Speaker 1: Today. It's great to have Isaac Prilaltensky on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Isaac holds the inaugural Irwin and Barbara Mottner charin Community
Speaker 1: well Being at the University of Miami. He has published
Speaker 1: twelve books in over one hundred and forty articles in chapters.
Speaker 1: His interests are in the promotion of well being in individuals, organizations,
Speaker 1: and communities, and in the integrations of wellness and fairness.
Speaker 1: His most recent book is How People Matter, Why It
Speaker 1: Affects health, happiness, love, work, and Society, co author with
Speaker 1: his wife, doctor Ara pile al Tensky. Doctor Prilotensky, it
Speaker 1: is so great to have you on the Psychology Podcast today.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. I wanted
Speaker 1: to have you on the show for a long time.
Speaker 1: The topics you study are so essential to the world,
Speaker 1: of course, to society, to politics, to lots of other things,
Speaker 1: but also the we both work in positive psychology, so
Speaker 1: I thought we could go through a lot of your
Speaker 1: work and wink it to these other things that I
Speaker 1: just mentioned. Great, great, Okay, let me start off by
Speaker 1: asking you what your own conceptuization of wellbeing is well.
Speaker 1: In my view, wellbeing is multi dimensional, and my research
Speaker 1: team and I developed a multifaceted conception of well being
Speaker 1: which we summarize in the acronym I cope I interpersonal, community, occupational, physical, psychological,
Speaker 1: and economic well being. And in ourview, this model of
Speaker 1: wellbeing pays more attention to contextual factors than maybe other
Speaker 1: models like the spire more by tal Ben Shahar or
Speaker 1: the Perman model by Seligman, which is very well known.
Speaker 1: So we felt that we needed to emphasize more the
Speaker 1: interaction between internal factors like psychological well being and external
Speaker 1: factors like occupational and community wellbeing, which have a huge
Speaker 1: impact on how we feel. So in other words, our
Speaker 1: framework is highly contextualized. Yeah, that is, I believe it
Speaker 1: or not not to you, but others. That's pretty novel.
Speaker 1: The whole history of wellbeing research and thinking, even going
Speaker 1: back to you know, the humanistic psychologists, which I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of, but a lot of people try to present.
Speaker 1: People have criticized Maso's ideas of self actuisation as being
Speaker 1: too individualistic. Now they're not aware of his more recent
Speaker 1: attempts are recent today, but towards the end of his life.
Speaker 1: Recent attempts to bring in community and bring in ideas
Speaker 1: of transcendence and synergy with the environment, but still that
Speaker 1: idea of self accusation still has a very individualistic feel
Speaker 1: to it, doesn't it. Yes, I agree. So in the
Speaker 1: field of positive psychology, I feel there is a risk
Speaker 1: of what I call interiorization of well being, you know,
Speaker 1: making it all about the interior, what happens underneath the skin.
Speaker 1: But yet at the same time, we're very aware of
Speaker 1: the impact of interpersonal well being, you know, where we
Speaker 1: know that social support, emotional support, the connectivity with other
Speaker 1: people is hugely influential in our own well being. So
Speaker 1: thinking about community well being, occupational well being, it's just
Speaker 1: an extension of something that we know very well from psychology,
Speaker 1: the impact of early forms of attachment, secure attachment, bonding
Speaker 1: with your friends, friendships, peer relations, et cetera. So in
Speaker 1: a way, it's just an extension of that. It goes
Speaker 1: if we think about bronfe Brenner's ecological models, you know,
Speaker 1: we go from the person to the family, to the school,
Speaker 1: the community, church, all the way to the nation and
Speaker 1: social policy. So I think it's really important to think
Speaker 1: about wellbeing as sitting residing at the nexus of all
Speaker 1: these spheres of influence, And in recent work we've done,
Speaker 1: we realize that if we think about wellbeing as an outcome,
Speaker 1: you know, people want to be happy, Okay, so let's
Speaker 1: consider that's an outcome. So we ask ourselves what are
Speaker 1: some of the antecedents of that wellbeing or happiness, or
Speaker 1: health or mental health. And we found two interesting factors
Speaker 1: predicting happiness and wellbeing which have to do with the environment,
Speaker 1: and one is fairness. To what extent do you experience
Speaker 1: fairness in your relationships, at work, in the community, So
Speaker 1: fairness has a direct impact on the level of wellness,
Speaker 1: so to speak. So fairness impacts wellness, but it's also
Speaker 1: mediated by our feeling valued by other people and having
Speaker 1: an ability to add value. So in other words, the
Speaker 1: more I feel respect it, treated fairly, treated with dignity,
Speaker 1: the more I feel valued, and the more I feel valued,
Speaker 1: the happier I become. But it's not just about feeling valued.
Speaker 1: It's about giving me opportunities to add value. So when
Speaker 1: I am in a context like wark or school where
Speaker 1: people build on my strengths, when people feel that I
Speaker 1: have something to contribute and encourage the expression of assets,
Speaker 1: my happiness also goes out. So fairness in a way,
Speaker 1: in a way predicts feeling valued and adding value, and
Speaker 1: these two predict happiness as well. Yeah, thank you for
Speaker 1: explaining that. And those are the two components of the
Speaker 1: need to matter. It just so happens, so not just
Speaker 1: fair nights, but also your need to matter. That's your
Speaker 1: definition of the need to matter. So I want to
Speaker 1: let's zoom in for a second on this need. Are
Speaker 1: you making the claim that there is a need to
Speaker 1: matter in humans that is a separable need from perhaps
Speaker 1: the need to belong and perhaps even the other needs. Then,
Speaker 1: like seft determination theory, even though that mass well proposed,
Speaker 1: or even that I proposed to my new book, is there?
Speaker 1: So is there? Is it a unique need that you
Speaker 1: believe it deserves attention all on its own? Yes, And
Speaker 1: I believe that it's a meta need or in ambrella
Speaker 1: need because when you think about feeling valued, feeling valued
Speaker 1: incorporates feeling like you belong, a sense of community, attachment
Speaker 1: to your parents and family, just to name a few.
Speaker 1: These are about feeling valued, feeling like I belong to
Speaker 1: this group, to my family, to the community. When you
Speaker 1: think about adding value, adding value is an umbrella construct
Speaker 1: for self determination, mastery, competence, freedom, self expression. So there
Speaker 1: are many human needs among others in self determination theory, autonomy, competence,
Speaker 1: and relatedness. So I believe that feeling value and adding
Speaker 1: value encapsulate a lot of psychological needs. And when you
Speaker 1: put the two construct together, the umbrella feeling valued with
Speaker 1: the umbrella adding value, you experience mattering and muttering I
Speaker 1: believe is a fundamental human need. It has many origins
Speaker 1: in evolution. If it didn't belong to a group or
Speaker 1: a tribe or a family, you may be left to
Speaker 1: your own devices and you may not survive. When you
Speaker 1: add value to the tribe, to the community, you get rewarded,
Speaker 1: you get appreciated, you feel validated, you feel seen. And
Speaker 1: this has repercussions for today's political scene where in the
Speaker 1: very words Black Lives Matter, we're seeing an entire community
Speaker 1: saying we mutter, we want to feel valued and we
Speaker 1: want to portunities to add value. So this complementarity is
Speaker 1: very important, feeling value and having opportunities to add value. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really really do love that. And do you see
Speaker 1: this kind of seas all in a sense where when
Speaker 1: you some certain groups who have historically not have had
Speaker 1: as much power or the feeling to matter once they
Speaker 1: start to matter more. Along the lines of fairness, you
Speaker 1: see other groups, you know, maybe come out of what
Speaker 1: work saying well, hold up, we matter too. So now
Speaker 1: you're seeing, you know, they're white supremacist group who are
Speaker 1: making the same case too, right, They're saying white people
Speaker 1: matter too, you know. So it's a it's an interesting
Speaker 1: sort of psychological psychological seesil dynamic of control of power
Speaker 1: at a very higher level, which leads me to think,
Speaker 1: how can we get out of that? Because ultimately we
Speaker 1: don't want to stay in a in a power play situation, right,
Speaker 1: we want to I think beaten. Both me and you
Speaker 1: are united in in the in the desire for a
Speaker 1: self actualizing society that is grounded in fairness for everyone,
Speaker 1: where everyone feels like they matter and and my gosh,
Speaker 1: how does how how does one get to there? Right?
Speaker 1: And you are addressing a very important point which goes
Speaker 1: to the heart of the nexus between mattering and fairness,
Speaker 1: because some groups have expience historically a lot of privilege
Speaker 1: and they are having a hard time giving up some
Speaker 1: of that privilege. So instead of saying, let's look at
Speaker 1: corrective justice. So what's corrective justice? What can we do
Speaker 1: to repair harms done in the past, right, maybe by
Speaker 1: my group? So what can we do in order to correct, repair,
Speaker 1: heal injustices of the past. When you are willing to
Speaker 1: engage in that act of reconciliation, then you come to
Speaker 1: terms with the fact that, well, maybe we need a
Speaker 1: firmative action, you know, because a firmative action is part
Speaker 1: of a healing process. Maybe we need the reconciliation, truth
Speaker 1: and Reconciliation commissions, you know, like there was in South Africa,
Speaker 1: because they bring about healing. So when one group, let's
Speaker 1: say white supremacist, they say, oh, I am forgotten. Now
Speaker 1: I feel like society is too multicultural, you know, like
Speaker 1: they're paying attention too much to minorities and we white
Speaker 1: people are being forgotten. I believe that they are not
Speaker 1: paying attention to all the privilege that some groups have had.
Speaker 1: And let me be very clear, I think we all
Speaker 1: mutter in society. We just we need to find a
Speaker 1: way for us to rectify injustices of the past and
Speaker 1: to learn not just to acquire more power, but also
Speaker 1: to share power. And this is for example, in New Zealand,
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds, Maori people signed the Treaty of
Speaker 1: way Tangy with the Crown with the British Crown, and
Speaker 1: the treaty was never upheld. You know, the Maori people
Speaker 1: were never really given the rights that they thought they
Speaker 1: were signing up for. So over the years, the white
Speaker 1: population in New Zealand, which they called the Pakeha population,
Speaker 1: they decided to give up some of their power and
Speaker 1: to engage in this process of reconciliation, educating the whole
Speaker 1: nation about the Treaty of wey Tangy. And for me,
Speaker 1: that's an example of people saying, I am willing and
Speaker 1: ready to give up some power so that we can
Speaker 1: all experience fairness. So it's not just the province of
Speaker 1: the white Europeans privileged groups. Yeah, no, I have to
Speaker 1: get right to the harder matter. And it just does
Speaker 1: seem like the fight for power has trumped the fight
Speaker 1: for quality in some ways, you know, or the fight
Speaker 1: for fairness for everyone. I agree, and which doesn't mean,
Speaker 1: by the way, that we should neglect any aspect of
Speaker 1: the population. So when you when we think about the
Speaker 1: psychological reactions to feeling forgotten, you have two opportunities you know,
Speaker 1: you have a fork on the route that you need
Speaker 1: to decide. Am I going to become xenophobic to regain
Speaker 1: my power? You know? Am I going to become a
Speaker 1: white supremacist to reclaim my lost diminished sense of power?
Speaker 1: Or or am I going to fight for fairness and
Speaker 1: justice for all the groups? And it's very important. You know,
Speaker 1: Historically it has happened that some oppressed groups, when they
Speaker 1: acquired more power, became the oppressive group. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: people like Franz Fanon and Albert Memi, they documented that
Speaker 1: in colonial settings like him Alja and Tunisia. So it's
Speaker 1: very important to be mindful of the psychology of acquiring
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Speaker 1: and for I would say for in groups to police
Speaker 1: themselves a little bit, because I think we have a
Speaker 1: tendency when someone has a moral transgression from our in group,
Speaker 1: to give it more of a pass than when we
Speaker 1: see a moral transgression from an outgroup. And I think
Speaker 1: that that needs to happen all around. You know, even
Speaker 1: within the Black Lives Matter movement. You know, if if
Speaker 1: some individuals within the movement start to be discriminative against
Speaker 1: white people, you know, that seems to be not towards
Speaker 1: the aims of fairness either. So I think that there
Speaker 1: that this is just a very important thing that we
Speaker 1: all need to do, is to be wary of that
Speaker 1: human tendency, regardless of what group we're in. Yes, And
Speaker 1: I'm reminded reminded of social movements in the sixties where
Speaker 1: supposedly everybody was fighting for social jesis, but a lot
Speaker 1: of women then the to be relegated to secondary jobs
Speaker 1: in the social movements, and that wasn't very fair, right,
Speaker 1: So it was a lot of white males leading social
Speaker 1: movements and really not paying a lot of attention to
Speaker 1: with either black people or women were saying in the
Speaker 1: social movement, Yes, exactly, So we have to be very
Speaker 1: reflective and monitor our own tendencies, our blind spots, so
Speaker 1: to speak. Yeah, very well, very well. Put, I want
Speaker 1: to quote you for a second. You say that quote.
Speaker 1: Mattering is not even we distributed across populations. Some have
Speaker 1: too much of it while others have too little. In
Speaker 1: the right amount. However, mattering can contribute to personal and
Speaker 1: collective flourishing. What I want to push you on all
Speaker 1: of it because I want to understand what you mean
Speaker 1: by what would it mean for someone have too much mattering?
Speaker 1: And that's an interesting idea, you know, that's interesting concepts
Speaker 1: like do you want to be the one in charge
Speaker 1: of saying what groups have too much and which ones
Speaker 1: don't have enough? Yeah, that's a good point. And I
Speaker 1: think some people have narcissistic tendencies which are exacerbated by
Speaker 1: contemporary society, including social media and the need for everyone
Speaker 1: to become a celebrity on his or her own. So
Speaker 1: there are definitely contextual factors contributing factors to this push
Speaker 1: to celebritize yourself. And in my mind, yes, you can
Speaker 1: matter too much to the point that you are, You're
Speaker 1: taking up a lot of space. You take up all
Speaker 1: the oxygen in the room, and you don't give enough
Speaker 1: mattering space to other people. So you can think of
Speaker 1: in the Aris Totilian construct of the royal path, you know,
Speaker 1: or or or the middle the middle way. Too little mattering,
Speaker 1: it's no good right. We feel neglected, forgotten, invisible. But
Speaker 1: too much mattering means that I am becoming a center
Speaker 1: stage and I'm really not balancing what's good for me
Speaker 1: with what's good for other people. So in that quote,
Speaker 1: I talked about personal and collective wellness, which has to
Speaker 1: do with what I call a me culture and a
Speaker 1: weak culture. In me culture claims I have the right
Speaker 1: to feel valued so that I may be happy. In
Speaker 1: a weak culture, we say we all have the right
Speaker 1: to feel value. Then add the value so that we
Speaker 1: can all experience happiness and fairness. So, m if you're
Speaker 1: engage in a me type of behavior, you can matter
Speaker 1: too much. Frankly, and we all know these people and
Speaker 1: their mattering comes at the expense of others. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: hear what you're saying, and it's subtle, but but your
Speaker 1: distinction does not map on completely to the difference in
Speaker 1: already in the psychological literature between individualistic and collectivistic cultures.
Speaker 1: One may seem one first blush to say, well, isn't
Speaker 1: he just saying that's a difference between like Eastern and
Speaker 1: Western you know, collective and it's no, I know, I
Speaker 1: get it, I get it, I get what you're saying.
Speaker 1: It's it's subtle. But they're not the same thing, because
Speaker 1: one could still live in a collectivist culture and for
Speaker 1: the individual to not matter. Right, Yes, it is correct.
Speaker 1: And where I said about mattering too much or too
Speaker 1: little applies equally to well being in collective societies and
Speaker 1: individualistic societies. So I believe we need to find just
Speaker 1: the right balance between the two tendencies. I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example. My sister lived in Israel on a keyboots
Speaker 1: for many years. And you know, a kyboat is a
Speaker 1: collective society. There is no private property. You work for
Speaker 1: the collective and in return you get all expenses paid. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a nice house and vacations paid, and health
Speaker 1: care and a car when you need it, and entertainment.
Speaker 1: In many ways, it's a very idyllic place Keyboots, But
Speaker 1: sometimes the societal norms that give you all these goodies,
Speaker 1: all these resources, can become a little oppressive. So, to
Speaker 1: use my sister's example, she wanted to do a master's
Speaker 1: degree in educational administration, but the Keyboats said no, we
Speaker 1: want you to be a nurse. And she said, like,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to become a nurse. I want
Speaker 1: to become, you know, an educational administrator. This is just
Speaker 1: one little example of how a collective is. Society where
Speaker 1: you share everything can also become quite oppressive of individual expression, right,
Speaker 1: So that's not good. On the other my sister left
Speaker 1: the Keyboots eventually, by the way, because she felt that
Speaker 1: her needs were not being made. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: we have highly individualistic societies, you know, like the US culture,
Speaker 1: where in individual freedoms just tramp everything else. So, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, freedom is the single most important value. Therefore,
Speaker 1: I don't need to wear masks, I don't need to
Speaker 1: be vaccinated, basically saying I don't care about other people, right,
Speaker 1: because freedom supersedes the well being of the community. So
Speaker 1: you can see, neither extreme is healthy. We have to
Speaker 1: create spaces where we balance the well being of the
Speaker 1: collective with the well being and needs of the individuals. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: thank you for clarifying that. I understand very clearly now
Speaker 1: what you mean by in the right amount mattering can
Speaker 1: contribute to personal and collective for things. Thank you for
Speaker 1: that clarification. You know argued you arguing on your papers
Speaker 1: that for mattering to materialize, certain moral values must be present.
Speaker 1: Can you explain what the more values are that you
Speaker 1: speak of. Yes, So, continuing the conversation on mattering too much,
Speaker 1: if we do not pay attention to the value of fairness,
Speaker 1: I very quickly can become obsessed with my own mattering,
Speaker 1: which we see all around us all the time pretty much.
Speaker 1: So what does fairness do? You can think of fairness
Speaker 1: as balancing value. Because fairness there are different types. I
Speaker 1: talked to early about corrective fairness when we're trying to
Speaker 1: fix an injustice in the past. But there is also
Speaker 1: what we call distributive fairness, which is allocating people resources
Speaker 1: based on you know, what they deserve to each his
Speaker 1: or her do. There is also procedural fairness, making sure
Speaker 1: that if people make decisions affecting your life, that you
Speaker 1: have voice and choice you know about the decision, that
Speaker 1: you're not left out of decisions impacting your life. Your career,
Speaker 1: your job, your community, et cetera. So we can talk
Speaker 1: about distributive justice and procedure and justice. So if I
Speaker 1: really want to create a healthy society, I will be
Speaker 1: concerned not just with my own mattering, but with your
Speaker 1: maltering as well. And I couldn't do that if I
Speaker 1: didn't pay attention to the value of fairness, right, because
Speaker 1: then it's look, in the absence of fairness, it's a
Speaker 1: free for all. So then I say, oh, I want
Speaker 1: to marry. So you know, I don't care if I
Speaker 1: exploit my workers because I matter more. I don't care
Speaker 1: if I suppress women's voices or black people's voices because
Speaker 1: I care about my group more. In other words, mattering
Speaker 1: in the absence of fairness can very quickly degenerate into
Speaker 1: a type of narcissistic culture. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely, which
Speaker 1: we're seeing a lot of today. Yes. Yes, you point
Speaker 1: out some interesting tensions among psychological, philosophical, and political perspectives
Speaker 1: and mattering. I found that very very interesting when you
Speaker 1: point out can you just briefly touch on some of
Speaker 1: those tensions, because there's different you know, in different philosophies
Speaker 1: and different politics, there's different ideas about that balance, yes,
Speaker 1: exactly right. So to begin with psychology, we started the
Speaker 1: conversation with the risk in here and both in positive
Speaker 1: psychology and humanistic psychology, that we ascribe too many powers
Speaker 1: to the individual, for example, to overcome adversity. And it
Speaker 1: is true that post traumatic growth is a real phenomenon
Speaker 1: and many people do overcome adversity and it's a testament
Speaker 1: to the human spirit. But it is also true that
Speaker 1: when you take inequality into account, the vast majority of
Speaker 1: poor people experience adversity that it's not so easy to overcome.
Speaker 1: So I worry in psychology about the tendency to glorify
Speaker 1: greed and resilience too much, because it tends to ignore
Speaker 1: the plight of people who didn't have enough psychological resources
Speaker 1: to overcome adversity. Let me be personal for a second.
Speaker 1: I lost my parents in a car accident when I
Speaker 1: was eighty years old. Both of my parents died at
Speaker 1: the same time. It was very traumatic, needless to say,
Speaker 1: but I had experience a lot of warmth and affection
Speaker 1: before my parents died, and after their death, I was
Speaker 1: adopted by an aunt who treated me like her own
Speaker 1: sign and my aunt really invested in me and I
Speaker 1: enjoyed psychological resources that helped me pull through. Not everyone
Speaker 1: experiences the same worms and affection and psychological nurturance to overcome,
Speaker 1: especially individuals who because of poverty and marginalization, they have
Speaker 1: to juggle a million things at the same time, like
Speaker 1: two jobs, lack of transportation, eviction, nourisies, and a lot
Speaker 1: of in justice. Basically, so in philosophy, in politics, in psychology,
Speaker 1: there is this tendency which is a very American tendency
Speaker 1: to bestow upon the individual more superpowers than we really have. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you see in liberal the neoliberal politics of today,
Speaker 1: which is all about the individual and become an entrepreneur
Speaker 1: and if you work hard, you can make it, you know,
Speaker 1: lift yourself from with your own bootstraps, et cetera, et cetera,
Speaker 1: all these metaphors which tend to perpetuate a sense of
Speaker 1: failure in people who cannot achieve these high status right
Speaker 1: because they just say, look all these people I get
Speaker 1: it on the media all the time. They are telling me,
Speaker 1: if I work hard enough, I can make it. But
Speaker 1: you know what, some people have really adverse circumstances that
Speaker 1: unless we fix those for them, the path too resilience
Speaker 1: will be very hard. Yeah, your work seems tough tail
Speaker 1: with Bob Newbrough's work a bit who advocated for a
Speaker 1: balance among the values of liberty, fraternity, and equality. Can
Speaker 1: you compare contrast your theory with his? Yes, and actually Bob,
Speaker 1: Nowbro was the person who recruited me to Vanderbilt University. Wow,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yes, So I have a very
Speaker 1: warm spot in my heart for Bob, who was really
Speaker 1: a wonderful scholar and friend. And Bob advocated or this
Speaker 1: balance between really the values of the French Revolution, right,
Speaker 1: you know, which is basically about liberty, fraternity, and equality.
Speaker 1: And if you put liberty and equality on two ends
Speaker 1: of a continuum. Okay, so let's say liberty. It's all
Speaker 1: about freedom. What's good for me. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be encumbered by social norms, whatever doctor Fauci tells me.
Speaker 1: I just want to do my own thing. Right. So
Speaker 1: that's one extreme of liberty, and the other extreme of
Speaker 1: equality is maybe it doesn't matter how hard you work,
Speaker 1: you're going to get pay the same lousy payment that
Speaker 1: we're paying everybody. So think Cuba, for example, right, where
Speaker 1: it's equality with the very lowest denominator, so there's no
Speaker 1: incentive to do anything because I'm not going anywhere. Or
Speaker 1: you can think about my sister's example on the keyboots, right,
Speaker 1: so oh yeah, we're also equal that it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what I want to study because it's all for the
Speaker 1: benefit of the whole anyways. Right, so you can think
Speaker 1: about vices on either end of the continue. Okay, so
Speaker 1: now you ask the question, how do you reconcile what
Speaker 1: the individual needs with what the collective needs? And this
Speaker 1: is where fraternity comes in because what's fraternity Fraternity is
Speaker 1: relational well being. And in the absence of relational wellbeing,
Speaker 1: where we say, Scott, how about Scott and Isaac having
Speaker 1: a chat and seeing whether we can resolve our differences.
Speaker 1: It's about civic engagement. It's about civil friendship, this Aristotelian construct.
Speaker 1: It's about the thinking about the common good and when
Speaker 1: we engage in other extreme, either the individualistic, which is
Speaker 1: a society completely built on a meritocracy. Right, if you
Speaker 1: work hard, if you're smart, you can deserve all the
Speaker 1: goodies America can offer you. You know, that's one bad extreme.
Speaker 1: The other bad extreme is really Cuba, you know, or
Speaker 1: the former Soviet Union, where you know your individuality was
Speaker 1: completely erased. I have many good friends in Cuba. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how hard you work, the government is going
Speaker 1: to tell you what to do, when to do it,
Speaker 1: how to do it. So you live a very oppressed existence.
Speaker 1: So then I ask myself, how do we solve these tensions?
Speaker 1: And healthy society have robust participatory democracies where people can
Speaker 1: engage in a dialogue about how to resolve differences. So
Speaker 1: an interesting study was conducted by Swiss economists Free and
Speaker 1: Stutzer a few years ago now where they compared happiness
Speaker 1: and longevity of people in cantons where they voted more
Speaker 1: often for decisions affecting their lives. So that's a form
Speaker 1: of voice and choice, people participating in dialogue about what
Speaker 1: do we need as a community. For example, do we
Speaker 1: want more pedestrian zones? Do we want to block car
Speaker 1: access to the downtown? You know? Do we want to
Speaker 1: force people to recycle more? Etcetera, etcetera. Well, it turns
Speaker 1: out that people who vote on referenda more often are
Speaker 1: happier and live longer. So something is telling us that
Speaker 1: when I am valued not just as an individual but
Speaker 1: also as a citizen, my happiness goes up. And I
Speaker 1: can give you opposite example, Scott, I grew up in
Speaker 1: Argentina where there is a great deal of corruption, and
Speaker 1: corruption is toxic. So what do people do when there
Speaker 1: is corruption? They don't trust the government, they don't trust
Speaker 1: the authorities, and people just withdraw from the system, and
Speaker 1: there is higher levels of criminal behavior or alienation, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Wow, Wow, you've thought about this for a while.
Speaker 1: I can tell well, yes, And I have to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I've lived in five countries and I grew
Speaker 1: up and the fascist dictatorship of a military dictatorship in Argentina.
Speaker 1: That will really make you socially aware really quickly. And
Speaker 1: then I lived in Israel for nine years, which is
Speaker 1: a very interesting, very multicultural and complicated democracy. I lived
Speaker 1: in Canada for fifteen years, i lived in Australia, and
Speaker 1: I've been in the US since two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: so I've been around. And I think when you're exposed
Speaker 1: two different ways of organizing yourself as a society, you
Speaker 1: begin to learn from exemplars. And you know, for example,
Speaker 1: you know in Canada people pay more taxes than in
Speaker 1: the US, but I lived there fifteen years. I never
Speaker 1: paid a cent for excellent medical care. I recy right,
Speaker 1: So what is that telling you? It's telling you that
Speaker 1: there are different ways for societies to organize themselves where
Speaker 1: the individual can experience more self expression because you're not
Speaker 1: so encumbered by all these worries. So it's a wonderful
Speaker 1: I mean, it deeply connected to my own sort of
Speaker 1: thinking and what does the self actualizing society look like?
Speaker 1: So I really appreciate this conversation, and it's very clear
Speaker 1: to me, abundantly clear to me that the field of
Speaker 1: community psychology needs to be better integrated in the field
Speaker 1: of positive psychology. I don't know why. Why does it
Speaker 1: kind of feel like you're you're just out there like
Speaker 1: this outlire in our field. It shouldn't be that way. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And I think part of it has to do with
Speaker 1: they yet to be fulfilled promise of positive psychology paying
Speaker 1: attention not just to individuals but also to institutions. Remember
Speaker 1: when the field was founded, you know, it was being
Speaker 1: founded on these complementary pillars of not just flourishing individuals,
Speaker 1: but also flourishing institutions and societies. And I think we
Speaker 1: have gotten a little stuck at the individual end of
Speaker 1: the continuum. And I think it's not one or it's
Speaker 1: not either or right. It's not an either or proposition
Speaker 1: that I'm advocating for forgetting the benefits of positive interventions
Speaker 1: like gratitude and savoring and mindfulness meditation, And I just
Speaker 1: want to democratize those practices so that everyone can have
Speaker 1: access to them and not just be the province of
Speaker 1: a selected few. Just want everyone to enjoy the science
Speaker 1: of positive psychology, which is not today, it's not what's
Speaker 1: happening today. I agree, I agree democratize gratitude. That that's
Speaker 1: a call hashtag democratize well democratize well being more generally. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: democratized happiness. To tell you the truth, yeah, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's abundantly clear that social conditions create scarcity for some people.
Speaker 1: And there is a fabulous book by Molay Nathan and
Speaker 1: Schaffir and economists and psychologists from Harvard than Princeton, and
Speaker 1: they wrote this book Scarcity, And what do they say.
Speaker 1: They say that when you happen to be poor, all
Speaker 1: your mental energy goes to pay the bills and to
Speaker 1: buy shoes for your kid, and to pay for school.
Speaker 1: Fees when there is an outing right, so you are consumed.
Speaker 1: You are consumed by what you don't have, scarcity, right,
Speaker 1: you don't have enough money, so there is very little,
Speaker 1: if any, any psychological energy to invest in flourishing because
Speaker 1: you don't know where the next paycheck will come from
Speaker 1: and you don't know how you're going to pay rent
Speaker 1: before you are evicted. So I think we need to
Speaker 1: pay attention to the to the ground, to the fertile
Speaker 1: ground where happiness grows. And at present, we just think
Speaker 1: that happiness can grow out of nowhere or just out
Speaker 1: of your hide. That's poor science, that it's not paying
Speaker 1: attention to the contextual factors that make you resilient enough
Speaker 1: as in my case, you know, I lost my parents
Speaker 1: when I would say that's pretty traumatic, but things can
Speaker 1: be compensated when you have the right psychological nurturance around you.
Speaker 1: And that's a privilege that not everyone benefits from because
Speaker 1: basically social injustice. Let me put it this way, I
Speaker 1: think it's in the simplest form, I love what you're saying.
Speaker 1: I want to get a little bit differ though at
Speaker 1: an existential level, why why does it matter so much
Speaker 1: to be to feel valued? You know, is it. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to play Devil's advocate for a second, Like,
Speaker 1: couldn't someone say that's just so tied up with the
Speaker 1: need for self esteem, you know that, Like shouldn't we
Speaker 1: transcend that ultimately? That like I demand to be you know, valued.
Speaker 1: You know, it's that demand that that demand and that
Speaker 1: need itself feels selfish to a certain degree. So I
Speaker 1: don't know if I'm believing everything I'm saying right now,
Speaker 1: but I'm just trying to just for the sake of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why is it so important? I think from an evolutionary
Speaker 1: point of view, today love has become with safety and
Speaker 1: food used to be for our ancestors. Wow, and so
Speaker 1: they need because of evolutionary reasons, we're comparing machines. When
Speaker 1: when we enter a room full of people, we tend
Speaker 1: to compare ourselves with others. You know, am I as
Speaker 1: good looking as these other people? Am I as well dressed,
Speaker 1: well spoken, well educated, well petty greed as other people?
Speaker 1: It just happens because it's a need for survival to
Speaker 1: scan the environment and to see how do I stuck up?
Speaker 1: Will people? You know, if I have a heart attack,
Speaker 1: where will anybody rush to save me, or will they
Speaker 1: go to this dude who is very well dressed and
Speaker 1: high status. So when you think about it, it has
Speaker 1: to do with survival and existing in a group, in
Speaker 1: a tribe. So that's why I want to feel valued. Now,
Speaker 1: most of us who are lucky, we have our basic
Speaker 1: needs met. You know, I'm not worrying about being eaten
Speaker 1: up by a mastodon in the African savannah. So what
Speaker 1: do I worry about. I worry about being popular. I
Speaker 1: worry about being loved. And it is true what you're
Speaker 1: saying that in excess, that can become a self obsession,
Speaker 1: which was the problem with the self esteem movement. So
Speaker 1: how do I guard against that tendency. My definition of
Speaker 1: mattering is that you need to feel valued by yourself
Speaker 1: and others, and you need to add value to yourself
Speaker 1: and others and others. So build into my definition of
Speaker 1: mattering is the need to pay attention to the well
Speaker 1: being of other people. That's the difference between a me
Speaker 1: culture and a weak culture. In a me culture, it's
Speaker 1: all about self esteem. As you were saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I have the right to feel valued. Basically says love me.
Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm great, my definition of mattering says that
Speaker 1: this is fifty percent. This is one hundred percent correct,
Speaker 1: about fifty percent of the problem, right. The other fifty
Speaker 1: percent of the problem is that unless you are actually
Speaker 1: adding value to other people, you run the risk of
Speaker 1: becoming self obsessed. So that's why, that's why you cannot
Speaker 1: truly matter unless you're adding value to other people. Wow wow, wow,
Speaker 1: wow wow. This is so interesting. So would you say,
Speaker 1: a real wild, brash narcissist who who just doesn't add
Speaker 1: value to the world at all, but just can't stanly
Speaker 1: screaming I matter, I matter, would you actually say, actually,
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't yet you don't need exactly exactly
Speaker 1: when you say that, Yeah, I would absolutely say that.
Speaker 1: I would say, you're narlyssis. You're not mattering. You're not
Speaker 1: adding value to anybody. You're actually reducing value to the
Speaker 1: community by your actions, by your self obsession. So here is.
Speaker 1: You asked me before about the intersection between psychology and
Speaker 1: politics and philosophy, and you cannot just propagate a meat
Speaker 1: type of mattering because in a me type of mattering,
Speaker 1: you're forgetting the fairness part. In a weak type of mattering,
Speaker 1: all of us have the right and responsibility to feel
Speaker 1: valued and add value so that we can all experience
Speaker 1: happiness and fairness. So pay attention to the keywords not
Speaker 1: just right to feel value, but right and responsibility, not
Speaker 1: just to feel valued, but to feel value and add
Speaker 1: value so that we can all experience not just happiness
Speaker 1: but also fairness. So six words, okay, rights, responsibilities, feeling value,
Speaker 1: adding value, happiness and fairness. These six constructs must be present.
Speaker 1: If you take out a piece of it, the whole
Speaker 1: thing falls apart. This is revolutionary, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: also This might be at odds with someone who would say,
Speaker 1: you know, you could see someone in the positive psychotic
Speaker 1: community in doing a mindfulness meditation and saying close your
Speaker 1: eyes you matter because you're human, you exist. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's all you need to do the matter. I feel
Speaker 1: like you're kind of saying, you know, that's not really
Speaker 1: necessarily true, right, And I you know, there is a
Speaker 1: big movement in mindfulness self compassion. It's a bit of
Speaker 1: a misnomer because when you really dig into it, it's
Speaker 1: more about mindfulness compassion. It's not just self compassion. I know,
Speaker 1: you know where self compassion started with CHRISTA Kneff, and
Speaker 1: then it grew with Chris Germer. But both of them
Speaker 1: have been highly influenced by Paul Gilbert, who's a British
Speaker 1: psychologist who wrote a fantastic book about mindfulness compassion, and
Speaker 1: I think compassion embodies self and other compassion. But I
Speaker 1: agree with you that if this is all about me
Speaker 1: experiencing higher levels of self actualization without paying attention to
Speaker 1: the vicissitudes of suffering other people, I don't believe in
Speaker 1: that kind of self compassion. I believe in self compassion
Speaker 1: that nurtures your compassion for other people. And if you
Speaker 1: follow that trend of thought, there cannot be compassion without justice.
Speaker 1: I hear you. You're a bit of a rebel. Though
Speaker 1: in a field of positive psychology it shouldn't be the case,
Speaker 1: but I hear you. I hear you. Yes, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you a little historical note that may be of interest.
Speaker 1: I wrote a philosophical dissertation in psychology. You know, most
Speaker 1: psychologists right empirical studies, right, you know, conduct the study,
Speaker 1: collect they analyze statistics, etc. Well, I wrote a dissertation,
Speaker 1: a philosophical dissertation which my department didn't want to approve
Speaker 1: because I was a rebel. I was calling into question
Speaker 1: the let's call it the monopoly of wor in empirical studies.
Speaker 1: And I said, no, I can't write a philosophical study
Speaker 1: that's worth of a dissertation. So I did what was
Speaker 1: it called psychology and the STATEUS School. It was a
Speaker 1: critique of how different branches of psychology upheld social injustice
Speaker 1: because of what I was saying before that psychology tended
Speaker 1: to interiorize social problems as opposed to contextualize social problems.
Speaker 1: So I wrote a critique of the atomization of psychology.
Speaker 1: So just to show you, I wrote my dissertation in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. Whoa, and I've been a bit of
Speaker 1: a rebel ever sees. I guess I think that was
Speaker 1: even before. That was before a lot of happiness research
Speaker 1: was systematically initiated, even at dinner's work. Yeah right, so
Speaker 1: I so I guess it was a critic before there
Speaker 1: was something to criticism. I was gonna say, that's amazing,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Well, good for you, Good for you. Now,
Speaker 1: this is a very important, very important question. Can I matter?
Speaker 1: If I never can learn how to roll ours like
Speaker 1: you do you, I can grant you special dispensations. So
Speaker 1: so for a very small contribution to the Isaac PRILEL.
Speaker 1: Tensky Foundation, I can grant special dispensations. Thank you, because
Speaker 1: I didn't know if that was one of your criteria
Speaker 1: for mattering. Now now many people don't know this about you,
Speaker 1: but you're a humor writer as well. You want to
Speaker 1: know you know this is this is also a very
Speaker 1: important to mention of you. You know one in a war.
Speaker 1: You wanted a word for your humor writing in twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen by the National Newspaper Association. Yes, is that a
Speaker 1: real society? Is that real? Yes? Actually it's Google Ball,
Speaker 1: so it must be real. Okay, well, I'd love to
Speaker 1: read some of your humor writing if you, if you
Speaker 1: can somehow send me some wings, I'll put in the
Speaker 1: show notes. Right, So, very quick story about that. My
Speaker 1: wife and I were thinking of writing a book based
Speaker 1: on an intervention we developed the it's called fundfour wellness
Speaker 1: dot com. It's free to the public if people are interested.
Speaker 1: We conducted randomized control trials on that. So long story short,
Speaker 1: we developed a wellness intervention and I said to my wife,
Speaker 1: you know, I think if I write some humor pieces,
Speaker 1: you know, it may just lighten up the whole intervention.
Speaker 1: People may be more engaged. So that led to my
Speaker 1: publishing dozens and dozens of humor columns in the Miami
Speaker 1: Herald in Miami Today, and I got very positive responses.
Speaker 1: So then I said to Ura, my wife and my
Speaker 1: co author, I said, you know, how about we write
Speaker 1: a series of books combining humor with science. Because you know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to health and wellness, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of ceremonizing, you know, like, oh, if you don't eat
Speaker 1: your vegetables, you will die young and destitute. You know
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So I said to Urah, we
Speaker 1: can just teach people how to become happier and healthier
Speaker 1: through humor. So we wrote a trilogy, The Laughing Guy
Speaker 1: to well Being, The Laughing Guy to a Better Life,
Speaker 1: and the Laughing Guy to Change, and the trilogy all
Speaker 1: the books combined humor with science to become happier and healthier.
Speaker 1: So it was an interesting experiment, and people resonate with
Speaker 1: a humor message. I call it smarter through laughter. I
Speaker 1: love it. I love it. I'm actually in the middle
Speaker 1: of taking a stand up comedy class right now, and
Speaker 1: how is it going it's going well. It's going well,
Speaker 1: performing tonight open mic. Oh well, good luck? Any youtubes
Speaker 1: please send me? Oh yes, I will. But we're not
Speaker 1: ready for prime time yet, that's for sure. I'm not
Speaker 1: ready for but someday maybe. Now you related to this.
Speaker 1: You lead a research team that developed wwwww dot fundfour
Speaker 1: wellness dot com. So this is a research based online
Speaker 1: platform to promote health and wellness using videos, games and humor.
Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit about this. I hadn't heard
Speaker 1: about this since I was right, right, right, So, following
Speaker 1: the philosophy I was describing of engaging people in health
Speaker 1: promotion through fun, we created a platform with the video
Speaker 1: clips with professional actors basically enacting some struggle in their
Speaker 1: lives interpersonal problems, occupational problems, weight issues. So we follow
Speaker 1: these characters. It's like a mini soap opera, you might say,
Speaker 1: in which the characters have a dilemma, have a challenge,
Speaker 1: They use certain strategies that we propose in the intervention,
Speaker 1: and then there is some kind of resolution and the
Speaker 1: participants play video games. We created videos and self reflection
Speaker 1: exercises and games, all in an effort to learn health
Speaker 1: and wellness skills through fun. And joy. So we teach,
Speaker 1: for example, people and their behaviors. We teach people housery,
Speaker 1: goal and how to create a positive habit and the remote.
Speaker 1: We have a module on emotions, how to nurture positive
Speaker 1: emotions and how to manage negative emotions and their thoughts.
Speaker 1: We teach people how to challenge negative assumptions about themselves
Speaker 1: and how to write a new story, a new narrative
Speaker 1: about themselves. We teach people about interactions, how to connect
Speaker 1: with others, and how to communicate. So there are a
Speaker 1: lot of skill building in this platform. All told takes
Speaker 1: about twelve hours to do, but even if you engage
Speaker 1: with it for about two and a half hours, our
Speaker 1: research team found statistically significant improvements in all the I
Speaker 1: cope themins of well being that I was describing earlier.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we subjected this to two randomized control trials
Speaker 1: and we've had a number, like are not twelve fifteen
Speaker 1: papers published on it. This is amazing, Isaac, the work
Speaker 1: you do so much. I'll leave with a quote of yours.
Speaker 1: You say, psychologists, especially positive psychologists, must be very careful
Speaker 1: not to be complicit in the move to interiorize well being.
Speaker 1: I really hope this podcast today helps people listening if
Speaker 1: they're in the field of pod psychology, and if they're not,
Speaker 1: you know, they're just thinking about well being generally, to
Speaker 1: include more of the contextual factors that you're talking about
Speaker 1: and incorporate this need to matter in their own models
Speaker 1: of human thriving. So thank you so much for the
Speaker 1: work you do. It's so important for the field. Can't
Speaker 1: wait to release this episode. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: the opportunity to Scott. It was fun. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to react in some way to something you heard, I
Speaker 1: encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com. Thanks
Speaker 1: for being such a great supporter of the show, and
Speaker 1: tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity called