Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: I'm not a mysterious person like I really wish I was.
Speaker 2: I've tried to be a cool girl. I can't if
Speaker 2: I ask, not me, and I'm just like.
Speaker 1: Boo for as long as she can remember. Author in
Speaker 1: mental health blogger Clear Eastam has found social situations to
Speaker 1: be surprisingly stressful.
Speaker 2: What if I say something stupid? What if I make
Speaker 2: a fool of myself? What if I'm boring? What if
Speaker 2: nobody wants to talk to me? There's always a lot
Speaker 2: of what if questions mentally, and they are almost immediately
Speaker 2: accompanied by the emotional response, which is more anxiety, stress, fear,
Speaker 2: and then the physical symptoms such as pounding heart. Sometimes
Speaker 2: I might blush or sort of general feeling of unease.
Speaker 2: I tend to get like I like, I want to bolt.
Speaker 1: And the conversational norm that makes clear want to bolt
Speaker 1: the most is small talk.
Speaker 2: What do you think of the weather? What's going on?
Speaker 1: You're staying busy? Man? I can't believe it's already Wednesday.
Speaker 1: How is the traffic on your drive?
Speaker 2: Oh? My god, I don't know if it's to say.
Speaker 2: When you were in the UK, people love to talk
Speaker 2: about how they arrived at a venue, what road did
Speaker 2: you take?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: I have no idea, mate, I just got it.
Speaker 1: And don't get clear started on this all too common
Speaker 1: conversation starter. How are you?
Speaker 2: It just feels like too light of a question to
Speaker 2: answer because you think I know the response is I'm fine?
Speaker 2: How are you? For fifty percent of the time, I'm
Speaker 2: not fine? And I don't feel like answering that question
Speaker 2: inauthentically because it's a lie.
Speaker 1: Claire has long dreaded spending time in small talk conversational autopilot.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how long it was supposed to last.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what I was supposed to say because
Speaker 2: I'm not interested in the weather. It's like it's raining again.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. We can't go anywhere with this unless you
Speaker 2: take us somewhere, and I'm stressed that you might not
Speaker 2: do that, and then the responsibility will fall on me,
Speaker 2: and I don't know what to say apart from you know,
Speaker 2: rain is wet, as.
Speaker 1: You can hear. Claire does have some not so small
Speaker 1: feelings about small talk, but I'm guessing that at least
Speaker 1: some of you listening right now can relate talking about
Speaker 1: the weather for the fifth time in a single afternoon
Speaker 1: being asked how you're doing by someone who doesn't even
Speaker 1: listen to your response. Superficial interactions like these can feel painful.
Speaker 1: They can cause you to second guess if you're doing
Speaker 1: the whole social connection thing right or if it's even
Speaker 1: worth it, Which leads me to today's happiness hot take
Speaker 1: you ready here it is we should completely get rid
Speaker 1: of small talk. I'm talking zero tolerance. We need to
Speaker 1: fully rethink our usual approach to conversational autopilot. Why kill
Speaker 1: off small talk, you ask?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 1: Research shows that small talk has an opportunity cost that
Speaker 1: our minds don't realize. All those how's the weathers? And
Speaker 1: is it Friday? Yets cause us to miss out on
Speaker 1: a happier way that we could be spending our social interactions,
Speaker 1: a type of conversation that feels less stressful, more engaging,
Speaker 1: and way way more fun. Our minds are constantly telling
Speaker 1: us what to you to be happy. But what if
Speaker 1: our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying
Speaker 1: to us, leading us away from what will really make
Speaker 1: us happy. The good news is that the science of
Speaker 1: the mind can point us all back in the right direction.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Happiness Lab with me doctor Laurie Santos.
Speaker 2: A would self scam people almost like the terminator, and
Speaker 2: they're like looking for signs the person to alignments, persons board,
Speaker 2: and I would view all social insurrections as a success
Speaker 2: or a failure.
Speaker 1: Growing up, author and blogger Claire Eastam often thought of
Speaker 1: social situations as if she was going into battle. Take
Speaker 1: family get togethers. Some kids love seeing their relatives, but
Speaker 1: Claire heated family celebrations so much that she'd regularly get
Speaker 1: stomach aches on the car ride over. She'd spend days
Speaker 1: before these upcoming events worried about conversations she'd be forced
Speaker 1: to endure.
Speaker 2: Oh Joe saw got this promotion, and so and so
Speaker 2: has got this many grades at school, and no, like
Speaker 2: why are we having these chaps?
Speaker 1: But there was one family member that young Claire did
Speaker 1: feel comfortable around, someone who seemed to detest a small
Speaker 1: talk just as much as she did, her grandmother, Evelyn Eastam.
Speaker 2: My grandma used to just sit in the kitchen chains
Speaker 2: milking cigarettes, and so I was slacking the rest of
Speaker 2: the family off because she did not perform for anybody.
Speaker 1: Grandma Eastam or her conversational authenticity with pride, What do
Speaker 1: you really.
Speaker 2: Think of your uncle Paul, Does I tell you what
Speaker 2: I think? He thinks? He's flashy with his BMW Well.
Speaker 1: Claire's grandmother also found a way to make conversation more fun,
Speaker 1: often by adding a bit of ridiculousness.
Speaker 2: She managed to convince me that she wrote The Wizard
Speaker 2: of Alls but she sat in Wigan in the UK.
Speaker 2: I believed this, but she told me like half the
Speaker 2: story around this dining room table, and I was like,
Speaker 2: this is amazing, Grandma. And she would courage to me
Speaker 2: and she's like, well, you gonna write a story, Like
Speaker 2: what would you write it about? And what characters would
Speaker 2: you have? And then she'd like, we should write it
Speaker 2: down and then next time I see you, you could
Speaker 2: tell me about it.
Speaker 1: Evelyn's off the wild questions and authentic curiosity helped young
Speaker 1: Claire feel more comfortable during family gatherings, but as Claire
Speaker 1: got older, safe social spaces like these felt rarer and rarer.
Speaker 2: When I have to perform, that's what I call it,
Speaker 2: the how did you get here? It's more stressful for
Speaker 2: me because I feel like I'm swallowing part of my
Speaker 2: personality to fit in. And then all I do is
Speaker 2: clockwatch like, how long do I have to stay? How
Speaker 2: long am I here fort? Because I'm getting no enjoyment
Speaker 2: out of this and it's just making me feel more anxious.
Speaker 1: Whenever Claire was forced to be social, she found herself
Speaker 1: seeking out allies like Evelyn.
Speaker 2: I would just try and find these people who would
Speaker 2: make me feel like I could be myself, really, like,
Speaker 2: who's not playing the game? You marveless?
Speaker 1: But that got harder after Claire graduated and entered the
Speaker 1: working world. Securing a position at one of the most
Speaker 1: prestigious publishing houses in London was huge for Claire's blossoming career,
Speaker 1: but it met regularly facing the sorts of social battlegrounds
Speaker 1: that she feared the most.
Speaker 2: And I think there's a lot of people here I
Speaker 2: potentially have to perform too. I can't control this environment.
Speaker 2: I can't control what's going to happen next.
Speaker 1: To gain back a sense of control, Claire developed a
Speaker 1: whole host of not so healthy coping strategies. Behavior is
Speaker 1: like extreme people pleasing.
Speaker 2: My friend said this about me. Actually, she said, you
Speaker 2: could get hit by a boss and you know your
Speaker 2: arm would come off and you're black. Oh my god,
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry. I'll just pick it up and walk off.
Speaker 1: And avoiding potential small talk situations to the point of
Speaker 1: bladder discomfort.
Speaker 2: I would sometimes I can go to loeb because I
Speaker 2: didn't want to have to walk past so many people's desks.
Speaker 1: Claire even found herself turning to the unhealthy standby that
Speaker 1: many of us use in social situations.
Speaker 2: Alcohol was a massive crupch. He was a lot of
Speaker 2: sedating how I was feeling.
Speaker 1: But maladaptive coping strategies like these can only take a
Speaker 1: person so far, and one fateful day, Claire had what
Speaker 1: she likes to call a breakthrough breakdown.
Speaker 2: It was a big acquisitions meeting and I had what
Speaker 2: I now know was a paddic attack. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what it was. Then I thought it was a stroke.
Speaker 2: I thought, okay, so I'm going to die, but I
Speaker 2: really don't want to make a scene. For some bizarre reason,
Speaker 2: my brain told me that in order to get out
Speaker 2: of the situation, I should stand up very slowly for
Speaker 2: everyone and say in a posh voice, which I don't have.
Speaker 2: I had the Neror verse, and I must leave once
Speaker 2: and then leg it out of the room.
Speaker 1: Claire then continued legging it into the elevator and out
Speaker 1: of the building and then miles away down the street.
Speaker 2: I did not stop running because something had snapped and
Speaker 2: I did not know what to do. So yeah, there
Speaker 2: was no sort of sweeping that one under the rock.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Claire went to her doctor. She explained
Speaker 1: how anxious she'd been at work for months, and how
Speaker 1: sitting through that big meeting seemed to trigger a medical emergency.
Speaker 2: It was diagnosed in under thirty seconds, like this is
Speaker 2: tact book, Social Anxiety Disorder and ye to punic attack
Speaker 2: and a big pop me didn't want to accept.
Speaker 1: It at first. Claire was pretty self critical about her diagnosis,
Speaker 1: but with time she developed more self compassion. Eventually, she
Speaker 1: wanted to share that compassion with others who are going
Speaker 1: through similar mental health challenges, so in twenty thirteen, she
Speaker 1: started a blog entitled We're All Mad Here and which
Speaker 1: she shared her experiences with social anxiety as well as
Speaker 1: lots of relatable advice. Thousands upon thousands of subscribers signed up.
Speaker 1: The blog quickly turned into a book with the same name,
Speaker 1: which sold out of its first print in just five days.
Speaker 1: Claire went from denying her disorder to becoming an international
Speaker 1: expert social anxiety.
Speaker 2: A lot of it comes from repressing who you are.
Speaker 2: I think of social anxiety as you being like, I'm
Speaker 2: in here, I'm in here, let me out, let me out.
Speaker 2: Why are you punishing me?
Speaker 1: But Claire was about to enter a period where that
Speaker 1: sort of punishment, as she called it, would die down
Speaker 1: a lot, because for Claire and pretty much every other
Speaker 1: human on the planet, social interaction as usual was about
Speaker 1: to undergo a massive change.
Speaker 2: In lockdown, the world shut down on the conversations that
Speaker 2: we had did tend to be more meaningful. It's funny
Speaker 2: he wouldn't say, how are you, because it's just like
Speaker 2: I'm still stuck in my house, same as yesterday. Nothing
Speaker 2: has changed. What else do you want to talk about?
Speaker 2: You know, we have to be more creative.
Speaker 1: Claire thrived and the unique moment that was twenty twenty
Speaker 1: in the midst of a global pandemic, people were feeling vulnerable,
Speaker 1: so they tended to drop the usual pleasantries in order
Speaker 1: to connect a bit more deeply. Conversations were taking place
Speaker 1: on a computer screen, but Claire still found them to
Speaker 1: be more real, more like the ones she remembered with
Speaker 1: her grandmother Evelyn back in the day. Claire hoped that
Speaker 1: the shift in small talk would last once everybody went
Speaker 1: back into the real world.
Speaker 2: I'll never forget I went into a Costa coffee shop
Speaker 2: was one of my first interactions and locked eyes with someone,
Speaker 2: and she's sort of like, how are you house weather,
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. I was just sort of like, I
Speaker 2: can't remember what to say.
Speaker 1: And Claire wasn't alone. Many people reported a drop in
Speaker 1: their social skills post COVID, which meant that our surface
Speaker 1: level small talk interactions became even more strained than they
Speaker 1: were before. After months of more authentic, seeming conversations, Claire's
Speaker 1: return to the world of small talk felt like torture.
Speaker 1: And that is when Claire made the decision that there
Speaker 1: had to be another way.
Speaker 2: And I'm sick of like being so horrible to myself
Speaker 2: about this. Right, We're deliberately not going to do it now.
Speaker 2: I'm not going into another social situation thinking, make sure
Speaker 2: you seem normal for the first couple of minutes, so
Speaker 2: then you can be yourself.
Speaker 1: What if Claire thought I just got rid of small
Speaker 1: talk altogether. What if for one entire month I chose
Speaker 1: to start every new conversation by embodying my inner Evelyn
Speaker 1: and just getting straight into the weird, authentic stuff that
Speaker 1: I'd have more fun talking about a thought.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Let's do it as a full experiment,
Speaker 2: and I really did have faith that a lot of
Speaker 2: people would respond positively.
Speaker 1: How do conversations go when you force your partners to
Speaker 1: go deeper, when you completely reject the usual pleasantries for
Speaker 1: an entire month. Well we'll find out when the Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab returns from the break.
Speaker 3: I went in totally nervous. I had never been sweating
Speaker 3: bullets before I talk as much as I had with
Speaker 3: this one, Because when you run a live demonstration in
Speaker 3: front of an audience, if it doesn't work for some reason,
Speaker 3: you are really sunk.
Speaker 1: This is my friend and Happiness Lab regular, the psychologist
Speaker 1: Nick Epley. He's telling me about the first time he
Speaker 1: tried out what has now become one of his most
Speaker 1: famous social connection interventions.
Speaker 3: I was out in Connecticut speaking at a financial decision
Speaker 3: making conference that I invited to come and speak at.
Speaker 3: And we've got a room of maybe fifty sixty people
Speaker 3: sitting there. These are all high level executives running pension funds.
Speaker 3: I mean, these are serious folks. I was really the
Speaker 3: only one not wearing a suit that day, and they
Speaker 3: had not really anticipated that they'd be bringing somebody in
Speaker 3: to do touchy feely sort of things. But that's what
Speaker 3: I was there to do.
Speaker 1: Nick studies the psychological effects of engaging in the sorts
Speaker 1: of social situations that we assume will make us feel awkward.
Speaker 1: In previous Happiness Lab episodes, Nick has shared his research
Speaker 1: on what happens when people strike up a conversation with
Speaker 1: a stranger, or sincerely expressed gratitude to someone they have
Speaker 1: it spoken to for a while, or ask a random
Speaker 1: person on the street for help with a vulnerable situation.
Speaker 1: In all of these cases, Nick finds that people's interactions
Speaker 1: feel much less awkward and much more enjoyable than they think.
Speaker 1: But Nick was also interested in what happens when we
Speaker 1: ratchet up the awkwardness of conversations even higher. What happens
Speaker 1: when we channel are inner, evolent eastoms and chat with
Speaker 1: complete strangers about the most vulnerable topics possible. Nick was
Speaker 1: going to find out using the titans of the financial
Speaker 1: industry as his guinea pigs.
Speaker 3: We start talking, I present some of my early research,
Speaker 3: and then I tell him what we're going to do
Speaker 3: that in a minute. We are going to put up
Speaker 3: some questions on the screen, and I'm going to pair
Speaker 3: you up with another person and you're going to have
Speaker 3: a conversation with him about these questions.
Speaker 1: But the questions Nick put up on the screen, we're
Speaker 1: part of the usual small talk script, things like where
Speaker 1: do you work? Or how is your commute? His questions
Speaker 1: included what is one of the most embarrassing moments of
Speaker 1: your life? If you could undo one of the mistakes
Speaker 1: you've made in life, what would it be and why?
Speaker 1: And can you describe the last time you cried in
Speaker 1: front of another person.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's not the most energetic room to begin with,
Speaker 3: but you could just feel the energy just drain right out.
Speaker 3: There was a guy sitting right in front of me.
Speaker 3: I will never forget it. As soon as I put
Speaker 3: up this question, everybody kind of grown. But he yelled out,
Speaker 3: oh expletive, yeah, Oh I don't know if I'm alzed.
Speaker 3: Oh shit, is what he said.
Speaker 1: But Nick forged on. He began the exercise by having
Speaker 1: the executives make some predictions on a scale of one
Speaker 1: to ten. How much do you think you're going to
Speaker 1: enjoy this vulnerable converse. How connected will you feel to
Speaker 1: the person afterwards, and how awkward will you feel? After
Speaker 1: completing their surveys, the businessmen paired up and got chatting.
Speaker 3: Started a little bit slow at first, but then things
Speaker 3: just started to shift, like the room just started to turn.
Speaker 3: It got lively by about fifteen minutes, which is when
Speaker 3: I thought I was going to bring them back. They
Speaker 3: were going so strong in their conversations. I couldn't figure
Speaker 3: out how to get him back, right, Like I had
Speaker 3: never faced this before. I'm saying, all right, clapping my hands,
Speaker 3: time to come back. Eventually, I get the microphone and
Speaker 3: I got to do a countdown from five, which I
Speaker 3: learned from my kids kindergarten teacher works. And then finally
Speaker 3: got them back. And then I had them report how
Speaker 3: the conversations had actually gone, how awkward they actually were,
Speaker 3: how much they actually enjoyed the conversation. The gaps were stunning.
Speaker 1: The execs predicted that their conversations would feel mediocre at best,
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't enjoy the exercise all that much because
Speaker 1: they'd be feeling awkward the entire time. But after the
Speaker 1: exercise was complete, they reported that their actual conversation were
Speaker 1: far less awkward and far more delightful than they expected
Speaker 1: to their absolute shock. Ditching the usual small talk felt great.
Speaker 3: You didn't even need to look at the data. You
Speaker 3: could feel it in the room. These people who had
Speaker 3: started out very nervous, you could see them in their
Speaker 3: conversations that they had just come to life. I remember
Speaker 3: one couple over on the left, one pair they hugged
Speaker 3: at the end, which like, these are not huggers. Right,
Speaker 3: there was a guy up in the way back who
Speaker 3: was tearing up. Everybody was shaking hands when they were done.
Speaker 3: You didn't need to see the data. You could see
Speaker 3: the data right in front of you.
Speaker 1: Psychologists have known about the connective power of deep conversations
Speaker 1: like nicks for some time. Consider, for example, what's known
Speaker 1: as the fast friends procedure. This now famous technique was
Speaker 1: first developed back in the nineties by psychologists Art and
Speaker 1: Elaine Aaron, a married couple who met and fell in
Speaker 1: love rather quickly when they were young researchers, an experience
Speaker 1: that got the pair interested and the factors that caused
Speaker 1: people to connect rapidly. Here's how the Erin's fast friends
Speaker 1: procedure were works two strangers are paired together and asked
Speaker 1: to discuss a series of thirty six deep questions with
Speaker 1: one another. The questions start off relatively casually, things like
Speaker 1: would you like to be famous? Or if you could
Speaker 1: pick anyone in the world, who would you want as
Speaker 1: a dinner guest, But as conversation continues, the strangers start
Speaker 1: going even deeper, asking each other questions more like the
Speaker 1: ones Nick used with his executives, things like how do
Speaker 1: you feel about your relationship with your mother? And if
Speaker 1: you die tonight, what would you most regret not having
Speaker 1: told someone right.
Speaker 3: They start from pretty shallow, and then they slowly escalate,
Speaker 3: like a seven forty seven jet taken off the runway,
Speaker 3: slow and steady.
Speaker 1: The errands correctly hypothesize that this slow increase of mutual
Speaker 1: disclosure would cause people to feel more connected, But the
Speaker 1: researchers also assumed the other variables would matter for connection factors,
Speaker 1: like how interested people were in doing the procedure or
Speaker 1: how similar people's answers were to one another.
Speaker 3: And those things just did not at all. The only
Speaker 3: thing that mattered is what we are talking about, And
Speaker 3: at the end of all of those questions that people
Speaker 3: who had talked about more meaningful things. They felt much
Speaker 3: much closer.
Speaker 1: Nick and his colleagues have found similar effects using this
Speaker 1: shorter and more extreme version of the fast friends procedure.
Speaker 3: We don't take the seven forty seven off the runway approach.
Speaker 3: We're more like, hop into a helicopter right and you're
Speaker 3: going to go deep right away. And that looks like
Speaker 3: it works. I have had people say this was the
Speaker 3: best conversation I have ever had. I've had people in
Speaker 3: these sessions tell me that they told somebody something they
Speaker 3: have never told somebody else before.
Speaker 1: Across thousands of participants, both in laboratory settings and at
Speaker 1: real life events like that financial conference, Nick's results are
Speaker 1: nearly always the same. Deep conversations consistently make us feel
Speaker 1: happier and more connected than polite small talk does.
Speaker 3: What's interesting to me is that you can have those
Speaker 3: conversations almost any day that you want to, if you
Speaker 3: choose to do it.
Speaker 1: But it seems like most of the time we don't
Speaker 1: choose to do it. Nick says, we often get stuck
Speaker 1: in the small talk mode that socially anxious blogger Clear
Speaker 1: Eastam detested so much.
Speaker 3: So we talk about current events, we talk about what
Speaker 3: you do for a living, right, but not do you
Speaker 3: love what you do for a living? Is this your
Speaker 3: dream job? Small talk is all the outside stuff. Deep
Speaker 3: talk is going into where your heart sits, to where
Speaker 3: your beliefs sit, to where your values sit, to where
Speaker 3: what's really important to you sits. It means going deeper
Speaker 3: inside somebody's mind, away from the superficial stuff to something deep.
Speaker 3: And you can fail at small talk if you don't
Speaker 3: feel up on current events, or you don't know something
Speaker 3: about somebody's job, or you didn't go out and see
Speaker 3: this movie that somebody else saw, or you don't watch sports. Right,
Speaker 3: you can fail on that stuff because it's about news
Speaker 3: and things. I think is actually harder to fail at
Speaker 3: deep talk.
Speaker 1: So these deep conversations make us feel really good. But
Speaker 1: how often are people having these deep conversations?
Speaker 3: Well, certainly not as often as they would want to.
Speaker 3: So at the end of these conversations we ask people
Speaker 3: how deep was this conversation? They say, you really deep?
Speaker 3: So this is, you know, on a zero to ten scale,
Speaker 3: we're talking like a seven. That's how deep this was.
Speaker 3: And we ask them how deep are the conversations you
Speaker 3: typically have? They say, like A two not very deep
Speaker 3: at all. And then we ask them how deep are
Speaker 3: the conversations you would like to be having, and they say, well,
Speaker 3: maybe not quite as deep as that one on average,
Speaker 3: and we don't have to talk about the last time
Speaker 3: we cried in front of another person all the time.
Speaker 3: But they say more like a sixth way deeper than
Speaker 3: the conversations they're typically having. And that's what's so interesting
Speaker 3: to me as a psychologist. If these are the conversations
Speaker 3: you want to be having, and you enjoy them a lot,
Speaker 3: why are you not having them?
Speaker 1: The first reason Nick says is that we have some
Speaker 1: unusually miscalibrated beliefs about how good we'll be at conversation. Generally,
Speaker 1: we tend to assume we'll be pretty bad at it,
Speaker 1: which is a result that as a psychologist I find
Speaker 1: it be a very weird effect. Usually, when researchers ask
Speaker 1: people how good they are at some desirable t trait
Speaker 1: relative to the average person, they tend to overestimate that ability.
Speaker 1: They show what social psychologists call the above average effect.
Speaker 1: For example, one study found that around seventy percent of
Speaker 1: people think they're above average at performing their job, cooking, reading,
Speaker 1: and even taking care of personal hygiene. Of course, seventy
Speaker 1: percent of people being above average and all these traits
Speaker 1: is statistically impossible, but people don't seem to realize this,
Speaker 1: at least for most desirable traits. But when you ask
Speaker 1: the same people how good they are relative to the
Speaker 1: average person at conversation, you find the exact opposite effect.
Speaker 3: We're above average on all these things leadership, ability and driving, yes,
Speaker 3: the ability to get along well with others, right, wear
Speaker 3: all stars at all these other things. But when it
Speaker 3: comes to talking to people, the thing we do so
Speaker 3: much of, people think they're terrible. So why does conversation
Speaker 3: give us so much self doubt? So part of it,
Speaker 3: I think comes from failing to understand reciprocity. The norm
Speaker 3: of reciprocity is the dominant social behavioral norm on this planet.
Speaker 3: So if I smile to you, what do you do
Speaker 3: back to me? You smile back. If I don't smile
Speaker 3: at you, what do you do to me? You don't smile?
Speaker 3: I say hi? Do you say hi back to me? Right?
Speaker 3: If you want somebody to be friendly with you, be
Speaker 3: friendly with him first. But people don't seem to appreciate
Speaker 3: the power of that norm. We don't seem to realize
Speaker 3: if you open up to somebody else in conversation first,
Speaker 3: they tend to open up to you. In return, you've
Speaker 3: signaled that you trust them, that you're interested in them,
Speaker 3: and they then take an interest in you.
Speaker 1: So much of our conversation pessimism stems from the fact
Speaker 1: that we don't realize that our partners will happily reciprocate
Speaker 1: the work that we put into trying to connect with them.
Speaker 3: We think we're paddling upstream a canoe with one paddle,
Speaker 3: and what we forget is there somebody else in the
Speaker 3: boat with us too, who is helping us. You don't
Speaker 3: have to drive the entire conversation. You can. If you'd
Speaker 3: like a conversation to be more interesting and meaningful, you
Speaker 3: can do that. You have the power to do that
Speaker 3: if you try. But what we don't appreciate is that
Speaker 3: when I open up to you, you're going to open back.
Speaker 3: We're going to be paddling this canoe together, this conversation together,
Speaker 3: and that's what people don't seem to realize.
Speaker 1: We also forget that how we steer a social interaction
Speaker 1: will affect how our partners react. Nick did a clever
Speaker 1: study that tested this.
Speaker 3: This was one where we sent people around the museum
Speaker 3: and we asked them to just assess how friendly are
Speaker 3: other people at the museum today.
Speaker 1: In one condition, Nick coached his subjects to be friendlier
Speaker 1: than they would normally be. They were told to smile
Speaker 1: at the other people they ran into and to interact
Speaker 1: by saying hello whenever they could.
Speaker 3: In the other condition, they were just like detectives. They
Speaker 3: just went around, walked around and just noticed how friendly
Speaker 3: people seemed to be, But we didn't tell them to
Speaker 3: engage with other people. When they came back to us,
Speaker 3: they reported having a more positive walk when they were
Speaker 3: smiling and saying hello to people. But they also reported
Speaker 3: that people at the museum were friendlier that day than
Speaker 3: people in the control condition. Simultaneously. That makes all the
Speaker 3: sense in the world and no sense in the world. Right,
Speaker 3: there were not different people at the museum that day.
Speaker 3: You made people different, and you made them be friendlier
Speaker 3: by engaging with them. First. It wasn't that there were
Speaker 3: friendlier people at the museum. It's that you were friendlier.
Speaker 3: You used the power you had to make people friendlier,
Speaker 3: and you didn't recognize that.
Speaker 1: Another thing that people don't seem to realize about the
Speaker 1: norm of reciprocity is how it affects the grace people
Speaker 1: are willing to give us during social interactions. When we're
Speaker 1: about to go deep with someone new, we often start
Speaker 1: to hear what Nick likes to call the cringe voice,
Speaker 1: that voice inside our head that cringes as soon as
Speaker 1: it thinks of all the things that could go wrong
Speaker 1: when we start to engage in this new conversation. But
Speaker 1: the cringe voice doesn't take into account reciprocity norms. It
Speaker 1: forgets that if we speak to someone openly and authentically,
Speaker 1: that person tends to respond with kindness, not with judgment.
Speaker 1: All of these findings have convinced Nick that it's time
Speaker 1: for all of us to ditch the usual small talk
Speaker 1: in favor of deeper conversations. He outlines his advice for
Speaker 1: how to do this in his excellent new book A
Speaker 1: Little More Social, How small choices create unexpected happiness, health,
Speaker 1: and connection. Many of Nick's tips involve finding ways to
Speaker 1: go deeper in conversation a little more quickly, often much
Speaker 1: more quickly than we assume is appropriate.
Speaker 3: There are places where small talk works, and the place
Speaker 3: where small talk works is often the first question, the
Speaker 3: first thing you ask somebody about. What does it you
Speaker 3: do for a living? Where is it you live? What
Speaker 3: do you like to do?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: It's often a good launch bad. It's a good starting
Speaker 3: point to engage with somebody, and it also allows you
Speaker 3: to signal that you know you're not a crazy person.
Speaker 3: It allows you to show some interest. But you can
Speaker 3: just get to deep, meaningful stuff much faster than you think.
Speaker 3: And so if you would like to have more, deep, meaningful,
Speaker 3: better conversations in your life, you can choose to do it.
Speaker 3: And it's often on that second question. You can do
Speaker 3: it in two steps. I think usually, so what is
Speaker 3: it you do for a living? Do you love what
Speaker 3: you do for you're living? What was your favorite part
Speaker 3: about it? What did you love the most about it?
Speaker 3: You find out kind of what people are about, and
Speaker 3: then you find out why.
Speaker 1: Have your conversation has gotten better since choosing to go deeper?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, for one thing, I've learned that having these deeper
Speaker 3: conversations is a lot about the mindset that you take
Speaker 3: when you approach somebody else. If you start taking an
Speaker 3: interest in people, recognizing that most people are kind and
Speaker 3: they're decent and they're interesting, they know things you don't.
Speaker 3: Your whole world starts to look different. You see strangers
Speaker 3: sitting on the bus with you who are not like
Speaker 3: these scary, creepy people, but these are fellow human beings
Speaker 3: who have interesting things to tell you. And suddenly the
Speaker 3: world looks friendlier and nicer and kinder. And I've talked
Speaker 3: to so many people who have talked to people a
Speaker 3: lot who go through the same experience. It just changes
Speaker 3: the way you see people. You learn very quickly. You
Speaker 3: can get to know people, and your conversations are just
Speaker 3: much better. Your connections with people are just much better.
Speaker 3: You can share things with people that maybe you never
Speaker 3: would have before. And I do this all the time.
Speaker 3: I've lost when it comes to deep conversation. I've lost
Speaker 3: the cringe voice. I still have it anymore.
Speaker 1: Conversations and connections that feel much better and fully turning
Speaker 1: off that cringe voice that makes us feel terrible in
Speaker 1: social interactions. I gotta admit all that sounds pretty good.
Speaker 1: But Nick is a world expert on the science of connection.
Speaker 1: It makes sense that he can pull off deeper conversation
Speaker 1: without his cringe voice butting in. But would the same
Speaker 1: deep talk strategy work for someone who's been clinically diagnosed
Speaker 1: with an exceptionally loud cringe voice.
Speaker 2: Your loser, you're weird?
Speaker 1: Could committing to deep conversation for an entire month work
Speaker 1: for a person who spent decades being mortally terrified of
Speaker 1: small talk.
Speaker 2: It was like, you've got eighteen more days, Clere. You
Speaker 2: said you would do this, so we're going to finish it.
Speaker 1: Blogger Claire Eastam will return to tell us how her
Speaker 1: small talk ditching experiment went when the Happiness Lad returns
Speaker 1: from the break. When we last left Mental Health blog
Speaker 1: or Claire Eastam, she'd had an epiphany. Feeling tired of
Speaker 1: the pressure she regularly put on herself during social interactions,
Speaker 1: Claire decided to embark on an experiment. For one entire month.
Speaker 1: She would replace all small talk with the sort of weirder,
Speaker 1: more authentic questions that would make her grandmother Evelyne proud.
Speaker 2: It's going to be selfishly something I'm interested in. Genuinely,
Speaker 2: if they asked me a small talk question, I will
Speaker 2: twist it without being rude.
Speaker 1: Her experiment began on the night of a friend's art show,
Speaker 1: exactly the kind of social situation that Claire would usually dread.
Speaker 2: Because it was an art show. Everyone was going in
Speaker 2: with what don't you think they ought? Obviously? And I
Speaker 2: don't know anything about ah.
Speaker 1: Ignoring her usual cringe voice, Claire launched into her first
Speaker 1: attempt to go a little deeper.
Speaker 2: This woman said to me, what do you think that
Speaker 2: they ought? And I said, do you remember your at
Speaker 2: teacher from school? I can remember, mind, and then she
Speaker 2: suddenly just switched.
Speaker 1: The woman lit up as she talked about what she
Speaker 1: remembered from her elementary school art class. She then asked
Speaker 1: Claire about her own experiences. They laughed with one another
Speaker 1: as the conversation flowed. It was the first time that
Speaker 1: Claire had actually had fun at a social event. As
Speaker 1: she walked home from that art show, she realized that
Speaker 1: day one of her experiment had been a huge success.
Speaker 2: We're going to keep doing it because it's lighting us up.
Speaker 1: In the weeks that followed, Claire found ways to shift
Speaker 1: all manner of shallow conversations into topics that went a
Speaker 1: bit deeper. When a barista asked her how she was
Speaker 1: enjoying the weather, she asked him what his favorite season.
Speaker 3: Was and why?
Speaker 1: Or take the guy who asked Claire what she'd been
Speaker 1: watching on TV lately.
Speaker 2: He's talking about killing Eve the TV show. And then
Speaker 2: I was like, if you could kill someone and you
Speaker 2: could pretty much get away with it, like, what would
Speaker 2: be the plan? And he was just like, I've got
Speaker 2: a complete plan. I know what I would do. She's like,
Speaker 2: that's a ball. You need to get barrels of acid.
Speaker 2: And they explained how I would get said acid because
Speaker 2: he's like, no body, no crime. It's like and it's
Speaker 2: the stomach that's the hardest bit to get rid of,
Speaker 2: so you need to be able to like chop it.
Speaker 2: It was really graphic and I.
Speaker 1: Was like, wow, yeah, wow, but potential ax murder interactions aside,
Speaker 1: Claire deeply enjoyed just how positively other people reacted when
Speaker 1: she shut down the usual shallow conversation.
Speaker 2: God, the amount people who said to me, oh, I
Speaker 2: don't I small talk. Either this is brilliant, this is
Speaker 2: so refreshing.
Speaker 1: Or take Tracy the middle aged woman. Claire decided to
Speaker 1: approach her local cafe.
Speaker 2: I'd seen her quite a few times and I was like,
Speaker 2: she's really cool. Well, she's really confident, so I never
Speaker 2: really approached her. But because it was the science, damn it.
Speaker 1: Claire started by asking Tracy what she did for exercise.
Speaker 1: Tracy explained that she thought of herself as a member
Speaker 1: of the five Am club, those people who go for
Speaker 1: walks super early in the morning, even when it's still
Speaker 1: dark out.
Speaker 2: I was like, so, how do you keep yourself safe?
Speaker 2: And she's like, carry a rock. You've been serious. She's like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and I let people see that I'm carrying this rock
Speaker 2: like a brick. And then from there she sort of
Speaker 2: told me how somebody had tried to get her in
Speaker 2: a van when she was in her thirties and she
Speaker 2: beat the shit out of him, and I was just intrigued,
Speaker 2: and I ended up being honest with her about I'm
Speaker 2: actually doing this experiment with smart talk, as she said,
Speaker 2: I love it, and then explained that I'm quite socially
Speaker 2: anxious person. She said, I'm not getting that vibe.
Speaker 1: At all, and I love having these kind of conversations.
Speaker 1: And that wouldn't be the last conversation that Claire had
Speaker 1: with Tracy.
Speaker 2: We met up a couple of days later and talked
Speaker 2: for two hours, like NonStop or coffee about everything from
Speaker 2: star signs to travel to intergalactic stuff to past life,
Speaker 2: to spirituality, to films. He was just very childlike. You know,
Speaker 2: come when you have a sleepover when you're a teenager
Speaker 2: and you just like top anything and it's like addictive.
Speaker 2: It was amazing.
Speaker 1: Claire admits that not all her attempts at deep conversations
Speaker 1: went as well as the one with Tracy.
Speaker 2: Not everyone's going to like you, which is a really
Speaker 2: basic thing to say, But it took me a really
Speaker 2: long time to accept that one Not everybody's going to
Speaker 2: like you, And that's okay. It's about finding one person
Speaker 2: you connect with in the room. I'll take that.
Speaker 1: Claire has also learned not to beat herself up when
Speaker 1: a conversation doesn't go as well as she expected.
Speaker 2: It's all right, you don't have to continue talking to
Speaker 2: this person. You can politely leave now. I just think, oh,
Speaker 2: fair enough, and then on to the next.
Speaker 1: Claire's experiment also taught her the same insight that psychologist
Speaker 1: Nick Epley shared earlier, that she was more in control
Speaker 1: of her everyday interactions than she thought. That she wasn't
Speaker 1: the only one paddling that conversational canoe, that she had
Speaker 1: the agency to choose where the discussion went, and to
Speaker 1: steer interactions towards topics that felt more authentic.
Speaker 2: It made it fun again. And for someone with social anxiety,
Speaker 2: it can feel like they're a bit of a minefield,
Speaker 2: and this just made fun.
Speaker 1: Indeed, Claire had so much fun with her experiment that
Speaker 1: she wanted to try out some of her favorite cheap
Speaker 1: questions with yours.
Speaker 2: Truly, because I'm getting a good vibe with you.
Speaker 3: Oh that's good.
Speaker 2: If you could have any mythological great shirt as a pet,
Speaker 2: what would.
Speaker 3: You go for?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Very interesting? Most of them are not domesticated, so they're
Speaker 1: gonna like make a mess of the house and you know,
Speaker 1: poop and pee on the floor and stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I might go for like a small one, like
Speaker 1: a fairy. Like a fairy. Yeah, I feel like a fairy.
Speaker 1: You could throw a diaper on her and be all right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's yours do?
Speaker 2: I have absolutely no full control, so dragon obviously and
Speaker 2: just deal with the chaos that comes with that and
Speaker 2: burn places to the ground and straight away, that tells
Speaker 2: me more about your personality, and it tells you more
Speaker 2: about my Yes, like you're a very you're very thoughtful, practical.
Speaker 1: Chaos agent who's totally fine with burning things down in
Speaker 1: her own home.
Speaker 2: Absolutely no common sense. Yes.
Speaker 1: Another of Claire's favorite get to know you questions is this,
Speaker 1: as a kid, did you ever have a crush on
Speaker 1: a cartoon character?
Speaker 2: Oh, Robin Hood, the Disney Me too, the Fox?
Speaker 1: Yes, the same same.
Speaker 2: Do you know you're the first person who said that.
Speaker 2: Most people look at me like no, No, I'm totally
Speaker 2: come on, you can fight and he's cheeky and he's
Speaker 2: the one for me if I could change species.
Speaker 1: And secretly I think my husband looks a little bit
Speaker 1: like the fox from Robin Hood.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have to admit chatting with Claire about all these
Speaker 1: weird questions was really fun, and not just because I
Speaker 1: got to talk about my cartoon crush. I genuinely felt
Speaker 1: like those inquiries made us feel closer, like they could
Speaker 1: be part of some new Fast Friends procedure updated for
Speaker 1: the twenty first century. In fact, I liked Claire's questions
Speaker 1: so much that I decided to try some of them
Speaker 1: out with the deep talk expert himself.
Speaker 3: These are not my approved crash no no, no no,
Speaker 3: but maybe you'll put them in. Some of them are
Speaker 3: pretty good.
Speaker 1: This was one that I thought was very diagnostic. If
Speaker 1: you could have one mythological creature as a pet, which
Speaker 1: creature would you?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: My goodness, I would like the horse with the wings.
Speaker 3: That's Pegasus, right, That's what my husband said. Yeah, who
Speaker 3: doesn't want to fly? Are you kidding me? Horse is awesome?
Speaker 3: Flying horse? That's like, you know, an exponential increase in
Speaker 3: awesomeness of a horse totally.
Speaker 1: When I answered, I hadn't thought of a horse. I
Speaker 1: was just thinking, like most mythological creatures are like not domesticated,
Speaker 1: scary like I was like, I just want like a
Speaker 1: small one, like a fairy, like you pull like a
Speaker 1: diaper eye. I've known Nick for a long time, but
Speaker 1: Clear's questions helped me realize just how much I didn't
Speaker 1: know about Nick, all the personal things we hadn't yet
Speaker 1: had a chance to talk about. What was your art
Speaker 1: teacher like in school? Did you like art as a subject? No?
Speaker 3: I hated art. However, the best class I have ever
Speaker 3: taken in my entire life was a pottery class when
Speaker 3: I was in high school. The most consistently fun every day,
Speaker 3: the one I always forward to. It was the one
Speaker 3: I remember from high school really enjoying a lot do
Speaker 3: you do pottery? Now you know I don't. I don't,
Speaker 3: but I do do the woodworking equivalent of it, which
Speaker 3: is lathe. I do lathe work. I love that feeling,
Speaker 3: and so that has stuck with me.
Speaker 1: Claire says that she often has a similar experience when
Speaker 1: going deeper with friends.
Speaker 2: And this sounds a bit weir weird book, it felt
Speaker 2: like muchic. We all know that we're all in our
Speaker 2: own heads, our on narratives. I don't mean to be
Speaker 2: self centered, It's just that's what we're focused on right,
Speaker 2: our own experience, our own perception of reality. So when
Speaker 2: you suddenly have that light up moment with someone, it
Speaker 2: feels like magic to me. I just keep saying, lights
Speaker 2: me up, because it really does.
Speaker 1: I asked Claire to share some final advice about bringing
Speaker 1: the light of deep conversation into our lives.
Speaker 2: So that small people will find their own feet. The
Speaker 2: most important thing is to start. Someone says, how are
Speaker 2: you just say?
Speaker 3: Do you know what?
Speaker 2: I've just finished reading this book or I've just finished
Speaker 2: watching this thing. It's a gentle to maneuver it. You
Speaker 2: couldn't even own it. Depends on how brave you are.
Speaker 2: You could own it. And say I'm not going to
Speaker 2: small talk. Do you mind if I ask you about this?
Speaker 2: Since diad you don't have to do twenty eight days,
Speaker 2: You could just do it for a day. See what
Speaker 2: it does to your moved Say if it raises your
Speaker 2: vibration a little bit.
Speaker 1: So that is today's happiness hot take. We all need
Speaker 1: to ditch the small talk and go a little deeper.
Speaker 1: I know, I know your cringe voice is probably saying
Speaker 1: that it'll be awkward, or that people will think you're
Speaker 1: weird if you get too vulnerable, or if you say
Speaker 1: revealed that you've long thought that your husband looks like
Speaker 1: a cartoon Fox character. Believe me, I get it. But
Speaker 1: the science shows that our conversations and connections can feel
Speaker 1: much much better if we channel our inner evolent eastems
Speaker 1: and commit to going a bit deeper. And if you
Speaker 1: need some ideas, Nick was kind enough to let me
Speaker 1: share his full list of deep questions. You can check
Speaker 1: them out at doctor Lauri Santo's dot com slash deep questions.
Speaker 1: That's doctor Laurisanto's dot com slash deep questions. And if
Speaker 1: you want to learn even more tips for connecting deeply,
Speaker 1: be sure to check out Nick's new book, A Little
Speaker 1: More Social, which is on sale now. Next week, we'll
Speaker 1: continue our happiness hot takes with one that specifically for
Speaker 1: the guys in the audience. We'll see why does today
Speaker 1: need more romances?
Speaker 2: Like if I'm me to do and I like him
Speaker 2: and I wanted to get to know him, I'm never
Speaker 2: going to say, whereas my wife, Mike, you.
Speaker 3: Want to look up a coffee sometime, A guy is
Speaker 3: never going to do that.
Speaker 1: That's next week on the Happiness Lab would be doctor
Speaker 1: Laurie Santos