Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll also provide a glimpse into human possibility. Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening and enjoy the podcast. Right now, I'm excited to
Speaker 1: introduce my guests for today, Gretchen Ruben. Gretchen is the
Speaker 1: author of several books, including the New York Times bestsellers
Speaker 1: Better Than Before, The Happiness Project, and Happier at Home.
Speaker 1: She has an enormous readership both in print and online,
Speaker 1: and her books I've sold almost three million copies worldwide
Speaker 1: and more than thirty languages. On our popular weekly podcast,
Speaker 1: Happier with Gretchen Rubin, she just us as good habits
Speaker 1: and happiness. With our sister Elizabeth Kraft, they've been called
Speaker 1: the click and Clack of podcasters. Gretchen's podcast was named
Speaker 1: in iTunes list of Best Podcasts of twenty fifteen and
Speaker 1: was named in the Academy of Podcasters Best Podcasts of
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. Congratulations Gretchen and all. Oh, well, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm very happy to be talking to me today. I'm
Speaker 1: very happy to talk to you too. And I should
Speaker 1: add your latest book is The Four Tendencies, which is
Speaker 1: going to be the topic of discussion for today. It's
Speaker 1: also congratulations on the release of the new book. Quite
Speaker 1: a few really impactful creative projects, and I really like
Speaker 1: the Happiness Project and it does tales quite nicely with
Speaker 1: my course, so there's kind of a nice congruence there. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, let's first talk about this pattern of your interest.
Speaker 1: So you spend year studying happiness and habits. So are
Speaker 1: you only interested in things to start with h or
Speaker 1: is there any the greater pattern there? Yeah? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: committed to a literation now. Really my subject, which also
Speaker 1: starts of age, is human nature. You know, I've written
Speaker 1: nine books I had written. The Happy to Project was
Speaker 1: like my fourth book, and from the outside they all
Speaker 1: look very different from each other. But really what it
Speaker 1: is is I'm just constantly trying to understand human nature.
Speaker 1: Why are we the way we are? What allows us
Speaker 1: to change? Why do we do the things we do
Speaker 1: and we don't do the things that we want to
Speaker 1: do or think we ought to do. So happiness is
Speaker 1: part of that, habits is part of that, and the
Speaker 1: four tendencies. I discovered it as I was trying to
Speaker 1: understand patterns and how people behaved. So it's really human
Speaker 1: nature is my deep subject. Well, we definitely bond over
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Yeah, so I want to really unpack
Speaker 1: what you mean by that you discovered this. I took
Speaker 1: your test. Okay, so I am a questioner. Ah, okay.
Speaker 1: So there is a quiz for people who want to
Speaker 1: take it at happiercast dot com slash quiz where people
Speaker 1: can find out it'll tell you what your tendency is.
Speaker 1: Though usually I have to say people can tell what
Speaker 1: they are from a very brief description. Like if I
Speaker 1: just described the four people can pick out themselves and
Speaker 1: other people pretty easily because they're very stark. It turns
Speaker 1: out pretty obvious. Yeah, we'll do. We'll go through all
Speaker 1: four of them. So I am a questioner according to
Speaker 1: your test, and it says something very interesting you wrote.
Speaker 1: You said, if you're thinking, well, right now, I question
Speaker 1: the validity of the four tendencies framework. Yep, you're a
Speaker 1: questioner and not only a questioner, but a scientist. Not
Speaker 1: all scientists are questioners. Oh that's so interesting. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is really something. So the four tendencies have to
Speaker 1: do with how you respond to expectations, ad our expectations
Speaker 1: like a work deadline, and inner expectations like your own
Speaker 1: desire to keep it in your resolution. So let's say
Speaker 1: you're a questioner. We could line up fifty questioners and
Speaker 1: they would look completely different from each other, depending on
Speaker 1: how ambitious they were, how intellectual they were, how considered
Speaker 1: of other people's feelings they were, how adventurous they were,
Speaker 1: how controlling they were, how neurotic they were, how extroverted
Speaker 1: or introverted they were, they'd be very different in a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways. They'd look very different, but as
Speaker 1: to how they would feel if you asked or told
Speaker 1: them to do something, or if they asked or told
Speaker 1: themselves to do something in that way, they would be alike.
Speaker 1: If you're a questioner, you're thinking why should I? That's
Speaker 1: your first question, is you're telling me to do this?
Speaker 1: I'm telling myself to do this, Well, why should I?
Speaker 1: In that way, they would be the same. So I
Speaker 1: have a friend who's a doctor. She's a research scientist.
Speaker 1: She's incredibly analytical, she's tremendously intellectually curious, and she's an
Speaker 1: obliger because if you ask, you know, she readily meets
Speaker 1: out her expectations. That struggles to meet in her expectations,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes somebody an obliger. So this doesn't
Speaker 1: explain a lot of things about you. It only explains
Speaker 1: one very narrow thing, but it turns out to be
Speaker 1: something that is pretty significant, just presuib So if you're
Speaker 1: a scientist, you'll also question the validity of any framework,
Speaker 1: not just your framework, but probably you're trained to do that. Yeah, anything,
Speaker 1: you're trained because of the scientific method. So that's why
Speaker 1: I really want to unpack how did you just like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean when you say discover this? And
Speaker 1: in sort of what mode? Because was it through the
Speaker 1: scientific method or some other method? You know what it
Speaker 1: was through? Just trying to understand patterns that I saw
Speaker 1: among people that I was just seeing around me because
Speaker 1: in my book, better than before, I identify the twenty
Speaker 1: one strategies of habit change. These are the twenty one
Speaker 1: strategies that people use to make or break their habits.
Speaker 1: But as I was talking to people, about habit change.
Speaker 1: There were certain things that people would say to me
Speaker 1: that I would be like, that's interesting. So, Like, one
Speaker 1: thing that was really striking to me was that I
Speaker 1: would often say to people, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: New Year's resolutions? This is a good way to get
Speaker 1: at people's thinking about habits, And a certain number of
Speaker 1: people would always answer the same way. They would say,
Speaker 1: I would keep a resolution whenever it made sense, but
Speaker 1: I wouldn't worry about January first, because January first is
Speaker 1: an arbitrary date. They were all very focused on this
Speaker 1: idea of it being arbitrary, and this kind of caught
Speaker 1: my attention because I was like, the arbitrariness of January
Speaker 1: first never really bothered me. Another thing that people would
Speaker 1: say to me is how come busy parents like us
Speaker 1: can't take time for ourselves? And I think, huh, I'm
Speaker 1: a busy parent, but I don't have any trouble taking
Speaker 1: time for myself. And then there were people I was
Speaker 1: writing a book about habits. There were people who'd be like,
Speaker 1: why would you want to write a book about habits?
Speaker 1: Habits are dreadful, They're so repellent. Why would you I
Speaker 1: want to even think about habits, And I thought, that's funny,
Speaker 1: because I love the idea of habits. For me, the
Speaker 1: idea of habits is exciting and exhilarating and energizing. And
Speaker 1: yet these people were like really turned off by the
Speaker 1: idea of habits. Why were they reacting in a way
Speaker 1: that was different from the way I was reacting. I
Speaker 1: was trying to make sense of it. Then I had
Speaker 1: a friend who said something and again like, this is me.
Speaker 1: This is me like Samuel Johnson or La Rochefuko. This
Speaker 1: is just me looking at human nature by looking at
Speaker 1: what I see around me. A friend of mine said,
Speaker 1: this was like one of the big Eureka moments was
Speaker 1: a friend of mine said, I know I would be
Speaker 1: happier if I exercise. And when I was in high school,
Speaker 1: I was on the track team and I never missed
Speaker 1: track practice. So why can't I go running now? Well?
Speaker 1: Why not? There are many hypotheses you can have about that.
Speaker 1: But what I realized is I think it's because she's
Speaker 1: an obliger. She readily meets out her expectations, but she
Speaker 1: struggles to meet in her expectations, which is the definition
Speaker 1: of obliger. When she had a team and a coach
Speaker 1: waiting for her, no problem. When she was just trying
Speaker 1: to do it on her own, she struggled. So what
Speaker 1: this framework did is it explained these many, many patterns
Speaker 1: which I sensed were somehow connected, but it took me
Speaker 1: a long long time to figure out how they were connected.
Speaker 1: Once you see that the core element is response to
Speaker 1: inter and out or expectations, that sort of a lot
Speaker 1: of things make sense that don't otherwise really make sense.
Speaker 1: Because here's the question that people grapple with is like,
Speaker 1: you know, you would be healthier and happier and more
Speaker 1: energetic and live longer if you took your medication, but
Speaker 1: like you're not doing that. Why not? I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just like this is like a billion, billion, billion dollar question.
Speaker 1: Why not? I think I have an answer for that
Speaker 1: that's different from what a lot of people say. My
Speaker 1: framework explains a lot of patterns that you see in
Speaker 1: people around you once you see these four tendencies in play.
Speaker 1: So I just created it, you know. I gotta say, though,
Speaker 1: it's kind of weird to me that no one else
Speaker 1: has picked up on this before. As far as I have,
Speaker 1: I can tell they haven't because it's so obvious. Once
Speaker 1: you know it, but researchers, now there's just at a
Speaker 1: journal article was published for medical adherents that they should
Speaker 1: study it. And a guy Judson Berger, who studies addiction
Speaker 1: and mindfulness and have a change, he's using it in
Speaker 1: his research and experiments and how it helps people use
Speaker 1: programs that he's developing to help people. So there is
Speaker 1: research being done to trying to validate what I just
Speaker 1: kind of concluded. So let me be the scientific jackass
Speaker 1: for a second. So I think that you create a
Speaker 1: potentially meaningful framework that is worthy of further than investigation.
Speaker 1: I would say all that the reason why the scientific
Speaker 1: method exists those because lots of people see patterns that
Speaker 1: are wrong, like people see Jesus in toast, you know,
Speaker 1: like people see things among their friends and say I
Speaker 1: think I figured out a pattern of human nature and
Speaker 1: then they test it and it's like wrong. So it
Speaker 1: seems like you're validing the scale to the extent to
Speaker 1: which it resonates with your audience and helps them in
Speaker 1: your own personal life. It seems to me that's your
Speaker 1: criterion for validation, and that may serve the purpose of
Speaker 1: your audience more than enough. But of scale validation requires
Speaker 1: a whole extensive you know, reliability, and I don't think
Speaker 1: and you would not disagree with anything that I just said,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no no, and I don't. I certainly don't make
Speaker 1: any claims for it to have it other than you know,
Speaker 1: the proof is in the pudding, like if it works
Speaker 1: for you and helps you make beneficial to change it,
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons I don't make claims
Speaker 1: for it beyond what I've seen. You know, I did
Speaker 1: a representative sample, and I concluded certain things from the
Speaker 1: representative sample, but that's certainly not like some big, huge,
Speaker 1: you know, study of it. So absolutely I would welcome
Speaker 1: people to study for it, and I'm excited that people
Speaker 1: are starting to do that because you know, I would
Speaker 1: love to see it stand up to that kind of scrutiny. Though,
Speaker 1: as you say, for a lot of things, for lay people,
Speaker 1: things sometimes things ring true. You know, there's the astrology
Speaker 1: in the astronomy. I don't think this is astrology, but
Speaker 1: I would like to get the validation that would really
Speaker 1: do it. But then sometimes things, if they shine a
Speaker 1: spotlight on something to you that feels hidden, that's useful
Speaker 1: or that gives people a vocabulary to talk about things
Speaker 1: in a way that's kind of you know, less emotionally
Speaker 1: or less judgmental. Then there's value to that too, But
Speaker 1: you're absolutely correct about the what are the claims of
Speaker 1: science here? So modern personality psychology has pretty much concluded
Speaker 1: that continuous variation is much more meaningful than types and
Speaker 1: talking about types, because you when you talk about types,
Speaker 1: you lose all the variation in between people at all
Speaker 1: different points in the spectrum. And then they've also concluded
Speaker 1: there are various independent dimensions, meaning that you can score
Speaker 1: extremely high on more than one dimension. Yeah, so I'm
Speaker 1: wondering how you square those two personality psychology findings with
Speaker 1: positing that there are these four types that you can
Speaker 1: really only be dominant in one of them. Well, that's
Speaker 1: a great question. So one of the things is that
Speaker 1: I really do believe that people fit into a core tendency,
Speaker 1: but each tendency overlaps with two other tendencies. So like
Speaker 1: if you're a questioner, questionners resist outer and inner I
Speaker 1: think they they resist outer expectations but they meet inner expectations.
Speaker 1: So in that way, they're like upholders and that they
Speaker 1: both meet inner expectations. And they're also like rebels and
Speaker 1: that they resist outer expectations. And so a questioner can
Speaker 1: be more like an upholder, so there's more variation that way,
Speaker 1: or they can be more like a rebel, and that's
Speaker 1: going to shape the way their tendency goes. Now, another
Speaker 1: thing is a lot of frameworks where people are when
Speaker 1: they're looking at types. These are types that are trying
Speaker 1: to explain who like people's whole personalities, which I'm definitely
Speaker 1: not trying to do. This is one question, how do
Speaker 1: you respond to expectations? This is all that I'm telling
Speaker 1: you about yourself. Now, there might be if we have
Speaker 1: the scientists do it, it could be associated things like
Speaker 1: there might be our rebels less likely to be considerate
Speaker 1: or more likely to be considerate. I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: let me look. Let me see if I can guess
Speaker 1: right now based on Okay, upholder might be in the
Speaker 1: Big five. I'm going to wink it to the big
Speaker 1: five frames. So the Big five is interesting, right, because
Speaker 1: the big the Big five is one of the things
Speaker 1: that really inspired me here because fun conscientiousness. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: on a pold. Can I just say the frameworks other
Speaker 1: people know what we're talking about. That's great, let's back
Speaker 1: out the second. Let me let me just back up
Speaker 1: and say, talk about what we're talking about. So there's upholders, questioners, obligers,
Speaker 1: and rebels, and it has to do with how you
Speaker 1: respond to an outer expectation like a work deadline, or
Speaker 1: an inner expectation like a New Yark re solution. So
Speaker 1: upholders readily meet outer and inner expectations. They want to
Speaker 1: meet the work deadline, they want to meet the new
Speaker 1: year's resolution, and they do that without much fuss. They
Speaker 1: want to know what's expected of them, but their expectations
Speaker 1: for themselves are just as important. Next questioners, which is
Speaker 1: what you are. Questioners question all expectations. They'll do something
Speaker 1: if they think it makes sense. They resist anything arbitrary, unjustified, inefficient.
Speaker 1: So they're making everything an inner expectation. If it meets
Speaker 1: their standard, they will meet that expectation. If it fails
Speaker 1: their standard, they will resist. Next to bligers, and this
Speaker 1: is my friend on a track team. Obligers readily meet
Speaker 1: outer expectations, but they struggle to meet inner expectations. And
Speaker 1: so when she had a team and a coach waiting
Speaker 1: for her, she had no trouble showing up to go
Speaker 1: running when she was just trying to go running on
Speaker 1: her own. She struggled and then finally rebels. Rebels resist
Speaker 1: all expectations. Out are an inner alike. They want to
Speaker 1: do what they want to do in their own way,
Speaker 1: in their own time, and if you ask or tell
Speaker 1: them to do something, they're very likely to resist. Now,
Speaker 1: obliger is the largest tendency from my observation from this
Speaker 1: representative sample that I did. You either are an obliger,
Speaker 1: you have many obligers in your life. They're the rock
Speaker 1: of the world. They're the biggest tenants. Next questioner is
Speaker 1: also a very big category. Rebel is the smallest and
Speaker 1: then also only slightly larger as a polder, which is
Speaker 1: my tendency, which is one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: think I saw this framework because many things that people
Speaker 1: said they believed to be true. I was like, that's
Speaker 1: not true for me. I don't get it, Like what's
Speaker 1: your problem? Like why can't other people just get stuff done?
Speaker 1: Like I was puzzled by other people what other people
Speaker 1: said and did, And I think that helped me see it.
Speaker 1: Now that I know I'm an a polder, I understand
Speaker 1: myself and the world so much better now about the
Speaker 1: Big Five. One of the things that it always puzzled
Speaker 1: me about the Big Five is conscientiousness. Now, as an upholder,
Speaker 1: I'm a highly conscientious person. I readily meet outer and
Speaker 1: inner expectations. I'm as conscientious as they get, you know.
Speaker 1: And what puzzled me was all the people who seemed
Speaker 1: to me to be like sort of conscientious, because it
Speaker 1: wasn't like they were kind of conscientious. It was like,
Speaker 1: sometimes to my in my estimation as an upholder, they
Speaker 1: were very conscientious, but then in other times they were
Speaker 1: utterly non conscientious. Because to an upholder, failing to meet
Speaker 1: your ex expectations for yourself it is just as important
Speaker 1: as failing to meet someone else's expectation. You not keeping
Speaker 1: your resolution to go for a run, to me seems
Speaker 1: just as important and just as significant as the fact
Speaker 1: that you're not meeting a deadline at work. So it
Speaker 1: was puzzled by all these people who have these kind
Speaker 1: of patchiness to me and their conscientiousness. I couldn't figure
Speaker 1: it out. It didn't make sense to me. Well, now
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense, because they're meeting outer expectations but
Speaker 1: struggling with inner expectations, but sometimes they've like figured out
Speaker 1: ways to create outer expectations around their inner expectations. So
Speaker 1: take me a while to understand how that works. It's
Speaker 1: clear once you figure it out. It's hard before the
Speaker 1: patterns got sort of elucidate. Gotcha, this is what I
Speaker 1: think is going on. I just mapped it out while
Speaker 1: you were talking. This is what I think. And again
Speaker 1: like I don't know this. I mean, I want to
Speaker 1: do the study. I want to do the study where
Speaker 1: I love to see how they kind of if they
Speaker 1: break out into these four factors, if you do a
Speaker 1: factor analysis. But I'm also curious how it correlates with
Speaker 1: the ten aspects of the Big Five. So my colleague
Speaker 1: calling the young Crits and then called the Beef, which
Speaker 1: splits each one of the Big five into two components.
Speaker 1: And I just mapped each of your four onto the
Speaker 1: very specific component of each Big five. Oh okay, let
Speaker 1: me tell you. So the upholder is the orderliness aspect
Speaker 1: of conscientiousness. Conscientiousness actually has two facets, orderliness and industriousness.
Speaker 1: So industriousness is like grit and like you know, the
Speaker 1: drive to really succeed, whereas orderliness is the drive to
Speaker 1: have order in your life, and so I would predict
Speaker 1: that upholder would be most strongly correlated with orderliness facet
Speaker 1: of conscientiousness, well, both of them, perhaps perhaps actually, but
Speaker 1: I but you see a lot of gritty people are
Speaker 1: not really interested in upholding anything. Yeah, So, now, questioner,
Speaker 1: that's specifically the intellectual curiosity aspect of openness to experience.
Speaker 1: You think it's different. Now, Okay, it's interesting because one
Speaker 1: of the things that you often see in questioners is
Speaker 1: that if you have a non intellectual questioner, they show
Speaker 1: up as a crackpot. So, like I wrote aloud, John F. Kennedy,
Speaker 1: and so I spend a lot of time with people
Speaker 1: who like, we're really into conspiracy theory, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: to me, now that's questioner kind of for someone who's
Speaker 1: not actually very intellectual. To me, again, you're a scientist.
Speaker 1: I would love to see what you did with this.
Speaker 1: But to me, every framework has its own nuance, and
Speaker 1: trying to map everything onto everything else you kind of
Speaker 1: lose it or you might kind of overvalue certain things.
Speaker 1: Like questioners are often like, well, I'm smart, I'm intellectual,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, not necessarily because you could be a
Speaker 1: questioner but also be very ignorant and not interested in
Speaker 1: information beyond what you already believe to be true totally.
Speaker 1: So the openness to experience the mean consists of two aspects,
Speaker 1: which prompts with the intellectual cures as well as the
Speaker 1: non intellectual So that's the second facet is there's intellect
Speaker 1: and then there's openness, which is openness is your tendency.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure questioners are necessarily even Again, neither
Speaker 1: of us know the answer until I do study. I
Speaker 1: want to do the study. This is my theory, and
Speaker 1: then hopefully I can you the study and tell you
Speaker 1: know what's going on. So obliger seems to be most
Speaker 1: link to the politeness aspect of agreeableness. Agreeableness has that's fine,
Speaker 1: Like if you say no, like I could be totally wrong,
Speaker 1: and I admit that I could be totally wrong. But
Speaker 1: this is the clost What I'm doing is like giving
Speaker 1: me the closest approximation to the Big five. And maybe
Speaker 1: you actually find that your scale has additional variants. It's
Speaker 1: not explained. It's just a lot of obligers are big jerks.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, Okay, elaborate laboration, Andre you know who's a
Speaker 1: great I don't know. If you read open Andrea Agascy's memoir,
Speaker 1: it is a brilliant memoir. I am not interested in
Speaker 1: tennis at all. I barely heard of Andrea Agassy, but
Speaker 1: people said you should read it because its memoir. He's
Speaker 1: an absolute, absolute, one hundred percent obliger, you know, and
Speaker 1: no one could be like a more aggressive kind of
Speaker 1: I think in many ways, difficult person need to find
Speaker 1: obliger for me. Again, so obliger readily meets outer expectations,
Speaker 1: but they struggle to meet inner expectations. That's interesting. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I like said, like I had to add, oh, I
Speaker 1: was going out with Brooksfields and I had to ask
Speaker 1: her to marry me because she really wanted to get engaged.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't happen to an upholder, gotcha. No, So I
Speaker 1: think this otter inner distinction. I do think there's there's
Speaker 1: something there. I want to be very clear. I want
Speaker 1: to give you credit, you know, first of all, and
Speaker 1: I love your push. I'm not trying to be a jerk. No, no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, I love it. I love the thing you
Speaker 1: really engage with it. This is exciting, So keep going
Speaker 1: because I'm a personality psychologist, So you know, I want
Speaker 1: to with, Okay, the rebel I would link to disagreeableness.
Speaker 1: I would put that within the agreeableness to mean to
Speaker 1: most likely. But you're saying it's not just disagreeableness. There's
Speaker 1: more too. Some rebels are highly considerate. And I have
Speaker 1: to say, because I'm an a polder and a polder
Speaker 1: is like the opposite of rebels, it was hard for
Speaker 1: me to like wrap my mind around the rebel tendency.
Speaker 1: And I talked to a lot of people who like
Speaker 1: the adalt a lot in there, like we're either married
Speaker 1: or we're partnered because with rebels about how they dealt
Speaker 1: with it. And the fact is, some rebels are really
Speaker 1: highly considerate and really put a value. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: always choosing what to do. They're not doing because they're
Speaker 1: supposed to do. They're not doing because you told them
Speaker 1: to doing because they choose to do it. But many
Speaker 1: of them do will do it because they're choosing to
Speaker 1: do it out of love for you, or because it's
Speaker 1: the kind of person they want to be. They see
Speaker 1: themselves as being like a responsible leader who is interested
Speaker 1: in bringing everybody into the team, or they see themselves
Speaker 1: as being a loving, consistent parent, and so even though
Speaker 1: they don't want to show up to something like carpool
Speaker 1: at the same time every day, they will because that's
Speaker 1: the kind of person they want to be. Now, if
Speaker 1: you take a rebel who's not considerate, that person can
Speaker 1: be a big, big, big jerk because you can't make
Speaker 1: them do anything, and if they don't care what you think, like,
Speaker 1: they can take that pretty far. And that's very conspicuous.
Speaker 1: So we're all very aware of people like that. But
Speaker 1: some rebels are highly considered of other people and have
Speaker 1: really really high ideals and so they don't necessarily look disagreeable.
Speaker 1: But if you said, hey, would you do this because
Speaker 1: I tell you too, they'd be like, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to do it because you told me to. Go cha,
Speaker 1: you're not the blasphemy. Yeah, So it depends on other
Speaker 1: things come into play. Yeah, So it seems to be
Speaker 1: like rebel is more linked to a need for autonomy
Speaker 1: and authenticity, Yes, which is actually more part of the
Speaker 1: openness to experience demean It's part of the demean So
Speaker 1: the thing about the Big ten framework that I'm talking
Speaker 1: about is that it's fully acknowledged in personalized psychology that
Speaker 1: you can have blends. That's why this type way of
Speaker 1: thinking is not discussed too much in the personality psycholic
Speaker 1: literature because you acknowledge it. Even among these ten you
Speaker 1: can have blends. So maybe one of these four are
Speaker 1: actually blends of two others. And you even read it,
Speaker 1: and see what if you think that my explanation accounts
Speaker 1: for that sufficiently? Well, your book. I read your book.
Speaker 1: I read your book. Okay, yeah, I read it, and
Speaker 1: I think that some of them are blends. But I
Speaker 1: would say this, like, you know, there's great value in
Speaker 1: bringing up a term or reframing something in a way
Speaker 1: that resonates with in a way that has never resonated
Speaker 1: with anyone before, and no one's ever been inspired like
Speaker 1: Susan Kan, who's a mutual friend of ours, you know,
Speaker 1: has I've worked with the Quite Revolution trying to validate
Speaker 1: scales of introversion and stuff, and you know, Susan really
Speaker 1: brought to the floor what I would argue a blend
Speaker 1: of Big five traits that she's calling introversion, but which
Speaker 1: resonates with a lot of people. So she's not just
Speaker 1: talking about introversion in terms of the Big Five way
Speaker 1: of talking about but she also brings in things like neuroticism,
Speaker 1: like rumination and things that are open and daydreaming and
Speaker 1: imagination which comes from openness to experience. But it's a blend.
Speaker 1: It's a label, that's a blend. I think that you
Speaker 1: probably have come up with a label for a blend
Speaker 1: of different things that have already been Like, are you
Speaker 1: arguing that you've discovered a new source of human personality
Speaker 1: variation that has never been discovered in the last hundred
Speaker 1: years in personality psychology? I mean, is that your argument?
Speaker 1: Kind of because I don't feel like anybody else is
Speaker 1: sufficiently accounted for these huge patterns. Well that's interesting. Why
Speaker 1: is it that somebody never misses a work deadline, but
Speaker 1: you know, can't quit sugar? You know, I mean, why not?
Speaker 1: It just like, why not if it's a matter of conscientiousism?
Speaker 1: Why not? If it's a matter of something making sense?
Speaker 1: Why not? If it's a matter I mean, what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is that it explains frustrations, explains differences among people,
Speaker 1: and it tells you how to solve Because what I'm like,
Speaker 1: if this is your problem and you're a questioner, this
Speaker 1: is what I would think would work. If this is
Speaker 1: your problem and you're an obligered this is what I
Speaker 1: would think it would work. I agree, it sounds totally improbable. Also,
Speaker 1: the greatest minds in history, I mean, for thousands of years,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this, So it's incredibly unlikely that
Speaker 1: I'm the first one to think it. But it does
Speaker 1: seem like I'm talking about it, at least in a
Speaker 1: different enough way that it's shining a spotlight on something that,
Speaker 1: for many people is a useful illumination of a pattern
Speaker 1: that puzzled them, for instance. And sometimes it's just like
Speaker 1: somebody will say something to me like, oh, my kid
Speaker 1: is super smart and he does great on the test,
Speaker 1: and he'll study for the test, but he refuses to
Speaker 1: do the homework so he gets bad grades. And I'm like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: does your teacher tell your kid that he to ask
Speaker 1: too many questions? Yeah? Does your kid constantly like ask
Speaker 1: you justification for every single thing that you ask him
Speaker 1: to do? Yes, I'm like, Okay, probably your kid is like,
Speaker 1: why should I memorize the multiplication table? Set? Doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense on my phone, I can do all this
Speaker 1: multiplication doesn't make any sense for me to memorize it,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to. So I'm like, explain to
Speaker 1: him what this makes sense. Take five minutes and explain
Speaker 1: to this kid, this is why we think you should
Speaker 1: do it. Because, by the way, if there's no good reason,
Speaker 1: why does he have to memorize and the multipication tables.
Speaker 1: That's a question that's beneficial to all of us. Why
Speaker 1: are you learning how to do cursive Maybe you should,
Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't a good question. If you don't have
Speaker 1: an answer to that, then maybe he shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: do it. But you have to give them the robust explanations,
Speaker 1: and then when they get those robust explanations, a lot
Speaker 1: of times it's much easier for them to fulfill that.
Speaker 1: So that's what I'm just arguing. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: useful shortcut. Okay, So you claim two things. So there's
Speaker 1: the claim that the framing that you've come up with
Speaker 1: is beneficial to lots of people, and that's a separate
Speaker 1: claim than the scientific claim that you discover a new
Speaker 1: source of personality variation. Those are two different claims. I
Speaker 1: think the former is much more likely. I think if
Speaker 1: you're right about the ladder, and you could be right
Speaker 1: by the way, of course, right, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: haven't done the study. But if you're right, that's actually
Speaker 1: a really big deal in personality. Like, let's not be
Speaker 1: flippant about Oh yeah, I just discovered a new source
Speaker 1: of person I mean that is like a really really
Speaker 1: big deal that requires a lot of convincing peer review journals,
Speaker 1: using all the standard measures that have existed, and showing
Speaker 1: that it predicts outcomes above and beyond you know, studying
Speaker 1: the scientific method, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You
Speaker 1: just did. They make the claim that it was scientifically valid.
Speaker 1: You just did. I said, do you think you discovered
Speaker 1: a source of variation that's never been a discovered scientist?
Speaker 1: I thought you meant like I didn't know that you
Speaker 1: meant like that you thought that that I was arguing
Speaker 1: that this was you know, no, because there's a million
Speaker 1: frameworks that have been created, right, Okay, So you're not
Speaker 1: making that second claim then, I mean not in the
Speaker 1: way you put it now, Okay, Okay, good, because that
Speaker 1: would be a really big deal and I'm actually inclined
Speaker 1: to test it and see, you know, if the test
Speaker 1: predicts lots of important outcomes in life like well being
Speaker 1: and and etcetera, etcetera, above beyond. So I think it's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's interesting about well being though, because to me it
Speaker 1: seems like it's not that one is better or that
Speaker 1: it's like, have you figured out how to work with
Speaker 1: the reality of your tendency so that you get where
Speaker 1: you want to go? And so it's just a question
Speaker 1: of you know, it's not like, oh, it's got to
Speaker 1: be a polder than ebliger. It's like, oh, have you
Speaker 1: figured out a way to harness the strength of your
Speaker 1: tendency and offset the weaknesses and limitations. So you could
Speaker 1: say that both of them has strengths and weaknesses, But
Speaker 1: can't we agree there are some personality traits that have
Speaker 1: more weaknesses and strengths in terms of kind of universal
Speaker 1: prediction of maladaptive adaptive outcomes. I mean, when we got
Speaker 1: you say put neuroticism on the same as agreeableness and
Speaker 1: say no, no, no no, no, no no no. I didn't
Speaker 1: mean it like that. I meant up to tendencies. Like
Speaker 1: some people are like, well, what's the best tendency to be?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, it's like it just depends because first
Speaker 1: of all, it depends on everything else going on along
Speaker 1: in your personality exactly. Throw impulsivity in there. That's bad,
Speaker 1: Like I don't to me, I'm like, and maybe that's
Speaker 1: my upholder self. I'm like, you do not want that
Speaker 1: threat if you can avoid it, you know, impulsivity. But
Speaker 1: I thought you were saying, like, is there one tendency
Speaker 1: that is the better? And I'm like, the of the
Speaker 1: four tendencies, you see if youeople are really really happy
Speaker 1: and very successful and productive and creative and efficient, and
Speaker 1: then some people aren't. And part of it is like
Speaker 1: how does it fit in with everything else in parts
Speaker 1: of your personality all the things that you listed, and
Speaker 1: also have you figured out ways to deal with it? So,
Speaker 1: if you're a questioner and you keep getting fired because
Speaker 1: you say to your boss all the time, like why
Speaker 1: do you keep implementing these dumb strategies? Or like why
Speaker 1: do you keep making these stupid decisions, you know, some
Speaker 1: questioners learn to say things like it's very interesting that
Speaker 1: you picked that software. I would love for I would
Speaker 1: love to hear about your reasons because I think if
Speaker 1: I understand why you chose it, I'm going to do
Speaker 1: a much better job implementing it Like that's like that
Speaker 1: questioner has learned how to be constructive in the way
Speaker 1: that he or she is asking questions, whereas some questioners
Speaker 1: are just like this is you know, like how do
Speaker 1: you possibly justify this in a way that makes others
Speaker 1: feel defensive or undermined. So there's a lot of different
Speaker 1: things that can come into play. And like you say,
Speaker 1: this is one near aspect of personality. So yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're very agreeable, very ambitious, you know, highly extroverted, all
Speaker 1: these things, you're just going to end up in a
Speaker 1: different place than somebody who has a different mix. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. I appreciate that you want to add the
Speaker 1: context aspect to it. Well, it's not that it's I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the context of the other aspects of your personality.
Speaker 1: Because it could be like if you did your research
Speaker 1: and I would love if you did your research it
Speaker 1: and like looked at it. It might be that upholders
Speaker 1: are more associated with certain things, or like rebels are
Speaker 1: less likely to be X y Z. That would be
Speaker 1: fascinating to know. I don't know it at a deep
Speaker 1: enough level. The only thing that I picked up was
Speaker 1: that it did And again my study was not at
Speaker 1: all to your standards. This is just a representative sample
Speaker 1: that I did for my own purposes. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that was interesting is that upholder seemed less
Speaker 1: likely to answer yes to I have struggled with addiction?
Speaker 1: Does addiction even exist? That's controversial, but I use the
Speaker 1: word addiction. Didn't say anything more that it looked like
Speaker 1: there's something about being an a polder that makes it
Speaker 1: less likely that people struggled with addiction. I have to
Speaker 1: say as an upholder, that makes sense to me, you know,
Speaker 1: but it would be fascinating to see, like does it
Speaker 1: actually play out Our upholders less likely to be addicted,
Speaker 1: our questioners more likely to be YZ. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That is the kind of thing. You are absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: You would only be able to assert that if you
Speaker 1: did the kind of super rigorous analysis that would allow
Speaker 1: you to support those kind of lines. Yeah, as well.
Speaker 1: But I also think like positive that there are four
Speaker 1: different types means that if we find there are four
Speaker 1: different dimensions that are independent of each other in a
Speaker 1: factor analysis, that means that they can interact. And not
Speaker 1: only can they interact, but these four you can score
Speaker 1: high or low on any of them. So is there
Speaker 1: a value in saying you only have one out of
Speaker 1: the four that's the dominant one, as supposed to saying
Speaker 1: you could actually be equally as high in two them,
Speaker 1: Like why can't you be equally as high in being
Speaker 1: rebellious in questioner? Well, then you're a questionner slash rebel.
Speaker 1: I mean, then you're either a questionner tips to rebel
Speaker 1: or rebel hoo tips to questioner. But you know, a
Speaker 1: lot some of them are inconsistent, Like you can't be
Speaker 1: inn a polter and a rebel. You can't be an
Speaker 1: a polter and an obliger because upholders and obliger is like,
Speaker 1: in some ways they're very much like, but then there's
Speaker 1: a fundamental difference. So I sort of argue that kind
Speaker 1: of just okay, if they're logically, if they're saying, if
Speaker 1: they're necessarily a post to each other, they're actually on
Speaker 1: the same dimension, they're not independent dimensions. I think you're
Speaker 1: thinking that I'm arguing scientifically something that I'm really arguing
Speaker 1: much more like Samuel Johnson would argue. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to pretend that you know, I've got a
Speaker 1: lab at Stanford with a bunch of undergraduates who have
Speaker 1: been eating marshmallows. And that's how I came up with this.
Speaker 1: I came up with this because people kept saying to me, Wow,
Speaker 1: you did this happiness project. How did you get yourself
Speaker 1: to do those things? And I'm like, well, I just
Speaker 1: decided that they would make me happier, so I did them.
Speaker 1: And people are like, but how did you get yourself
Speaker 1: to do them? I'm like, that's not Why is that
Speaker 1: so hard? Why is that so hard? So you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, it's very much. I don't I don't
Speaker 1: want to pretend that I'm making claims for it, or
Speaker 1: that I'm employing the same kind of thinking about it
Speaker 1: that someone like you would with your very specialized background.
Speaker 1: I don't want to come across here as though like
Speaker 1: I think I'm somehow superior because I'm a scientist. I
Speaker 1: don't think you do. And I don't want to make
Speaker 1: that very clear. This is not personal. So I want
Speaker 1: to know the truth. And you know, and I mean,
Speaker 1: you said you don't make those guns, but I read
Speaker 1: like test your personality. You wrote something you said like
Speaker 1: my very well researched you know, paradigm and use language
Speaker 1: like I discovered, you know, and when we use that
Speaker 1: kind of language in science that has a very specific meaning. Well,
Speaker 1: I use the word discover. I mean that doesn't seem
Speaker 1: that scientifically. I mean, it's well researched in that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, what do you I mean, I certainly
Speaker 1: did not pretend that this was like went through the
Speaker 1: kind of thing it's not meant to be that. Maybe
Speaker 1: it could be that you could do the research that
Speaker 1: would make it be, or somebody else could, or there's
Speaker 1: been a call for people to do that research. That's
Speaker 1: not where it is right now. You know, to me,
Speaker 1: things are helpful if they are actually useful. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that's true is that a lot of
Speaker 1: times with specialists, I mean I know this because I
Speaker 1: read all this stuff, it's practically incomprehensible. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like it becomes it's very hard for other people to
Speaker 1: understand what they're talking about. And so, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to write something or I'm trying to understand something.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just keep coming back to Samuel Johnson
Speaker 1: because he's really very much more my model. Well, let
Speaker 1: me ask you this, let me ask you this. You
Speaker 1: know you wrote something. You wrote explicitly, you said, I
Speaker 1: found a model that's very predictive. The thing is, what
Speaker 1: if I ran the study and I found that this
Speaker 1: test is not predictive of anything, Like would you be
Speaker 1: willing to rewrite your book? Sir, Well, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I write update it. Yeah, absolutely, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I would love to do that. I really appreciate that answer.
Speaker 1: By the way, I really appreciate that, thank you, because
Speaker 1: you know, scientists are constantly revising their models, right, and
Speaker 1: I wonder like you made the claim in one of
Speaker 1: your articles I read You're like, I came up with
Speaker 1: a very predictive but you don't know if it's predictive
Speaker 1: until you've tested it. Yeah. Well, I'm not predictive in that.
Speaker 1: I like, if you tell me this, I can predict that.
Speaker 1: If you tell me you were like this is a kid,
Speaker 1: I can think that you're like this. Now it's again,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I'm using words in a lay sense,
Speaker 1: and you're using them as like if this were scientific American.
Speaker 1: The word predictive has a lady and it has a
Speaker 1: very highly specific meaning, just the way neurotic means something
Speaker 1: of Wody Allen says it, and neurotic means something else
Speaker 1: to use it. It's extraversion, right, extraversion in the way
Speaker 1: the Big Five is. It is not the way Susan
Speaker 1: Kine is using it. This is one of the problems
Speaker 1: with language is that it's all taking into account different
Speaker 1: contexts in different people's meanings. I am speaking to a
Speaker 1: lay audience. I'm a generalist writer who comes from an
Speaker 1: essay writing tradition, So I am not trying if I
Speaker 1: use a word that somehow sets off your ballas like ooh,
Speaker 1: this is a word that I would use to mean
Speaker 1: X y Z. I'm not necessarily meaning it to be
Speaker 1: as super specialized. I don't want you to think that
Speaker 1: I'm making claims for it that I'm not. This is
Speaker 1: something that I've observed. This is something I see all
Speaker 1: around me. It explains a lot of things that I see,
Speaker 1: and it seems to resonate with a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be seen to be making claims
Speaker 1: for it that I can't justify, or to have been
Speaker 1: leading people. I don't think. I don't think that most
Speaker 1: people reading this imagine that there is I think just
Speaker 1: in the way that I've written a book where it's
Speaker 1: clearly like drawing from regular people in real life. It's
Speaker 1: much more again, it's much more like you know, La
Speaker 1: Rochefouco or Montaigne, you know, in nature in a kind
Speaker 1: of a you know, not not from the perspective of
Speaker 1: a scientific laboratory, but much more from a library. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think you're at your best when you do that.
Speaker 1: Not only at your best, but you're great at it.
Speaker 1: So I want to be clear, I really love the
Speaker 1: Happiness Project. And what I like about it is you're
Speaker 1: taking your personal experiences and trying to make sense of
Speaker 1: science and applying it in your own life and telling
Speaker 1: people what worked for you, what didn't work for you.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, one of the things that's
Speaker 1: really stood me in good stead is that so much
Speaker 1: of the science that I might have relied upon has
Speaker 1: been disproven or attacked since. And so I'm very glad
Speaker 1: that I don't say, oh, well, I'm doing this because
Speaker 1: of dopamine. That is creator I'm doing this study about
Speaker 1: super Bowl showed that because I'm like, man, I can't
Speaker 1: even keep up with all this stuff that now is
Speaker 1: being questioned or you know. So, yes, it's very much
Speaker 1: like this is yeah, I read this study, thought about it, like,
Speaker 1: tried it. Did you know, did this work? How did
Speaker 1: this work out for me? Yeah, I'm glad you said that.
Speaker 1: By the way, I can't stand scientific fundamentalists. Maybe I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find some common ground here. I don't think that,
Speaker 1: you know, scientific fundamental would be someone who thinks that
Speaker 1: their study is right and that you know, they're so
Speaker 1: like what if someone else comes with some data that
Speaker 1: the contradicts their theory, they don't revise it, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. I don't like that either. I think the
Speaker 1: kind of approach I'm trying to being here is like,
Speaker 1: you know, this book makes a very specific personality framework,
Speaker 1: and I'm in the business of testing personality frameworks, so
Speaker 1: I'm just curious to see if it's right. Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Well it's funny because when better than before. I talk
Speaker 1: about how I gave up carbs and I was talking
Speaker 1: to a friend of mine who'd, you know, read a
Speaker 1: ton of studies and kind of came to a different conclusion.
Speaker 1: And I was like, but you know, I went low
Speaker 1: herb and I had this amazing result. And then my
Speaker 1: father went with carving. He had this amazing result. And
Speaker 1: my friend was like, Gretchen, that's to data point of one,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, that's the only data point I care about,
Speaker 1: Like you know what I mean. I think sometimes people
Speaker 1: are like, you know, what if it works, Like if
Speaker 1: this is what it takes to like get me to
Speaker 1: write my novel or finish my PhD pieces, or quit
Speaker 1: sugar or get more sleep or you know, exercise or
Speaker 1: take my medication, or keep my kid from dropping out
Speaker 1: of high school or stop these like squabbles that I'm
Speaker 1: having with somebody in my life. It's like, there's value
Speaker 1: to that. Now, there's absolutely scientific value, and I would
Speaker 1: love that, But I think that there's kind of a
Speaker 1: more blunt value that can come from the data point
Speaker 1: of one, which is like is that scientific? No, that's
Speaker 1: a data point one. But ultimately you don't want to
Speaker 1: have value too as many people as possible, though ultimately
Speaker 1: that's your goal. Right. Oh It's funny because all the
Speaker 1: questionners are like, please do the scientific research though that
Speaker 1: we can feel good about this, And I'm like, okay, man,
Speaker 1: you know that's not my Like, I you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not the one who's going to write the grant for
Speaker 1: that but yeah, no, but I don't think they're mutually exclusive.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you can use it for what
Speaker 1: you use it for, and then it has value to
Speaker 1: you or not, and then if it's scientifically validated, that
Speaker 1: would be amazing. But yeah, I mean there's a lot
Speaker 1: of how do you account for these patterns? If you
Speaker 1: don't account for it this way, how do you account
Speaker 1: for it otherwise? Because it doesn't seem to me that
Speaker 1: the existing patterns do account for it, you know, or
Speaker 1: existing frameworks. I'm not really an asshole, I promise, Oh no,
Speaker 1: But then I'm not really a scientist. So I'm not
Speaker 1: speaking like don't don't, don't, don't try it. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a lawyer, man, I'm working for Santurday O'Connor, and that's
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to talk about. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: thing is, though, seeing patterns what's frustrating about being a science.
Speaker 1: This is my frustration about being a scientist. Almost every
Speaker 1: other day I have a new framework I invented. It's
Speaker 1: called a theory, yeah, and then I test it and
Speaker 1: most of the time I'm wrong. And I can't make
Speaker 1: that an ego thing for me personally, or else I
Speaker 1: would be upset every other day, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So I seeing patterns is just a fundamental human thing,
Speaker 1: and writers see patterns, and writers good writers. I think
Speaker 1: you're a very good right and good writers are able
Speaker 1: to take observations and frame it in a way that
Speaker 1: really resonates with the reader. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: you've probably succeeded in doing that with this book. In
Speaker 1: order to actually see whether large set of patterns are correct,
Speaker 1: you need to do a very large sample because you
Speaker 1: may be only looking at a very narrow slice of patterns.
Speaker 1: You might be missing out on a bigger pattern. And
Speaker 1: you just want to know that you can't expect one
Speaker 1: human mind to have figured it all out, you know
Speaker 1: like that, I mean, like I said, it would be
Speaker 1: really incredible if, through your own methods you have, and
Speaker 1: I think it's possible you have, and so I'm going
Speaker 1: to test it. That is really incredible. You know that
Speaker 1: you've discovered statistical patterns that hold up when you measure
Speaker 1: thousands and millions and millions of people, And and again
Speaker 1: maybe you have, So I'm open to the possibility. But
Speaker 1: you also not have. But you're exactly right, I mean
Speaker 1: about sort of the demands put on scientists, and like,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I was writing about happiness is,
Speaker 1: you know, there's something like fifteen academic scientific definitions have happiness,
Speaker 1: and each each one more obscure and imfelicitous than the next.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, you know, I'm a lay person.
Speaker 1: I don't have to get into that. I'm just going
Speaker 1: to say happiness. And if for you it's peace or
Speaker 1: contentment or you know, fulfillment or you know, well being
Speaker 1: and whatever whatever, for me, it's just like the looseness
Speaker 1: of it and the fact that it can encompass a
Speaker 1: lot of different kind of concepts of having this is fine,
Speaker 1: and it's actually a strength because we can all bring
Speaker 1: our own idea of happiness into it. I had a
Speaker 1: freedom that a scientist would not have, just to say
Speaker 1: I'm not going to define it, which again is my
Speaker 1: lawyer self. I was like, I spend a semester arguing
Speaker 1: about the definition of contracts, so I was like, I
Speaker 1: will never do that again. I'm saving like I could
Speaker 1: say things like happiness doesn't always make you feel happy, now,
Speaker 1: a scientist couldn't say that it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: It does make sense if you look at it from
Speaker 1: a literary standpoint, which is of course what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do. So you're exactly right. Scientists are trying to
Speaker 1: do one very specific thing. They are under rigors that
Speaker 1: others are not, and you know that's just we're all
Speaker 1: doing our own thing. You know, makes very jealous of you,
Speaker 1: I know, let me feel good, all hang out, let
Speaker 1: me ask you something, because I really do have appreciation
Speaker 1: for literature and poetry and great literature. I mean, I
Speaker 1: love it, and I love your writing. I think you're
Speaker 1: a great trift writer. When emphasize that, you know, can
Speaker 1: you imagine like I actually just recently made this big
Speaker 1: decision in my life that I am going to be
Speaker 1: a writer, Like I'm leaving academia and I know, I know,
Speaker 1: I want to be on social media. I miss it.
Speaker 1: That's announced it to my Facebook group. I haven't doubted
Speaker 1: in public yet, but I guess now I just did
Speaker 1: for the first time in my podcast. Right, All right,
Speaker 1: Well that's a big decision. So now that I've said
Speaker 1: that I'm a writer, does that mean I'm no longer
Speaker 1: accountable to anything I was accountable to before with my
Speaker 1: scientific colleagues. No, you know, so it's tricky for me.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm still in my writing. I'm still trying
Speaker 1: to link everything I say to studies that I conduct
Speaker 1: or that I read in the literature. Does changing my
Speaker 1: framing automatically change, you know, my standards that I have
Speaker 1: to uphold. I think these are really complex issues that
Speaker 1: we haven't really grappled with as and now I want
Speaker 1: to be I want to enter more their train of
Speaker 1: popular science writer. And I think it's a tricky, tricky thing,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I think we should all
Speaker 1: have more open, honest conversations about this stuff. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: you read someone like I read someone like George Orwell. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know that's my model. So that's where I'm coming from.
Speaker 1: So part of it is what is your identity, what
Speaker 1: are you trying to achieve and what's necessary to achieve it?
Speaker 1: And how are you communicating whatever it is you want
Speaker 1: to communicate to people. So George Orwell's discovers things in
Speaker 1: the same way that you say you discover things through
Speaker 1: observation and experiences with your readership. Just his deep insight
Speaker 1: into human nature, I mean, he just says things about
Speaker 1: human nature where I'm like, I had never seen that before.
Speaker 1: Now I see it. You're showing me complexities in the
Speaker 1: world that I had never perceived before. You're showing me
Speaker 1: thoughts that I had that I didn't know I had.
Speaker 1: I feel like everything is clearer now. And same thing
Speaker 1: with Samuel Johnson. Now is Samuel john I mean, he's
Speaker 1: a he's an eighteenth century writer. He's not for everyone,
Speaker 1: you know. I talk about him a lot because he's
Speaker 1: a big influence on me. He's not for everyone, you know,
Speaker 1: even something like Life of Johnson, which is very accessible
Speaker 1: by Johnson's standards. But I read I read Johnson, and
Speaker 1: I'm like light bulbs exploding in my head, lightning bolts,
Speaker 1: striking me with, you know, understanding nature In one sentence,
Speaker 1: he can he can, you know, capture an idea that
Speaker 1: seems so complex, you know? And then I'm like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I just read a science you know, a research paper
Speaker 1: that was thirty pages long that was sort of groping
Speaker 1: towards the same conclusion. Is it validated? No? Is it
Speaker 1: proved in any kind of real way? No? But I
Speaker 1: feel this elucidation. It seems to me like science writers,
Speaker 1: popular science writers don't have to be correct. They can
Speaker 1: be other insightful. Well, I don't know what you mean
Speaker 1: by correct, because correct means that you're either correct or
Speaker 1: you're incorrect. Oh yeah, might be scientifically validated or not scientific. Realistically,
Speaker 1: it can be something. I mean, I think correctice binary.
Speaker 1: I actually agree with you, and I'm mad at myself
Speaker 1: for saying that that was a bad bad my podcast.
Speaker 1: You write it, we were writing this, we would just
Speaker 1: correct it. What I what I mean is more truthiness,
Speaker 1: I mean more true than more true than not. Like
Speaker 1: science is never about you never find the truth. You
Speaker 1: find you such probabilities that something's more along the line
Speaker 1: of being correct or not. It's not fine. It's just
Speaker 1: like the truth of Anakarina is anakarina true? It's more
Speaker 1: in peace true, It's to the lighthouse true point. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not. It's not really relevant if
Speaker 1: it's true. It's like, do I come out of it
Speaker 1: thinking like I have like a deeper, richer experience of
Speaker 1: human nature? Do I understand myself that and other people better?
Speaker 1: Do I feel like I come to the world with
Speaker 1: more understanding and empathy? Do I feel like things that
Speaker 1: like large trends in history, the history of ideas now
Speaker 1: makes more sense to me, Like, do I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, I understand like the past the presence of
Speaker 1: future in a different way. Yeah? Is it true? War
Speaker 1: in piece is totally not true? True? Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I mean you can read hundreds of articles untrue. It
Speaker 1: is right because he didn't, you know. So these are
Speaker 1: all questions. It's like, what are you trying to do? Like?
Speaker 1: Was he trying to write a true account? No? Was
Speaker 1: he trying to write something that is truthful in some
Speaker 1: kind of novel way? Yes? And so I think it's
Speaker 1: all like what are you? What are you trying to do?
Speaker 1: So for you, when you embark on your life as
Speaker 1: a full time writer, you'll have your own standard and
Speaker 1: your own sense of what it is that you want,
Speaker 1: what you want to accomplish in the standard that would
Speaker 1: be necessary to accomplish it. Does everybody have the same vision? No?
Speaker 1: Is everybody going to have? Is your way the right way?
Speaker 1: Not necessarily, but it's the right way for you and
Speaker 1: for the audience, Like that's what they'll come to see
Speaker 1: from you. I think I think you've raised a lot
Speaker 1: of really interesting questions. Is one way the right way?
Speaker 1: And I think it's really interesting, you know, like the
Speaker 1: scientific method is the best way that has been discovered
Speaker 1: to systematically discover whether large patterns are true. I think.
Speaker 1: So here's a question for you. Is it better to
Speaker 1: get up early or not? If you want to get
Speaker 1: up and running, is it better to get up early
Speaker 1: and go running or is it better to wait? Right?
Speaker 1: It depends what It depends depends on the individual differences.
Speaker 1: It depends on you, It depends on your situation, it
Speaker 1: depends on what's worth. I mean, it just depends. It's
Speaker 1: not that like, is it what are you right? I
Speaker 1: mean you could run a study and be like, the
Speaker 1: best height to be is five foot eight, That is
Speaker 1: the best height? What does that mean? Not? I mean
Speaker 1: not if you want to be a basketball player, not
Speaker 1: if you want to be a jockey, like you know,
Speaker 1: not if you want to be a ballerina. I mean whatever.
Speaker 1: It's like this idea that things are right, they're scientifically
Speaker 1: validated the scientific method. In the end, trump's all. It's
Speaker 1: like for certain things. But certain things it's like they're
Speaker 1: not really in that system. I don't think because you could,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you could come up with an answer that
Speaker 1: would be the best answer. Would it be the best
Speaker 1: answer for me. Yeah, well data point one. Then I
Speaker 1: think that you bring to the table a very valuable perspective.
Speaker 1: So thank you for chatting with me today and letting
Speaker 1: me just riff on these various important issues. Yeh know,
Speaker 1: it's super important and now more than ever like science,
Speaker 1: like yes, it's so important that it'd be done right
Speaker 1: and that it'd be held it helped be held to
Speaker 1: a high standard. Science is certainly not the only thing
Speaker 1: of value in this world. I want to be very clear.
Speaker 1: I have a deep appreciation for I said literature quote
Speaker 1: all these ways of getting insights into human nature gain
Speaker 1: insights to myself, and I think you're very good at that.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for chatting with me today.
Speaker 1: It was so fun to talk to you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to The Psychology Podcast
Speaker 1: with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this
Speaker 1: episode just as thought provoking as I did. If something
Speaker 1: you heard today stimulated you in some way, I encourage
Speaker 1: you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com.