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. Today. I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: have Mitch Prinstein on the show. Mitch is Board certified
Speaker 1: in clinical Child and Adolescent psychology and serves as the
Speaker 1: John Van Seters Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and
Speaker 1: the Director of Clinical Psychology at the University of North
Speaker 1: Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mitch's Pure Relations Lab has been
Speaker 1: conducting research on popular already in puy relations for almost
Speaker 1: twenty years, and he only looks twenty years old. His
Speaker 1: latest book is Popular The Power of Likability in a
Speaker 1: status Obsessed World. Thanks for chat and Mitch, sure, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. You must have started very young when
Speaker 1: you're in high school. I get that a lot. I
Speaker 1: think I looked young growing up. Yeah, fair enough, Well
Speaker 1: tell me how these interests were formed as a child.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a good question. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: made me so interested in popularity through my whole life,
Speaker 1: but I can remember being even you know, five and
Speaker 1: six years old and just being so fascinated by why
Speaker 1: some people were so popular and other people were not.
Speaker 1: And as I grew up, I was surprised how stable
Speaker 1: that was through elementary school and middle school and high school,
Speaker 1: and when I went to grad school and I learned
Speaker 1: just how powerful it is actually as a predicture of
Speaker 1: our human relationships and our well being. Yeah, sure, is
Speaker 1: a drive to be popular in some sense is probably
Speaker 1: a basic human need. It is, in fact in ways
Speaker 1: that we didn't even realize until people have started doing
Speaker 1: work on genetics and epigenetics. We're now learning that the
Speaker 1: experience of being rejected actually sends a warning signal in
Speaker 1: your brain that's remarkably powerful, and it turns on dormant
Speaker 1: DNA to make us immediately respond as if we're about
Speaker 1: to be harmed at the first sign that we think
Speaker 1: we're being socially rejected. There's something about being human that
Speaker 1: requires us to feel included, and when we don't, when
Speaker 1: we feel unpopular, we have physiological responses that are pretty dramatic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that proximate physical harm, physical pain. So yeah, I find
Speaker 1: that research a really fascinating. But there are as you know,
Speaker 1: there are different ways of being popular and different ways
Speaker 1: of being rejected, and maybe you could just tell me
Speaker 1: these two main ways and we can kind of riff
Speaker 1: off that. Yeah, sure, absolutely so. Most people when they
Speaker 1: think about popularity, they think about the it's super cool
Speaker 1: in high school and everyone knew who they were and
Speaker 1: everyone try to copy them, and that is one form
Speaker 1: of popularity, we call it status. But there is another
Speaker 1: form of popularity that some people might not realize. It's
Speaker 1: the form that mattered when we were kindergarteners and it
Speaker 1: also continues to matter for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 1: And that's likability. If you think about those kids who
Speaker 1: are most popular in kindergarten or in elementary school, it
Speaker 1: wasn't because they were cool, and it wasn't because they
Speaker 1: were most visible. They were just really likable. And that
Speaker 1: likability plays a role in our occupational success and our
Speaker 1: personal relationships. It actually has a big effect on our
Speaker 1: well being and health as well. Likability and status, or
Speaker 1: the two different forms, and for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 1: We really have the choice of which kind of popularity
Speaker 1: we want to pursue. So it's likability as what. Because
Speaker 1: you're saying we don't like people who are we don't
Speaker 1: like Michael Jordan, we just admire Michael Jordan. Well, there
Speaker 1: are a few people out there who are both likable
Speaker 1: and high in status. Michael Jordan might be one of them,
Speaker 1: but research says that only about thirty percent of those
Speaker 1: high end status are also really likable. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons why is because some of the things that it
Speaker 1: takes to become high end status actually simultaneously make you
Speaker 1: really disliked. For instance, being aggressive will make you really
Speaker 1: high end status, unfortunately, but it'll make you really low
Speaker 1: in likability. And a lot of the most likable people
Speaker 1: folks really hate them. You're absolutely right there too, fund
Speaker 1: they are different, it's worth separating them, and they're both
Speaker 1: sources of self esteem as well really important so seem so,
Speaker 1: with all that said, it makes me think that for
Speaker 1: either even for need for liking, if our pursuit for
Speaker 1: liking becomes too high, then we actually backfires and makes
Speaker 1: us less likable as well. Like the really needy person
Speaker 1: who needs to be liked by anyone that person's disliked
Speaker 1: as well, right, Mitch, Absolutely. You know, I really like
Speaker 1: the way that you're thinking about it and or research,
Speaker 1: and I think that does map on really well, because
Speaker 1: you know, that does parallel what's been found in some
Speaker 1: of the research literature on popularity as well. Your point
Speaker 1: about being a status seeker or a seeker of likability
Speaker 1: is totally spot on, because it's one thing to enjoy
Speaker 1: the benefits of happening to be likable. It's another thing
Speaker 1: entirely to be seeming like you're needy and you're searching
Speaker 1: for more likability. Same for status, and I think we
Speaker 1: now have a you know, a perfect example of this
Speaker 1: that we see in politics of someone who is so
Speaker 1: interested in their status that they're constantly seeking reminders and
Speaker 1: ways of increasing their status, and that's very much a turnoff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so great. I'm so glad we're on the same page
Speaker 1: there with that, and we can kind of integrate those
Speaker 1: literatures because I think all these data points are really
Speaker 1: converging on a very similar story. And it's exciting, you know,
Speaker 1: when it happens. It doesn't often happen in science, right,
Speaker 1: so absolutely so. In the self esteem literature. There are
Speaker 1: these two in the popularity liture that you've been pioneering.
Speaker 1: There's those two in the now. I'm trying to kind
Speaker 1: of bring that into the narcissism literature in terms of
Speaker 1: abnormal psychology and clinical implications because the people who sit
Speaker 1: on the chair at the therapist's office, most likely it's,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of one of those two. It has
Speaker 1: become really disrupted, maybe through childhood abuse or like a parent,
Speaker 1: maybe they're bullied a lot as kids, or their parents
Speaker 1: gave them a lot of emotional abuse and kind of
Speaker 1: make it unclear, so et cetera. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I think that that makes perfect sense. And you're right
Speaker 1: about the therapist's chair, and you know what's really being
Speaker 1: talked about. You know, for a lot of kids who
Speaker 1: are experiencing difficulties, they grow up and they have this
Speaker 1: sensitivity to rejection or they have this way of assuming
Speaker 1: that they're going to be having a hard time in
Speaker 1: their personal relationships, and there's some evidence that shows they
Speaker 1: actually then recreate those experiences. And we can talk about that,
Speaker 1: but more to your point on how important this can
Speaker 1: be in that therapist's chair is that there are people
Speaker 1: that think that the way that they'll feel better from
Speaker 1: those old childhood wounds is that they'll seek being popular.
Speaker 1: They'll look for this kind of positive regard, but they
Speaker 1: make the mistake of looking for status rather than likability.
Speaker 1: And the problem with that is that it puts your
Speaker 1: happiness consistently in the hands of others. You know, you
Speaker 1: can't feel good about yourself unless someone has just complemented you.
Speaker 1: And similarly, the most recent rejection experience will wipe away
Speaker 1: any positive, stable sense of self esteem that you had before.
Speaker 1: So it turns out to be an incredibly important aspect
Speaker 1: of what a lot of people are dealing with when
Speaker 1: they're in therapy is are they resilient to their sense
Speaker 1: of status, you know, and the fluctuations that we all
Speaker 1: experience in that from day to day, or are they
Speaker 1: overly seeking kind of this sense of of regard and
Speaker 1: this constant accolade which has been made all the more
Speaker 1: easy to be susceptible to on social media. You know,
Speaker 1: you could count the number of likes you have per day,
Speaker 1: and does that make you feel good about yourself or
Speaker 1: bad about yourself? And that's, you know, that's a very
Speaker 1: dangerous way to live life. To be overly fixated on
Speaker 1: these markers of status. Hmm. You know, you're saying lots
Speaker 1: of things that are really interesting because I'm thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: the argument here is we both agree that the obsessive
Speaker 1: pursuit of either is can become maladaptive. But you're saying,
Speaker 1: all also being equal, we should search for liking more
Speaker 1: than status. So you're saying that there are a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons that we should choose liking as the pursuit
Speaker 1: rather than status without it getting into an obsessive area exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't want to be in an obsessed
Speaker 1: with area for any kind of popularity, certainly, but if
Speaker 1: we are going to seek, you know, listen to our
Speaker 1: human nature desire to feel connected, we should try and
Speaker 1: do that in ways to promote likability, because liability not
Speaker 1: only leads to concrete benefits in life, but it also
Speaker 1: leads to intrinsic rewards, you know, being more likable, caring
Speaker 1: about others, attending to others' needs, that actually leads to
Speaker 1: intrinsic rewards as well as any rewards we might get
Speaker 1: from people actually then treating us better. So I believe
Speaker 1: that there is a basic human instinct for us to
Speaker 1: want to be socially connected and for those who didn't
Speaker 1: feel very connected as adolescence, I believe that that sticks
Speaker 1: with us for a long time. You know, there's now
Speaker 1: more nervous science evidence to show us why our adolescent
Speaker 1: memories play in an enduring role for decades later. If
Speaker 1: we're going to listen to those instincts, in those basic
Speaker 1: human drives, then I think it's important that we focus
Speaker 1: them where it's most likely to help us rather than
Speaker 1: hurt us. And all evidence would suggest that likability will
Speaker 1: help us and status will hurt us within the popularity
Speaker 1: if popularity is your game, So moving outside of the
Speaker 1: popularity demain and taking a broader picture, I would think
Speaker 1: that both of those are not as optimal as love,
Speaker 1: like that both are actually are neither going to be
Speaker 1: as satisfying substitutes. So, you know, like if we get
Speaker 1: to steer between three systems in the brain, the affiliation system,
Speaker 1: the connection system, and the status system, it seems to
Speaker 1: me like I would almost make the argument that within popularity,
Speaker 1: one is better than the other. But the driver populary
Speaker 1: itself shouldn't be the thing that there are the things
Speaker 1: in life that give us more meaning and more satisfaction
Speaker 1: than the pursuit for popularity. So it's like your argument
Speaker 1: is right, and then like taking it one step further
Speaker 1: to a broader picture of well being. Yeah. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: mean I think that you know, the basic human needs
Speaker 1: of feeling connected can be satisfied with a loving relationship,
Speaker 1: and you know those true connections absolutely. You know. There
Speaker 1: are other relationships that we have in life, though, that
Speaker 1: we really need to not only foster for ourselves and foster,
Speaker 1: you know, with our kids. So we may feel a
Speaker 1: sense of passion when it comes to our work lives,
Speaker 1: but in order to succeed and to get your ideas
Speaker 1: across and to feel connected at work and successful at work,
Speaker 1: you need to also be likable, you know. I think
Speaker 1: that's an important domain where we might not be able
Speaker 1: to have the same kind of depth of emotional connection
Speaker 1: that you might get from love, but we need to
Speaker 1: feel likable there as well. And when we're raising our children,
Speaker 1: you know, we want to give them the capacity connect
Speaker 1: with others by knowing how to be likable, so they
Speaker 1: will have the opportunity to meet somebody and fall in
Speaker 1: love as well. So I agree, I think that likability
Speaker 1: is instrumental in helping us, you know, with a lot
Speaker 1: of life's relationships. But ultimately the thing that might be
Speaker 1: most satisfying is the you know, the kind of more deep,
Speaker 1: selfless kind of acts of love, intimacy and altruism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: into the altruism compassion versus affiliation and status. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate your research. I think that you've really done a
Speaker 1: lot for the field and showing about they're clearly different.
Speaker 1: You know, we also all these other needs, and I
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just like thinking of it from like
Speaker 1: a maso hierarchy of needs sort of perspective, you know,
Speaker 1: like in both affiliation and status or with the or
Speaker 1: within the extra version personality demean whereas intimacy is part
Speaker 1: of agreeableness, it's actually a different you Knowate, it's a
Speaker 1: different demean of the Big five. So, as a personality
Speaker 1: psychologist and connecting personality to motives and motivations, it seems
Speaker 1: like this popularity stuff you're talking about really falls within
Speaker 1: that extra version demean and the different facets of it,
Speaker 1: whereas the agreeableness compassion demean is a different beast. I
Speaker 1: think that's a good point, you know, I like your
Speaker 1: points about the seam, and really, how did Maslow mean that?
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that I have been
Speaker 1: thinking about a lot recently is, you know, going back
Speaker 1: to social media for a moment, is you know that
Speaker 1: was made in Mark Zuckerberg's storm room. Let's say, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe there was some recursors to that, and it was
Speaker 1: a thing that serves an important function in college. You know,
Speaker 1: there many of us that wentz Cology years ago. Remember
Speaker 1: that there used to be an actual hard copy of
Speaker 1: a Facebook that you would actually let you learn the
Speaker 1: names of the other people in your class and give
Speaker 1: you an opportunity to meet others. But there's something about
Speaker 1: the way that that took off and went well beyond college,
Speaker 1: well beyond that developmental stage, and people use it. They
Speaker 1: don't just use it, but they crave it. They go
Speaker 1: back to it. You know, why is that what human
Speaker 1: need is being served? It's a need that must be
Speaker 1: really palpable and salient for us as a species because
Speaker 1: it has crossed every culture, nationality, you know, age group.
Speaker 1: Now there's some need that was served by the creation
Speaker 1: of social media and all of its various incarnations. Now,
Speaker 1: why do we need that? Why do you have to
Speaker 1: have that constant source of connection. And it's not just connection.
Speaker 1: We had email before, but it's a way of seeing
Speaker 1: that people approved of you and what you said and
Speaker 1: what is And I think that the massless hierarchy of
Speaker 1: needs point that you're raising is a really interesting one
Speaker 1: because it does suggest there's something very fundamental about needing
Speaker 1: to have this daily or weekly reminder that people, you know,
Speaker 1: thumbs up what you said and what you thought about.
Speaker 1: Constant affirmation. Yes, and you know, it's just shallow. That's
Speaker 1: not the same thing as intimacy. Too far. It is
Speaker 1: a form of narcism, this constant need for validation, but
Speaker 1: it still leaves us empty at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: You know. That's why I would argue that both of
Speaker 1: your things within the populary demean are still poor substitutes
Speaker 1: for love, you know. So yeah, I think that's so interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's fair, you know, And I think there
Speaker 1: is something very narcissistic about, you know, seeking those kinds
Speaker 1: of likes and retweets or you know, whatever platform you're on,
Speaker 1: and really looking for them. We've been doing some research
Speaker 1: recently on what we're called in digital status seeking, and
Speaker 1: my graduate student, Jackie Nesi really came up with us
Speaker 1: and identified that there were a lot of of people
Speaker 1: who post in a pretty overt obvious way just to
Speaker 1: get more attention of their profiles. When she looked at
Speaker 1: digital status seeking longitudinally in an adolescent sample, she found
Speaker 1: that the more that you had the reputation of being
Speaker 1: a status seeker on Instagram in this case, the greater
Speaker 1: the difficulties you had in your relationships, and the higher
Speaker 1: prevalence of health risk behaviors over time. There's something about
Speaker 1: digital satus seeking that serves as a marker for perhaps
Speaker 1: a personality attribute, you know, where some people are taking
Speaker 1: this a little too far and they're being a little
Speaker 1: too overt, and they're desire to constantly get these rewards.
Speaker 1: Neuroscientists would call them social rewards. And we talk about
Speaker 1: the eventual austraid and kind of lighting up every time
Speaker 1: you see your post as more retweets certain and you know,
Speaker 1: or likes attached to it. And I think that's a
Speaker 1: really interesting phenomenon that, you know, what has happened in
Speaker 1: our species recently that has changed the way we interact
Speaker 1: with each other that dramatically and unveiled a human need
Speaker 1: we didn't even realize we had before. Oh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: so interesting. It magnifies that need more than maybe our
Speaker 1: caveman ancestors were aware of just how important it was
Speaker 1: for us. But you know, this is so interesting because
Speaker 1: again from like a what's the most prepotent need here?
Speaker 1: It might be these things over love. Like that's a
Speaker 1: very controversial thing to say, but I like, why are
Speaker 1: people seeking all this stuff? So why are people obsessed
Speaker 1: with that stuff? And why aren't people obsessed with like
Speaker 1: family connections, like one on one connections. Why is this
Speaker 1: superficial affiliation drive trumping the compassion drive? I know, I
Speaker 1: just hate to use that word these days, trumping, But
Speaker 1: do you see what I'm saying? This is almost like
Speaker 1: a natural experiment. And why is affiliation and status winning
Speaker 1: over love? So you know, there's a couple of different
Speaker 1: hypotheses there, right, Like is it that we are somehow
Speaker 1: still stuck in adolescence? Is it the way that we
Speaker 1: all experienced adolescence and that really push for social rewards
Speaker 1: and not lessons? Does that stay with us? Was that
Speaker 1: so salient and so important to us back then that
Speaker 1: those needs still play a role Because there's still an
Speaker 1: adolescent inside all of us that's desperately wanting to be cool.
Speaker 1: You know, that would be one hypothesis. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: another one is that maybe there's been a desire to
Speaker 1: have kind of high status for an evolutionary need. You know,
Speaker 1: it does affirm our survival, you know it did back
Speaker 1: in caveman times and until about one hundred years ago.
Speaker 1: It also played a huge role. You know, you need
Speaker 1: it to be part of a team. There are still
Speaker 1: cultures where royalty and class play an enormous role in
Speaker 1: your survival, including our own culture. Is this a marker
Speaker 1: for that? And is there an evolutionary drive? There are
Speaker 1: many different possibilities, but there's something about this desire for
Speaker 1: status that does seem to play a role in social
Speaker 1: media has kind of turned into a game, but it
Speaker 1: seems to be tapping into something very real. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I really like all these ideas, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's not like we have the answer, right, That would
Speaker 1: be amazing if the psychology podcast we just came up
Speaker 1: with like the reason why it's so intert But I
Speaker 1: think that these are all really viable hypotheses, and yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for putting them forward. So what is the popularity boomerang.
Speaker 1: So the popularity boomerang is based on what developmental psychologists
Speaker 1: and developmental psychopathology people call the transactional model. The transactional
Speaker 1: model really talks about the give and take that we
Speaker 1: have with our environments. So, of course our environment kind
Speaker 1: of can inflict upon us injury or a negative experience,
Speaker 1: and that affects our mood and our emotions and our behavior.
Speaker 1: But people don't often realize the way that your own
Speaker 1: experiences elicit different things out of the environment. If you
Speaker 1: walk around sad, it actually leads to mood contation, and
Speaker 1: other people get sad around you, and that makes you
Speaker 1: more sad and so on. So in a very real way,
Speaker 1: what you throw out there comes right back at you.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that's been really fascinating in
Speaker 1: the research on popularity is that there is a transactional relationship.
Speaker 1: Popular people have lifetime benefits, and it's not just because
Speaker 1: of favoritism, and it's not just because they have some
Speaker 1: underlying quality that made them popularity in the first place.
Speaker 1: It really is because by being likable, let's say, it
Speaker 1: elicits new things from the environment that a person standing
Speaker 1: right next to them. That's not likable would not get
Speaker 1: and that extra advantage that you get from the environment
Speaker 1: gives you an opportunity to truly learn new skills, get
Speaker 1: access to new resources which make you even more likable,
Speaker 1: and it starts the cycle all over again. And in
Speaker 1: that chapter in the book, you know, I talk about
Speaker 1: some real life examples and some research that really show
Speaker 1: that there is a power of popularity that is quite enduring.
Speaker 1: And you know it is because these are folks who
Speaker 1: are able to live in a different world. They elicit
Speaker 1: a different environment than everyone else does. So interesting, and
Speaker 1: it's almost like it's like a cycle. It's a spirals viral,
Speaker 1: you know, like like they're talking about posit psychology, like
Speaker 1: positive spirals upward upwards and negative spirals downwards, things like that. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: really interesting. So I really am so curious why popularity
Speaker 1: matters so much to us as adults, even though we
Speaker 1: don't want to admit it, and how we can conquer
Speaker 1: the problem Queen today as that's how you frame it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it does matter, And I would say that,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that people have realized
Speaker 1: more and more is how much in psychology we call
Speaker 1: it social information processing biases play a role. To me.
Speaker 1: What this is one of the most fascinating things we
Speaker 1: study in psychology. But you know, there's research that shows
Speaker 1: even using eye tracking devices where you can look at
Speaker 1: what people look at and how long they stare at things,
Speaker 1: that shows that based on your mood or based on
Speaker 1: your prior social experiences, you could literally watch a video,
Speaker 1: a standardized video, and you will stare at different parts
Speaker 1: of the video, and you will stare longer at parts
Speaker 1: of that video than other people who had different social
Speaker 1: relationships than you did growing up. So a popular person
Speaker 1: will attune to positive social cues, and an unpopular person
Speaker 1: will grow up to spend more time steering at negative
Speaker 1: social cues in their environment. In some ways, that can
Speaker 1: be really helpful for that unpopular person and it helps
Speaker 1: them stay vigilant and notice things that other people might
Speaker 1: be too pollyanna to notice. But you can also imagine
Speaker 1: some pretty bad ways that really colors your life. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a negative filter that really makes you
Speaker 1: see and expect and anticipate rejection and relationship after relationship,
Speaker 1: and that can be really really damaging. And once you
Speaker 1: recognize those filters, a clinical psychologist would use cognitive behavioral
Speaker 1: therapy to really be able to show you how you're
Speaker 1: making some automatic assumptions and how you can overturn that
Speaker 1: by paying attention to new information. You know, when you're
Speaker 1: saying all this, it makes me think that, you know,
Speaker 1: the sociometer view is really on the right track, that
Speaker 1: self esteem really maybe evolved to tracks mostly interpersonal functions.
Speaker 1: It responses interpersonal responses to us, you know, of our
Speaker 1: value as a social animal. Yeah, we are such a
Speaker 1: social animal. And you know, it's funny I'm saying all this.
Speaker 1: I'm like, not a social psych I'm like other things
Speaker 1: like a personality, positive, cognitive personality, blah blah blah. But
Speaker 1: I I really have so much appreciation for the social
Speaker 1: psychology perspective on this, and I think it needs to
Speaker 1: be integrated because we can have these fragmented fields where
Speaker 1: we study these things in isolation and each other. Like
Speaker 1: if I have the Handbook of self esteem, which is
Speaker 1: not beach reading, it's so technical and in the weeds,
Speaker 1: and you know, and a lot awful lot of it
Speaker 1: doesn't mention social at all. You know, it's so much
Speaker 1: about just like I feel like self beliefs you know,
Speaker 1: which are part of the story too, Like I am unlovable,
Speaker 1: I am on but when you look at the nature
Speaker 1: of it's like almost obvious. But when you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, Like almost all these self police have to
Speaker 1: do with my social value, right, I mean, I believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, our development occurves in a social context. You know,
Speaker 1: we learn who we are and at lessence by looking
Speaker 1: at how other people respond to us, and most everything
Speaker 1: that we experience is happening through social feedback. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, for me, it's impossible to look at some
Speaker 1: of these things out without considering the social context. In
Speaker 1: researching the book, I was I'm not an anthropologist, of course,
Speaker 1: but I was shocked to learn that that that viewpoint
Speaker 1: is really supported by what we know of evolution. You know,
Speaker 1: we were I talked a little bit about in the
Speaker 1: book about what I read in anthropology. We were not
Speaker 1: the species that anyone would bet on to have survived.
Speaker 1: There were other human like species that were bigger, that
Speaker 1: were more resilient, that were able to withstand physical attacks more,
Speaker 1: and we were not that. We were none of those things.
Speaker 1: There was only one thing that we had that was
Speaker 1: different from those other species that seemed matter, and it
Speaker 1: was our ability to form and comprehend language. It was
Speaker 1: a small genetic aberration that allowed us to make more
Speaker 1: sophisticated sounds and understand those sounds, and language is the
Speaker 1: basis for social relationships. Once we were able to communicate
Speaker 1: with one another, we were able to become a social species.
Speaker 1: And that was the factor that made the difference, you know,
Speaker 1: more than any of those other factors. And once I
Speaker 1: read that, it kind of made me even more believe
Speaker 1: that it's impossible to understand a lot of psychology without
Speaker 1: understanding you know, how we are fundamentally a species and
Speaker 1: each of us as individuals, you know, we are within
Speaker 1: a social world. We have to understand psychology within that
Speaker 1: social experience. Yeah, so I think that there's just great
Speaker 1: value in integrating the evolutionary approach, the social psychology approach,
Speaker 1: the you know cognitive, the clinical, you know, bringing in
Speaker 1: the clinical as not something so separate from these basic
Speaker 1: human needs, but as just maybe addictions to these needs
Speaker 1: in ways, you know, I think is a good way
Speaker 1: of thinking about it. Great stuff. Now, are you your
Speaker 1: clinical by training, right, Yeah, you're clinical psychologist, So you
Speaker 1: get a chance to navigate these different realms of psychology
Speaker 1: and kind of see how the abnormal can inform the normal.
Speaker 1: I'm putting all this these words in quotes, by the
Speaker 1: way normal you know, we're all weird, right, and what
Speaker 1: is weird? You know, Like I kind of just have
Speaker 1: this radical openness where like nothing is objectively weird, you know,
Speaker 1: as long as it's not hurting someone and it's not
Speaker 1: being maladaptive to your own goals, like, it's not weird,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, clinical psychologists would say that as long
Speaker 1: as your weirdness is not impairing your ability to function,
Speaker 1: then it's not you know, it's not a symptom, it's
Speaker 1: not disorder. But clinical is just as siloed as I
Speaker 1: think all the other areas that you're talking about. I
Speaker 1: really like the idea of more work across the sub
Speaker 1: disciplines of psychology because we are all able to, you know,
Speaker 1: answer questions about basic human needs if we combine forces,
Speaker 1: and you know, we reunite as one discipline of psychology
Speaker 1: rather than a bunch of separate sub disciplines. Oh, I
Speaker 1: couldn't agree more. This is a big part of why
Speaker 1: I like to have this podcast, and I get to
Speaker 1: talk with people from every single sub discipline of psychology
Speaker 1: and then kind of be like, oh, Mitch Prinstein said
Speaker 1: to me last week, blah blah blah. You know all
Speaker 1: he says like it's kind of exciting. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: such a psychologist, such a psychology nerd at the level
Speaker 1: which the integration excites me, you know, and my listeners
Speaker 1: and my listeners get to experience this integration in real time,
Speaker 1: so it's a hopefully a good experience for the listeners.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask one last question because I
Speaker 1: feel like we've covered so much ground today. What are
Speaker 1: the implications for parenting? You know, we talked a little
Speaker 1: about clinical implications, about the need to grow up already,
Speaker 1: become mature, stop caring so much of more popularity, But
Speaker 1: what about parenting. You're raising a young one and you
Speaker 1: want to prevent them from what happened to you as
Speaker 1: a childhood. Yeah, so, you know, I think that one
Speaker 1: of the important things is that parents do need to
Speaker 1: focus on this stuff. You know, don't just think kids
Speaker 1: will be kids, and if your kid is likable or not,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. It does matter. You don't want your
Speaker 1: kids to be extremely excluded, rejected, ostracized. You know, there
Speaker 1: are pretty negative consequences that do come from that. So
Speaker 1: in the book, I talk about some pretty specific tips
Speaker 1: and ways of making sure that parents can make sure
Speaker 1: that their kids turn out to be likable. But simultaneously,
Speaker 1: I think in this world of social media and status,
Speaker 1: you know, obsession, it's really important that parents are paying
Speaker 1: attention to reinforcing the right kind of popularity and they're
Speaker 1: not inadvertently making their kids desire status, because that is
Speaker 1: a pretty big problem. And if your kids are really
Speaker 1: caring too much about status, then you're setting them up
Speaker 1: for a lifetime of disappointment, research would suggest. So I
Speaker 1: really really hope that parents are paying attention to popularity
Speaker 1: enough and to the right kind of popularity. I want
Speaker 1: to give you a little more opportunity as the last
Speaker 1: question now to just tell me how can we as
Speaker 1: adults choose the type of popularity that we want and
Speaker 1: why really is choosing liking over popularity and more beneficial
Speaker 1: to us. Making yourself stand out and making other people
Speaker 1: feel weak or less significant is the way that people
Speaker 1: gain status. That's bad. That leads to addictions and depression
Speaker 1: and anxiety and relationship problems. Research says, but try to
Speaker 1: elevate others and make them feel valued and included. It's
Speaker 1: not just a nice thing to do, but it actually
Speaker 1: pays off for us as well, because the more likable
Speaker 1: we are, the better we do in our own relationships,
Speaker 1: the more healthy we are, believe it or not, the
Speaker 1: better we are at our jobs. It leads to success,
Speaker 1: better higher pain salaries, and it leads to personal benefits.
Speaker 1: We're less likely to be anxious or depressed if we
Speaker 1: are in a community of people who truly like us,
Speaker 1: don't revere us, to respect us and want to emulate us,
Speaker 1: but truly like us and feel connected to us. It
Speaker 1: leads to all kinds of health and mental health benefits.
Speaker 1: That sounds good to me. I'm trying to cut down
Speaker 1: on my social media addiction, so you've helped me a
Speaker 1: little bit that inspire me to do that. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: Mitch for Channel. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it too. Thank you so much for listening to
Speaker 1: the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope
Speaker 1: you found this episode just as thought provoking as I did.
Speaker 1: If something you heard today stimulated you in some way,
Speaker 1: I encourage you to join in the discussion at the
Speaker 1: Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology podcast dot com.