WEBVTT - How Mindsets Shape Reality w/ Dr. Alia Crum 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.480 I think that what meditation does, what mindfulness does, is 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:09.200 it helps you realize that you have mindsets, that the world, 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:12.400 your beliefs aren't just sort of a reflection of reality 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:14.520 as it is, that like could be this way or 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:16.479 could be that way, and you kind of like sit 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.280 back and you sort of see the kind of absurdity 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.520 of it all. So that's part of it. But then 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:25.600 what right, then you need to go live your life, 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:27.800 like then you need to get back in the game. 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.040 And so it's you know, it's stepping back in and 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:32.800 say now I'm going to live my life and I'm 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:35.720 going to choose to view stress as enhancing. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:43.879 Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:47.160 the depths of human potential. I'm your host, doctor Scott 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:51.360 Barry Kaufman, a cognitive scientist and Columbia professor. On this episode, 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.800 we have my dear friend, doctor Ali Crumb, whose research 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.680 focuses on how changes in subjective mindsets, the lenses through 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.880 which information is perceived, organized, and interpreted, can alter objective 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:08.120 reality through behavioral, psychological, and physiological mechanisms. Her work is 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.360 in part inspired by research on the placebo effect, a 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.080 remarkable and consistent demonstration of the ability of the mindset 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:18.720 to elicit healing properties in the body. She is interested 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.720 in understanding how mindsets affect important outcomes outside the realm 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:26.880 of medicine, in the debates of behavioral health and organizational behavior. 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:30.080 More specifically, she aims to understand how mindsets can be 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:34.440 consciously and deliberately changed through intervention to affect organizational and 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:40.720 individual performance, physiological and psychological well being, and interpersonal effectiveness. 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.320 This chat was very sentimental to me personally. I met 0:01:44.319 --> 0:01:47.840 doctor Crumb in graduate school at Yale, and we connected immediately. 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.800 I remember fondly our deep chats, and I'm so proud 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.240 to see her become such a superstar in the field. 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:56.840 I hope you find this chat just as informative as 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.600 I did. So, without further ado, I bring you doctor 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.440 Ali Crumb. Oh my god, Allie, how do you look 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:03.280 exactly the same? 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:07.040 I mean, you look exactly the same. It's so good 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:07.520 to see you. 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.639 So good to see you too. I mean like you're 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:18.320 exactly like you know Yale dance. What was some party, jon, 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:20.120 I think it must be something. 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:20.399 Yeah. 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:22.840 The memory have of you in my mind is like 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:28.440 exactly the same. Anyway. Congratulations on keeping your health and 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:34.400 vitality in youth, and for your amazing, amazing ascendency in 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.760 the field of psychology, successes and research and everything. It's 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.160 been such a delight and honor to watch you sore. 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:44.519 Oh my gosh. Well I feel the same about you, 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:48.360 Scott at like seeing you brings me right back to 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.400 New Haven. You know, I remember going to your dissertation. 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:55.400 I remember meeting your mom right outside of the Hall 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.760 of Graduate Studies, and you know, just to we were 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.120 just you know, we were so such kids then, but 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:07.040 at the same time, you know, I think both of us. 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.320 I was drawn to you because I got a sense 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:13.240 that this was your passion, right, this was your calling, 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.840 and you weren't doing it to get some credentials. You 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.519 were doing it because you knew it mattered. So it's 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:21.919 been fun to watch from afar and listen to all 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:22.360 your work. 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.040 And likewise, thanks, thanks. Well let's let's let's back up 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:30.279 before we even met. Let's back up to your undergraduate 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:36.520 at Harvard Hall. You were a TA for a very 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:41.040 special and popular course and happiness by Tall. Is that correct? 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:44.440 Yes, Tall Ben Shahar changed my life. 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:47.160 Can you tell me a little bit about that? Experience 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.680 and uh, and then how it like influenced you for 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.160 the research you've continued to do for sure. 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:56.240 I mean, I think in order to understand the effect 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.200 that that class had on me, it's important to share 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:03.119 a little bit about my childhood. So I grew up 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.480 in a household. My father was a teacher of transcendental meditation. 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.600 He was a master of the art of aiketo. He 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:15.720 started a foundation called Windstar Foundation with John Denver, the 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:21.320 singer songwriter, where they would host speakers retreats where people 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:25.120 would come basically to study in the mind body arts. 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:29.159 And so I grew up going to all these retreats. 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:31.560 You know, my summers were filled going to meditation and 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:36.960 aiketo seminars and retreats. And so when I got to Harvard, 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.760 I realized, you know, fairly quickly, that that was not 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:46.200 a normal upbringing, that that wasn't the status quo for 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:50.599 the other students there. And you know, for a while 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:52.800 I was a little bit lost. I was feeling, you know, 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.200 sense of imposter syndrome, a sense of like, you know, 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.479 I've learned a lot, but I haven't learned all they know. 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.360 And terms of you know, the academics but it wasn't 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:08.440 until I met Tall, Benjahar, Ellen Langer, and Harrington that 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:12.160 I realized that, you know, even though my childhood was unique, 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.360 it was it was actually being researched at the time 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.479 from a neuroscientific standpoint. You know, the rise of positive 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:24.159 psychology was happening. The nerve excuse me, the neuroscience of 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:28.800 meditation was just beginning, and people were starting to take 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:35.040 this work really seriously from a scientific standpoint. So that class, 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.440 you know, it didn't necessarily like open my mind to 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:42.000 things that I hadn't learned or heard of before, but 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.520 it made me feel at home. It made me feel 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:45.960 like I belong. 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.160 So you did some you contributed to some seminal research 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.160 even as an undergrad in Harvard with I think UH 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.479 paved the way for a career on mindsets and stress. 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:58.599 So can you talk about some of that seminal research. 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.080 Yeah, the original research that I did. You know, I 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:06.800 mentioned I had sort of been I had experienced the 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.760 power of the mind to affect the body, both through 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:14.359 watching my dad teach meditation, teach aikito, and the martial arts. 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.359 Also as an athlete, I was an elite gymnast for 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:20.239 a number of years and then I was a Division 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:24.000 one athlete at Harvard. I was an ice hockey player, 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.640 and I was taking a class actually with Ellen Langer 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:31.760 at the time, and she said, you know, you know, 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.200 I think I came back all sweaty from a practice 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.880 to lab or class or something, and she was like, ah, 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:41.240 you know, exercise, that's just a placebo And I was 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.480 sort of like, wait, what, you know, what are you 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:47.440 talking about? And you know, but I caught my attention, 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:49.440 and you know, I think at the time, I was 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:55.080 really struggling with this sense, this question of like what 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.880 is enough exercise? Like I was training two to three 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:01.240 hours a day, and then I would like go work 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:06.200 out after practice even further. And it kind of got 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:07.960 my attention. I was like, what if it's all in 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.600 my head the benefits of what I'm doing? So I 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:17.880 started researching placebo effects. Actually, sequentially, Anne Harrington was teaching 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.240 a class on the history of medicine and she made 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:23.880 a comment one day in class that said, she said, 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.600 you know something like, you know, in many ways, studying 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.360 the history of medicine is like studying the history of 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:34.800 the placebo effect. And so these two things kind of 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:36.760 got in my head. Wow, you know, what is the 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.680 placebo effect? How strong is it? And I did a 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.520 lot of research looking into that. And then the study 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.920 that Ellen and I did was looking at hotel housekeepers. 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.920 We found that they were getting a lot of exercise 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.560 but weren't aware of it. And what we found was 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:56.960 if we could make them aware of that helped them 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.960 to see not only are they getting above and beyond 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:04.720 the Surgeon General's requirements, they are you know, they're probably 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.600 getting more exercise than most people in the United States. 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.280 That that shift in mindset didn't just change how they felt, 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.400 but also had measurable changes on their blood pressure, their 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:18.520 body fat, their weight, and so forth. So that really 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:19.720 kicked it off for me. 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:24.280 Yeah, that's pretty revolutionary research, pretty revolutionary foundation. 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:29.000 Thank you. Yeah. I think what it did was it 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:33.720 it brought two fields together that hadn't been integrated before. 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.719 There was all this work on behavioral health being you know, 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.480 the modern medicine, right, we need to eat well, we 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:43.760 need to exercise, we need to stop stressing, we need 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:48.160 to stop smoking, and it brought the research on placebo 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.320 response into that and said well, yeah, we do need 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:52.920 to do all those things, but also we need to 0:08:52.920 --> 0:08:56.920 pay attention to our beliefs, to our mindsets, to how 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:58.880 we're thinking about these things. 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:02.000 Yeah, for sure. And then when you got to Yale, 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:06.520 you worked on you continued this research. You published this 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:10.199 paper in twenty eleven called mind over Milkshakes, a classic 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:15.080 classic in the field. Mind over milkshakes not just nutrients 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:20.000 determine grellin? Is that? He said? Response, So can you 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.800 just tell you what is grelin? You know, and I 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:24.400 know it's related to hunger, but give me a little 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:28.840 more technical description, and you know, how does our mindset 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:29.320 affect that? 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.360 Yeah? Well, first of all, do you remember I think 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:36.640 I asked you to read a draft of this paper 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:41.199 back in New Haven. Maybe it hadn't made it such 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:42.679 an impact yet, but. 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.320 I remember two thousand and nine. 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.120 Something like that. We were sitting at a restaurant somewhere 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:51.000 in New Haven and I've given it to you to 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.840 read because I was struggling with how to frame it. 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:55.040 But you were really helpful. 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:57.040 Oh yeah, isn't that funny? 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:01.679 It is funny. It's awful circle. But yeah, so this study, 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.720 quite frankly, this is my favorite study I've ever done. 0:10:05.840 --> 0:10:11.120 It mostly because of how profoundly it changed my life 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:17.400 as a result. So Grellin is a hunger hunger hormone. 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.959 Her medical experts call it the hunger hormone. It helps 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:25.240 regulate hunger and metabolism. So, you know, I don't know 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:27.079 what time it is. I think you're in New York, 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.120 so maybe you've already eaten lunch, but I haven't yet. 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:34.680 So my grellin levels are slowly rising, and the purpose 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.800 of that is to send signals to my brain and 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.840 body that I need to seek out food. So rising 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:48.120 levels of grellin signal hunger. It also rising grellin slows metabolism, 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:51.640 just in case we don't get the food that we need. 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.560 And then, theoretically, or at least you know, prior to 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:59.280 the study, it had been assumed that in proportion to 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:03.240 the amount of salaries you consume, Grellen levels will drop. 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:06.960 So say I go out after we chat and I 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:11.120 have a giant hamburger and a milkshake, then my grell 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.520 and levels will plummet. Step telling my brain, okay, you 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.240 can stop feeling hungry, stop searching out food, and I'm 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.200 going to rev up the metabolism to consume the food 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:24.000 that you just ingested. So you know, actually, these these 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:28.679 gut peptides, these hunger hormones hadn't really been fully discovered 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:32.000 until the late nineteen nineties, and we're still just now 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.480 figuring out what they do and how they work in concert. 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.560 But what we were interested in in this study was 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:44.320 does our body's physiological response, and in particular, our bodies 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:49.720 grell in response. Does that differ? Might that differ if 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:54.200 we have different beliefs about the food that we're eating. 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:57.559 So in that study, we worked with the Yale New 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:01.880 Haven Hospital and we gave people well the exact same milkshake, 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.040 so it was about a three hundred and fifty calorie milkshake, 0:12:06.200 --> 0:12:08.800 and we either told them that it was six hundred 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:12.959 and twenty calories high fat, high sugar, or one hundred 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:16.080 and twenty calories one hundred and forty calories low fat, 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.800 sort of sensible diet shake, and we had them hooked 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.280 up to an IV we were measuring grillen levels through 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:26.360 their bloodstream. And what we found was that even though 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.719 the shakes were exactly the same, when people thought they 0:12:30.720 --> 0:12:35.439 were consuming an indulgent shake, their body responded as if 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.120 they had had more food. So the drop in grellin 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.360 was about three times as great compared to when they 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.680 thought they were consuming a sensible kind of low fat 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:45.360 diet shake. 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:49.840 That sounds like a big effect statistically, can you like 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:55.360 subjectively describe what that difference is if that makes sense totally? 0:12:56.040 --> 0:13:00.319 So well, First of all, the findings were signific get 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:04.839 important in the sense that no one had ever documented 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:09.600 just any physiological change based on the belief, So that 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.840 was one thing that was important. But the second reason 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:17.240 why this study was important was realizing actually the direction 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.920 in which the belief had an effect. So I went 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.120 into this, remember like thinking, okay, placebo effects are basically, 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:27.760 you know, if you think you're going to be healthy, 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:32.520 you'll have a healthy response. So I assumed that the 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.520 sensible shake, if you know, if it made any difference 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.520 at all, that would be the better mindset to be in. 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:44.720 And what we found was exactly the exact opposite, right, 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:49.480 assuming you want to maintain or lose weight. When if 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:54.200 you're consuming something in the mindset that you're eating sensibly healthy, 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.480 it conveys to the brain a sense of uh scarcity 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:02.560 or restraint, this sense of like I didn't eat enough. 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.000 And what that does is it perpetuates grell In perpetuates 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:11.600 the hunger signals, slows metabolism and so forth. So the 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:17.840 mindset of sensibility or restraint or scarcity actually counteracts the 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:21.520 hard work that you might be doing, actually reducing your 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.320 colort intake. Does that make sense? 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:29.880 It does? But the effect you found of three times 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:36.320 less is that the equivalent of literally going from signaling 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.400 that it's time to eat versus like I don't feel 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:42.520 any hunger at all, or is it like just not 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.120 as strong or I guess I'm trying to like quant 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.840 qualify qualify it, not quantify it. 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:54.000 Yeah, I don't know. It was threefold greater compared to 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:54.720 the sense. 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:56.920 Definitely an important effect. It's definitely port effect. 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:03.320 But how much did that affect their subjective sense? And honestly, 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:08.120 I the subjective sense is less important than the physiological 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:13.560 sense important in this case. And I think everybody's different. 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.800 And I think, you know, I've since that time wanted 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:19.800 to do my sort of dream study is you know, 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.600 because I was just they were sitting in there for 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.800 two hours, right, we're measuring their response to the shake. 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:28.600 So it's like, okay, how much does this really matter? 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:33.360 But you know what if we could take somebody over 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.200 the course of a month, right, and not only change 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.360 their diet, but change their beliefs about what they're eating. 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:44.200 So maybe they're starting a low carb diet or low 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.440 fat diet or whatever it is. But if they believe 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:52.840 that it's enough, will that actually change weight, change their 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:57.320 body composition and so forth. But we haven't been able 0:15:57.360 --> 0:15:59.520 to do that because, as you can imagine, it's hard 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:04.560 to deceive people for a long period of time, and 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:06.920 we wouldn't want to deceive them for a long period 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:08.760 of time. 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:13.720 Hill, I want to take a moment to make a 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.960 few important announcements that I'm really excited about. As you 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:20.920 all know, I'm committed to helping people self actualize. In 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.040 the service of that, I just had a new book 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:27.320 comount called Rise Above. Overcome a victim mindset, empower yourself 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.680 and realize your full potential. In this book, I offer 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.600 a science backed toolkit to help you overcome your living 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:37.240 beliefs and take control of your life. 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Three 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.920 day immersive experience for coaches is back by popular demand. 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.000 Foundations of Self Actualization Coaching is a course offered to 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.639 enhance your coaching practice by offering you evidence based tools 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:10.399 and insights to equip you to more effectively help your 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.680 clients and walk their unique creative potential. You can learn 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.520 more about the course and register by going to Center 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:21.080 for Human Potential dot Com slash SAC. That's Center for 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.360 Humanpotential dot Com slash s a C. Okay, now back 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:30.560 to the show. No, that's cool. That's really cool. Well, 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:33.439 you've done some really great extensions of this work. In 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:38.480 twenty thirteen, you teamed up with Peter Salve, who was 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:40.720 he head of the Yale Graduate School at that time. 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.159 I think, yeah, he was I think Deane when we 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.600 started to work working together, and then provost when I left. 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:51.840 Yeah. Great, And this guy called Sean Aker was a 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.080 call author in this paper as well. But you're the 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:58.080 lead author. I want to state for the record, you're amazing, 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:02.199 Ali Crum, And this paper is rethinking stress the role 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.439 of mindsets in deterring the stress response. And so what 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:06.760 I want to talk about on this paper is you 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.719 developed a measure called the stressed mind the stress mindset measure. 0:18:11.440 --> 0:18:14.119 Can you give me I'd hate to put you on 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:15.639 the spot, but can you give me? Give me one 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:17.520 or two items like, how do I know if I 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:18.560 score high on this measure? 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:22.720 Yeah, of course you love you love self report. 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:25.680 I love psychometrics. 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.440 I do too, so we have that in common. So this, uh, 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:36.399 the Stress Mindset Measure. The s MM asks questions like 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:42.960 experiencing stress enhances my performance and productivity. So do you 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:46.119 strongly you know? Do you disagree with that? Agree with that? 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:53.440 Strongly agree with that experiencing stress depletes my health and vitality. 0:18:54.440 --> 0:19:02.200 That one is reverse scored experiencing stress. Yes, I think 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:07.399 we had a health and performance vitality. Oh, it enhances 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.040 my learning and growth. So we wanted to cover these 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:15.400 sort of three dimensions health and vitality, learning and growth, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.280 performance and productivity. 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.200 And for the record, these items are you know if 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.159 you score high in this it's not the majority of 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:25.760 participants who tend to think this way, correct. I mean, 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:27.800 most of us don't think when I say stress to 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.360 every person on the street, they don't think, oh, that's 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.240 going to be improve my performance. So what percent what 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:36.640 were percentages and things? 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.920 Yeah, I think our you know, we've studied this now 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.960 in many different populations, It's been translated in many different languages, 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:54.280 and the average score is always almost always below the midpoint. 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:59.359 So you know, categorically you would put that into the 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:05.520 belief that stress is debilitating. The only group at least 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:09.480 that I've sampled in my life so far that is 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.480 on average in the enhancing side of the scale over 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:18.280 the midpoint are Navy seals. So and it makes sense, right, 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:21.480 you know, these these are people who are literally choosing 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.720 to go into some of the most stressful experiences you 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.959 could dream up, in part because they know they can 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.320 handle it and they know they'll they'll thrive under That 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:33.200 makes sense. 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:39.280 I mean, I'm sure that like the whole West Point Cadet, 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:43.120 you know, vibe is that you know when they come in. 0:20:44.080 --> 0:20:46.400 And so you found this is so cool. You found 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.960 that those who show higher on the scale showed moderate 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:57.840 cortisol reactivity and high desire for feedback under stress. Now 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.000 that's not this is not normal, This is not the norm. 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:07.080 So explain, explain the really important implications of this kind 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:11.359 of these changes to cortisol and your desire for feedback 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:12.159 under stress. 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.240 Yeah. Well, well, first of all, it's important to kind 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:19.399 of take step back and understand what this measure is. Right. So, 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.800 you know, the truth about stress is that it is 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.640 a paradox. Right, There's lots of research showing that stress 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:31.639 can have damaging effects on our health, on our learning, 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.800 on our growth, on our well being, and so forth. 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.320 But if you actually dive deeper into the literature, you 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.680 realize that you know, it's not all bad. And in fact, 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:46.760 the body's stress response was not designed to kill us, like, 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.000 it was not designed to hold us back. It was 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:53.000 designed to help us rise to the occasion, to meet 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:57.800 the demands we're faced with. In fact, Hanselier, who sort 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.880 of you know, humorously called the father of stress, when 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:03.119 he first wrote about stress, he wrote about the stress 0:22:03.160 --> 0:22:07.560 responses non specific, right, it's just the body's reaction to 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:12.399 the challenges that it faces. And he also talked about 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.800 you know, not just stress as only bad, but stress 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:20.439 as being both distress when it causes negative effects and 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:27.600 use stress when it actually helps the brain, body system, grow, learn, perform. 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.720 So we want to distinguish between kind of what is 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.920 the true nature of stress, which is, like most things 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:37.480 in life, a paradox, many types of outcomes are possible, 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:42.159 and what we're interested in, which is our belief or mindset, 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:46.280 the core assumption that we have about the nature of stress. Now, 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.879 if you probe somebody further, they might say, well, I 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:50.880 get that it could be good here, and da da dah. 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:53.720 They can get all nuanced in their thinking. But you know, 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.840 we when we operate, when we act in the world, 0:22:56.880 --> 0:23:00.920 we are acting based on these default assumptions. Our first 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:04.000 inclination is going to be based on where on that 0:23:04.080 --> 0:23:08.800 scale did we stake our claim on average, And so 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:11.800 there's variability in that. Even though on average most people 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:16.560 are on the stress of debilitating side, there's variability in 0:23:16.800 --> 0:23:21.120 people's beliefs. And what we find is that that variability matters. 0:23:21.600 --> 0:23:25.080 So people who believe hold the mindset that stress can 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:31.640 be enhancing, they show more adaptive cortisal response and I'll 0:23:31.640 --> 0:23:33.520 talk about that in a second, and they also show 0:23:33.600 --> 0:23:38.480 more willingness for feedback. And it makes sense, right if 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:42.360 you think that stress is bad for you, and then 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:46.919 you're faced with something stressful in your life, how do 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:50.840 you feel right now? Not only are you stressed because 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:55.400 something just happened, but now you're stressed about the stress, 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.280 and you're upset that you're stressed, and you're a little 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:01.240 depressed that you have to deal with the stress, and 0:24:01.280 --> 0:24:05.600 you're worried about, you know, the cardiovascular ramifications of this stress. 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:10.040 So the mindset itself just made the stress worse. So 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:16.680 emotionally it changes. Motivationally, we also are influenced by our mindset. 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:21.160 So if you believe that stress is debilitating, that it's 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:23.760 bad for you, that it's going to kill you, what 0:24:23.840 --> 0:24:28.040 are you motivated to do? You're motivated to either yeah, 0:24:28.119 --> 0:24:30.440 to like get the hell out of there, like either 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:33.600 pretend that this problem isn't there, you know that your 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:37.359 boyfriend or girlfriend didn't just give you negative feedback, or 0:24:37.400 --> 0:24:42.040 to overcompensate, to overreact to like make sure this problem 0:24:42.080 --> 0:24:47.320 goes away. So those two responses, either hyperactivity around the 0:24:47.359 --> 0:24:53.320 stress or you know, avoid and hypoactivity show up physiologically, 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:57.159 so either people freak out or they check out. And 0:24:57.240 --> 0:24:59.840 what we found is people who believe that stress can 0:24:59.840 --> 0:25:02.640 be enhancing. There's somewhere in the middle. They're like, Okay, 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:06.280 I didn't want to be dealing with this stress, but 0:25:07.160 --> 0:25:10.320 it's here, and the stress response is designed to serve me. 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:12.840 So what do I have to learn from this? How 0:25:12.880 --> 0:25:17.560 can I engage with this in an appropriate, thoughtful, useful way. 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:23.000 What feedback do I actually need to hear? And that 0:25:23.200 --> 0:25:27.280 shows up physiologically in you know, moderate levels of cortisol, 0:25:27.280 --> 0:25:29.159 which is important because most people get this wrong. They 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:32.800 think cortisol is all bad, but actually, you know, cortisol 0:25:32.880 --> 0:25:37.760 is linked with attention, focus, engagement, right, So you want 0:25:37.800 --> 0:25:40.640 to be somewhere in the middle with respect to cortisol. 0:25:41.840 --> 0:25:44.320 You know, there's a there's an old saying that goes, 0:25:44.840 --> 0:25:47.840 when you worry, you suffer twice, and you have to 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:50.760 be thinking that it's you know, you have the stress, 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:54.000 but the whole avoidance and we should use the word fear, 0:25:55.560 --> 0:26:01.840 is that enhances. Yes, these reactions and these and these 0:26:01.920 --> 0:26:06.520 these physiological responses that cause damage to your body quite frankly, 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:09.560 and your mind. So in some ways it's like a 0:26:09.600 --> 0:26:13.560 double whammy. You know, it's you have the stress itself 0:26:13.760 --> 0:26:17.040 and then you also have the avoidance response. So it 0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:19.280 just seems like the more you can have this stress, 0:26:19.280 --> 0:26:23.360 it's enhancing mindset, the more you're kind of like avoiding 0:26:23.359 --> 0:26:26.200 a double whammy. Does that make any sense totally? 0:26:26.400 --> 0:26:28.360 You know? And some of the work that I did 0:26:28.359 --> 0:26:32.720 with Peter Salave and he coined the term emotional intelligence 0:26:33.359 --> 0:26:41.080 back before Dan Goldman, yes, yeah, and David Caruso. But 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:43.600 one of the things I remember Peter talking about, and 0:26:43.720 --> 0:26:47.760 later Mark Brackett and others is this idea of dirty discomfort. 0:26:48.560 --> 0:26:52.200 So you have clean discomfort, which is like the stress 0:26:52.400 --> 0:26:55.720 or the fear or the sadness, and then you have 0:26:56.440 --> 0:27:01.879 dirty discomfort, which are your judge ment and concerns about 0:27:01.920 --> 0:27:04.560 the discomfort, like I can't believe I'm feeling this way. 0:27:04.560 --> 0:27:07.280 I shouldn't be feeling this way. This is going to 0:27:07.320 --> 0:27:10.280 be harmful for me and so forth, and so you know, 0:27:10.520 --> 0:27:14.879 it's it's nuanced, right. The goal is not to you know, 0:27:15.280 --> 0:27:19.320 get rid of all negative feelings, right, It's to feel them, 0:27:19.800 --> 0:27:22.960 but not make them doubly damaging, as you say, not 0:27:23.040 --> 0:27:26.760 make them worse. Right, There's enough to learn from them, 0:27:27.960 --> 0:27:31.000 and that's important, I think, you know, to say with 0:27:31.040 --> 0:27:35.239 respect to this stress is enhancing mindset, is you know, 0:27:35.280 --> 0:27:39.800 sometimes people misunderstand that. They think, oh, that means that, 0:27:40.640 --> 0:27:44.240 you know, you should seek out more stress in your life, 0:27:44.520 --> 0:27:47.840 and it's like, well, no, like, if you care about 0:27:47.840 --> 0:27:51.320 anything in life, you're going to experience stress surrounding it. 0:27:52.160 --> 0:27:55.600 In fact, you know, the definition of stress, at least 0:27:55.600 --> 0:28:00.080 that I use is stress is the experience or anticipation 0:28:00.520 --> 0:28:05.560 of encountering challenges in your goal related efforts. That's super jargony, 0:28:05.680 --> 0:28:08.680 But like you know, for all intensive purposes, what matters 0:28:08.760 --> 0:28:12.280 is that you only experience stress in domains that you 0:28:12.359 --> 0:28:17.080 care about. Right, if I told you that Johnny was 0:28:17.200 --> 0:28:22.119 failing school, you wouldn't really be stressed about that unless 0:28:22.160 --> 0:28:25.439 you were Johnny or your son was Johnny, or you 0:28:25.520 --> 0:28:29.880 cared about the Johnnys of the world school. So we're 0:28:29.920 --> 0:28:31.720 gonna have stress in our life. You don't need to 0:28:31.800 --> 0:28:36.040 seek it out. A stress is enhancing mindset. Also doesn't 0:28:36.080 --> 0:28:39.440 mean that the stressor is a good thing. And I 0:28:39.440 --> 0:28:41.680 think you know you know this with all your work 0:28:41.720 --> 0:28:44.920 on trauma and your great book that you just wrote recently, 0:28:45.000 --> 0:28:47.760 Like you know, when you say you can rise above 0:28:48.160 --> 0:28:50.920 right trauma, it doesn't mean that like the trauma was 0:28:50.960 --> 0:28:55.400 a good thing, like stress, the stressor is not a 0:28:55.440 --> 0:29:01.280 good thing, but going through it can lead to enhancing outcomes, 0:29:02.120 --> 0:29:05.120 and that mindset makes those outcomes more likely. 0:29:06.080 --> 0:29:10.880 Yeah, it seems like a bedfellow of a cow Dlex 0:29:11.240 --> 0:29:18.080 growth mindset, but applied to a different demean exactly. 0:29:18.280 --> 0:29:21.960 Yeah. No, Carol's work has been very inspirational. I think 0:29:22.040 --> 0:29:26.320 her use of the term mindset to kind of define 0:29:26.320 --> 0:29:28.440 a core belief that we have about the nature of 0:29:28.440 --> 0:29:35.280 intelligence as fixed or malleable is just so profound and important. 0:29:35.640 --> 0:29:38.600 And what we're doing here is we're trying to you know, 0:29:38.680 --> 0:29:42.920 expand that. But it's different right now. The topic is 0:29:42.960 --> 0:29:47.360 stress and the modifiers are you know, is stress enhancing 0:29:47.440 --> 0:29:51.200 or debilitating, not necessarily growth or fixed? Right, So it's 0:29:51.640 --> 0:29:55.560 we have mindsets about all sorts of things, and they 0:29:56.400 --> 0:30:01.960 turns out they matter, They. 0:30:01.960 --> 0:30:05.560 Do matter, and we can, you know, get even nerdier. 0:30:06.840 --> 0:30:13.520 You proposed a metacognitive approach to mindset change. Just when 0:30:13.600 --> 0:30:17.240 you thought it didn't get nerd enough, you create your 0:30:17.360 --> 0:30:22.200 stress mindset scale. What is the metacognitive approach that you 0:30:22.240 --> 0:30:26.800 published in twenty twenty three where you evaluate your rethink 0:30:26.840 --> 0:30:34.000 stress of mindset intervention from twenty thirteen. Yeah, anyway, I'm good. 0:30:34.480 --> 0:30:36.600 I'm so glad we get to nerd out together, Scott. 0:30:38.160 --> 0:30:38.960 It's been too long. 0:30:39.600 --> 0:30:44.880 We need a better term for this, but it's so crucial, right, So, 0:30:47.120 --> 0:30:50.080 the truth of stress is a paradox our mindsets matter. 0:30:50.560 --> 0:30:52.400 If we know the goal is to get people to 0:30:52.480 --> 0:30:55.200 adopt more of a stress is enhancing mindset because we 0:30:55.240 --> 0:30:58.920 know that's useful for them, how do we do that? 0:31:00.640 --> 0:31:04.520 So one approach could be to just try to convince 0:31:04.640 --> 0:31:08.040 them that that's the true mindset, right, Like, that's the 0:31:08.160 --> 0:31:10.600 right way to think about stress. And in fact, we 0:31:10.640 --> 0:31:12.920 did that in that early study with Peter Salave and 0:31:12.960 --> 0:31:18.640 Sean Aker. We worked with ubs bankers who were going 0:31:18.720 --> 0:31:22.920 through layoffs after the two thousand and eight financial recession, 0:31:23.560 --> 0:31:26.560 And what we did was we gave them three minute 0:31:26.640 --> 0:31:34.040 video clips that shared the science science of stress, anecdotes, etc. 0:31:34.720 --> 0:31:37.360 But they were oriented towards one or the other of 0:31:37.400 --> 0:31:41.560 these truths. So, you know, one group in the study 0:31:41.640 --> 0:31:44.640 saw all the information that kind of reaffirmed how bad 0:31:44.760 --> 0:31:47.520 stress is for you, and the other group saw all 0:31:47.560 --> 0:31:51.160 the information that showed that stress, you know, actually wasn't 0:31:51.160 --> 0:31:53.440 designed to be that way. It was designed to support 0:31:53.480 --> 0:31:58.280 your immune system. And narrow your your attention and ways 0:31:58.320 --> 0:32:01.000 that can support you. We found is over the course 0:32:01.040 --> 0:32:04.080 of the week, just watching those videos did change their 0:32:04.080 --> 0:32:07.480 mindset and it did have effects on their health and performance. 0:32:08.680 --> 0:32:12.720 But I left that study feeling like, you know, that 0:32:12.800 --> 0:32:17.400 wasn't really ideal because it's not fully true, right, Like 0:32:17.480 --> 0:32:20.560 we're not lying to people. Everything that we put in 0:32:20.600 --> 0:32:24.760 those films were you know, was based on evidence or 0:32:24.800 --> 0:32:29.320 it was a true anecdote, but it wasn't the full picture, right. 0:32:29.400 --> 0:32:32.680 So then I was left with this question of how 0:32:32.720 --> 0:32:35.360 do we get people into the mindset that stress can 0:32:35.400 --> 0:32:41.040 be enhancing, not by kind of you know, you know, 0:32:41.440 --> 0:32:43.920 trying to teach them or getting them to see that 0:32:43.920 --> 0:32:46.880 that's the true nature of stress, but by getting them 0:32:46.880 --> 0:32:52.040 to see that that mindset is useful. And so what 0:32:52.080 --> 0:32:55.560 we decided to do was to create an intervention where 0:32:55.560 --> 0:32:58.640 people learned the true nature of stress. They learned all 0:32:59.120 --> 0:33:01.719 the whole messy story of stress. It can be the 0:33:01.760 --> 0:33:05.240 worst thing for you, right, and some people really thrive 0:33:05.320 --> 0:33:08.600 and grow from stress. All of these things are true, 0:33:09.600 --> 0:33:14.400 and your mindset about it matters. It can shape your attention, 0:33:14.560 --> 0:33:17.200 it can shape your feelings, it can shape your motivation, 0:33:17.280 --> 0:33:22.239 it can even change your body. So you choose, right, like, 0:33:22.600 --> 0:33:25.880 how do you want to choose to view stress? Right, 0:33:25.920 --> 0:33:28.000 do you want to view it as debilitating or do 0:33:28.040 --> 0:33:31.360 you want to view it as enhancing? So by meta mindset, 0:33:31.400 --> 0:33:35.320 what we mean by that is we inspire people to 0:33:36.040 --> 0:33:40.120 adopt the mindset a particular mindset, such as the mindset 0:33:40.160 --> 0:33:45.880 that stress can be enhancing, not because they're manipulated into it, 0:33:46.000 --> 0:33:49.640 but because they choose consciously that that mindset is a 0:33:49.680 --> 0:33:51.640 more useful one to have. 0:33:52.040 --> 0:33:55.160 Well, so it's just like a flexible stress mindset, Yeah, 0:33:55.320 --> 0:33:56.720 strategically flexible. 0:33:57.680 --> 0:34:02.880 Yeah, it's sort of like you know, I think that 0:34:03.120 --> 0:34:07.680 what meditation does, what mindfulness does, is it helps you 0:34:07.840 --> 0:34:12.440 realize that you have mindsets, that the world, your beliefs 0:34:12.480 --> 0:34:15.480 aren't just sort of a reflection of reality as it is, 0:34:15.560 --> 0:34:18.319 that like could be this way or could be that way, 0:34:18.360 --> 0:34:21.080 and you kind of like sit back and you sort 0:34:21.120 --> 0:34:25.279 of see the kind of absurdity of it all. So 0:34:25.360 --> 0:34:28.160 that's part of it. But then what, right, then you 0:34:28.200 --> 0:34:30.359 need to go live your life, Like then you need 0:34:30.400 --> 0:34:33.799 to get back in the game. And so it's you know, 0:34:33.840 --> 0:34:36.120 it's stepping back in and say now I'm going to 0:34:36.160 --> 0:34:38.520 live my life, and I'm going to choose to view 0:34:38.560 --> 0:34:39.960 stress as enhancing. 0:34:41.480 --> 0:34:55.080 It's mine. Okay, your piano, I don't know, but I 0:34:55.120 --> 0:34:55.800 can beatbox. 0:34:56.719 --> 0:35:00.000 No. So I mean this is this, there's a whole 0:35:00.239 --> 0:35:03.440 there's some extensions, so many offshoots of this. I mean, 0:35:04.000 --> 0:35:08.160 there's some fascinating stuff found that you can change cancer mindsets. 0:35:08.800 --> 0:35:14.239 You know, a brief mindset focused digital intervention was effective 0:35:14.239 --> 0:35:18.320 at improving physical, social, emotional, and functional h r QO 0:35:18.680 --> 0:35:21.440 L Okay, what does that mean? 0:35:21.840 --> 0:35:26.440 You gotta love jargon. Yeah, so you know, we did 0:35:26.440 --> 0:35:30.080 the stress mindset stuff that stuffs still ongoing so important 0:35:31.680 --> 0:35:37.160 as you know. Sadly, well, we can come back to this. 0:35:37.360 --> 0:35:39.640 But I thought, you know, we would do this research 0:35:39.680 --> 0:35:41.760 and then everybody would learn about it, and then everybody 0:35:41.800 --> 0:35:43.680 would have a stresses enhancing mindset. 0:35:44.320 --> 0:35:47.000 I think, sadly, you need to write that book. 0:35:48.320 --> 0:35:53.000 I'm working on it. Yeah, But sadly, I feel like 0:35:53.080 --> 0:35:58.440 our culture has even taken a step back in you know, 0:35:58.680 --> 0:36:01.760 having this belief that stress is bad, all stress should 0:36:01.760 --> 0:36:05.840 be avoided, we should protect everyone from stress and so forth. 0:36:06.719 --> 0:36:09.120 But we can talk about that. The cancer work is 0:36:09.160 --> 0:36:11.680 really near and dear to my heart, this is work 0:36:11.680 --> 0:36:15.600 that I've done with Shan Zion, former grad student in 0:36:15.640 --> 0:36:20.880 the lab, Lydia Shapira, and others. Jonathan Barrack and we 0:36:21.000 --> 0:36:25.200 wanted to understand what are mindsets that people have about cancer. 0:36:26.320 --> 0:36:30.400 And you know, what we learned is that, you know, 0:36:30.640 --> 0:36:34.640 like stress, there's you know, cancer is complicated. It doesn't 0:36:34.760 --> 0:36:37.719 just have one effect on people's lives, but people have 0:36:37.800 --> 0:36:41.719 mindsets about it. Three of the mindsets that we know 0:36:42.120 --> 0:36:44.919 people hold are you know, either you view it as 0:36:45.000 --> 0:36:48.120 kind of an unmitigated catastrophe. My life as I knew 0:36:48.120 --> 0:36:51.960 it was over, Nothing will ever be the same. Why me, 0:36:52.280 --> 0:36:58.239 poor me? You know, Yeah, the cancer is a catastrophe. 0:36:59.040 --> 0:37:03.600 But people can also view it more as something that's manageable. Right. 0:37:03.760 --> 0:37:06.800 They have a mindset that, yeah, I'm diagnosed with cancer. 0:37:07.040 --> 0:37:08.839 This is not what I would have hoped for. It's 0:37:08.880 --> 0:37:11.759 not what I wanted, but I can manage this. I 0:37:11.800 --> 0:37:15.839 can handle this. And there's a third mindset that we 0:37:16.040 --> 0:37:21.439 see actually quite frequently in people with cancer, and that 0:37:21.640 --> 0:37:25.759 is that cancer can be an opportunity. So again, that 0:37:25.800 --> 0:37:28.120 doesn't mean you wanted it doesn't mean it's a good 0:37:28.200 --> 0:37:29.400 thing in and of itself. 0:37:29.840 --> 0:37:31.960 Growth potential for postmatic. 0:37:31.480 --> 0:37:36.959 Growth exactly the experience of going through cancer. Can yeah, 0:37:37.120 --> 0:37:40.600 help you reorganize your priorities, help you, you know, deepen 0:37:40.640 --> 0:37:46.920 your values, help your self actualize, help deepen your relationships, 0:37:47.000 --> 0:37:50.520 and you know, unlike stress actually in the normal population, 0:37:50.560 --> 0:37:52.880 when you look at people with cancer, this is actually 0:37:52.920 --> 0:37:56.200 pretty strong, right, And I think when you're really faced 0:37:56.239 --> 0:37:59.319 with tough things, you kind of are forced to see 0:37:59.320 --> 0:38:02.759 the light, to see the silver linings. But here again 0:38:02.760 --> 0:38:06.640 there's lots of variability. And what we find is that interestingly, 0:38:07.040 --> 0:38:11.000 these mindsets aren't correlated with the severity of cancer. So 0:38:11.680 --> 0:38:17.359 you have people who have stage four metastasized cancer who 0:38:17.840 --> 0:38:21.279 believe it's an opportunity, feel like it's manageable, and you 0:38:21.320 --> 0:38:23.879 have people with stage one, you know, no big deal 0:38:24.200 --> 0:38:28.040 kind of cancers that feel like their whole life's over. 0:38:28.920 --> 0:38:34.440 And here again these mindsets matter in shaping how people feel, 0:38:35.360 --> 0:38:39.120 how they're motivated to engage with treatment, how their bodies 0:38:39.160 --> 0:38:44.360 are responding physiologically, and what they pay attention to in 0:38:44.480 --> 0:38:47.880 the treatment. And the intervention that we designed is also 0:38:48.120 --> 0:38:53.200 a metacognitive strategy to changing people's mindsets. So you can imagine, 0:38:53.200 --> 0:38:55.040 you know, we didn't want to go in and say, hey, 0:38:56.000 --> 0:38:58.600 you who just was diagnosed with cancer, you should think 0:38:58.680 --> 0:39:01.600 this way or this is the right We don't do that. 0:39:01.680 --> 0:39:08.360 What we do is we showcase stories from former, you know, 0:39:08.400 --> 0:39:12.239 people who have been formally diagnosed their cancer survivors talk 0:39:12.360 --> 0:39:16.280 about the role of their mindsets in the cancer journey. 0:39:16.640 --> 0:39:19.480 And they're not just the people who had great mindsets 0:39:19.480 --> 0:39:23.239 for the start. They're people who initially felt like this 0:39:23.719 --> 0:39:29.160 was a catastrophe and then realize the impact of their mindsets, 0:39:29.760 --> 0:39:33.640 chose more useful mindsets and reaped the benefit of doing that. 0:39:34.080 --> 0:39:37.800 So the intervention is watching others talk about their mindset, 0:39:38.400 --> 0:39:41.600 and what we show in that study is that, you know, 0:39:41.680 --> 0:39:44.160 that intervention, which is a total of about an hour 0:39:44.320 --> 0:39:49.640 long of documentary style films, changes mindset and that confers 0:39:49.719 --> 0:39:52.560 the benefit on health related quality of life. So health 0:39:52.600 --> 0:39:55.000 related quality of life is, you know, basically, how well 0:39:55.000 --> 0:39:58.080 are you functioning? Are you getting up and doing the 0:39:58.120 --> 0:40:00.279 things that you want to do? Are you you know, 0:40:00.480 --> 0:40:04.360 you feel good about your relationships. Are you physiologically in 0:40:04.440 --> 0:40:08.280 terms of symptom sort of managing Okay, that's cool. 0:40:08.640 --> 0:40:10.880 There's another category of people that you might want to 0:40:10.920 --> 0:40:14.320 consider in your further studies on the topic. There was 0:40:14.360 --> 0:40:17.680 a woman who got a lot of press for the 0:40:17.719 --> 0:40:21.920 way she handled this her cancer diagnosis. She was told 0:40:21.960 --> 0:40:24.319 that she had stage four cancer and maybe had two 0:40:24.360 --> 0:40:27.000 years left to live, and she decided she was going 0:40:27.040 --> 0:40:30.239 to completely surrender to it. Actually not. She said, I'm 0:40:30.280 --> 0:40:32.200 not going to fight. I'm not going to fight a 0:40:32.239 --> 0:40:34.839 battle with cancer. I'm going to enjoy my life for 0:40:34.880 --> 0:40:38.000 two years and accept it. Except that I only have 0:40:38.000 --> 0:40:41.040 two years left. And I just don't like you. You don't 0:40:41.040 --> 0:40:43.839 hear that about that option often enough, you you find 0:40:43.960 --> 0:40:47.960 like you're almost like feeling pressure to fight it to 0:40:48.080 --> 0:40:49.560 you know, oh yeah, what are you doing to fight it? 0:40:49.600 --> 0:40:51.160 What are you doing to you know, fight the battle 0:40:51.200 --> 0:40:53.080 with cancer? Cancer? She's like, I don't want to fight 0:40:53.080 --> 0:40:54.720 the battle with cancer. I want to enjoy my life. 0:40:55.400 --> 0:40:58.600 And uh, and so that's just it might be an 0:40:58.640 --> 0:41:00.840 interesting if there's you can get word enough sample of 0:41:00.840 --> 0:41:01.440 people like that. 0:41:02.560 --> 0:41:05.120 One hundred percent. I'm so glad you brought that up, 0:41:05.200 --> 0:41:08.600 because I think it's going from a place another place 0:41:08.600 --> 0:41:14.480 where people mis interpret the work. You know, and you know, 0:41:14.560 --> 0:41:17.560 having the mindset that cancer is an opportunity, your cancer 0:41:17.600 --> 0:41:21.160 is manageable, doesn't mean you're kind of happy about cancer. 0:41:21.200 --> 0:41:23.960 It also doesn't mean you're sort of denying it. It 0:41:24.000 --> 0:41:26.560 also doesn't mean you're a hundred percent going to beat it, right, 0:41:26.680 --> 0:41:31.040 It's just to get there. The first step is really 0:41:31.080 --> 0:41:37.799 to acknowledge and accept the reality of your diagnosis. Yes, 0:41:38.040 --> 0:41:41.120 And it's only when you do that that then you 0:41:41.200 --> 0:41:45.319 can choose how you're going to handle that, how you're 0:41:45.360 --> 0:41:47.359 going to approach it. And that might mean going all 0:41:47.360 --> 0:41:50.480 in and getting the treat every single you know, treatment 0:41:50.520 --> 0:41:52.960 that you can, or it might mean you know, I 0:41:52.960 --> 0:41:54.279 don't want to do that. I want to live out 0:41:54.280 --> 0:41:57.440 the rest of my days, you know, doing something else. 0:41:57.840 --> 0:42:01.480 But you can only get there through acknowledging it and 0:42:01.560 --> 0:42:04.760 through having a mindset that is useful. 0:42:05.760 --> 0:42:10.799 Yeah, I want to shift a little bit to what 0:42:10.960 --> 0:42:15.239 happens when you get information about yourself and how that 0:42:15.400 --> 0:42:19.239 changes those actual things without you trying to change them. 0:42:19.239 --> 0:42:21.759 So that's a long witted way of talking about a 0:42:21.800 --> 0:42:25.000 study that you were a co author on with Turnwald 0:42:26.440 --> 0:42:30.640 at colleagues in twenty nineteen. Learning one's genetic risk changes 0:42:30.719 --> 0:42:38.360 physiologic physiology independent of actual genetic risk. I mean that's mindful. 0:42:38.480 --> 0:42:41.840 I mean it's just so mind blowing to me. Okay, 0:42:42.080 --> 0:42:44.719 because so many of us are able with twenty three 0:42:44.760 --> 0:42:47.279 and meters, right, we're able to find out all this 0:42:47.440 --> 0:42:53.600 information about our genetic risk estimates for this and that, Alzheimer's, cancer, obesity, 0:42:54.360 --> 0:42:57.360 all sorts of diseases. What did this study find about 0:42:57.600 --> 0:43:00.279 just merely learning about that? 0:43:01.960 --> 0:43:05.920 Yeah, this was such an interesting and fun study to run. 0:43:06.040 --> 0:43:09.080 We got people into the study. Under the study guys 0:43:10.120 --> 0:43:15.000 that we were looking at how you know, personalized medicine, 0:43:15.000 --> 0:43:18.480 how we could create sort of personalized fitness plans, and 0:43:18.520 --> 0:43:20.960 this was very believable. In the Stanford area, lots of 0:43:20.960 --> 0:43:25.160 stuff on genome mapping and personalized medicine were happening at 0:43:25.160 --> 0:43:29.600 the time, and we in particular were interested in one 0:43:29.680 --> 0:43:32.799 gene called the CREB one gene, and that gene had 0:43:32.840 --> 0:43:42.440 been linked with obesity and weight through exercise capacity pathways. 0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:46.480 So people with the risk aalele of the CREB one 0:43:46.560 --> 0:43:56.080 gene were essentially associated with less cardiovascular efficiency when they exercise, 0:43:56.719 --> 0:44:00.200 So you would run, you feel like not very good it, 0:44:00.560 --> 0:44:02.719 you know, it's sort of painful to run. And the 0:44:02.719 --> 0:44:05.200 theory was that was linked with part of the reason 0:44:05.280 --> 0:44:09.799 why these people had higher rates of obesity. What we 0:44:09.800 --> 0:44:14.520 were interested in in the study was what do do 0:44:14.640 --> 0:44:23.319 your beliefs about your genetic risk influence the physiological effects 0:44:23.760 --> 0:44:27.879 of that gene? Right, So not just you know, well, 0:44:27.920 --> 0:44:30.959 first of all, you know, twenty three meters was big, 0:44:31.080 --> 0:44:35.319 lots of this genetic you know, genotyping was getting more 0:44:35.360 --> 0:44:41.400 and more you know common. And the theory was, I 0:44:41.440 --> 0:44:44.360 think that if you got information about your risk for 0:44:44.480 --> 0:44:50.080 certain things, that that would motivate you to you know, 0:44:50.239 --> 0:44:53.520 compensate and engage in behaviors that would make you healthy. 0:44:53.920 --> 0:44:56.719 And a meta analysis had been done to show basically 0:44:56.760 --> 0:44:59.319 that that just wasn't true at all, Like people would 0:44:59.320 --> 0:45:01.719 being told they at risk for all these things and 0:45:01.760 --> 0:45:05.880 it just didn't motivate them to be any healthier. So 0:45:05.960 --> 0:45:08.960 that was interesting. But what we were interested in was 0:45:09.080 --> 0:45:13.160 even more kind of fundamental, which was, if you believe 0:45:13.920 --> 0:45:17.880 that your genes make you bad at exercise, will that 0:45:17.960 --> 0:45:20.440 actually will that just the belief. 0:45:20.280 --> 0:45:21.440 Will change the genes? 0:45:21.800 --> 0:45:27.080 Change, yeah, change the express the genes. Yeah. And so 0:45:27.120 --> 0:45:30.320 what we did was we this was also within subjects 0:45:30.400 --> 0:45:32.840 study like the milkshake studies, so it was the same 0:45:32.920 --> 0:45:37.239 people did the same VO two max test. It was 0:45:37.440 --> 0:45:40.440 a cardiovascular efficiency test. This was done at the Human 0:45:40.520 --> 0:45:45.600 Performance Lab run under Scott Delt and so we hooked 0:45:45.600 --> 0:45:50.400 them up. We were literally measuring the amount of oxygen 0:45:50.440 --> 0:45:52.759 they were intaking and how efficiently they were able to 0:45:52.800 --> 0:45:56.520 convert it to carbon dioxide through their lungs. And we 0:45:56.600 --> 0:46:02.279 did one exercise test, very stringent. It's sort of like 0:46:02.320 --> 0:46:05.200 a stress test, if you know, if you've ever done one, 0:46:05.400 --> 0:46:09.839 or a VO two max test. And then we had 0:46:09.840 --> 0:46:14.759 them do the exact same test one week later, but 0:46:14.960 --> 0:46:18.920 before they did it, we gave them their genetic result. 0:46:20.080 --> 0:46:22.759 So we gave that on this very official looking pamphlet 0:46:22.840 --> 0:46:24.839 and we said, you know, we just want to give 0:46:24.840 --> 0:46:27.799 you some important information that we got from your genotype. 0:46:28.560 --> 0:46:31.279 And they looked at it and half were told they 0:46:31.360 --> 0:46:33.680 were they had the risk allele, that they were the 0:46:33.680 --> 0:46:38.279 people who were likely to have lower exercise efficiency, or 0:46:38.320 --> 0:46:40.839 they were told they had the protective allele, that they 0:46:40.920 --> 0:46:43.200 had the good gene. Right like this, they had the 0:46:43.239 --> 0:46:45.960 type of gene that made them good at exercise basically, 0:46:46.760 --> 0:46:52.880 and then we had them run again the exact same test. 0:46:53.600 --> 0:46:56.239 Now what was interesting about this is we had their 0:46:56.320 --> 0:47:01.759 actual genotype too, and so we had their actual genotype, 0:47:01.920 --> 0:47:05.480 and then we randomized them to getting the information, so 0:47:05.520 --> 0:47:10.799 the information they got was randomly determined. So therefore we 0:47:10.840 --> 0:47:13.600 can separate the effect of the actual gene on the 0:47:13.640 --> 0:47:18.239 outcome and the perceived genetic risk on the outcome. And 0:47:19.080 --> 0:47:23.240 essentially what we found was the perceived genetic risk mattered. 0:47:23.640 --> 0:47:27.080 When people thought they had the risk aaliele. They converted 0:47:27.080 --> 0:47:30.840 oxygen into CO two in a far less efficient rate. 0:47:32.000 --> 0:47:37.160 They also, you know, felt hotter, more pain less, motivation, 0:47:37.600 --> 0:47:40.160 you know, all a lot of other effects as well. 0:47:40.160 --> 0:47:46.560 But the physiological results were really interesting, and it was 0:47:46.680 --> 0:47:50.759 fully shaped by belief, not their genetic risk. 0:47:55.480 --> 0:47:59.480 Just to quarify some I'm understanding this methodology correctly, they 0:47:59.520 --> 0:48:03.040 were given accurate information about their genetic risk, right. You 0:48:03.080 --> 0:48:05.080 didn't have a condition where people were given because I'd 0:48:05.080 --> 0:48:09.080 be interesting too, a condition where people were given them 0:48:09.320 --> 0:48:10.319 opposite of. 0:48:10.560 --> 0:48:16.799 Yeah, sorry, I didn't explain that, so people, yeah, no, 0:48:16.880 --> 0:48:20.479 this is good. So we had their actual genetic risk, 0:48:21.040 --> 0:48:24.320 which is actually three types. You're either the risk allele, 0:48:25.160 --> 0:48:28.799 the protective allele, or the heterozygo, which is sort of 0:48:28.920 --> 0:48:31.480 right in the middle. And what we did was we 0:48:31.520 --> 0:48:35.320 took each of those two three groups and we randomized 0:48:35.400 --> 0:48:41.640 them to getting to being told they're either protected or 0:48:41.680 --> 0:48:42.200 at risk. 0:48:43.000 --> 0:48:46.319 So it was actually accurate for everyone. 0:48:46.440 --> 0:48:50.319 Some were right, So people who were actually protected. Half 0:48:50.360 --> 0:48:52.600 were being told they were protected and half are being 0:48:52.600 --> 0:48:53.840 told exact opposite. 0:48:54.000 --> 0:48:54.440 Gotcha. 0:48:54.880 --> 0:48:58.279 Yeah, And so then we can kind of we can 0:48:58.360 --> 0:49:00.560 look at if you just compare the people who were 0:49:00.560 --> 0:49:03.560 told they were at risk versus told they were protected, 0:49:03.960 --> 0:49:08.160 regardless of what their actual genetic risk was. Just that 0:49:08.239 --> 0:49:15.880 information changed their exchange rate of carbon dioxide and oxygen 0:49:15.920 --> 0:49:17.760 and carbon dioxide. 0:49:17.560 --> 0:49:21.240 Changed it in a direction consistent with what they were told. 0:49:21.640 --> 0:49:23.320 Is that the idea exactly. 0:49:23.520 --> 0:49:27.920 So the belief, the belief that you are you know, 0:49:27.960 --> 0:49:33.360 your genes make you less efficient when you exercise protect 0:49:33.560 --> 0:49:34.920 created that reality. 0:49:35.760 --> 0:49:39.520 That's I mean, that's I just can't express enough how 0:49:40.480 --> 0:49:43.560 my mind was when I read when I when I 0:49:43.600 --> 0:49:48.120 read that paper. Yeah, it's amazing, and it's time to 0:49:48.160 --> 0:49:51.040 be thinking of studies that I want to conduct, you know, 0:49:51.080 --> 0:49:55.480 because there's the g WOSS approach is now starting to 0:49:56.400 --> 0:50:00.759 show not great predictability, but that there's something there with 0:50:00.880 --> 0:50:04.840 like predicting IQ for instance, and an academic achievement potential, 0:50:05.239 --> 0:50:10.480 you know, you know, and it's you're statistically significant effects. 0:50:10.480 --> 0:50:14.360 It's explaining maybe what like two to fifteen percent of 0:50:14.360 --> 0:50:18.160 the variants of the outcome. It's I mean, that's something. 0:50:18.719 --> 0:50:22.080 And so it makes me wonder, what if you start, 0:50:22.280 --> 0:50:25.120 what if you tell people their risk for like IQ, 0:50:25.560 --> 0:50:28.880 for instance, like high er will IQ? Does that actually 0:50:29.200 --> 0:50:32.360 alter the expression of the genes that the GOS studies 0:50:32.360 --> 0:50:34.759 are starting to show are relevant. I just think that 0:50:34.800 --> 0:50:39.520 would be such an interesting study and potentially controversial, I understand, 0:50:39.520 --> 0:50:41.280 but I'm just very curious. 0:50:42.080 --> 0:50:44.839 Yeah, and I love that idea and how far does 0:50:44.880 --> 0:50:47.080 it go? Right? Again, this was another one of those 0:50:47.120 --> 0:50:53.200 studies where our effects were very temporary, right, in part 0:50:53.239 --> 0:50:56.520 because it was an experimental manipulation. We were deceiving them, 0:50:56.760 --> 0:51:00.440 some of many of them about their genetics risk and 0:51:00.560 --> 0:51:03.040 that was important to do for the science, right, we 0:51:03.080 --> 0:51:05.960 wouldn't know otherwise. But you know, if you want to 0:51:05.960 --> 0:51:08.640 do sort of a long term study of like, oh, 0:51:08.719 --> 0:51:11.880 how does learning that you're you know, you're all the 0:51:11.960 --> 0:51:14.760 aggregate of your genes lead you to have high IQ 0:51:15.000 --> 0:51:19.799 and how might that affect you over decades? Right, that 0:51:19.840 --> 0:51:22.320 would be really interesting, But we got to be careful 0:51:23.040 --> 0:51:27.759 in how how we you know, glean that information as 0:51:27.760 --> 0:51:29.920 you know, you know, these messages matter. 0:51:30.719 --> 0:51:33.239 That's why I would want to do the studies. Is 0:51:34.239 --> 0:51:36.160 the way my mind was thinking about it is that 0:51:36.480 --> 0:51:38.799 can help show I mean, in a way, this is a 0:51:38.920 --> 0:51:44.120 modern day version of the Pygmalion effect. You know, this 0:51:44.239 --> 0:51:48.279 is like a modern day fancy genetics update on that. 0:51:48.600 --> 0:51:51.200 You know, is is it a self fulfilling prophecy our 0:51:51.239 --> 0:51:54.360 genetic is our genetic expression the way we think a 0:51:54.400 --> 0:51:58.239 self fulfilling prophecy on our genetic expression. But you know 0:51:58.239 --> 0:52:00.799 it's to me, it's still on the similar wi, you 0:52:00.840 --> 0:52:02.240 know totally. 0:52:02.280 --> 0:52:05.640 I had that same thought as you were sharing your ideas, 0:52:05.680 --> 0:52:07.920 and I think, you know, some of the reviewers on 0:52:07.960 --> 0:52:11.080 our paper had a similar question, which is like, you know, 0:52:11.400 --> 0:52:14.400 how important is it that this is genetic information? Like 0:52:15.080 --> 0:52:16.960 if you know, what if it was just like family 0:52:17.160 --> 0:52:20.160 history or you know, in the Pygmalion study it was 0:52:20.239 --> 0:52:23.960 the Harvard Aptitude test, like you know, at that time 0:52:25.000 --> 0:52:29.319 that was really important information that you believed. And in 0:52:29.360 --> 0:52:32.120 the day of age we're living in, or at least 0:52:32.280 --> 0:52:34.960 you know, we were. I think we're changing slowly, but 0:52:35.880 --> 0:52:38.719 genes are like every you know, there's something that's like, oh, 0:52:38.840 --> 0:52:44.120 that's just hardwired. Right. If your genes, you know, predispose 0:52:44.239 --> 0:52:49.400 you to something that's meaningful, that's real. But at the 0:52:49.480 --> 0:52:54.440 end of the day, that's just information, just like some 0:52:54.760 --> 0:52:58.560 test or you know, your family history or otherwise. 0:52:58.920 --> 0:53:01.880 That's exactly right. Is that great? I want to end 0:53:01.880 --> 0:53:08.000 this interview by discussing a very fruitful collaboration you've you've 0:53:08.040 --> 0:53:11.960 got going with Jared Clifton at University of Pennsylvania. You 0:53:11.960 --> 0:53:17.120 guys are quite the duo, him looking at beliefs about 0:53:17.160 --> 0:53:20.200 the world at large and you obviously having a very 0:53:20.200 --> 0:53:23.480 illustrious career looking at beliefs and how it can affect physiology. 0:53:23.760 --> 0:53:26.359 So what does that mind meld look like? I saw 0:53:26.400 --> 0:53:30.640 that you recently published a paper in the American Psychologists. 0:53:31.600 --> 0:53:33.520 Is that right? Greece this year? 0:53:34.160 --> 0:53:34.640 That's right? 0:53:34.840 --> 0:53:38.239 Yeah, I mean that's like a dream for psychologists to 0:53:38.320 --> 0:53:41.319 publish in the American Psychologists. So congratulate. It's probably not 0:53:41.360 --> 0:53:41.920 he's probably not. 0:53:41.880 --> 0:53:44.120 Your first international psychologist, but. 0:53:45.400 --> 0:53:48.560 That's a good point. That was very American centric of 0:53:48.600 --> 0:53:50.440 me to say that. Thank you for putting that out. 0:53:50.560 --> 0:53:54.399 But have you have you been in the American Psychologists before? 0:53:54.440 --> 0:53:56.160 And tell me about this paper a little bit. 0:53:56.200 --> 0:53:59.239 Yeah, No, that was the first time. Yeah, and thank 0:53:59.239 --> 0:54:01.280 you for that. I do you know, I remember reading 0:54:01.960 --> 0:54:04.759 you know, you know the American Psychologists. It has like 0:54:04.800 --> 0:54:07.879 the picture of the psychologists. I remember reading articles from 0:54:07.920 --> 0:54:11.640 some of my heroes and that. But yeah, I'm really 0:54:11.680 --> 0:54:15.440 excited about the partnership that I've started with Jared Clifton. 0:54:16.160 --> 0:54:20.280 I know you know him from Penn bok Hair similar 0:54:20.440 --> 0:54:26.720 Pen Roots. Jare is doing really critical work, I think, 0:54:27.000 --> 0:54:30.440 looking at the beliefs that we hold, the mindsets we 0:54:30.480 --> 0:54:33.440 hold about the nature of the world as one big place. 0:54:34.719 --> 0:54:38.280 And you know, as just as I've extended Carol Dweck's 0:54:38.320 --> 0:54:42.520 work from looking at your core beliefs about intelligence to 0:54:42.840 --> 0:54:45.840 looking at our core beliefs about other domains like stress 0:54:46.560 --> 0:54:52.040 or cancer, or exercise or diet or our genes. Right, 0:54:52.160 --> 0:54:55.160 what Jar's doing is looking at what are our core 0:54:55.200 --> 0:54:59.359 beliefs about the world? Right, Like do you believe the 0:54:59.400 --> 0:55:04.760 world is dangerous or safe? Do you believe the world 0:55:05.080 --> 0:55:10.160 is abundant or scarce? Do you believe the world needs you? 0:55:10.440 --> 0:55:14.480 Scott Barry Kaufman or could it just live without you? Right? 0:55:14.560 --> 0:55:18.680 These are again neither true or false, Right, or wrong. 0:55:19.160 --> 0:55:22.919 There's lots of evidence to support either side of these spectrums. 0:55:23.520 --> 0:55:25.840 Spectrum, but there's a lot of evidence that. 0:55:27.560 --> 0:55:30.480 The world needs you, Scott. 0:55:31.000 --> 0:55:33.040 You say there's evidence for the world. 0:55:35.640 --> 0:55:39.640 Right, Well, the world. I believe the world needs you. 0:55:39.719 --> 0:55:42.200 I believe the world needs me, right. 0:55:42.280 --> 0:55:46.160 I believe that's actually objectively true. Though that's where I'm 0:55:46.160 --> 0:55:47.799 disagreeing with you, my men. 0:55:47.840 --> 0:55:50.560 A mindset knows that it's not objectively true, but it 0:55:50.680 --> 0:55:54.719 is a mindset that serves me and keeps me motivated 0:55:54.800 --> 0:55:58.320 to do what I can to actually have that be true. 0:55:58.640 --> 0:56:00.680 But anyways, we did we got off on tangent there. 0:56:00.719 --> 0:56:05.960 But you know, so Jare's work is was really methodologically 0:56:06.040 --> 0:56:10.040 advanced because instead of just like coming up with, you know, 0:56:10.160 --> 0:56:12.680 the beliefs that he thought mattered about the world, he'd 0:56:12.800 --> 0:56:17.200 decided to take a systematic approach to uncovering what are 0:56:17.239 --> 0:56:20.840 all the possible beliefs that people could hold about the 0:56:20.920 --> 0:56:23.160 nature of the world. He looked at you know, many 0:56:23.200 --> 0:56:26.560 thousand tweets, He looked at all the great religious text 0:56:26.640 --> 0:56:32.280 philosophical texts, you know, surveys in different countries and so forth. 0:56:32.840 --> 0:56:36.879 And you know, I think my contribution to that work 0:56:36.960 --> 0:56:41.080 has been to kind of help define the type of 0:56:41.160 --> 0:56:47.080 belief we're talking about here. So these aren't you know, 0:56:47.560 --> 0:56:52.600 nuanced kind of you know, takes on the world that 0:56:52.640 --> 0:56:56.480 could could be falsified, like the world is flat or 0:56:57.120 --> 0:56:59.920 you know, the world was made by God. Right, These 0:57:00.239 --> 0:57:07.239 are simple adjectival and evaluative beliefs about the nature of 0:57:07.280 --> 0:57:09.960 the world, and they tend to have these modifiers like 0:57:10.719 --> 0:57:14.560 it's fixed or malleable, it's enhancing or debilitating, it's abundant 0:57:14.600 --> 0:57:20.240 or scarce, these adjectives that characterize the essence of what 0:57:20.400 --> 0:57:25.040 the world is. And in that paper what was fun 0:57:25.120 --> 0:57:29.360 to write about with Jair is, you know, when it 0:57:29.400 --> 0:57:35.600 comes to the world, our beliefs are omnipresent, right, Why 0:57:35.960 --> 0:57:40.160 because we never leave the world, at least you and 0:57:40.200 --> 0:57:45.640 I haven't yet left the world. And so personality psychologists 0:57:45.680 --> 0:57:48.680 and social psychologists used to get in these epic debates 0:57:48.720 --> 0:57:51.160 about like is it the person like is it their 0:57:51.200 --> 0:57:55.360 personality that's shaping their behavior or is it the situation? Right, 0:57:55.440 --> 0:57:59.320 And obviously like the situation matters. You know, your level 0:57:59.320 --> 0:58:02.040 of introversion and quietness is going to differ if you're 0:58:02.040 --> 0:58:04.680 in a movie theater or a party. But on the whole. 0:58:04.960 --> 0:58:07.360 You know, whether you're more extroverted, it's going to shape 0:58:07.360 --> 0:58:10.520 how talkative you are. But what jar and I talk 0:58:10.560 --> 0:58:16.360 about in this paper is that personality as defined as 0:58:17.040 --> 0:58:22.080 this is who you are on average across many different situations, 0:58:22.680 --> 0:58:26.120 is not. It's here too, also about a belief about 0:58:26.120 --> 0:58:30.040 a situation, right, it's in this case, it's a belief 0:58:30.080 --> 0:58:33.720 about the situation of the world, this place that you 0:58:33.840 --> 0:58:37.680 never leave. So that's a little philosophical, but we're doing 0:58:37.720 --> 0:58:39.840 lots of fun work kind of trying to codify what 0:58:39.920 --> 0:58:44.240 are these beliefs, how do they matter, Like, what are 0:58:44.280 --> 0:58:47.360 the mechanisms and what's the role that they play in 0:58:47.440 --> 0:58:50.600 shaping not just you know, our health and performance, which 0:58:50.600 --> 0:58:54.200 has been my focus, but who we are, how we 0:58:54.240 --> 0:58:55.480 show up in the world. 0:58:56.880 --> 0:59:01.520 Such deep, deep, profound and important work. Ali and I 0:59:01.560 --> 0:59:04.360 started off saying, I'm so proud of seeing your your journey. 0:59:04.400 --> 0:59:07.760 I just want to conclude by reiterating that, and I 0:59:07.800 --> 0:59:10.800 really view you as, you know, one of the brightest 0:59:10.840 --> 0:59:14.680 lights in our field, in this generation, at this time 0:59:14.800 --> 0:59:18.080 in human history. And I'm honored to be in the world, 0:59:18.280 --> 0:59:19.400 in the world with you. 0:59:22.120 --> 0:59:24.680 Thanks so much, Scott, and I really you know, when 0:59:24.720 --> 0:59:28.840 I look back at my days in grad school, which 0:59:28.880 --> 0:59:33.320 were stressful and uncertain, and you know, in many ways, 0:59:33.480 --> 0:59:37.880 research was research. I started the stress research during that time. 0:59:39.480 --> 0:59:44.520 I you know, having people like you in my life 0:59:45.680 --> 0:59:48.960 made it possible, made it doable, made it fun, and 0:59:49.040 --> 0:59:53.880 most importantly, people like you reminded me of why we're 0:59:53.880 --> 0:59:56.840 doing this right, We're not doing it for ourselves. We 0:59:56.920 --> 0:59:59.600 are doing it for the world. So thank you for 0:59:59.640 --> 1:00:03.800 the work that you do and all the sincerity and 1:00:03.920 --> 1:00:07.000 the you know, really just the kind of joy that 1:00:07.040 --> 1:00:07.720 you bring to it. 1:00:08.280 --> 1:00:12.320 Thank you. Thanks for letting having me remind myself about 1:00:12.360 --> 1:00:16.640 all that as well is really important as well. So boy, 1:00:16.720 --> 1:00:20.560 thank you so much and yeah, talk soon to be continued.