observe decision
Speaker 2: making and human behavior and consumer choices using things that
Speaker 2: seem quite ubiquitous. So the Stanford Jam experiment, it is
Speaker 2: a classic study and it was conducted at Stanford University
Speaker 2: by Sheena Yeager and Mark Lepper in nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 2: so thirty years ago. And this study is essentially what
Speaker 2: created the concept of the paradox of choice. So in
Speaker 2: this experiment, they wanted to observe shoppers, grocery store shoppers
Speaker 2: at an upstet supermarket. And how they did that was
Speaker 2: they presented them with the tasting booth where they could
Speaker 2: sample different flavors of jam. You know, we've all seen
Speaker 2: that at like Costco or the grocery store, some new
Speaker 2: product that they have, you get to have a free sample.
Speaker 2: And so what they did was they set up two
Speaker 2: kind of stores, one on day one and one also
Speaker 2: one on the first weekend, and then the next weekend
Speaker 2: they came back. So in the first weekend, which was
Speaker 2: the first condition, the researchers offered a display with a
Speaker 2: limited selection of six different jams. You know, your strawberry,
Speaker 2: your marmalade, your classics. In the second condition, the weekend after,
Speaker 2: they offered a much larger selection of twenty four gems.
Speaker 2: What they wanted to see was how likely people were
Speaker 2: to purchase a gem in each of these conditions. So
Speaker 2: basically they were observing investigating how the number of choices
Speaker 2: we are presented affects our ability to make decisions and
Speaker 2: to be satisfied with our choices. I think, from a
Speaker 2: surface level, like intuitively, you would think that when people
Speaker 2: had more jam, they were more likely to make a purchase.
Speaker 2: They were more likely to buy a jam because there
Speaker 2: was a greater chance that the jars one of the
Speaker 2: flavors matched their preferences. But actually, although people were more
Speaker 2: attracted to the store when there were a larger number
Speaker 2: of jams, people asked for more tasters, fewer people actually
Speaker 2: made a purchase compared to when there was a smaller
Speaker 2: assortment of only six jams. The second part of these
Speaker 2: findings was that those people who had more options on
Speaker 2: the first weekend were actually a lot less satisfied with
Speaker 2: their choice, and they were more likely to regret it.
Speaker 2: So when they went and talked to them afterwards and
Speaker 2: they said, oh, was there another germ that you would
Speaker 2: have wanted. How happy are you with your choice? How
Speaker 2: excited are you with your new jam? They'd be like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, pretty good. I don't know, though, there seems
Speaker 2: to be like maybe I should have gotten this other one.
Speaker 2: What if the strawberry was going to be better than
Speaker 2: the raspberry? Whereas with the people who had purchased when
Speaker 2: there were only six jams, they didn't seem to have
Speaker 2: that same level of back and forth with themselves. So
Speaker 2: this experiment really highlighted the concept of choice overload, where
Speaker 2: when we have too many options, this can actually lead
Speaker 2: to decision paralysis, decrease satisfaction, and even avoidance of making
Speaker 2: a decision altogether because we have too much to consider.
Speaker 2: More options might seem like more freedom, but it actually
Speaker 2: feels quite restrictive because unconsciously, I think we feel as
Speaker 2: if we are more likely to make the wrong choice
Speaker 2: given we have more options, and therefore we don't make
Speaker 2: one at all. So this has so much application to
Speaker 2: our twenties you wouldn't believe it. I think dating apps
Speaker 2: are the first example I like to think of because
Speaker 2: they are so commonplace in this day and age. Most
Speaker 2: of us have encountered dating apps in some form, and
Speaker 2: the thing about them is that they give us so
Speaker 2: many options and choices. We have like endless matches and
Speaker 2: our fingertips. If the first person you see on those
Speaker 2: apps isn't the one, the next person might be, and
Speaker 2: if they're not, you have another person, and another person
Speaker 2: and another shot after that. But that can actually be
Speaker 2: really overwhelming because everybody we encounter begins to lose their appeal.
Speaker 2: The whole process becomes very paralyzing because we have choice overload.
Speaker 2: We have too many people to consider. We get too
Speaker 2: paralyzed by the possibility of wait, was that person the one?
Speaker 2: But what about this person or the next person or
Speaker 2: the next person, And so we don't end up going
Speaker 2: on dates or meeting in person, or really engaging with
Speaker 2: any of our candidates because it's hard to choose between them.
Speaker 2: It's hard to feel satisfied with any one person and
Speaker 2: want to pursue it further. Another important application is our
Speaker 2: career choices. I think this is a common experience. There
Speaker 2: are so many lives that we want to live, especially
Speaker 2: in our twenties, when like the world feels very open
Speaker 2: to us, there are so many future versions of ourselves
Speaker 2: we want to realize that it can feel I think
Speaker 2: quite impossible to choose just one and feel satisfied for that.
Speaker 2: Do we go the traditional route, do we take a
Speaker 2: gap year, do we do our masters? Do we want
Speaker 2: to be more entrepreneurial, Do we want to start our
Speaker 2: own business, work for ourselves, work for a company that
Speaker 2: has security, or do something totally out of the ordinary,
Speaker 2: you know, become an artist or a zookeeper, whatever. I
Speaker 2: think the example is that our twenties are brimming with
Speaker 2: opportunity and that is such a blessing. But the more
Speaker 2: decisions we make when it comes to our careers, the
Speaker 2: more doors I think seem to close. So it makes
Speaker 2: it quite stressful and confronting, and intuitively, we don't want
Speaker 2: to make a decision or make a choice and feel
Speaker 2: like we're limiting ourselves. And that is, you know, a
Speaker 2: real life example of this jam experiment. So my next
Speaker 2: study is about another core aspect of our twenties. It's
Speaker 2: about friendship and how many friends we need to actually
Speaker 2: feel fulfilled, feel satisfied and to boost our wellbeing. So
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen, a thirty year longitudinal study out of
Speaker 2: the University of Rochester was published in the Journal of
Speaker 2: Psychology and aging. Thirty years, that's how long it had taken,
Speaker 2: and it determined that in our twenties it is actually
Speaker 2: the quantity of friends that we have, whilst in our
Speaker 2: thirties it's the quality that seems to matter when it
Speaker 2: comes to our psychological wellbeing. Essentially, what this study kind
Speaker 2: of suggested or concluded is that in our twenties we
Speaker 2: should actually be focused on building a large, expansive network,
Speaker 2: even if not everybody is hand selected and our best friend,
Speaker 2: whereas in our thirties it's about prune those relationships, being
Speaker 2: comfortable with some of them fading, and really seeking out
Speaker 2: quality friendship over quantity. So how did they conclude this?
Speaker 2: This research, like I said, published in twenty fifteen, so
Speaker 2: only ten years ago, but it began in the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: So the researcher Paul Duberstein. He is a psychiatry professor
Speaker 2: at the University of Rochester, and he followed one hundred
Speaker 2: students who were once students at the university, so they
Speaker 2: were once students, not anymore. He followed one hundred ex
Speaker 2: students alumni from when they were students through their twenties,
Speaker 2: their thirties and their forties now. At multiple points in
Speaker 2: their twenties and thirties, they were asked to record their
Speaker 2: daily interactions with others and to score them on intimacy
Speaker 2: and unpleasantness. So they weren't doing this like all the time,
Speaker 2: he would kind of like pop back up to them
Speaker 2: for just a small period and say, hey, I just
Speaker 2: needed to take some notes on this for a couple
Speaker 2: days or for a week. Decades later, he got back
Speaker 2: in touch with them and he asked them some questions
Speaker 2: relating to their psychological well being, their sense of loneliness,
Speaker 2: and quality of friendship. And what they found was that
Speaker 2: having too many friends at thirty was actually a bit
Speaker 2: of a problem because it could prevent you from developing
Speaker 2: meaningful relationships. But on the flip side, just meeting more
Speaker 2: people in your twenties, regardless of the depth of your
Speaker 2: interactions and your relationships, that kind of has its own merits.
Speaker 2: So what does this study tell us about friendship in
Speaker 2: our twenties. I think it tells us two things. The
Speaker 2: first thing is that you don't need to be too
Speaker 2: worried about meeting your best friend at this age. If
Speaker 2: you're in your twenties, you don't need to be concerned
Speaker 2: by the fact that you haven't found your people yet,
Speaker 2: because you have time. And it seems that this decade
Speaker 2: is about prioritizing just getting out there right, just having
Speaker 2: those situational friendships, those fleeting moments, even if they don't last.
Speaker 2: Our thirties are the decade for quality friendship and for
Speaker 2: kind of fine tuning and deepening those pre existing relationships.
Speaker 2: I will say that a small problem with this research
Speaker 2: was that it was mainly conducted before the invention of
Speaker 2: social media. Things have changed a lot now, so it
Speaker 2: would be really fascinating to see how these results may
Speaker 2: shift as we have more interactions online, and you know,
Speaker 2: face to face interactions aren't always the norm for catching
Speaker 2: up and communicating and chatting with our friends. I think
Speaker 2: one way you could adapt this study is to kind
Speaker 2: of like download software onto participants phones that monitors who
Speaker 2: they talk to on social media, whether they speak to
Speaker 2: the same five people or like a broad community, and
Speaker 2: then see how that relates to wellbeing in our twenties
Speaker 2: or thirties, or whether it's the quantity of interactions like
Speaker 2: dictated by social media versus the quality which we would
Speaker 2: kind of assume come from in person interactions that count.
Speaker 2: I don't know, just an interesting way of like adapting
Speaker 2: this to a modern context, because I think it could
Speaker 2: really tell us a lot more. If you want to
Speaker 2: read about this study, any of the studies, I really
Speaker 2: would recommend the article in the description. So our third
Speaker 2: study is entirely different. We are switching gears away from
Speaker 2: our careers and friendship and relationships to our TVs, to
Speaker 2: our laptops. We're going to talk about binge watching, mental escapism, loneliness,
Speaker 2: how those three things are correlated or have a relationship
Speaker 2: to each other. I was having this conversation with my
Speaker 2: friends the other day that the way TV shows are
Speaker 2: released these days makes them so much easier to binge
Speaker 2: watch and consume rapidly. I don't know if if you're
Speaker 2: in your twenties, like in your mid late twenties, you
Speaker 2: will remember when like Gossip Girl and gleebe would come
Speaker 2: out and you would have to like wait each week
Speaker 2: for the next episode, and then they would like take
Speaker 2: a two week break, like randomly over Christmas or in
Speaker 2: the summertime, and you would have to watch like Simpson's
Speaker 2: reruns or whatever it was. Nowadays, like the whole thing
Speaker 2: comes out all at once, and companies like Netflix and
Speaker 2: Hulu and Apple, Amazon Prime, they're really focused on like
Speaker 2: these mini series that we can consume really quickly and
Speaker 2: then immediately go looking for something else. I'm gonna admit
Speaker 2: I'm into it. I just finished Baby Reindeer on Netflix.
Speaker 2: I'm like captivated. I got through it in three days,
Speaker 2: and it's kind of one of those behaviors that you
Speaker 2: just fall into. I think that it's a lot more
Speaker 2: common though, amongst people who are seeking a kind of
Speaker 2: mental escapism from their daily lives, whether that's because their
Speaker 2: jobs aren't going well, they're lonely, something else is going on,
Speaker 2: their relationship is breaking down. We turned to binge watching
Speaker 2: as a form of mental escapism. So the study I
Speaker 2: want to talk about that discovered this correlation was published
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one and it's titled Loneliness, Escapism, and
Speaker 2: Identification with Media Characters. An Exploration of the psychological factors
Speaker 2: underlying binge watching tendency. Okay, bit of a mouthful. So
Speaker 2: in this study, they had a sample of four hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety individuals mainly from the UK and the United States,
Speaker 2: and they were asked about their typical media usage and
Speaker 2: how many hours they spent watching TV, along with which
Speaker 2: streaming services they were using that you know, could include
Speaker 2: any of them, you know, like we said, Amazon, Netflix,
Speaker 2: stand they just wanted to know. They were then measured
Speaker 2: for loneliness using the UCLA Loneliness Scale and a binge
Speaker 2: watching tendency test, which is a real thing we can
Speaker 2: measure how likely you are to binge watch a TV show.
Speaker 2: It asks questions like I always need to watch more
Speaker 2: episodes to feel satisfied. Do you strongly agree or strongly disagree?
Speaker 2: I keep watching even when I have other things I
Speaker 2: need to do. I avoid sleep to keep watching my
Speaker 2: TV series. Those are kind of the questions that operationalize
Speaker 2: this concept of binge watching. So when the researchers looked
Speaker 2: at the results, what they found was that higher feelings
Speaker 2: of loneliness are associated with higher levels of problematic binge
Speaker 2: watching behaviors an excessive TV consumption. This was interpreted as
Speaker 2: a form of mental escapism, wanting a mental break from
Speaker 2: your daily life by seeking solace in something that is
Speaker 2: entirely different. And the reason why this kind of behavior
Speaker 2: would be so common amongst those who were looking for
Speaker 2: a mental escape is because binge watching is so low
Speaker 2: effort and undemanding, but it provides a really engaging distraction
Speaker 2: even when our mental energy reserves are super depleted and
Speaker 2: we're super drained. I actually think that binge watching is
Speaker 2: an activity that it's easier to continue than to quit.
Speaker 2: Right Like, when you're approaching the end of an episode,
Speaker 2: the next one is immediately going to play, meaning that
Speaker 2: it's more demanding for you to stop and turn the
Speaker 2: TV off than it is to just continue the show.
Speaker 2: I also think that when we continually watch the same
Speaker 2: kind of TV series that features the same characters, the
Speaker 2: same plots, the same locations, it's less cognitively demanding than
Speaker 2: switching to other activities, which is why when we're going
Speaker 2: through I think, tough, lonely, draining periods of burnout, whatever
Speaker 2: it is, we are more likely to turn to you know,
Speaker 2: television or mini series or Netflix for comfort. Media companies
Speaker 2: leverage this. They know we have a lot going on,
Speaker 2: and they know that if they provide a comfortable place
Speaker 2: for our brains to relax, we'll keep coming back, even
Speaker 2: if it's at the expense of other things we want
Speaker 2: to do with our days, with our lives. What can
Speaker 2: we kind of take from this well. I think it's
Speaker 2: about being aware of the why. Why can't we stop?
Speaker 2: Why do we have to watch the whole thing in
Speaker 2: one night? Why does so many of us find it
Speaker 2: easier to kind of switch off in this way and
Speaker 2: stay that way for hours then to do something more
Speaker 2: active in our lives. I don't think that it's always
Speaker 2: necessarily a bad thing, but when it does become a
Speaker 2: form of mental escapism, whereby it's like you're kind of
Speaker 2: sitting into a whole new reality, You're completely switching off
Speaker 2: from your life. You're trying not to engage with what's
Speaker 2: actually going on in your every day, that can be
Speaker 2: quite problematic. I really love this study so much. I
Speaker 2: think it makes a lot of sense. Right. We find
Speaker 2: so much comfort in TV shows in the media, in binge,
Speaker 2: watching something repetitive or something that we know, or something
Speaker 2: that has just come out and as exciting and novel,
Speaker 2: But sometimes we don't really think about the why behind
Speaker 2: our excessive consumption behaviors. So it's a fascinating one. Again,
Speaker 2: it will be in the description. So far we've covered
Speaker 2: my top three. We have two left, and we're going
Speaker 2: to get to them after this short break, so stay
Speaker 2: with us. I think we've all heard about the idea
Speaker 2: of imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome refers to a psychological pattern
Speaker 2: where individuals like you and I doubt our accomplishments and
Speaker 2: we have a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud,
Speaker 2: as a liar despite the evidence of our competence and
Speaker 2: of our success in the fact that we are intelligent people,
Speaker 2: we feel really undeserving. We feel like our successes and
Speaker 2: achievements all come down to luck or external factors rather
Speaker 2: than our own abilities, and therefore we're constantly in a
Speaker 2: state of fear that people are going to figure out
Speaker 2: that we really don't know what we're doing. This is
Speaker 2: such a common feeling, and it's also such a well
Speaker 2: known term that I don't think we actually know where
Speaker 2: it comes from. So this brings me to study number four,
Speaker 2: The Imposter Phenomenon in High Achieving Women, Dynamics and Therapeutic Intervention.
Speaker 2: That is the title of this article of this study
Speaker 2: that was conducted at Georgia State University once again back
Speaker 2: in the seventies, in nineteen seventy eight. So this research
Speaker 2: and analysis it focused one hundred and fifty highly successful women,
Speaker 2: women who had earned PhDs, who were respected doctors, professors
Speaker 2: recognize for the academic success. They were at the top
Speaker 2: of their field, and they were all linked not just
Speaker 2: by their achievements, but this paralyzing sense that they didn't
Speaker 2: deserve any of it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. So,
Speaker 2: for example, in this study, these two researchers, doctor Paulin Klanz,
Speaker 2: doctor Susan Immis, they spoke to these women, these one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty women, and some of the statements and
Speaker 2: self reports that they collected during this study included these
Speaker 2: students who were like absolutely convinced that there had been
Speaker 2: some like administrative eraror in admitting them to like a
Speaker 2: really prestigious college. There were heaps of graduate students who
Speaker 2: had really high exam scores and they would say to
Speaker 2: them full honestly, like they believed this to their core,
Speaker 2: that something must have happened. Their scores were wrong, their
Speaker 2: papers had been misgraded, there was faulty judgment by the professor.
Speaker 2: There were also professors and doctors who would say, some
Speaker 2: mistake was made in my selection process that gave me
Speaker 2: my tenure, or obviously I'm in this position because my
Speaker 2: abilities have been overestimated. There was another woman with two
Speaker 2: master's degrees, a PhD, numerous publications who was a lecturer,
Speaker 2: and she basically said, I'm unqualified to teach. This was
Speaker 2: a mistake. This is just luck. Somebody is obviously screwed up,
Speaker 2: and when they find out, I'm in big trouble. This
Speaker 2: seemed so irrational and bizarre to these researchers because it
Speaker 2: just seemed that all of the evidence was there. These
Speaker 2: women should be totally secure in their accomplishments and where
Speaker 2: they were in their lives. But within the context of
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies, they kind of hypothesized that the reason
Speaker 2: women were experiencing this like syndrome more than men was
Speaker 2: because of how they were socialized at the time to
Speaker 2: be humble, to be meek, to not be intelligent, to
Speaker 2: not take credit for their successes, whereas men were allowed
Speaker 2: to be the heroes. They were allowed to be confident,
Speaker 2: if not arrogant, and celebrate themselves publicly for their successes
Speaker 2: and their achievements. They also kind of speculated that because
Speaker 2: at the time, women weren't super common in these high profile,
Speaker 2: exceptional academic and professional environments, they didn't really have a
Speaker 2: narrative for their success because it seemed so unexpected compared
Speaker 2: to those around them, So the most natural conclusion was
Speaker 2: that it must be a fluke. The other thing they
Speaker 2: also sought an explanation in was family dynamics and the
Speaker 2: childhood that these women had, And this is a component
Speaker 2: of imposter syndrome. I think people don't typically know about
Speaker 2: how imposter syndrome really does have its roots in our infancy,
Speaker 2: in our childhood, in our adolescence. What they concluded was
Speaker 2: that these quote unquote impostors, they typically fell into one
Speaker 2: of two groups. They fell into a group of high
Speaker 2: achievers or the designated kind of intelligent member of the family,
Speaker 2: or they were the sensitive member of the family, not
Speaker 2: particularly special, not really made to shine. So the intelligent
Speaker 2: child constantly worked to meet their family prophecy that they
Speaker 2: were brilliant. She was told numerous examples of how she
Speaker 2: had always been bright, how she was such a quick learner,
Speaker 2: how she excelled from an early age. In the family
Speaker 2: member's eyes, I think she's perfect. They lavish her with praise,
Speaker 2: But then she encounters things the older she gets that
Speaker 2: she can't do, and so she begins to doubt her abilities.
Speaker 2: She no longer lives up to this like perfection with
Speaker 2: ease idea that her parents and her family have pushed
Speaker 2: on her. And if she's not the genius that she
Speaker 2: was always told she was, she's an intellectual impostor. That
Speaker 2: was group one of these women who were experiencing impost syndrome.
Speaker 2: They were the women who, since young age, you know,
Speaker 2: were lucky enough to have parents and family who really
Speaker 2: celebrated them, perhaps too much so to the point where
Speaker 2: they kind of had a too big to fail mentality.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, they had this other group of
Speaker 2: women who were experiencing imposter syndrome, who were kind of
Speaker 2: always second, who were always runner up compared to the
Speaker 2: bride sibling. They could never really impress their parents. Their
Speaker 2: achievements and performance and accolades were never really seen as
Speaker 2: that special to like directly quote from the article, these
Speaker 2: women in one domain really crave validation and keep pushing
Speaker 2: to prove their intellectual competence, kind of in rebellion of
Speaker 2: what their parents and their family has always said. But
Speaker 2: on the other hand, they also think that their family
Speaker 2: must be correct. So this woman secretly doubts her intellect
Speaker 2: and begins to wonder whether she has actually gained high
Speaker 2: marks because of her social skills, because she has tricked people,
Speaker 2: because there's been a mistake. And so the imposter syndrome
Speaker 2: emerges from a constantly wanting to prove that she is intelligent,
Speaker 2: that she is worthy, that she is successful, but then
Speaker 2: having that self doubt that comes from that inner voice
Speaker 2: her parents have instilled in her that she isn't smart enough,
Speaker 2: that she doesn't deserve this. I really love this study
Speaker 2: because it was honestly one of the first ever academic
Speaker 2: pieces of research that focused on successful women and their
Speaker 2: psychology and their upbringing. And it was conducted again by
Speaker 2: two really amazing female doctors and female psychologists who went
Speaker 2: on to create that term through this research, that term
Speaker 2: imposta syndrome that is now like a huge part of
Speaker 2: our collectives, psychobabble, and our language. But when you really
Speaker 2: look into it further and you actually read their analysis
Speaker 2: and their suggestions, there are so many more fascinating conclusions
Speaker 2: than most of us are aware of. And I think
Speaker 2: we like to throw around the term imposter syndrome, but
Speaker 2: there is a lot of depth behind that, a lot
Speaker 2: of fascinating history and of course psychology that this study
Speaker 2: really goes into, so honestly, it is worth reading. The
Speaker 2: first time I came across it, it genuinely changed so
Speaker 2: much about how how I kind of saw myself, how
Speaker 2: I saw my friends, my family, my childhood, my present
Speaker 2: day insecurities and self doubts. Again it will be in
Speaker 2: the description. So this brings us to our fifth and
Speaker 2: final study of the day, and I want to end
Speaker 2: on something kind of positive and beautiful and joyful. So
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about a study that really articulates
Speaker 2: some of the beauty and nice parts about being human
Speaker 2: and kind of the fact that we are really connected
Speaker 2: to nature and all living things around us. So the
Speaker 2: whole subdiscipline of ecopsychology is really focused on that. And
Speaker 2: if you've listened to this episode that we did previously
Speaker 2: on the healing power of Nature, you'll know I kind
Speaker 2: of have a real soft spot for any research, any concepts,
Speaker 2: any theories that emphasizes our relationship and the importance of
Speaker 2: being outdoors and rewilding our minds and our bodies. I
Speaker 2: also grew up really close to the ocean. It was
Speaker 2: such like a significant part of my childhood, like going
Speaker 2: down to burly heads and crumb and waters in the
Speaker 2: Gold Coast, and the sea is like one of those
Speaker 2: places that I feel very comfortable in and at peace,
Speaker 2: and I think it's you know, tangent here. But it's
Speaker 2: a really huge blessing to have grown up like in
Speaker 2: a country that has such a huge beach culture and
Speaker 2: like access to this natural asset. And the thing that
Speaker 2: I've always found is that being by the ocean is
Speaker 2: one of the easiest ways to reduce my stress levels,
Speaker 2: to reset, to bring about perspective in my life. My
Speaker 2: dad used to always say that, like the ocean is
Speaker 2: nature's natural healer and eases or wounds physical and mental.
Speaker 2: And this study I'm about to tell you about actually
Speaker 2: seems to provide some science and some evidence for that.
Speaker 2: So this study was conducted in Japan and is titled
Speaker 2: the Effects of Coastal Environment on Well Being. So they
Speaker 2: wanted to know whether living by the ocean was better
Speaker 2: for your health and better especially for your emotional and
Speaker 2: psychological health. And they did this by comparing five hundred
Speaker 2: and eighteen residents from the Heogo Prefecture, which is where
Speaker 2: Kobe is the origin of Kobe beef, and they compared
Speaker 2: people in this area who lived by the sea and
Speaker 2: people who lived inland and in the major cities, and
Speaker 2: what they found was this, people by the seaside seemed
Speaker 2: a whole lot happier. They reported higher positive psychological effects
Speaker 2: of the ocean. This was particularly the case for women
Speaker 2: and elderly residents, but actually in general there was not
Speaker 2: a single person who wasn't happier living by the sea,
Speaker 2: and they wanted to know why this was well. I
Speaker 2: think the argument they made is that the coast is
Speaker 2: a therapeutic landscape. It brought upon really important and strong
Speaker 2: feelings of restoration of awe and a peace of mind,
Speaker 2: which it seemed harder for people who lived in big
Speaker 2: cities to achieve. And that all kind of contributed to
Speaker 2: a greater sense of mental well being. Access to the ocean,
Speaker 2: to the sea, to the coast. It also seemed to
Speaker 2: play part in this sense of like magnitude and the
Speaker 2: sense that we are small, but because of that, what
Speaker 2: we're doing doesn't really matter, if that makes sense, So
Speaker 2: it feels quite existential, but actually it was quite liberating.
Speaker 2: There was also to follow that up and other paper
Speaker 2: that looked into this original study, and it found that
Speaker 2: there is a more neurological impact of the ocean in
Speaker 2: our psychology. Staring at the sea, staring at the waves
Speaker 2: literally changes our brain wave frequency. It kind of puts
Speaker 2: us in a mild meditative state that has a relaxing
Speaker 2: effect on all of our senses. When we allow ourselves
Speaker 2: to kind of watch the ebb and flow of the swell,
Speaker 2: that has a genuine impact on our brain wave frequency,
Speaker 2: on our brain activity. This may be a recent study,
Speaker 2: but it's not a recent concept. There is a Greek
Speaker 2: idea known as the Lasser therapy, which stems from the
Speaker 2: Greek word the lassa meaning sea and therapy. Basically, the
Speaker 2: ancient Greek believed that the ocean had genuine healing properties.
Speaker 2: And I kind of have to agree it encompassed like
Speaker 2: this whole range of treatments, Like the Lasser therapy was
Speaker 2: like a genuine kind of like treatment plan you could
Speaker 2: get from your ancient Greek doctor, and it included things
Speaker 2: like seawater baths, marine mud raps, seaweed raps, inhalation of
Speaker 2: sea miss and these treatments were believed to have various benefits,
Speaker 2: not just physical. They thought they helped with circulation, with
Speaker 2: relieving muscle tension, with kind of detoxifying the body. But
Speaker 2: on a psychological and mental level, it also helped promote relaxation,
Speaker 2: and it brought about a level of mental clarity and
Speaker 2: peace for these individuals that is so valuable even to
Speaker 2: this day for our emotional state. I got to say,
Speaker 2: I love this study so much because it really highlights
Speaker 2: how important nature is for our health, which is something
Speaker 2: that I think we tend to neglect as cities become
Speaker 2: more concrete, more industrialized, our life becomes busier, and we
Speaker 2: are naturally kind of separated from the natural environments that
Speaker 2: we evolved in. I think it's also a good reminder
Speaker 2: that if you're feeling a bit restless, a bit unsettled,
Speaker 2: a bit unsure about your future, about your current state
Speaker 2: of affairs, if you're kind of looking for meaning, you're
Speaker 2: looking for peace, the ocean is a really good place
Speaker 2: to go. It is such a restorative environment. I always
Speaker 2: say you never regret a swim in the ocean, and
Speaker 2: I think that's true. I think it's true because when
Speaker 2: you are like very much immersed in this natural environment,
Speaker 2: you feel very small, but that allows you to feel
Speaker 2: very free and it allows you to really slow down
Speaker 2: from a lot of the industrial you know, hustle, culture,
Speaker 2: rise and grind, mentality, and like focus in on the
Speaker 2: fact that you are human, the fact that everything's going
Speaker 2: to be okay, the fact that you know you have
Speaker 2: this place for rest and this place for peace where
Speaker 2: nature doesn't care about you, and isn't that kind of
Speaker 2: like a beauty full, beautiful thing. So that was the
Speaker 2: final study that I had for you today. I really
Speaker 2: hope that you enjoyed this. This was actually so fun
Speaker 2: for me. I think it's so rare that I get
Speaker 2: to really break into like specific articles and studies and
Speaker 2: spend like some serious time on them, let alone getting
Speaker 2: to do that for five of my favorites. So I
Speaker 2: really hope that you learned something. I hope that you
Speaker 2: picked up maybe a new word, a new piece of
Speaker 2: psychology trivia, a new thing to bring up at work,
Speaker 2: bring up to your friends, bring up to your family.
Speaker 2: And as always, if you did enjoy this episode, please
Speaker 2: feel free to share it with a friend or give
Speaker 2: us five stars on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening.
Speaker 2: It really does help the show grow, and if you
Speaker 2: enjoy this content, it would be great if it reached
Speaker 2: new audiences and new people, so make sure you're following along,
Speaker 2: make sure you're subscribed. If you have something to contribute
Speaker 2: based on this disc if you have a favorite psychology
Speaker 2: study that you want me to talk about, if you
Speaker 2: have anything to say about the ones I've already spoken about,
Speaker 2: please feel free to reach out to me on Instagram
Speaker 2: at that Psychology Podcast, also with episode suggestions. I love
Speaker 2: hearing from you guys. I love getting your feedback, so
Speaker 2: make sure you're following us there as well, and as always,
Speaker 2: be kind, be gentle to yourselves, and we'll talk very
Speaker 2: soon