Speaker 1: Today. It's great to have Katie Milkman on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Doctor Milkman is an award winning behavioral scientist and the
Speaker 1: James G. Dinnan Professor at the Warden School of the
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania. She hosts Charles Schwab's popuar behavioral economics
Speaker 1: podcast Choiceology, and is the co founder and co director
Speaker 1: of the Behavior Change for Good Initiative. She has worked
Speaker 1: with or advised dozens of organizations in how to spur
Speaker 1: positive change, including Google, the US Department of Events, the
Speaker 1: American Red Cross, Twenty four Hour Fitness, Walmart, and Morning Star.
Speaker 1: Her research is regularly featured in major media outlets such
Speaker 1: as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and MPR.
Speaker 1: Doctor Milkman, so great to chat with you today. So
Speaker 1: read a chat with you. Thank you for having me
Speaker 1: on the show. It's my pleasure, It's my pussure. I've
Speaker 1: been willing to talk to you for quite some time.
Speaker 1: So we have a mutual friend, Angela Duckworth mutual colleague,
Speaker 1: and she described, yeah, we do. And she described you
Speaker 1: as a master of human nature. She says that you
Speaker 1: figured out how to align your action with your goals
Speaker 1: and dreams. Do you do you agree with that? No,
Speaker 1: we both know that Angela is much too kind, and
Speaker 1: I think she anyway, she may be right in this case.
Speaker 1: I think she may be right. What is that? Well,
Speaker 1: let me start off by asking you what would that
Speaker 1: even mean to you know, wind one's actions with their
Speaker 1: goals and dreams? What would what would that look like?
Speaker 1: And I do think you do it, By the way,
Speaker 1: that's very kind of you to say. I suspect what
Speaker 1: Angela was talking about is I think she and I
Speaker 1: both share a tenacity. She might even call it grit
Speaker 1: that drives us and we I think both have defined
Speaker 1: in the last decade very clearly what it is we
Speaker 1: hope to achieve with our careers and our lives, and
Speaker 1: we're both pretty focused on getting there. So I would
Speaker 1: say I suspect she wrote that because you know, we
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time together working towards those goals.
Speaker 1: She knows exactly what my purpose is. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you know someone that well and when you see
Speaker 1: the way that they devote themselves to something, I think
Speaker 1: that that can make you excited. And I think she
Speaker 1: wrote lovely things, So why is changed so hard? That's
Speaker 1: the million dollar question. You have an interesting spin on it,
Speaker 1: you know, and arguing that you just haven't found the
Speaker 1: right strategy if you're finding it hard, Can you elaborate
Speaker 1: on that? Yeah, absolutely so. When I was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out sort of what is the overarching theme of
Speaker 1: all of this work that I've been doing over the
Speaker 1: last two decades, roughly trying to figure out what creates
Speaker 1: change and what creates durable change, the one thing that
Speaker 1: really jumped out at me is that there are systematic
Speaker 1: barriers to change. They differ depending on what kind of
Speaker 1: change you're looking to make. So whether it's that you're
Speaker 1: struggling to get started, whether it's that you know there's
Speaker 1: just a temptation you can't resist over and over again,
Speaker 1: maybe not to get off the couch when you want
Speaker 1: to go to the gym, or to spend on things
Speaker 1: when you should be saving, to yell at someone when
Speaker 1: you should be patient. So there's temptations, there's inertia, sort
Speaker 1: of bad habits, laziness, I'd put all into that bucket,
Speaker 1: and laziness is you know, too unkind of a term
Speaker 1: for the efficiency we all have when we say I'm
Speaker 1: going to take the path of least resistance, but that's
Speaker 1: our that's our common term for it. So they are
Speaker 1: all these different things and they trip us up in
Speaker 1: different parts of our lives. And I've seen so many
Speaker 1: times individuals and organizations that are trying to create change
Speaker 1: make the mistake of thinking they're sort of a one
Speaker 1: size fits all solution that they can grab off of
Speaker 1: a prepackaged you know, off the shelf, prepackaged and it's
Speaker 1: going to work for them, without thinking deeply about what
Speaker 1: is the barrier to change in this situation. Is this
Speaker 1: person not taking their medication regularly because they forget, or
Speaker 1: is it because you know there's a nasty side effect
Speaker 1: and even though it's good for them in the long run,
Speaker 1: and that outweighs the discomfort they'll experience. If you are
Speaker 1: sort of an optimizer, if you give into temptation, you
Speaker 1: might choose not to take that medication. And depending on
Speaker 1: which of those is the problem, you need a really
Speaker 1: different solution. So that's kind of the big takeaway I've
Speaker 1: had is too often people neglect to think carefully what
Speaker 1: is the obstacle, and instead they reach for the one
Speaker 1: size fits all, And that's a that's a mistake We
Speaker 1: can do much better if we're actually suiting our solutions
Speaker 1: to the challenge that we're facing. Yeah, And another way
Speaker 1: you put it is match your approach to your opponent,
Speaker 1: you know, with the Andrea Agacy example that you used.
Speaker 1: So who are my opponents according to you? Their impulsivity, procrastination, forgetfulness, laziness, confidence,
Speaker 1: and conformity. Now, is that over confidence and getting started?
Speaker 1: Also getting started and getting started? Yes, that's that's funny
Speaker 1: that I left that one out. But yeah, by confidence,
Speaker 1: you mean over confidence, right, like it's okay? Is it
Speaker 1: okay to have a little bit of confidence. I actually
Speaker 1: don't meet over confidence. I know most behavioral scientists get
Speaker 1: very excited about overconfidence, and I write about that a
Speaker 1: little bit. And I know you had Dany Connyman recently
Speaker 1: on The Five guest who's such a wonderful scientist and
Speaker 1: guest and has I think, on the record proclaimed overconfidence
Speaker 1: to be the biggest problem with human nature, are the
Speaker 1: one that he would most like to correct. But despite that,
Speaker 1: which I acknowledge in my book, I actually mean under
Speaker 1: confidence as a barrier to change. So overconfidence has all
Speaker 1: sorts of problems, and it can it can relate to
Speaker 1: change issues too. Right, If you're over confident that you'll
Speaker 1: be able to just sort of push through and you
Speaker 1: don't develop strategies to overcome some of these challenges, that
Speaker 1: can be a major barrier. But another barrier is you
Speaker 1: don't believe you can, so you lack the self efficacy
Speaker 1: and that can be really important as well. So that's
Speaker 1: what I focus a chapter on in the book. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe we should let's get into some others goodies. Conformity
Speaker 1: is an interesting goodie because, you know, as a creativity researcher,
Speaker 1: I often talk about how conformity is the enemy to
Speaker 1: create at you know, how can it also be an
Speaker 1: obstacle standing between you and success? I mean use the
Speaker 1: word success, you know. And by the way, I want
Speaker 1: to know what you even mean by success. I really
Speaker 1: just mean achieving whatever goal you set out to achieve.
Speaker 1: That's that's blocked by internal barriers, right, and like really
Speaker 1: importantly right, I'm not talking about the things. This book
Speaker 1: is not about the societal obstacles that can stand in
Speaker 1: our way. It's about, you know, imagine a world. Well,
Speaker 1: you don't have to imagine a world. The world has
Speaker 1: put up other obstacles to this book will help with
Speaker 1: the obstacles that are inside you. I can't. I unfortunately
Speaker 1: don't have the solutions for all the world's obstacles. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to conformity, the barrier there is really
Speaker 1: that our peers shape our decisions more than we appreciate that.
Speaker 1: You know your college roommate, whether you're randomly assigned to
Speaker 1: a roommate who did well on the verbal SATs turns
Speaker 1: out to predict your grades. And so there's the peer
Speaker 1: groups you surround yourself with. They help us define what's normal,
Speaker 1: and we think, oh, you know, this is how much
Speaker 1: I should study, or this is how much money I
Speaker 1: should make, or this is how much I should give
Speaker 1: to charity, or how hard I should work, or how
Speaker 1: fit I should be. And so that can be a
Speaker 1: barrier if if your peer group is not aligned with
Speaker 1: your goals, and if they're sending you the message that
Speaker 1: people like you can't achieve the kinds of things you
Speaker 1: want to achieve. So that's what I mean really when
Speaker 1: I say conformity can be a barrier to change. Good
Speaker 1: good good. I like this. Okay, laziness, let's talk about laziness.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about laziness. Oh man, I do feel like
Speaker 1: that could be a book. That's a title through a
Speaker 1: book let's talk about Yeah, yeah, I mean that's a
Speaker 1: That's a big one for me during COVID is that
Speaker 1: it's it's easy. It's easy, so easy to be lazy
Speaker 1: when you're at home all days, all the time to
Speaker 1: be But you're right, it's totally easier now because yeah,
Speaker 1: and partly because there's not as much social pressure not
Speaker 1: to be lazy, and there's where are you meant to be? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think it's a big barrier, you know, I do.
Speaker 1: I have to say that I have a lot of
Speaker 1: respect for the design of the operating system we've got
Speaker 1: up here that you know, prioritizes taking the path of
Speaker 1: least resistance and being a bit lazy. You know, it's
Speaker 1: very efficient and it makes a lot of sense, but
Speaker 1: it can be a barrier to change when the path
Speaker 1: of least resistance is not the one that's going to
Speaker 1: get you whatever it is you hope to achieve. So
Speaker 1: what I suggest in the book or talk about in
Speaker 1: the book is sort of two strategies. One is, I
Speaker 1: think you know, has been written about really extensively. It's
Speaker 1: not all that novel. In fact, my editor at one
Speaker 1: point was like, does this really have to be in
Speaker 1: the book. It's so everybody knows it, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't care this. I want everything in this book
Speaker 1: that's useful, and this is really useful. So the first
Speaker 1: one is just setting defaults wisely right, So it's been
Speaker 1: talked about a lot. It's probably the number one trick
Speaker 1: and the behavioral Scientist's handbook for changing behavior. Right. If
Speaker 1: you default people so when they join a new employer,
Speaker 1: they're automatically saving for retirement and they have to do
Speaker 1: nothing magically, about forty percent more people save. And you
Speaker 1: can set to faults for yourself or other people that
Speaker 1: are wise and lead to better choices, including you know,
Speaker 1: stacking your fridge with healthy food so the default snack
Speaker 1: is something that's good for you radical right, Or you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you spend too much time on social
Speaker 1: media like me, you know, make sure that your default
Speaker 1: websites and so on are maybe maybe the New York
Speaker 1: Times or your work email as opposed to Twitter or Facebook.
Speaker 1: So there's all different ways we can set to faults
Speaker 1: that are useful and productive. So that's one way we
Speaker 1: can harness laziness, because then the path of least resistance,
Speaker 1: the thing that happens if you don't lift a finger,
Speaker 1: is the thing that's sort of in your long term
Speaker 1: best interest. But then the second answer, which I think
Speaker 1: is a little bit more useful, and again a lot
Speaker 1: has been written on it, but I hopefully have some
Speaker 1: new things to say, UH is through habit. So being
Speaker 1: deliberate about forming habits because in essense, those are sort
Speaker 1: of the default settings for for the behaviors that require
Speaker 1: a little bit of effort and volition but but not
Speaker 1: a lot, and sort of the that are repeated, and
Speaker 1: so thinking about how can we use what's known from
Speaker 1: research on animals, from research on people to build habits
Speaker 1: that are lasting. UH is a big bonus. I'm happy
Speaker 1: to get into that. But let me like pause and
Speaker 1: give your chats to get a word and actualise. No,
Speaker 1: I mean I would like you to elaborate on that
Speaker 1: a bit. Actually, I mean, I mean this is this
Speaker 1: is I'm interviewing you here, so you have all sorts
Speaker 1: of fascinating ideas and I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: I'm giving you space to add them. Okay, who knows,
Speaker 1: maybe that can be on choiceology someday, but I would
Speaker 1: love that. That would be amazing. Is really different, really different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but and no pressure of course. But I'm saying, but
Speaker 1: for now, you're the star. So yeah, go on, are
Speaker 1: you telling me I'm trying to be thost? Okay, fair enough,
Speaker 1: I'll try to do that, Okay. So habits, So the
Speaker 1: really basic stuff about habits that's been written about extensively
Speaker 1: in books, like you know, atomic habits and the power
Speaker 1: of habit. It's right, and we know which is like,
Speaker 1: you know, what's the cue that triggers the behavior that
Speaker 1: then creates a reward and then repeat. And if you
Speaker 1: can build that cycle and do it enough times and
Speaker 1: nobody knows the magic number of times, by the way,
Speaker 1: that's like a hot debate and working on a paper
Speaker 1: about them right now, but it's a lot of times. Uh,
Speaker 1: then you can start to put something basically on autopilot
Speaker 1: so that it becomes like second nature. You're not really deliberating,
Speaker 1: you're just acting. Oh like I make the coffee and
Speaker 1: the more without even thinking about shampoo my hair, without
Speaker 1: thinking that I can't remember it I shampooed my hair,
Speaker 1: not because I wasn't even paying attention, right, So that
Speaker 1: that's sort of the basic process for forming habits. What
Speaker 1: I think is a bit more interesting is something I
Speaker 1: read about called the power of Elastic Habits. And this
Speaker 1: is based on some research I did at Google with
Speaker 1: a couple thousand of their employees who wanted to form
Speaker 1: exercise habits, and we teamed up to try to figure
Speaker 1: out if we could develop a better methodology for habit formation,
Speaker 1: like what technique could we use to get people to
Speaker 1: form stickier habits? And we ran a test and we
Speaker 1: had two different ideas. And I'm actually going to ask
Speaker 1: you your intuition on this because I'm really curious. So
Speaker 1: we had two strategies that we were going to use.
Speaker 1: Strategy one was we just sort of used the old
Speaker 1: fashioned like reward people for repeating the behavior. So the
Speaker 1: people make a plan. They tell us the ideal time
Speaker 1: for them to work out each day at the Google
Speaker 1: campus gym, and we tell them we're going to send
Speaker 1: you a reminder at that time, and then we tell
Speaker 1: them if you work out any time that day, you're
Speaker 1: going to get paid a few dollars. Okay, So that's
Speaker 1: group one, Group two, same startup. So you tell us
Speaker 1: the time you prefer to work out. Well, we're going
Speaker 1: to send you a reminder right before that time encourage
Speaker 1: you to do it. But and you'll also get paid,
Speaker 1: but you'll only get paid if you start your workout
Speaker 1: within the two hour window you define as best for you.
Speaker 1: And both of these programs last for a month, and
Speaker 1: at the end of the month they're over. And what
Speaker 1: we really care about is what happens next. And we
Speaker 1: actually did it. We randomize the amount of money in
Speaker 1: both groups that we were rewarding people with so that
Speaker 1: we could We wanted to isolate basically two types of
Speaker 1: people who had gone to the gym at the same frequency,
Speaker 1: but in different ways. One group had gone basically verily
Speaker 1: consistently really at the same time of day almost always,
Speaker 1: and the other group who had more variability in when
Speaker 1: they went. And the question was which group would then
Speaker 1: have the more durable habit the variable visitors or I
Speaker 1: think that that probably the first one showed the better effect,
Speaker 1: even though the intuition from people might be that the
Speaker 1: second one would be correct. Am I correct? Tell me
Speaker 1: why you think that? Is it? Is it the complete opposite? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't even remember which one I said first. The
Speaker 1: consistent that the same time. The consistent one was the
Speaker 1: first one. I think that I think did better. I
Speaker 1: think you probably got a better effect there. So that's
Speaker 1: what we thought. That's what seventy seven percent of psychologists
Speaker 1: we serve it. You're totally you're normal. You're totally normal.
Speaker 1: And like me, I I was like, let's show that
Speaker 1: this sort of really consistency of this routinization is the
Speaker 1: key to habit. And you know, there's theories of that,
Speaker 1: but it hadn't been tested. And we said, like, let's
Speaker 1: turn into a let's turn it into an intervention, because
Speaker 1: we knew it correlates. Right, people who have really consistent
Speaker 1: like pill taking routines they do at the same time
Speaker 1: of day or exercise, tend to exercise more, take their
Speaker 1: medicines more. So we thought, like, can we convert it
Speaker 1: into a Okay, so we were wrong. Both of us
Speaker 1: were wrong. But here's why it's I think it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: We weren't totally wrong. So the people who were rewarded
Speaker 1: and built this habit around going out exactly the same time.
Speaker 1: Once the reward period ends, they do actually go a
Speaker 1: bit more at that time, so they've formed something of
Speaker 1: a habit around that sort of sticky, magical time that
Speaker 1: they'd told us was best for them. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: if they don't go at that time, they don't go
Speaker 1: at all. Say where's the other group? They go a
Speaker 1: little bit less consistently at that sort of magic time,
Speaker 1: But if they miss that time, they still get to
Speaker 1: the gym and at a higher rate and net they
Speaker 1: go more often. Right, So one group I call them
Speaker 1: sort of like rigid instead of routine, right it's eight
Speaker 1: am or bust. And the other group has figured out, like,
Speaker 1: you know, eight am is my best time, I'll mostly
Speaker 1: go then, but if I miss eight am, I'll go
Speaker 1: at five pm. And so that ends up being a
Speaker 1: more stable and consistent It may not be sort of
Speaker 1: like the automaticity of habit that actually we typically think
Speaker 1: of that we've built, rather than more of a sort
Speaker 1: of like no matter what routine that I just I
Speaker 1: make a priority to figure out a way to fit
Speaker 1: this into my day, and I've learned different ways to
Speaker 1: do it. But that turns out to be what's more robust.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that was kind of one of my favorite
Speaker 1: projects I worked on because it was such a surprising result,
Speaker 1: and I think it's really an important insight in general
Speaker 1: about change, because I think we tend to underappreciate how
Speaker 1: hard it will be to sort of stay on that
Speaker 1: perfect path, and we don't build in enough flexibility for
Speaker 1: the obstacles that will get thrown at us. And when
Speaker 1: we do build flexibility in various ways, and there's other ways.
Speaker 1: I talk about flexibility and how important that can be
Speaker 1: in the book, but this is one way that kind
Speaker 1: of flexibility actually turns out to make us stronger and
Speaker 1: have more robust habits. Nice. Nice, I should have gone
Speaker 1: with my gut, because my gut did say number two then,
Speaker 1: But I was like, I was, I was. You know
Speaker 1: sometimes when you have these illusionists, like these these magicians,
Speaker 1: you overthink it. You're like, oh, is it this hand
Speaker 1: or this hand? And you're like, well, well, I didn't
Speaker 1: even remember what one and two were. When I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: did I give them numbers? Twitch was witch. I was
Speaker 1: so into the example. But that's super interesting. So how
Speaker 1: does this over how does this relate to, as you
Speaker 1: talk about in your book, overcoming flaking out? You know,
Speaker 1: because it's so easy to flake out, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a matter of like a squirrel and then
Speaker 1: you and then you forget that you had a whole
Speaker 1: things lined up to go to the gym. I didn't
Speaker 1: know you knew me so well. We only talked a
Speaker 1: couple of times. Do you know about myself? But that
Speaker 1: means we must have things in common. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: so easy. So this is the flakeout? Is this really
Speaker 1: different challenge? But really, I actually this is another thing
Speaker 1: that I think we tend to underestimate people tend to
Speaker 1: think they won't need reminders, for instance, and undervalue them.
Speaker 1: And one study that I ran with Todd Rogers, we
Speaker 1: like offered people the opportunity to pay for reminders for
Speaker 1: something that would be lucrative and then they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: I got it, I'll remember it. And then and then
Speaker 1: if they had just paid for the small fee for
Speaker 1: the reminder, they would have made more money because they
Speaker 1: would have remembered to do the lucrative thing. So reminders
Speaker 1: are really important, and we flake out a lot because
Speaker 1: we forget. But you can't always time a reminder perfectly,
Speaker 1: and research actually shows that if a reminder doesn't arrive
Speaker 1: like right at the minute when you need to do something,
Speaker 1: it's pretty useless. So I love there's this study I
Speaker 1: absolutely love that involved valets giving people their cars back
Speaker 1: after they they're like leaving a hotel, and they were
Speaker 1: reminding people to buckle up. And there's a control condition
Speaker 1: that gets no reminder, and then there's a basic reminder
Speaker 1: condition where the valet says, hey, don't forget to buckle
Speaker 1: up when they're dashing off to get your car, so
Speaker 1: like five minutes roughly before you're actually going to get
Speaker 1: in the car and be able to put your seatbelt on.
Speaker 1: And finally, there's a third valet group that or excuse me,
Speaker 1: a third experimental group where the valley tells you right
Speaker 1: as they bring the car back to you, like two
Speaker 1: seconds before you're going to step into it, remember to
Speaker 1: buckle up. And the reminder that comes two seconds before
Speaker 1: you can act on it has this huge effect. Like
Speaker 1: eighty five percent of people buckle up in that condition,
Speaker 1: but the other two conditions basically look the same, Only
Speaker 1: about half of people buckle up because four minutes is
Speaker 1: enough time for you to completely forget what it was
Speaker 1: you intended to do, and so that there's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's important to know that, and if you can schedule
Speaker 1: timely reminders, like I live by my calendar. I suspect
Speaker 1: you do too, and technology can help. Great, that's the
Speaker 1: solution to flake out. But often we can't because not
Speaker 1: everything in life is like a time. Sometimes it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: when I'm next to this place, I need to remember
Speaker 1: to do this thing, or when I next talk to
Speaker 1: this person, I need to remember to say this thing,
Speaker 1: and I don't know when that will happen. And for
Speaker 1: those things, or when I when I'm at the doctor's office,
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of things where if we could
Speaker 1: figure out how to embed our plans more firmly in memory,
Speaker 1: we could make more progress. And so I wrote about
Speaker 1: work by folks we both know, Peter Golwitzer being sort
Speaker 1: of the lead on it at NYU, who's done all
Speaker 1: this research on the power of I call them planning prompts.
Speaker 1: He calls them implementation intentions, but I just anyway, he's brilliant.
Speaker 1: Implementation intentions are brilliant. I find planning prompts a little
Speaker 1: bit easier to remember. As in terms of terminology, the
Speaker 1: basic idea is that can you make exactly exactly easier
Speaker 1: to implement if you make a concrete plan that has
Speaker 1: a trigger queue. So not like I will practice Spanish
Speaker 1: on duel lingo more because I want to learn Spanish,
Speaker 1: but rather I will practice Spanish on dueling go every
Speaker 1: evening at six pm when I get home from work.
Speaker 1: Now you have a trigger, and that moment triggers oh ohh,
Speaker 1: this is what I'm supposed to be doing now, So
Speaker 1: it's embedded in memory. Associated with a queue. You also
Speaker 1: have other things going on, right, like commitment and consistency
Speaker 1: to this very specific rather than vague plan. There's many
Speaker 1: benefits of implementation intentions but or planning prompts. But they
Speaker 1: also can help with flake out. So that's another thing
Speaker 1: I focus on, and I could sort of go on more,
Speaker 1: but but those are sort of a couple of the
Speaker 1: key things that I think our tools behavioral science can
Speaker 1: offer that help a lot with this. Many and many
Speaker 1: an implementation plan has gone so you know, like we
Speaker 1: can we can we can have like the best implementation
Speaker 1: plans in the world and still get distracted at any moment,
Speaker 1: you know, So safeguarding against that seems to be just
Speaker 1: as important as having the implement and the impleta plan itself. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I totally agree with that. And then the chapter on procrastination.
Speaker 1: I think in many ways sort of addresses those issues
Speaker 1: because it talks a lot about commitment devices, which is
Speaker 1: basically creating teeth when you make a plan or have
Speaker 1: a goal or commitment, so that when that moment comes,
Speaker 1: if you don't follow through, there's some consequence that you
Speaker 1: have set up and in order to ensure you won't
Speaker 1: procrastinate if you don't want to. So so I do think,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that work together in the book, even though they
Speaker 1: sometimes attack different challenges. Often those challenges are known to
Speaker 1: come in pairs or sets. For sure. Did you say
Speaker 1: something about teeth? Did I hear you right about teeth?
Speaker 1: I'll just say I have teeth on the mind because
Speaker 1: my five year old lost a second baby tooth this morning. Songs.
Speaker 1: I remember when I I remember when I lost mine. Yes,
Speaker 1: I it's so it's such a like, it's such a
Speaker 1: sailing thing. He left his first one earlier this week
Speaker 1: and second one today. They go in pairs. Speaking of
Speaker 1: things going in pairs or sets, anyway, yes, I did
Speaker 1: say teeth, probably because I was primed to be thinking
Speaker 1: about teeth. But by teeth, I mean some consequence, right,
Speaker 1: So if you say like, oh, I'm going to try
Speaker 1: to achieve this goal or I'm going to try to
Speaker 1: follow through on this plan and you want to and
Speaker 1: that's all, there are no teeth because if you fail
Speaker 1: to follow through, you know, when the moment comes you
Speaker 1: let it pass. You're like, well, I said i'd practice
Speaker 1: on Dueling go to nine at six pm, but really
Speaker 1: I feel like putting on Bridgerton. So if that happens, right,
Speaker 1: there's no consequence except maybe maybe feel a little guilty.
Speaker 1: But commitment devices are tool you can use to create
Speaker 1: consequences or teeth so that if you want to make
Speaker 1: sure you won't watch Bridgerton at six pm, you can
Speaker 1: set up some sort of constraints that prevent your future
Speaker 1: self from slipping and making a bad decision. So you
Speaker 1: could do something like make a cash commitment, like you
Speaker 1: can literally put money on the line that will be
Speaker 1: sent to a charity you hate, uh and to find
Speaker 1: a referee who will tell tell your commitment device organization.
Speaker 1: There's a number of different companies that offer these sorts
Speaker 1: of devices online. You can have a referee then report
Speaker 1: back and say you know, uh, Scott watched Bridgerton. He didn't,
Speaker 1: and you know you're gonna you're gonna be called out
Speaker 1: and so you're gonna lose a hundred bucks. And so
Speaker 1: that can make it so that the plan has teeth
Speaker 1: and you're gonna feel like, Okay, I really need to
Speaker 1: sit down and do my deal and go practice, or
Speaker 1: else I'm gonna spend one hundred dollars in supporting a
Speaker 1: cause that I hate. You know, I never heard that
Speaker 1: expression before, so I'm glad I double clicked on it,
Speaker 1: as Angel Duck with coming double click on that says that.
Speaker 1: But but uh, yeah, so I'm stealing in angela quote
Speaker 1: right now. But are freeze? There are a lot of
Speaker 1: good ones. Yeah, there are so. So not having teeth
Speaker 1: is like not dealing with the consequences, Is that right?
Speaker 1: That's right. I already use that. I'm going to use
Speaker 1: that consequences. I get it. I get now, well, I
Speaker 1: mean now I get it. I didn't get it five
Speaker 1: minutes ago, but now I get it. Okay. In your book,
Speaker 1: another aspect I really found, really it really resonated with me.
Speaker 1: It was this idea of the importance of timing, timing
Speaker 1: and and and how a fresh start can be like
Speaker 1: such a great motivator for two seconds, right, for two seconds,
Speaker 1: which is why it's the first chapter. This sold me.
Speaker 1: This is so me. I get so excited about something
Speaker 1: and oh my god, and then forever I'm going my butt.
Speaker 1: And then like five minutes later, I'm like, wait, what
Speaker 1: I forgot about it? But you're back to flake outs.
Speaker 1: See they come in sets. I'm not alone. Good to
Speaker 1: know I'm not alone. Yeah, so what are some other
Speaker 1: kind of fresh starts? And how can we even create
Speaker 1: our own fresh start even if it doesn't coincide with
Speaker 1: a new year, new job, or new relationship. Yeah? Absolutely, Well,
Speaker 1: so the research that you're referring to is was actually
Speaker 1: inspired by talked about Google already, but I want to
Speaker 1: talk about Google again. I've worked with Google a bit.
Speaker 1: I went and visited Google. This is before I ran
Speaker 1: that gym study. I went to a conference. I was
Speaker 1: sharing some of my research on how you could encourage
Speaker 1: behavior change, and I got this great question from a
Speaker 1: leader of their human resources, one of their human resources teams,
Speaker 1: who said, Okay, totally sold that we should be providing
Speaker 1: these kinds of tools that would be helpful and allow
Speaker 1: employees to change. But like when when should we deploy them?
Speaker 1: Is there some good time? Are people more open to
Speaker 1: change at sometimes than others? And that's what set me
Speaker 1: off on this path where I started studying how timing
Speaker 1: can be really important and uncovered this connection between moments
Speaker 1: that feel like new beginnings on the calendar, from the
Speaker 1: start of a new year or new week or new month,
Speaker 1: celebration of her birthday. Those are the kinds of things
Speaker 1: that I have primarily studied. But we've also found that
Speaker 1: you can actually highlight certain dates and you can make
Speaker 1: people more attracted to starting a fresh set of goals
Speaker 1: on those dates. So if you, for instance, label the
Speaker 1: first day of spring on the calendar as the first
Speaker 1: day of spring instead of the third Thursday in March,
Speaker 1: and then say, you know, pick a date on this
Speaker 1: calendar when would you most like to start pursuing a goal,
Speaker 1: It's much more attractive when people recognize it, for the
Speaker 1: as the first day of spring. Same with sort of
Speaker 1: pointing out that a month is when your birthday will
Speaker 1: take place. Say do you want to do it after
Speaker 1: your birthday? Is more attractive than say, I don't know
Speaker 1: when your birthday is, but let's say it's February like
Speaker 1: mine and saying do you want to do this next February,
Speaker 1: or even I don't even know how many months from
Speaker 1: now February is because ten months from now roughly month,
Speaker 1: it does all run together. So so these moments both
Speaker 1: naturally attract us as when we're more likely to, for instance,
Speaker 1: set a goal on a goal setting website, go to
Speaker 1: the gym at a higher rate. We're more likely to
Speaker 1: search for the term diet on Google. And there are
Speaker 1: also moments that if we highlight for people, especially the
Speaker 1: ones that are subtler that feel like new beginnings, we
Speaker 1: can see that there's an attractor effect and people are
Speaker 1: more willing to, for instance, sign up for a four
Speaker 1: oh one K when they're invited to start saving following
Speaker 1: their upcoming birthday or following the start of spring, rather
Speaker 1: than just labeling that date as however far off it
Speaker 1: is in the future. So there's other fresh starts too.
Speaker 1: Those are the ones I find most interesting because they're
Speaker 1: purely psychological. They're just in our head. They're sort of
Speaker 1: related to this concept of time we have, where like
Speaker 1: we think of our life in chapters, and that new
Speaker 1: beginning makes us makes us feel like we have a
Speaker 1: fresh start and a transition, but they're actually they can
Speaker 1: be more powerful if it's not purely psychological, if you
Speaker 1: also have literally some kind of clean slate, because you say,
Speaker 1: start a new job or move to a new house,
Speaker 1: and some of the routines or the cues that were
Speaker 1: maybe associated with not such great habits or patterns are gone.
Speaker 1: Like oh, the dunkin Donuts where I picked up my
Speaker 1: unhealthy breakfast every morning on the way to my office.
Speaker 1: Well that's no longer part of my routine because I'm
Speaker 1: going to a new office. So not only do you
Speaker 1: then have sort of the psychological fresh start, but you
Speaker 1: actually may have a tabula rasa to work from when
Speaker 1: it comes to things like resisting temptation and building better
Speaker 1: patterns of behavior. Totally, totally. Yeah, it's like it's arbitrary,
Speaker 1: like like the day after my birthday has no intrinsic meaning.
Speaker 1: But actually this happens to me every time I do
Speaker 1: my laundry. Every time you do your fresh shart prone No,
Speaker 1: I just I just don't do my laundry that often.
Speaker 1: You're like, I only do it once a week, and
Speaker 1: once a week. Well, mondays are one of the strongest
Speaker 1: fresh sharts and every day is that we look at
Speaker 1: even though they're frequent. So it's clear that like it
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't have to be a really low frequency
Speaker 1: event to give you some sense of renewal. And like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got this, let me sit back. I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: better this time that like that was last week. Last week,
Speaker 1: I blew it, But I'm gonna have a good week
Speaker 1: this week. Well, can we even like what if we
Speaker 1: had like a zen mindfulness person here in this conversation,
Speaker 1: wouldn't they say, like every every time I returned to
Speaker 1: my breath, I start anew. I mean, this is what
Speaker 1: they say in my mindfulness classes. So why not even
Speaker 1: the religions have this the most level. You know this
Speaker 1: this because like if I listen to these meditation apps
Speaker 1: like you know, like Sam Harris will be like return
Speaker 1: to your breath and start again, you know. And I
Speaker 1: feel like that, you know, kind of relates to what
Speaker 1: you're saying. No, absolutely, I think it really does. And
Speaker 1: I really do think this that freshharts are built into
Speaker 1: so many religious practices. I sort of started seeing it
Speaker 1: everywhere when I started studying this from you know, really
Speaker 1: obvious examples like Easter and yam Kaport to like Subtler.
Speaker 1: Maybe examples like uh ceremonies where you're absolved of sin
Speaker 1: or where you you know, repent and then your given forgiveness.
Speaker 1: Those are also really fresh start ceremonies and ways that
Speaker 1: we give people an opportunity to start over and feel
Speaker 1: like they can shed that baggage and shed the negative
Speaker 1: identity and be more optimistic about what they're going to
Speaker 1: achieve in the future. I think I think it's like
Speaker 1: really fundamentally important to human nature. I have no data
Speaker 1: to back that up, but it's my sense eternally does
Speaker 1: seem true. I resonate with that from personal experience. But
Speaker 1: in what ways can a fresh start be a setback? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a great question. This is so my My brilliant
Speaker 1: former student Hanschendi, who's now professor at UCLA's Anderson School,
Speaker 1: focused on this question. She she and I worked on
Speaker 1: on the fresh start studies that I described already, and
Speaker 1: for her dissertation work, she wanted to look at a
Speaker 1: situation where she suspected she might be able to study
Speaker 1: sort of an under an ugly underbelly of the fresh
Speaker 1: start effect. The dark side of the dark side, the
Speaker 1: dark side of the fresh start effect. Yes, there are
Speaker 1: no teeth involved, thank goodness. The whole analogy freaked me out,
Speaker 1: like I feel like I'm gonna have nightmares tonight about teeth,
Speaker 1: about teeth and goals, goals with teeth. She was interested
Speaker 1: in this question. We talked about it a lot before
Speaker 1: of whether you know, most of the things that we
Speaker 1: were studying originally related to fresh charts were sort of
Speaker 1: goals that most people keep falling down and trying to
Speaker 1: pick themselves back up and do better on, from going
Speaker 1: to the gym to UH to starting a diet and
Speaker 1: so on. But we were thinking, like, what if we
Speaker 1: could look at a population that was actually really excelling
Speaker 1: and see if fresh darts are still good? Do you
Speaker 1: still want to clean slate when you're sort of really
Speaker 1: doing well? And the interesting she studied this in the
Speaker 1: lab and found that fresh starts, while great for people
Speaker 1: who are underperforming, are not so great for people who
Speaker 1: are doing really well because they want to maintain their momentum.
Speaker 1: And my favorite study she did is actually a study
Speaker 1: in the field of professional baseball players, and when she
Speaker 1: found this really cool natural experiment where she looked at
Speaker 1: players who get traded to a new team in the
Speaker 1: middle of a league. Excuse me, she looks at players
Speaker 1: who got traded into a new team in the middle
Speaker 1: of the season. And she compared two types of trades
Speaker 1: to have a really beautiful experiment. One was across leagues.
Speaker 1: So if you get traded across baseball leagues, all of
Speaker 1: your season to date statistics get wiped clean. You don't
Speaker 1: get to hold onto any of them, and you have
Speaker 1: to start again. And she compared that to players who
Speaker 1: are traded within league, who are again like moving to
Speaker 1: a new community. They probably have a sense of a
Speaker 1: fresh start, so'st they both are really similar, but they
Speaker 1: get to hold onto their season to date statistics, so
Speaker 1: they're not having sort of a reset of their performance.
Speaker 1: And this was a really nice test because it deals
Speaker 1: with a lot of issues you'd have if you just
Speaker 1: looked at people getting traded, like, you know, why were
Speaker 1: they traded world and a funny trajectory, will there be
Speaker 1: regression to the mean? But these are two people basically
Speaker 1: otherwise identical records and they just have different types of
Speaker 1: trades that they experience, and one gives more of a
Speaker 1: fresh start than the other and what she found is
Speaker 1: consistent with what I just described, that people who were
Speaker 1: top performers going into this trade and they get traded
Speaker 1: across leagues versus within leagues see a bigger slip in
Speaker 1: their performance than the people who get traded within leagues
Speaker 1: and don't have that performance reset. They don't have their
Speaker 1: record white clean. So that that sort of white clean,
Speaker 1: clean slate coming with a trade help was harmful to
Speaker 1: people who were doing well. But on the flip side,
Speaker 1: people who are underperforming, they were having a rough season.
Speaker 1: They needed a start. I mean, they needed a new start,
Speaker 1: they needed to exactly exactly. And so I think most
Speaker 1: of our studies had been to date about people who
Speaker 1: needed a fresh start, and I think most of us do.
Speaker 1: We were, like most of us are kind of looking
Speaker 1: for that in some part of our lives. And so
Speaker 1: I do think they're probably mostly useful, but that they
Speaker 1: are something you want to at least approach with care
Speaker 1: and caution when it's it's potentially disruptive. Right Like, if
Speaker 1: you're on a role, I don't think you have to
Speaker 1: worry about every Monday because really the benefit of Monday
Speaker 1: is psychological. It's like that opportunity that you feel to
Speaker 1: begin again. So I think those kinds of fresh starts
Speaker 1: are probably not so dangerous. But if you're on a
Speaker 1: roll and you move to a new job, or you
Speaker 1: move to a new city, and your social life had been,
Speaker 1: you know, doing great, and you felt like you had
Speaker 1: everything in step, like, those are the kinds of fresh
Speaker 1: starts that may not be so good when you're doing well.
Speaker 1: When they're not purely psychological, they come with some other
Speaker 1: challenges as well. This is wonderful nuance. Thank you. You
Speaker 1: must be an academic studying this topic. Must be an academic.
Speaker 1: Oh could you tell? This is wonderful? This is wonderful,
Speaker 1: delicious nuances That makes me feel like there should be
Speaker 1: a game show like talk to somebody for fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: about a topic that they claim to know a lot about,
Speaker 1: and then like you have to guess who's the academic.
Speaker 1: Very challenging Exactually, it's such an academic thing to say,
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, we we didn't realize there
Speaker 1: was you know, a control. You know, we didn't realize
Speaker 1: there was another condition that when we looked at the condition,
Speaker 1: we realized that there was more than meets the eye.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, you know, that's how scholars talk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have our own specific we have our own
Speaker 1: language and our own it's good. It's good. There's some
Speaker 1: parts of it. Oh yeah, yeah, too esoteric. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean in this context, I mean, I mean as
Speaker 1: as a compliment, because it's really important with this topic
Speaker 1: in particular, to not prescribe, like you said, one size
Speaker 1: fits all. I mean that this is the point that
Speaker 1: I think you're bringing such important nuance and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a fresh start to the whole habit literature. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1: That's such a nice way of putting it. I appreciate that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's true. What is temptation bundling? Oh yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: glad we're going to my favorite topic. Temptation bundling is
Speaker 1: a solution to the worst problem I faced in graduate school,
Speaker 1: which means, actually, my graduate school days were not so bad.
Speaker 1: But my problem in graduate school was that at the
Speaker 1: end of a long day of classes, I was an
Speaker 1: engineering student, and I would be like just beat from
Speaker 1: sitting there in computer science classes trying to follow what
Speaker 1: the heck was going on. Uh, And then I had to,
Speaker 1: you know, turn to my problem sets, and I'd get
Speaker 1: back to my apartment, and all I wanted to do
Speaker 1: was like binge watch TV or curl up with a
Speaker 1: novel and just like totally indulge in. I you know,
Speaker 1: I love fiction, fictional content of all kinds, so I
Speaker 1: wanted to like immerse myself in some other world and
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with my problem sets. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, I also knew that to stay motivated and
Speaker 1: keep my stress under control, I needed to exercise regularly,
Speaker 1: and I could not drag myself to the gym. So
Speaker 1: I had these two problems. I was wasting time at
Speaker 1: home on all this entertainment, and I wasn't getting the
Speaker 1: exercises I needed in to stay sane. So I actually
Speaker 1: came up with a solution for myself that I then
Speaker 1: ended up studying and other people too because it worked
Speaker 1: so well for me. So as me search, my solution
Speaker 1: was I only let myself and I got I got
Speaker 1: really into audio novels. I only let myself listen to
Speaker 1: audio novels while I was exercising, and I like listened
Speaker 1: to all the Harry Potter novels and all the Alex
Speaker 1: Cross series and all the Twilight books and all the
Speaker 1: Hunger Games. You know all of it only at the gym,
Speaker 1: and I I love this stuff. So I would find
Speaker 1: myself suddenly coming home at the end of a long
Speaker 1: day and all I wanted to do was get to
Speaker 1: the gym to hear what happened next in my latest thriller.
Speaker 1: And time would fly at the gym because I was
Speaker 1: enjoying what I was listening to. I did and even
Speaker 1: noticed that I was exercising. I'd come back energized and
Speaker 1: ready to do my work, and I wasn't going to
Speaker 1: waste any time at home because I'd gotten my fix
Speaker 1: of fiction. And it was the sort of marvelous cure
Speaker 1: for this temptation challenge I'd had before. There were two
Speaker 1: self control problems I wasn't winning, and then I came
Speaker 1: up with this hack that helped me solve them both.
Speaker 1: So I've since studied this. I've run a couple of
Speaker 1: experiments showing that this kind of technique, teaching people about
Speaker 1: it or giving people temptation bundles with exercise substantially increases
Speaker 1: their likelihood of going to the gym. I l At Fischbach,
Speaker 1: who's a brilliant professor at the University of Chicago, along
Speaker 1: with her former student Caitlin Wooley, who's at Cornell. I
Speaker 1: have done some neat work suggesting it can also help
Speaker 1: kids be more effective when they're doing math problem if
Speaker 1: they're able to temptation bundle things that they enjoy, like
Speaker 1: listening to fun music and working with markers and enjoying
Speaker 1: snacks they like while they're doing their problem sets. Even
Speaker 1: though their teachers were very worried that this would be distracting,
Speaker 1: it actually leads them to persist longer because they're enjoying it.
Speaker 1: So I think this technique can be used in all
Speaker 1: sorts of different ways I tell my students about, you know,
Speaker 1: like consider only letting yourself pick up your favorite coffee
Speaker 1: drink that's maybe not super good for you when heading
Speaker 1: to the library to hit the books, or listening to
Speaker 1: your favorite podcast while doing household chores. Some people only
Speaker 1: let themselves drink their favorite red wine while cooking a
Speaker 1: homemade meal for a family. So there's all different ways
Speaker 1: that we can temptation bundle. But it all began for
Speaker 1: me as a graduate student trying to solve these do
Speaker 1: well power problems. I love that. I love that whole
Speaker 1: concept that's really going to be helpful for me. Thank you.
Speaker 1: It's been really helpful for me. Yeah, you really have
Speaker 1: changed my mind about a lot of things when I
Speaker 1: when I was reading your book, and you know, one
Speaker 1: topic that is definitely a topic of mutual interest and
Speaker 1: but for both of us is this question, are some
Speaker 1: people are they just kind of born with this supernatural
Speaker 1: self control capacity? And are some of us not born
Speaker 1: with that? You know, there's some days I'm wondering, you know, what,
Speaker 1: what the what I was born with? What? What you know?
Speaker 1: But what you know, whatever is going on here, I'm
Speaker 1: wondering what that is all about? But what you kind
Speaker 1: of dispel that notion a little bit that that that's
Speaker 1: the right way to think about it. Yeah. Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, I should say that everything I know about
Speaker 1: individual differences I learned from Angela Duckworth because it's not
Speaker 1: my area of expertise really at all. I was trained
Speaker 1: as an engineer. But but what Angela tells me and
Speaker 1: she and I'm sure you know this better than I do,
Speaker 1: is that, Yeah, of course there's some it seems like
Speaker 1: there's sort of a genetic component to just about everything,
Speaker 1: and probably self controls in that category. But but a
Speaker 1: lot of it is learned, and a huge part of
Speaker 1: it is strategic that if we build good habits, if
Speaker 1: we use uh creative hacks like temptation bundling, basically to
Speaker 1: just take self control out of the picture, that's when
Speaker 1: those are the people who looked most self controlled to us,
Speaker 1: because they're actually not having to exert self control at all.
Speaker 1: Another interesting thing Angela told me that has stuck with
Speaker 1: me is that even if you're self controlled in one
Speaker 1: domain of life, it tends not to be highly correlated
Speaker 1: with self control in another area, which also resonates with me,
Speaker 1: Like I'm really quite self controlled when it comes to
Speaker 1: my work, which is probably why Angela seems to think
Speaker 1: I'm a superhuman. It's much too kind. But like you know,
Speaker 1: she hasn't seen necessarily how poorly I can keep my
Speaker 1: temper with my five year old when he's driving me nuts,
Speaker 1: right like, and so there's other there's other ones, or
Speaker 1: how much trouble I have resisting like a really delicious
Speaker 1: chocolate dessert. So there's a lot of There's a lot
Speaker 1: of variation in like where is it what part of
Speaker 1: your life? But in general, the point of my book
Speaker 1: is sort of like, let you know, down with exerting
Speaker 1: self control and other sort of forms of like superpowers. Like,
Speaker 1: let's not just say like I'm never going to forget,
Speaker 1: I'm never I'm always going to exert self control. I'm
Speaker 1: always going to have the confidence I need. Like, let's
Speaker 1: dispel the notion that that's even possible or a good
Speaker 1: ambition and instead recognize, Okay, these are some things that
Speaker 1: are hard and that they make change hard. And then
Speaker 1: let's figure out what are the strategies that sciences can
Speaker 1: actually help us not have to face these demons and
Speaker 1: be able to overcome them without so much effort. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you talk in the book about how you can channel
Speaker 1: the power of social forces to boost self control, capacity
Speaker 1: and even self confidence. Dare I say, like, maybe it's
Speaker 1: not such a bad thing to boost self confidence a
Speaker 1: little bit? Yeah, what are these social forces that you
Speaker 1: speak of. Well, we touched on this a little bit
Speaker 1: earlier because you're to go out no more, you know,
Speaker 1: related to conformity and the power of right, the roommate,
Speaker 1: the roommate you get assigned, and how how much that matters.
Speaker 1: So there's those kinds of social forces like who you
Speaker 1: surround yourself with and whether or not they're role models
Speaker 1: and supporters who make you believe in yourself and show
Speaker 1: you ways to be sort of a better version of
Speaker 1: who you want to be. And I will say that,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the best things in my life
Speaker 1: actually has been getting to hang around with Angela because
Speaker 1: she's a great example of the kind of person. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: we have that we have that shared luck. Good luck
Speaker 1: right when you have someone who you spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time with who lifts you up because they believe
Speaker 1: in you and because they're a good role model and
Speaker 1: they're achieving the kinds of things you want to figure,
Speaker 1: you know, and you can learn from them and say like, oh,
Speaker 1: how did you do that? That was really great and
Speaker 1: that is really powerful. And that's what I primarily mean
Speaker 1: by social forces, and that we can be thoughtful about
Speaker 1: who our peers are. Try to, especially when we're trying
Speaker 1: to achieve a goal in particular, try to surround ourselves
Speaker 1: with other people who have a similar ambition and are
Speaker 1: maybe maybe a little ahead of us, not so far
Speaker 1: ahead of us that it's demotivating, which is also important, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you if you have an outrageously uh you know,
Speaker 1: far ahead of you type around that can be really demotivating, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're starting you're trying to start yourn entrepreneur and
Speaker 1: like you hang out with Jeff Bezos all the time,
Speaker 1: it might not go that well. But someone who's maybe
Speaker 1: a little a little bit ahead of you, or a
Speaker 1: group of people that include some people who are a
Speaker 1: little bit ahead of you, that can be really motivating
Speaker 1: and you can pick up a lot of insights from
Speaker 1: being in that company. So that's one thing I mean
Speaker 1: by social forces. So what you're saying is, choose people
Speaker 1: and friends who have teeth. Don't hang around British people.
Speaker 1: If you want good dental hygiene, hang around other people
Speaker 1: have nice teeth. Yeah, that's basically what you're saying. That's
Speaker 1: in a nutshell. Yes, they'll be a good model for you.
Speaker 1: Got it? Can we for ten minutes do some Twitter
Speaker 1: Q and A. We got a lot of questions on Twitter,
Speaker 1: but some of them were like, oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: don't know the answer at all. Yeah, big big meaning
Speaker 1: of life type question totally And we only really have
Speaker 1: time to get to a couple today. But let's uh,
Speaker 1: are you okay doing a couple? Yeah, let's do it? Okay,
Speaker 1: be kind though pick ones that I might have a
Speaker 1: chance at answering for sure, for sure? Okay, let me
Speaker 1: do that on the spot. Then, like miss Mo says,
Speaker 1: can positive behavioral interventions and support help create conditions from
Speaker 1: meaningful change? Or does it make meaningful change more difficult?
Speaker 1: That's an interesting question because I wonder like how it
Speaker 1: could make it more difficult. Sorry, I gave you a
Speaker 1: difficult question. Did give me a difficult question? I mean,
Speaker 1: there's there's this large, I think like belief out there
Speaker 1: because of a couple of studies that got a lot
Speaker 1: of attention that intrinsic motivation crowd out. Is this like
Speaker 1: really awful monster lurking in the closet behind every intervention
Speaker 1: that you'd ever try to help people that you know
Speaker 1: that somehow, if if you've offered a tool or a crutch,
Speaker 1: people will no longer be motivated once that tool or
Speaker 1: crutch is removed. In fact, they'll like their motivation will
Speaker 1: crumple and they'll be worse off than they were before.
Speaker 1: So that might be what it means. That's like one idea,
Speaker 1: just because I hear that a lot that people get
Speaker 1: really worried, for instance, about incentives when if you pay
Speaker 1: people to do something, and a lot of habit researchers
Speaker 1: will pay people to do something for say a month,
Speaker 1: and then remove the payment, and generally what you find
Speaker 1: is that there's some persistence in the behavior that people
Speaker 1: were paid to do repeatedly because there's some kind of
Speaker 1: habit that forms. Normally, it's like, you know, maybe thirty percent,
Speaker 1: it persists, but it doesn't get wiped away. And there's
Speaker 1: this fear, because of a couple of studies done a
Speaker 1: long time ago, that that any kind of reward will
Speaker 1: extinguish intrinsic motivation, so once it's removed, it'll be a
Speaker 1: problem anyway. So I don't agree with that, and it's
Speaker 1: generally not what my read of the literature suggests happens.
Speaker 1: So I think I think these kinds of interventions add
Speaker 1: value rather than having a big downside. Cool, I hope, So,
Speaker 1: I hope so too. Other words, I've been spending my
Speaker 1: career hurting people. But yeah, what are we doing? What
Speaker 1: else are we doing here? Jim McGhee, I thought this
Speaker 1: was an interesting question. Any findings on willingness or ability
Speaker 1: to change versus age stage of life. Conventional wisdom is
Speaker 1: it's harder to change in middle old age. Yet we
Speaker 1: sometimes make major life changes in mid life crisises crises. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really an interesting question. I don't know a lot
Speaker 1: about how age relates to ability to change. My funniest
Speaker 1: age comment on change, which is not an answer to
Speaker 1: this question but will make you smile, is that we
Speaker 1: did find birthright birthdays are a big moment when people
Speaker 1: are motivated to change. We've seen in multiple dating data
Speaker 1: sets that people are more likely to create goals around birthdays.
Speaker 1: They're also more likely to go to the gym at birthdays.
Speaker 1: But we had one birthday that was a notable exception,
Speaker 1: actually depressed gym attendance. Every other birthday showed you a
Speaker 1: positive association, like after the birthday people the same person
Speaker 1: goes more twenty first birthdays. However, for reasons that listeners
Speaker 1: will surely appreciate immediately. They're not associated with fresh charts.
Speaker 1: They're associated with drinking, and so we see Jim Dunnant's
Speaker 1: goes down. It's not an asing question, it's just the
Speaker 1: only data I have on age that's a little bit amusing.
Speaker 1: It's a really good question, don't I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's true that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Speaker 1: But I'll certainly say that in in research studies I
Speaker 1: have done around habit formation. For instance, when we look
Speaker 1: at ageency, is it a moderator, meaning like, does the
Speaker 1: effectiveness vary if we just put in age and look
Speaker 1: at it, we don't tend to see anything, but we don't.
Speaker 1: You know, we don't have eighty year olds in most
Speaker 1: of our samples, but in the range of ages that
Speaker 1: I've often studied, so say eighteen to maybe fifty or
Speaker 1: even sixty. I did one big project with twenty four
Speaker 1: hour fitness gyms, and we had considerably older participants in that.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of things on college campuses, so
Speaker 1: that Skew's younger. I haven't seen age mattering for how
Speaker 1: well an intervention works that's designed to help with change. Wow,
Speaker 1: Because I mean in the personality literature, we know that
Speaker 1: conscientiousness does show an increase as we age, not decrease, increase.
Speaker 1: So maybe that maybe you you know, you build more habits,
Speaker 1: but you're more conscientious and the thing's cancel out or
Speaker 1: something like that. I feel like there's a dissertation to
Speaker 1: be written here, But there's something there's something to you.
Speaker 1: In here, Daniela Chah asks when, how and why should
Speaker 1: we focus our attention and behavior on change rather than acceptance.
Speaker 1: Now that's a good one. That's a good question. A
Speaker 1: good one. It's a good one. I will say. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna but I'm going to take a cop out answer.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I struggled with in this
Speaker 1: book was, you know, should I should I say anything
Speaker 1: prescriptive about whether you should change? And I decided that, like,
Speaker 1: that's just that's not my lane, Like my research is
Speaker 1: really about. Okay, I'm going to assume you've decided that
Speaker 1: you want to change something, and I'm going to offer
Speaker 1: you all the tools and knowledge I can to help.
Speaker 1: But I don't. I don't take a stance on whether
Speaker 1: you need to change. Uh So, but okay, let's see
Speaker 1: if I can say two slightly more thoughtful things about that.
Speaker 1: I do say at the end of the book. And
Speaker 1: I very strongly believe this. You know, if something is
Speaker 1: really not working right, you're like, you really want to
Speaker 1: become you know, you really tried to build it. I
Speaker 1: keep going to the gym route, So I'm gonna you
Speaker 1: stick with the gym example. You really wanted to build
Speaker 1: a gym routine, and it's just like not happening for
Speaker 1: you that you know, and you've tried all the tricks,
Speaker 1: like literally in my book, and it's not working, Like
Speaker 1: you can't You've thought you diagnosed the obstacle. It's just
Speaker 1: you're not getting there. I think it can be helpful
Speaker 1: one to like be a little more forgive. Forgive yourself, yeah,
Speaker 1: be compassionate to yourself and then ask yourself, like, what's
Speaker 1: the higher order goal that I'm going for here? And
Speaker 1: is there some other way to get there? Like the
Speaker 1: gym may not be the thing. Is it that I'm
Speaker 1: trying to be healthier? Is it that I want to
Speaker 1: be fit? What is it? And like is there some
Speaker 1: other path to that goal that I could take? And
Speaker 1: maybe I should like take a different route because this
Speaker 1: route isn't working, so that this may just not be
Speaker 1: an end that's going to happen for me. So if
Speaker 1: the gym is just never going to work for you,
Speaker 1: is it, like, well, maybe there's enough maybe like you
Speaker 1: should join a club soccer team and that would get
Speaker 1: you to your goal. Or maybe it's you don't care
Speaker 1: as much about physical fitness as you do about health,
Speaker 1: and you could take up meditation or improve your sleep
Speaker 1: habits or your diet, and there's some other way again
Speaker 1: to achieve it that might be more feasible to fit
Speaker 1: within your life. So I do think you know, if
Speaker 1: you've tried everything and whatever it is you set out
Speaker 1: as your goal, isn't there like rethinking do you have
Speaker 1: the right goal goal, what's the what's the superordinate goal?
Speaker 1: And can you get there some other way is really important.
Speaker 1: I really like that. Thank you for taking the time
Speaker 1: to actually think that through and offer a good a
Speaker 1: good one because I'm really interested in humanistic psychology and
Speaker 1: like Carl Rodgers talked a lot about acceptance as well.
Speaker 1: His phrase, his quote is the curious paradox is that
Speaker 1: once I've accepted myself, then I can change. That's his quote.
Speaker 1: That's his quote. So that is a curious for and
Speaker 1: actually I should use that quote. It's such a wonderful
Speaker 1: quote for the book, right because yes, the book basically
Speaker 1: says once you accept that there are these obstacles and
Speaker 1: figure out you like and have the self awareness to
Speaker 1: figure out which one is blocking you, that is what
Speaker 1: allows you to change. So there has to be that
Speaker 1: degree of self awareness and acceptance as opposed to just
Speaker 1: believing I'm a superhuman and I can like pummel through
Speaker 1: any problem exactly exactly. I'll send you the exact quote.
Speaker 1: I think I got it one hundred percent right, but
Speaker 1: I'll double check. It's one of my favorite It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite quotes, Ethan. You might see it on Twitter,
Speaker 1: attributed to you as the source who taught me. I'd
Speaker 1: be honored if you quoted the Carl Rogers and attributed
Speaker 1: it to me or attributed the source to you, not
Speaker 1: the quote. Do you know what I mean? Do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Here's the quote, and here's the
Speaker 1: person who gave me this great quote. Okay, last question.
Speaker 1: I want to be respectful all your time, but I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of a funny question. Ethan says, entirely
Speaker 1: selfish question, what behavioral changes makes one a better academic? Oh? Wow?
Speaker 1: How do you apply it within that? To mean? Well? Okay, Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, this one's easy. I thought it was
Speaker 1: hard to know. I'm like, oh no, it's not. It's
Speaker 1: not hard. Okay. And we haven't talked about this, so
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorite topics in the book and
Speaker 1: it's so well suited to academia. So Lauren Estris Winkler,
Speaker 1: who is one of Angela Duckworths do another mutual friend,
Speaker 1: had this brilliant insight, and I got to work with
Speaker 1: her a little bit on research on this topic. That
Speaker 1: we so often when someone is struggling to achieve a goal,
Speaker 1: we sort of put our arm around them and give
Speaker 1: them some advice, and that that can be really demotivating
Speaker 1: and de moralizing, and that a better way to help
Speaker 1: people might actually be to ask them for advice because
Speaker 1: people generally are actually she discovered and conducting many interviews,
Speaker 1: even if they're struggling to achieve a goal, they're often
Speaker 1: quite sophisticated about some things that might help. And it's
Speaker 1: a matter of having the self confidence and the motivation
Speaker 1: to actually take action on those insights or even dredge
Speaker 1: them up. So if you're asked to help someone else,
Speaker 1: you're going to feel more confident, Okay, like someone believes
Speaker 1: in me, I must be able to do this. You're
Speaker 1: going to come up with insights that maybe you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been motivated to dredge up if you've just been
Speaker 1: thinking about yourself. And once you sort of say them
Speaker 1: to someone else, and you're in this position of a
Speaker 1: role model, you're going to feel like a hypocrite if
Speaker 1: you don't actually take action on them yourself. So I
Speaker 1: think this is a really powerful insight, and I actually
Speaker 1: think it can help academics tremendously. We're already in the
Speaker 1: business of teaching. But I actually the thing that has
Speaker 1: improved me the most and made my career both most
Speaker 1: fulfilling and frankly advanced it in terms of the sort
Speaker 1: of objective stuff like publications and a complishment has been
Speaker 1: mentoring great students. When you mentor other people and you
Speaker 1: teach them the tools of the trade, you actually learn
Speaker 1: yourself more than you appreciate, and it builds up your confidence.
Speaker 1: It helps you recognize some of the consistent and most
Speaker 1: important sort of rules and patterns and achieving and doing
Speaker 1: good science. And so I think mentoring is probably like
Speaker 1: the best thing, and mentoring, you know, with your whole
Speaker 1: heart in it is probably the best thing that you
Speaker 1: can do as an academic if you want to make
Speaker 1: more of yourself in that domain. Yeah, with genuine intentions. Yes,
Speaker 1: well that's great, great advice. Graavis, Thank you for being
Speaker 1: good sport and answering the Twitter questions. You never know
Speaker 1: what you're going to get with the Twitter questions. There
Speaker 1: are a lot that I saved you from. Thanks for that.
Speaker 1: But Katie, thank you so much for being on the
Speaker 1: podcast today and for being such a bright light in
Speaker 1: our entire field. Thank you so much. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: and likewise to you, thank you for making this amazing
Speaker 1: podcast and thank you for having me on it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to react in some way to something
Speaker 1: you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion
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