Speaker 1: It hit me a few years ago that almost all
Speaker 1: the interventions that we've ever done that have work to
Speaker 1: make them happier work by making them feel more connected. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today, we welcome Sonya
Speaker 1: and Lubamirski on the show. Sonya is a distinguished Professor
Speaker 1: of psychology at the University of California, Riverside. Originally from Russia,
Speaker 1: she received her ab summa cumwadi from Harvard University and
Speaker 1: her PhD in Social personality psychology from Stanford University. Her
Speaker 1: research has been featured in hundreds of magazines, newspapers, shows
Speaker 1: and documentaries in North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Europe.
Speaker 1: Doctor Lubimirski's best selling books, The How of Happiness and
Speaker 1: The Myths of Happiness have been published and translated in
Speaker 1: over sixteen countries. In this episode, I talked to Sonya
Speaker 1: about happiness. Across all of her research, Doctor Lubamirski has
Speaker 1: found the connection is what makes people happy, So then
Speaker 1: how do we form high quality connections? Doctor lubermers He
Speaker 1: gives us insight on how to use kindness, reciprocity and
Speaker 1: gratitude to maintain and strengthen our relationships. We also touch
Speaker 1: on the topics of psychedelics, interpersonal chemistry, and social media.
Speaker 1: It's always fun chatting with Sonia. She's a friend and
Speaker 1: I really admire her research in the field. She's a
Speaker 1: real pioneer in the science of happiness. So I'm excited
Speaker 1: to share her ideas with this audience today. So, without
Speaker 1: further ado, I bring you Sonya Lubimirski. How are you
Speaker 1: doing today? I am doing amazing. How are you? I'm
Speaker 1: doing amazing. Today was the first day of school, so
Speaker 1: it's a big day. Well, thank you for taking the
Speaker 1: time to be on my humble podcast. It's a pleasure. Well, so,
Speaker 1: as you know, I'm a such a big fan of
Speaker 1: yours and preparing for today's episode and reviewing your work,
Speaker 1: it's like wow, Like how there's so many fascinating things
Speaker 1: to discuss. And you've been studying the topic of happiness
Speaker 1: for thirty years. More than thirty years, is that right? Yes,
Speaker 1: In twenty three of those years, e've been studying how
Speaker 1: to increase it. Why'd you get interested in this topic
Speaker 1: to begin with? You know, it was serendipitous. Actually, on
Speaker 1: the very first day of graduate school, I met with
Speaker 1: my advisor, whose name is Lee Ross, and he is
Speaker 1: one of the world's experts on conflict and negotiation, which
Speaker 1: is like the opposite of happiness. And we walked around
Speaker 1: and I don't know who said it, probably he first
Speaker 1: said it. He said, uh, you know, what is the
Speaker 1: secret to happiness? And why are some people happier than others?
Speaker 1: And back then this was in nineteen eighty nine, so yeah,
Speaker 1: you did your math, so more than thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: You know, there's only one person who really was studying happiness.
Speaker 1: That was Ed Diener, kind of the founder of the
Speaker 1: field of happiness, and there were just a few other
Speaker 1: kind of writers thinking about it. Obviously for thousands of years,
Speaker 1: you know, thinkers and writers and poets have been talking
Speaker 1: about happiness, but empirical research was very minimum. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so it was kind of serendipitous. Yeah, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: like get my head back that time period. What was
Speaker 1: being published in psychology at the time, So there was
Speaker 1: stuff on subjective well being, life satisfaction. Martin Seligman had
Speaker 1: he initiated positive psychology. No, no, that was ten years
Speaker 1: ten years later, because I was nineteen ninety eight, So
Speaker 1: there probably wasn't even much talk about things like such
Speaker 1: as purpose within the umbrella of happiness, right there really
Speaker 1: was a focus on No. Of course, there's a humanistic tradition,
Speaker 1: you know, a mass love of course that already had
Speaker 1: been talking about these sort of positive constructs more you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of theory than the you know, like experimental research.
Speaker 1: So I think we, you know, myself and many others
Speaker 1: started kind of a very like rigorous empirical tradition studying
Speaker 1: these positive constructs experimentally. And you wrote The How of Happiness,
Speaker 1: which has amazing collection of activities and things we can do.
Speaker 1: When this discussion of happiness comes up, a lot of
Speaker 1: people ask me just how much we can change and
Speaker 1: how much is in our genes. I wanted to start
Speaker 1: up with just a higher level overview of that because
Speaker 1: you've thought of that in a really really nuanced Wayne,
Speaker 1: I believe you wrote a paper with Kenon Sheldon on
Speaker 1: this topic. We could just give it a high level
Speaker 1: overview of you know, just how much is within our control?
Speaker 1: That would be wonderful, sure, sure, well, you know, originally
Speaker 1: we came up, Ken and I came up with a
Speaker 1: theory that we call the pipe chart and the idea
Speaker 1: there is that there's sort of three main determinants of happiness,
Speaker 1: kind of like three buckets of influences on happiness. One
Speaker 1: is our genetics, you know, personality, which is very much
Speaker 1: influenced our genetics. The second one is our life circumstances, Right,
Speaker 1: so if you're poor, if you live in a war zone,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in an abusive relationship, right, you're
Speaker 1: going to be really unhappy. And then the third bucket
Speaker 1: is like what we actually can do in our daily
Speaker 1: lives to kind of maintain happiness, either make us happier
Speaker 1: or less happy for that matter, in terms of a
Speaker 1: kind of a daily behave in the ways that we
Speaker 1: think about things. And a long time ago, we kind
Speaker 1: of we tried to put numbers on those three categories,
Speaker 1: and we think that was a mistake because you know,
Speaker 1: we really don't know what the numbers are. So now
Speaker 1: I guess our more nuanced perspective is that we still
Speaker 1: believe that there are these three types of influenced unhappiness.
Speaker 1: Genetics really are pretty powerful. Research with twins, research that
Speaker 1: compares twins that are identical to twins that are fraternal,
Speaker 1: shows that there's a really high like heritability component for happiness,
Speaker 1: like there is for almost any human trait, including love
Speaker 1: of jazz music, right including your blood pressure. And so
Speaker 1: identical twins are much more similar in their happiness levels
Speaker 1: than our fraternal twins. So we know that suggests that
Speaker 1: there's sort of genetic component happiness. So that is true,
Speaker 1: you know that, But that doesn't mean that you're faded
Speaker 1: right to be a certain level. Our circumstances absolutely matter.
Speaker 1: But if we're kind of you know, maybe maybe a
Speaker 1: lot of the listeners of your podcast are like fairly comfortable,
Speaker 1: Like they're not they're not living in a war zone,
Speaker 1: and so their circumstances don't affect their happiness sort of
Speaker 1: as much as probably they think they will, but they
Speaker 1: do matter of course. And then, like what I've been studying,
Speaker 1: what a lot of researchers have been studying, is like
Speaker 1: what can we actually do to change your happiness? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, can we actually change our habits? Can we
Speaker 1: actually think in ways that are different? Different? And so
Speaker 1: that's like the third component. So really all of those
Speaker 1: three components matter, All of those three buckets matter. I
Speaker 1: just I just don't like to put numbers on them anymore.
Speaker 1: So you know, we can't say, like this percent of
Speaker 1: your happiness is due to like this factor. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you know, heritability is all about there's some misunderstandings of
Speaker 1: what it means. It's just it's a population statistic. You
Speaker 1: can't parse out what percentage within a person is genetic
Speaker 1: and which parts and environment it's all connected within a person.
Speaker 1: You're only talking about partitioning sources of variance technically with
Speaker 1: the heritability coefficient. Yeah. No, no no, and this is consistently misinterpreted.
Speaker 1: That's why, like we want to right, but like, for example,
Speaker 1: we know that nations differ hugely in how happy like
Speaker 1: the average citizen is, and that really is consistent with
Speaker 1: research on genetics, because if you take the entire environment
Speaker 1: and you make it more fertile, you know, you make it,
Speaker 1: you know, more positive than like, everyone's going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, happier well to some extent. So good points,
Speaker 1: good point, Scott. Yeah, when the environment is equalized, genetics
Speaker 1: becomes more important in explaining the variance in an outcome.
Speaker 1: People don't realize that either, you know, like in a way,
Speaker 1: the extent to which genetics matter is the extent to
Speaker 1: which you have a just and fair society. So absolutely, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just it's a and uh and Page
Speaker 1: Hardin has done some great work on that, and she
Speaker 1: was on my podcast talking about that. Yeah, I read
Speaker 1: your article wrote about her. That was really fascinating. Oh cool. So,
Speaker 1: the the idea that I have always resonated with and
Speaker 1: I was wondering, tell me what the latest thinking about
Speaker 1: is is the set point theory of happiness. It does
Speaker 1: seem like we adapt quickly to the hot, extreme highs
Speaker 1: and extreme loads in our life, and we tend to
Speaker 1: return to a sort of baseline level of happiness that
Speaker 1: is maybe set by the genes in terms of reaction range.
Speaker 1: And I was wondering where your thoughts are on the
Speaker 1: latest thinking about that? True? Sure, so again, I think
Speaker 1: I want to offer kind of more nuanced perspective on
Speaker 1: that than I think the average person might have. So
Speaker 1: the stet point theory is sort of the idea that
Speaker 1: we all have kind of like a set point or
Speaker 1: like a baseline happiness maybe impartantly, you know, influence our
Speaker 1: genes and in our environment, and then when things happen
Speaker 1: to us, like let's say we get like a raise
Speaker 1: at work or we have a baby, or we have
Speaker 1: some kind of downturn, we lose our jobs, then our
Speaker 1: happiness kind of goes up and down. But then eventually
Speaker 1: it sort of goes back to the set and that
Speaker 1: process of sort of going back to our baseline kind
Speaker 1: of what comes up must come down, or what comes
Speaker 1: down must come up. It's called hedonic adaptation. Now, dot
Speaker 1: adaptation is a pretty powerful phenomenon, right, Human beings are
Speaker 1: really good at getting accustomed to changes in their lives.
Speaker 1: You can argue that evolutionarily adaptive that like we need
Speaker 1: to you know, be really attuned to changes in our environments. Right,
Speaker 1: we have to be attuned to sort of threats or
Speaker 1: to opportunities. But then when things are kind of the same,
Speaker 1: like we get to raise at work, or we buy
Speaker 1: a new house, and first we're really excited about it,
Speaker 1: but then it's sort of the same, right, Like the
Speaker 1: our house is kind of the same every day. Our
Speaker 1: new car, you know, is the same every day. We
Speaker 1: sort of adapt now, but research shows that we adapt
Speaker 1: much more quickly and much more completely to positive things
Speaker 1: than to negative things. Right, So positive things like I
Speaker 1: just mentioned, like we buy a new motorcycle, we buy
Speaker 1: a new bag. We even a relationship, right, we kind
Speaker 1: of adapt to Like research shows that people tend to
Speaker 1: adapt to marriage. You know, on average, after two years,
Speaker 1: people kind of go back to their previous baseline. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's lots of individual differences there that are kind of
Speaker 1: hidden by the by the average. But with negative of
Speaker 1: things like when we lose our jobs, we get divorced,
Speaker 1: we we have a disability, people tend to not adapt
Speaker 1: completely to a lot of those things. They still adapt, right,
Speaker 1: so they got to go go down and they kind
Speaker 1: of start coming back up, but they don't adapt completely.
Speaker 1: So it so are kind of quote set points. I
Speaker 1: don't really believe in set points, but those baselines could
Speaker 1: actually change, so we could sort of permanently, you know,
Speaker 1: become like a little bit less happy, say after experiencing
Speaker 1: a disability or after unemployment, which which almost surprisingly to me,
Speaker 1: unemployment on average people don't adapt to completely. Super interesting
Speaker 1: I think about it obviously in terms of personality, psychology
Speaker 1: and and one dimension. I know you've been studying recently
Speaker 1: because you've really got an interest in connections as kind
Speaker 1: of this as the overriding central theme that runs through
Speaker 1: a lot, not overwriting, but just a central theme that
Speaker 1: runs through a lot of different areas of positive psychology.
Speaker 1: I'd like to double click on this introversion extraversion dimension
Speaker 1: for a second, because you know, we might have a
Speaker 1: set point in the sense of like, I don't like
Speaker 1: the idea sespment, but like a baseline, a baseline on
Speaker 1: average temperament that exists, that's really exists. Some people are grumpy.
Speaker 1: Some people are grumpy people. Some people are like, how
Speaker 1: are you doing? And you know those people are annoying.
Speaker 1: But but but anyway, that's my own judgement. We are,
Speaker 1: but we're not. Hopefully we're not annoyingly happy. Right, there's
Speaker 1: a difference. There's a difference. That's a new construct, annoyingly happy.
Speaker 1: There's also I'm right now, yeah, Like there's a scale.
Speaker 1: We should create that scale, you know. But anyway, what's
Speaker 1: so interesting is that you may be temperamentally an introvert,
Speaker 1: but your research shows that you can experimentally get people,
Speaker 1: regardless of whether they're temperamentally an introvert expert into certain
Speaker 1: situations and it has effects that average over what your
Speaker 1: temperament is like that over you can override your temperament
Speaker 1: in terms of the benefits of connection and sociality. So
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear about your research about that because
Speaker 1: it's so fascinating, so fascinating exactly. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: just a tiny bit of background. I've been for years,
Speaker 1: I've been doing these interventions where we try to make
Speaker 1: people happier by experimentally kind of prompting them to engage
Speaker 1: in certain kinds of strategies or new habits, like try
Speaker 1: to be more grateful in your daily life, you know,
Speaker 1: do acts of kindness, engage socially more with others. And
Speaker 1: it hit me a few years ago that almost all
Speaker 1: the interventions that we've ever done that have work to
Speaker 1: make pople happier work by making them feel more connected
Speaker 1: or interacting more with other people. So when you write
Speaker 1: a gratitude letter to your mom, it makes you feel
Speaker 1: more connected to your mom. Right, when you do acts
Speaker 1: of kindness, it makes you feel more connected to the
Speaker 1: world in general, or do the people that you're helping,
Speaker 1: and so, you know, but one of my favorite studies,
Speaker 1: so I think connection is really the key to happiness.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like such a cliche, right, but it
Speaker 1: took me like twenty years at the point where I'm
Speaker 1: like realizing connection is the keep happiness. So one of
Speaker 1: my favorite studies I did with my former student Sethner
Speaker 1: Goolas where we ask people for one week to act
Speaker 1: more extroverted and then the sort of try to be
Speaker 1: more extroverted than usually are, and then the second week,
Speaker 1: try to be more introverted than usually are. We didn't
Speaker 1: actually use those terms because they have sort of connotations
Speaker 1: or vice versa. And people got a lot happier during
Speaker 1: the week that they acted extroverted. They got less happier
Speaker 1: when they acted introverted, and it didn't matter whether they
Speaker 1: were originally kind of high or low on extraversion introversion,
Speaker 1: which really surprised that. We thought. Susan Kane has this
Speaker 1: lovely work, this lovely book called Quiet. I'm sure your
Speaker 1: listeners know about it, and she's, you know, she argues
Speaker 1: that it's exhausting for introvert to act extroverted. Now, in
Speaker 1: our study, we didn't make them act extroverted all the time.
Speaker 1: They could sort of choose when, and so maybe in
Speaker 1: May in a week was not that long. Now, there's
Speaker 1: another study that did something very similar coming out of Melbourne.
Speaker 1: They did find that introverts didn't benefit they still benefited
Speaker 1: from the intervention to act more social, they didn't benefit
Speaker 1: as much. And also they showed bigger decreases in feelings
Speaker 1: of authenticity, which does make sense, right, they felt kind
Speaker 1: of less authentic. So there's some work now, very very
Speaker 1: new trying to figure out like what happens when you
Speaker 1: act kind of counterdispositionally, right, like you count, you act
Speaker 1: kind of against your personality. You might feel less authentic.
Speaker 1: I would argue you feel less authentic at first, but
Speaker 1: then over time it becomes a little bit more natural,
Speaker 1: just like anything when you try a new try on
Speaker 1: a new identity or role, you know you first, like
Speaker 1: when I bem a professor, right, I felt really an authentic.
Speaker 1: I felt like an impostor. But then over time I
Speaker 1: just kind of got used to it. Yes, Jesse Sun
Speaker 1: is doing wonderful research along as line, but she did
Speaker 1: in Melbourne study. I know, homegirl, I know. That's why
Speaker 1: I want to give her credit. I want to give
Speaker 1: her credit. And I wrote about that article about her
Speaker 1: research and Scientific American if people want to read that article.
Speaker 1: But the so there's some nuances here, and I do
Speaker 1: think it's also interesting there that there was a study
Speaker 1: that came out showing that if you give extroverts too
Speaker 1: much socializing, they get tired too. They're not superhuman, They're
Speaker 1: not like you know, like like both introverts and extroverts
Speaker 1: get exhausted with too much socializing, but their thresholds differ
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. I want to make Another point is that
Speaker 1: we have another paper that was looking at so why
Speaker 1: is it lots of use. It shows that extroverts are
Speaker 1: happier than introverts, which, by the way, that doesn't make
Speaker 1: me happy to know that finding, because I kind of
Speaker 1: I do agree with Susan Kaine that like, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of benefits to being introverted in our society and others,
Speaker 1: but they are happier. But it turns out that it's
Speaker 1: really like the energy component of extraversion. Experversion has three
Speaker 1: components assertiveness, sociability, which is what most people think extraversion is,
Speaker 1: but also energy level. They're sort of more energized, enthusiast
Speaker 1: energy component that's related to happiness of extraverty. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the Big ten model Colony Young calls that enthusiasm and
Speaker 1: they label the enthusiasm high positive emotion. Really, but the
Speaker 1: there is research showing that that there's a modifier there
Speaker 1: that happy introverts exist, and that happy introverts that the
Speaker 1: monitoring factor is the extent to which they have self acceptance.
Speaker 1: So I find I've always found that research. I've wrote
Speaker 1: about that as well. So funny we're talking about I
Speaker 1: actually just I just tweeted this out like the so well,
Speaker 1: I retweeted someone who quoted me saying the biggest key
Speaker 1: to being a happy introvert is simply self acceptance. So
Speaker 1: is that like self compassion or well, just the extent
Speaker 1: to which you don't feel shame for being introvert, the
Speaker 1: extent to which you own it as part of your identity,
Speaker 1: you know, because there are those who read, you know,
Speaker 1: the Suan Kane's book, and then they make that introversion
Speaker 1: is like a really positive part of their identity, you know,
Speaker 1: and their cultural differences of course, because then other cultures
Speaker 1: is much more desirable to be introverted. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: this research you've conducted on this is so interesting and
Speaker 1: it does show the power of social can Now, social
Speaker 1: connection is not necessarily the same thing as what energizes extroverts,
Speaker 1: which is social novelty. So social connection part can come
Speaker 1: within the agreeableness, demean Perhaps these things can be fractionated.
Speaker 1: That is true, although you know there's ours and other
Speaker 1: studies have we just simply sometimes ask people to just
Speaker 1: interact more socially so he doesn't have to be in
Speaker 1: a particular way. And it's interesting just engaging more socially
Speaker 1: makes people happier. There's some lovely work by Nick Epley
Speaker 1: and his colleagues that shows that just you know, if
Speaker 1: you ask people to like talk to a stranger on
Speaker 1: the bus or on the train. Liz Done has done this,
Speaker 1: like at a coffee shop, people feel better. They think
Speaker 1: they won't make them happy, but it actually does. So
Speaker 1: it's actually kind of amazing the power of social attractions.
Speaker 1: You know, we are for social animals, and so you know,
Speaker 1: research theory suggests that, you know, this is how like
Speaker 1: human human Uh, I'm totally blanking Homo sapiens, what are
Speaker 1: we called? What are we called survived like relative to
Speaker 1: others like Homo habilists, you know what happened to them?
Speaker 1: Because we're social, right, we're social creatures. So it's not
Speaker 1: surprising that being social would be associated with happiness and flourishing.
Speaker 1: It makes sense, It makes sense the trauma, loss, and
Speaker 1: uncertainty of our world have led many of us to
Speaker 1: ask life's biggest questions, such as who are we? What
Speaker 1: is our highest purpose? And how do we not only
Speaker 1: live through, but thrive in the wake of tragedy, division,
Speaker 1: and challenges to our fundamental way of living. To help
Speaker 1: us all address these questions, process what this unique time
Speaker 1: in human history has meant for us personally and collectively
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Speaker 1: and self doubt. It's a workbook design to guide you
Speaker 1: in a journey of committing to growth and the pursuit
Speaker 1: of self actualization every day. It's chock full of research
Speaker 1: from humanistic psychology, positive psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, cognitive science,
Speaker 1: and neuropsychology, so lots of themes that you hear about
Speaker 1: on this podcast, and it's aimed to help us all
Speaker 1: integrate the many facets of ourselves and co crete our
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Speaker 1: truly hope this book helps you grow and thrive and
Speaker 1: become your best self. Okay, now back to the show.
Speaker 1: What happens if you force psychopaths to be more social?
Speaker 1: Do they become less psychopathic? So they probably would just
Speaker 1: use it to their they do, oh yeah, to their
Speaker 1: evil ends, right, that's true. They're very manipulative. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good point. I want to do that study from AFAR.
Speaker 1: Another fastening area of research that you've you've been looking
Speaker 1: at lately is how MDMA can boost connection well also
Speaker 1: can be a window into understanding what what underlies feeling
Speaker 1: understood and connected. So can you tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about some of your work on this and what
Speaker 1: you call quote here we go, psychedelic social psychology end
Speaker 1: quote love that did you coin that? I kind of
Speaker 1: want to inspire someone to start a new field called
Speaker 1: psychedelic social psychology. I know someone could listeners can read.
Speaker 1: So I'm really excited about this work. So MGMA that
Speaker 1: the molecular name for it is three four methylene dioxy methodphetamine.
Speaker 1: It's otherwise called MALI or ecstasy, and it's a it's
Speaker 1: a compound that has has been shown both in sort
Speaker 1: of clinical trials and experimental research and also anecdotally to
Speaker 1: sort of foster feelings of closeness, warmth, trust, connection, empathy.
Speaker 1: People while they're on the drug, they feel they feel grateful,
Speaker 1: they feel compassionate, they want to help others, really really
Speaker 1: really connected. And so I thought, like, what a great
Speaker 1: drug to study as a window into studying SOFA connection.
Speaker 1: And so when you're the a the acute effects of
Speaker 1: MDMA is that people feel really like connected, really understood,
Speaker 1: valued and cared for, which is whether this is called
Speaker 1: partner responsive is Perry Reese one of my favorite theories
Speaker 1: in psychology, and so studying this drug can be. We
Speaker 1: could use it as a research tool as like a
Speaker 1: window to try and understand like what are the psychological
Speaker 1: ingredients and what are the neurobiological roots of feeling really connected?
Speaker 1: And so that research is ongoing and someone has already
Speaker 1: been done. But also we can use it in an
Speaker 1: applied way to try to improve people's lives. Right, so,
Speaker 1: we have loneliness epidemic. I think the UK even appointed
Speaker 1: a Minister of Loneliness, and so what if we give
Speaker 1: empt may to lonely people, maybe just once, maybe with
Speaker 1: a booster. I'm not saying that we should need to
Speaker 1: take it repeatedly to have it effects, because people say
Speaker 1: that they're really transformed when they take it because they
Speaker 1: feel so close your walls kind of come down. You're
Speaker 1: really able to sort of engage with people in a
Speaker 1: deep way. It's used for couples counseling, I think for
Speaker 1: not surprisingly because you know, imagine a couple that's trying
Speaker 1: to like talk about conflict, conflict or something that's painful.
Speaker 1: People on MT may don't feel defensive, you know, they
Speaker 1: don't feel the same kind of anxiety or fear. So
Speaker 1: it's really like kind of a beautiful molecule to study
Speaker 1: if you're interested in social connection, which of course is
Speaker 1: like a really important topic to study. Social connection is
Speaker 1: a basic human need. It's really a public health concern.
Speaker 1: It's associated with health and mental health and physical health
Speaker 1: and longevity. So yeah, I'm really excited about this research,
Speaker 1: and there's like a lot to be done. Of course,
Speaker 1: psychedelic science and cycholatic medicine is really taking off recently,
Speaker 1: so there's so much more to be done in this area. Now.
Speaker 1: Is this purely a theoretical interest, Yeah, it is, Yes,
Speaker 1: it is if you say so, Yes, okay, if I
Speaker 1: say so. In the aspects is Finally, I discuss further
Speaker 1: questions whether using MDMA for enhancing connection can backfire, and
Speaker 1: so I thought that's interesting part of this paper as well.
Speaker 1: You know, how can that backfire? You know, I think
Speaker 1: that's that's important too. Whenever you're talking about a drug,
Speaker 1: it's a scheduled one substance. And by the way, there's
Speaker 1: lots of things that are schedule one that have been
Speaker 1: actually I have to have shown to have say much
Speaker 1: less harm than things like alcohol or nicotine that are
Speaker 1: that are not scheduled one, which means so schedule one
Speaker 1: means it's it's illegal, but it is being used in
Speaker 1: research and really amazing research coming out right now. So
Speaker 1: in terms of backfiring, we always have to be cognizance. So,
Speaker 1: for example, if it makes you feel really really close
Speaker 1: to others, theoretically you could you know, become really close
Speaker 1: to like a really bad person, right or an abuser
Speaker 1: or like a Nazi or something. You know. So, so
Speaker 1: that hasn't actually happened. I'm not aware of that. It
Speaker 1: could lead to like infidelity, right, it could. It could
Speaker 1: lead you maybe to feel like you have to be
Speaker 1: on the drug to feel close right now. Again, I
Speaker 1: haven't seen that evidence in research, but I think we
Speaker 1: really need to look at that. I'm actually really interested
Speaker 1: in backfiring effects like the pursuit of happiness. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, so yeah, if I might say a little
Speaker 1: bit about that, I have a chatter with a student
Speaker 1: about about how the pursuit of happiness itself can backfire,
Speaker 1: where you could, for example, try to be grateful, try
Speaker 1: to do acts of kindness for others, and maybe your
Speaker 1: acts of kindness kind of doesn't make people feel good, right,
Speaker 1: and so you feel kind of less competent or you
Speaker 1: might feel taken advantage of, or you might feel like
Speaker 1: it's a burden. Gratitude can make people feel kind of
Speaker 1: embarrassed or ashamed for needing the help in the first place,
Speaker 1: or not expressing gratitude earlier, or like a burden on
Speaker 1: other people when they realize how much you know others
Speaker 1: have done for them, or sometimes it's awkward to share gratitude.
Speaker 1: So even these really positive habits and activities could sometimes
Speaker 1: have negative effects. So I think we have to be
Speaker 1: always sort of cognitizant of those are aware of those possibilities. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's such an important topic that I want to double
Speaker 1: click on it. You and Megan m Fritz coin this
Speaker 1: term the happiness boomerang effect, which is exactly what you're
Speaker 1: describing when positive activities backfire. Not just positive activities, but
Speaker 1: can it backfire if happiness is your main goal in life,
Speaker 1: Like if you try to directly try to chase chase
Speaker 1: happiness every day of your life, can that backfire as well? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And actually that's a really great question because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people are doing that. You know, they're like,
Speaker 1: I want to be happy, And there's some really nice
Speaker 1: work by IROs Mouse and Grouper and others that show
Speaker 1: that like overvaluing happiness basically like really being preoccupied or
Speaker 1: kind of obsessed with like the pursuit of happiness can
Speaker 1: can actually undermine it. Right, So the idea is that
Speaker 1: like when you're constantly tracking your happiness and asking yourself,
Speaker 1: am I happy yet? Am I happy yet? Right, that
Speaker 1: might actually make you feel disappointed, you know. The idea
Speaker 1: this is kind of again like kind of hokey, but
Speaker 1: the ideas that you want to sort of enjoy the
Speaker 1: journey to get there as opposed to just sort of
Speaker 1: focus on the goal, you know, because then you'll probably
Speaker 1: be disappointed. So so I usually advise not to sort
Speaker 1: of focus too much on happiness, but focus on like
Speaker 1: the like the strategy. So, for example, try to be
Speaker 1: more kind to others, try to interact more, act more extroverted,
Speaker 1: be more social, be more kind, but not necessarily say
Speaker 1: I'm doing this to make myself happier and is it working?
Speaker 1: Is it working? Because you might be disappointed? Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. I think happiness is an epi phenomenon
Speaker 1: of other things that you focus on in your life,
Speaker 1: like meaning and purpose. For sure. I just I love
Speaker 1: this art of wrote, you know, with doctor Fritz You right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really love this article. And you know, you make
Speaker 1: a really interesting point in there that when someone else
Speaker 1: is the recipient of kindness, you know, like there could
Speaker 1: be this utopian kind of idea in positis echology. It's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: of course, you know that's going to give us well
Speaker 1: being benefits. But look, we're human too. I mean, can't
Speaker 1: like jealousy come in. Can't like, you know, like normal
Speaker 1: other human drives that pos psichologist sometimes don't They're like,
Speaker 1: don't talk about it. Don't talk about that. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not And I don't like the word positive psychology
Speaker 1: because it's not it's not positive. I just kind of
Speaker 1: go where the data lead. And so sometimes we find that,
Speaker 1: for example, we find that sometimes gratitude makes people feel
Speaker 1: a little worse. It makes them feel indebted. For example,
Speaker 1: right when you're grateful to others, it makes you feel humble,
Speaker 1: which is usually a good thing. So, you know, you
Speaker 1: mentioned jealousy. We did a study because we're interested in
Speaker 1: like social media, what if you express gratitude on social media,
Speaker 1: maybe that might make other people feel kind of bad,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, more like when you call
Speaker 1: out people say at work, like, oh, thank you so
Speaker 1: much to Scott, he's doing such an amazing job. And
Speaker 1: then maybe your colleagues don't, you know, don't feel so
Speaker 1: good about that. So we're interested to sort of pursuit
Speaker 1: of happiness kind of like online too, because of course
Speaker 1: it's such a big part of our lives. Now. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more. Yeah, it's just it's
Speaker 1: so important. I love it you're doing this, and it's
Speaker 1: just you're so productive. It's incredible. It's incredible. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's all my students and collaborators. I have
Speaker 1: the best students of collaborators, and they are That helps
Speaker 1: us love them so much. Yes, that helps. But you know,
Speaker 1: even with all that wonderful modesty, even aside, there are
Speaker 1: solo authored publications I'm looking at right now. So so
Speaker 1: you know, you can't hide from your your amazingness for
Speaker 1: too long, because your sole amazingness. You can't hide from
Speaker 1: it for too long because even like this paper toward
Speaker 1: a new science of psychedelic so it's sole authored paper
Speaker 1: and it's a it's just really brilliant, really brilliant, truly
Speaker 1: brilliant how you integrate and bring together so many different
Speaker 1: threads within social psychology. You know, you have this, you
Speaker 1: have a chart of the different areas which it can
Speaker 1: be impacted. And I love how much in creativity, by
Speaker 1: the way, because that's my area of study. Well, so
Speaker 1: is that on the chart creativity you put creativity? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. I have to say that paper because
Speaker 1: I was so interested in this brand new when I
Speaker 1: started working on it was about three years ago. Even then,
Speaker 1: you know, psychedelic medicine hadn't really been taking off as much.
Speaker 1: But I actually ended up sending it to like twenty
Speaker 1: five colleagues because I thought maybe a few of them
Speaker 1: would give me feedback, and like twenty four of them,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to call out the one person
Speaker 1: who didentif give feedback back, twenty four of them gave
Speaker 1: me extensive, detailed feedback. Was actually a beautiful and then
Speaker 1: I and I really worked hard to try to to
Speaker 1: try to incorporate, you know, other people's ideas into that.
Speaker 1: So it's like it took a village to write that paper.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I do appreciate that. Well, you have
Speaker 1: a lot of projects on in your lab right now, right,
Speaker 1: a lot of things happening, and I just wanted to
Speaker 1: go through and discuss some of them. One is what
Speaker 1: makes for good listening? And I know it's in the
Speaker 1: very early stages of research, but it's a very important topic.
Speaker 1: One near and dear to my heart, and the principles
Speaker 1: of Karl Rogers on conditional positive regard, active listening, a
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff that really inspired me in his writings,
Speaker 1: and I was wondering, what modern day science, what you're
Speaker 1: finding so far? So this is a really brand new project.
Speaker 1: We're also looking at conversations, right, like what makes for
Speaker 1: great conversations? Because if the key to happiness is connection,
Speaker 1: and how do we connect by talking to each other? Basically,
Speaker 1: mostly it's involved talking. I mean sometimes there's no talking,
Speaker 1: but there's yeah, mostly. So I'm working with this really
Speaker 1: amazing researcher from Israel in Israel whose name is Guy,
Speaker 1: It's Chakoff, And I was actually just messaging with him
Speaker 1: just now, and he's an expert on listening. So he's
Speaker 1: teaching us a lot about listening, and he talked he
Speaker 1: studies what's called high quality listening, you know, and I
Speaker 1: actually and I have lots of ideas that you know,
Speaker 1: I want to test, that we want to test, but
Speaker 1: sort of this idea that some of it, of course
Speaker 1: is sort of maybe it might sound obvious, like the
Speaker 1: kind of nonverbal you know, gestures and expressions, eye contact
Speaker 1: that you need to show to show that you really
Speaker 1: are truly listening, the kinds of questions that you're asking
Speaker 1: my own pet peeve. I mean, you're you know, you're
Speaker 1: a podcast host, so you're used to asking people questions.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't ask questions or they don't
Speaker 1: ask detailed questions that show that you're really listening, that
Speaker 1: you're really getting it, and that you want to know
Speaker 1: more right and again getting to partners right, that you
Speaker 1: really are that makes people feel understood. Right, So listening,
Speaker 1: the kind of listening that makes people feel really understood
Speaker 1: and valued and cared for, is the kind of listening
Speaker 1: that it's going to improves relationships. No, it's good to
Speaker 1: know that how the framework and the way that you
Speaker 1: and your colleagues are looking at that issue is going
Speaker 1: to be so important. I was thinking about Carl Rogers's
Speaker 1: notion of active listening, which is is asking good questions,
Speaker 1: and that's what makes a good coach as well, is
Speaker 1: powerful asking very powerful questions. And yeah, so listening is
Speaker 1: so important, right for like doctor patient relationships, right, therapist
Speaker 1: client relationships, student teacher relationships, romantic relationships, friendships. Right, It's
Speaker 1: just so important. So I am really excited about the
Speaker 1: sort of new line that we're coming into. I'm excited
Speaker 1: that you're looking into that. I saw a very interesting
Speaker 1: study the other day that tried to quantify what the
Speaker 1: optical amount of talking is for a conversation for the
Speaker 1: for the other partner to perceive you as a good
Speaker 1: conversation partner. And I actually found and the researchers actually
Speaker 1: found that people tend to underestimate how much talking they
Speaker 1: should actually do in a conversation. That people who talk
Speaker 1: more than than they think they should are actually perceived
Speaker 1: as more confident and actually the other person enjoys the conversation.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the interesting other side of the coin.
Speaker 1: You know, listening is important, but maybe too much. Again,
Speaker 1: it goes back your backfire effect. Backfire effect. Too much
Speaker 1: listening can be like geez, do you have you have
Speaker 1: anything to say yourself? Right, it has to be reciprocal,
Speaker 1: and there's this paradigm called fast friends, where it's using research,
Speaker 1: it's also used sort of an applied context where people
Speaker 1: kind of ask each other a series of increasingly personal questions.
Speaker 1: But and so because self disclosure is really important too, right,
Speaker 1: because it had if you're self disclosing, you're really showing
Speaker 1: a part of yourself. It's you can't really feel understood
Speaker 1: if the other person doesn't really see what you truly
Speaker 1: are like inside. But it has to be what's the
Speaker 1: word symmetric, right, Like if you're doing all the talking,
Speaker 1: if you're one person you're listening, it feels uneven, right,
Speaker 1: And so it has to be especially so this fast
Speaker 1: friends procedure, people take turns, right, So I might ask you,
Speaker 1: you know, a personal question like when was the last
Speaker 1: time you cried in front of someone? And you might
Speaker 1: answer that question, and then I really listened to my
Speaker 1: follow up and then you and then I it's my
Speaker 1: turn to answer the same question. And so that kind
Speaker 1: of reciprocation is really important to having like a deep connection.
Speaker 1: And also, uh, we'll trust. Trust is a really valuable
Speaker 1: one within within a high quality connection. How much do
Speaker 1: you like or studied, or rely or draw on the
Speaker 1: work of Jane Dudden and high quality connections. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so I've I've read her work, right, So, yeah, high
Speaker 1: quality h QCs right, high quality connections correct current right.
Speaker 1: And so she has a theory of sort of what
Speaker 1: makes up for a quite quality connections that are that
Speaker 1: is really relevant right to what we're studying. We're trying
Speaker 1: to sort of draw on everything there is on this
Speaker 1: in this research. For so. Bob Rosenthal, for example, is
Speaker 1: one of my colleagues at UC Riverside where I am
Speaker 1: a professor. He a long time ago he did research
Speaker 1: on rapport and so he had a theory of sort
Speaker 1: of here are three aspects of rapport, including like synchrony.
Speaker 1: We haven't talked about synchrony, but that's connection. You know,
Speaker 1: we're kind of mirroring each other's gestures or movements, and
Speaker 1: so that's part of like having rapport. So that's also
Speaker 1: part of having and I believe that's also part of
Speaker 1: Jane Dunnan's work. And then Barb Fredrickson has worked on
Speaker 1: what she calls positivity resonance, which is also sort of
Speaker 1: a theory about sort of sharing kind of positive positive
Speaker 1: emotion positivity. Although you know, we argue that you could have.
Speaker 1: You can have sort of this resonance or feeling and
Speaker 1: sync even when it's not positive, right imagine shared grief,
Speaker 1: you know, or like shared anger and injustice, right, so
Speaker 1: you could have sort of negative don't know what to
Speaker 1: call it, exactly negative resonance, but anyway, Yeah, So, like,
Speaker 1: really I think it's really important to sort of stand
Speaker 1: on the shoulders of giants and see like what they've
Speaker 1: written and then kind of try to extend beyond what
Speaker 1: they have done. And again, my my mo is to
Speaker 1: do experimental search. So we try to sort of test
Speaker 1: things that maybe have been shown like naturalistically happen in
Speaker 1: real life, and then we try to bring them in
Speaker 1: and sort of manipulate them to see if, like, if
Speaker 1: you get people to sort of listen in this way
Speaker 1: or if you get people to uh, you know, interact
Speaker 1: in this way, will they you know, will they become happier?
Speaker 1: I love. It also relates to Sarah al Jo's work
Speaker 1: Positive Interpersonal Processes right buying what does it bind, find
Speaker 1: and remind or is it bind bind and remind theory?
Speaker 1: So absolutely so she talks for example, what's really relevant
Speaker 1: to us as the role of gratitude in relationships, and
Speaker 1: basically she pauses that the main function of gratitude is
Speaker 1: actually to kind of maintain and like strengthen social relationships.
Speaker 1: So yeah, absolutely, really really relevant work. I love it.
Speaker 1: I'm also super interested in your work on interpersonal chemistry
Speaker 1: and yet how to create it, because don't you talk
Speaker 1: to people sometimes and you feel a severe lack of
Speaker 1: interpersonal chemistry off the bat and you kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, you check your watch, you like look for
Speaker 1: the exit. What's going on there? Yeah, so I have
Speaker 1: quite a bit to say about chemistry. We have so
Speaker 1: Harry Reese, who's the uh sort of the who developed
Speaker 1: part and a responsive theory, which is the importance of
Speaker 1: feeling understood and cared for and valued. So he and
Speaker 1: I and my student Andy Reagan wrote a paper that
Speaker 1: kind of presented a theory of chemistry because I believe
Speaker 1: no one had actually like kind of just visually kind
Speaker 1: of described what chemistry is. And so basically we propose
Speaker 1: that there's kind of two aspects of chemistry. What chemistry
Speaker 1: kind of looks like, you know, when you see it,
Speaker 1: Like when you see chemistry, sometimes you see two people talking,
Speaker 1: And that's basically a series of what we call responsive
Speaker 1: interactions where I sort of say something and you really
Speaker 1: you respond in a way, you listen in a way
Speaker 1: that make me really feel understood and cared for and
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And then like and then I do the
Speaker 1: same to you. So we have this sort of interaction
Speaker 1: that that keeps going. But then what did chemistry actually
Speaker 1: feel like? So, and I can kind of throw this
Speaker 1: out to your listeners, like when you've had when you've
Speaker 1: experienced chemistry with a person or with a group for
Speaker 1: that matter, or like a sports team, what does it
Speaker 1: feel like? Well, there's sort of three components. One is
Speaker 1: it feels good, you know, it feels positive, there's sort
Speaker 1: of liking attraction, warmth. Another is you feel a sense
Speaker 1: of like shared identity, like or similarity, right you're like
Speaker 1: on the same team or you're a couple. And then
Speaker 1: the third is you're typically you're pursuing goals, you know,
Speaker 1: So like if you and I have chemistry right now talking,
Speaker 1: we have kind of a shared goal in mind, which
Speaker 1: is this conversation or this podcast. You have sort of
Speaker 1: these shared mutually you know, interdependent goals. But like we really,
Speaker 1: Harry and Anny and I really believe that chemistry is
Speaker 1: something that can be built. You know, it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: you either have it or you don't. Just like happiness,
Speaker 1: it's not easy, right. So my example is like I
Speaker 1: have to you know, I have a lot of kids.
Speaker 1: I have four kids, and so I've been to a
Speaker 1: lot of like kid birthday parties, and I don't love
Speaker 1: going to kid birthday parties cause just go stuck talking
Speaker 1: to people they don't don't really know, you know, these
Speaker 1: other parents and so like, let's say you're sort of
Speaker 1: talking to this other parent and they're not that interesting
Speaker 1: to talk to. How do you draw them out right?
Speaker 1: How do you build chemistry with them? Well, self disclosure
Speaker 1: is important, So how do you get to kind of
Speaker 1: get them to disclose? So then you disclose and maybe
Speaker 1: you start asking them questions. You know. I remember talking
Speaker 1: to someone who wasn't that interested in and so I was,
Speaker 1: but I said, well, have you traveled? What's your favorite
Speaker 1: place where you traveled to? And he said Greece, And
Speaker 1: actually I've never been to Greece. So I was like, well,
Speaker 1: tell me about that. What does Greece really like? You know?
Speaker 1: And so we ended up having a really nice conversation
Speaker 1: that had a little chemistry with it in it, you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of felt like, oh, felt a little bit
Speaker 1: in sync. By the way, feeling in sync is probably
Speaker 1: the most the key to chemistry. Yes, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like these other things are precursors to synchrony. It seems
Speaker 1: like synchrony is more an outcome or like a it's
Speaker 1: agen yeah, emergence, yeah, yeah, yeah, these are all emergent phenomena.
Speaker 1: So I think it's eatable, right, like sort of where
Speaker 1: in the time course things can happen. We kind of
Speaker 1: debated that a lot, so yeah, we could talk about
Speaker 1: that sort of the nuances there. You know, I love nuance.
Speaker 1: I mean this is such a roundbreaking paper, you know,
Speaker 1: because you and you distinguish between what chemistry looks like
Speaker 1: versus what it feels like. Now, these two things can
Speaker 1: come apart, right, Like, you know, you can have all
Speaker 1: the people in the media and be like, oh, Mary
Speaker 1: Sue and John the two celebrities, you know, like look
Speaker 1: at their amazing chemistry they have and they'll be together forever,
Speaker 1: and then they get divorced the following week. So sometimes
Speaker 1: these things can come apart, right. Our perceptions can be
Speaker 1: different from how people actually experience it and know it's true.
Speaker 1: It's true, we consumer be wrong. But again, when we
Speaker 1: say what chemistry looks like, that's what I'm talking about
Speaker 1: that those those interactions. So you really need to see
Speaker 1: Mary and John in conversation and really kind of be
Speaker 1: a fly on the wall, So not just kind of
Speaker 1: them like taking photos together, but like really see like
Speaker 1: when they're having that conversation, are they making are they
Speaker 1: kind of like throwing the ball back and forth in
Speaker 1: a way that makes them feel like they're they're feeling
Speaker 1: understood and appreciated. They really are, uh, you know, in
Speaker 1: sync with each other. So but I agree sometimes we
Speaker 1: could just be wrong. We can be we can be okay,
Speaker 1: can we be wrong too? Like in terms of our
Speaker 1: own perception? Like it's like what if I'm what if
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh wow, you know, Sonya, I think we're
Speaker 1: having such amazing chemistry right now, and you're like, Scott, nah, Nah.
Speaker 1: It's actually a question that we even maybe have it
Speaker 1: somewhere in the paper we considered can it Can chemistry
Speaker 1: be one sided? Right? Like you feel what I'm saying exactly,
Speaker 1: That's what I asked, and can I exactly? I know
Speaker 1: that's why, Yeah, that's why I brought it up, so
Speaker 1: so we don't really know. Like I think this debatable,
Speaker 1: like is it really chemistry when only one person feels it?
Speaker 1: But I think we kind of settled on like maybe yes,
Speaker 1: Like if you really feel you have all the sort
Speaker 1: of symptoms of chemistry, You're feeling the chemistry, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm not feeling it, or vice you're not feeling it.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling I'm feeling. I was just I was just joking.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling amazing chemistry right now. I think my compliment you, Scott,
Speaker 1: I think your superpower is that you make people feel
Speaker 1: like at easy. You're very easy to talk to, and
Speaker 1: I can actually that's one like channel into chemistry, right.
Speaker 1: You know, people who are kind of awkward and they
Speaker 1: don't say much and they pause and they kind of
Speaker 1: look at you. You know, it's harder to develop chemistry
Speaker 1: with them, and you you have a thank you, you know,
Speaker 1: thank you. I really appreciate that. Well, people should know,
Speaker 1: you know that we were friends in real life. We're
Speaker 1: friends in real life. Yeah, we are friends in real life.
Speaker 1: People might not know that, so this is not as
Speaker 1: awkward as it sounds. Closure we are friends in real
Speaker 1: life although new friends. Okay, So what is this idea
Speaker 1: of you know that you can count too many blessings?
Speaker 1: I find that research fasting. I saw you actually at
Speaker 1: a NIPPA conference talk about that research like six years ago,
Speaker 1: and it fascinated me ever since. And we still don't
Speaker 1: have all the data. Oh okay, fair enough, and you
Speaker 1: count too many blessings okay. So there's a phenomenon in
Speaker 1: social psychology called the effort as information heuristic. Okay, effort
Speaker 1: as information heuristic, And the classic study was done by
Speaker 1: Norberg Schworts at USC and they ask people I think,
Speaker 1: I don't remember the numbers with something like list like
Speaker 1: five assertive behaviors that you have done recently like assertive behaviors,
Speaker 1: or list like fifteen assort of behaviors. So the more people,
Speaker 1: the more behaviors people are forced to list, the less
Speaker 1: assertive they think they are because it's harder for them
Speaker 1: to think of fifteen assertive behaviors. Or you ask college
Speaker 1: students at the end of a class, list like twelve
Speaker 1: things you liked about your professor, or list three things
Speaker 1: you like to be a professor. That people who list
Speaker 1: or ask to list twelve things actually don't like the
Speaker 1: professor as much overall because it's hard for them to
Speaker 1: think of twelve things. So could that be true for
Speaker 1: counting blessings? Right? If I ask you to think of
Speaker 1: like twenty things that are good in your life right now,
Speaker 1: and maybe you have some trouble coming up with twenty things,
Speaker 1: you might conclude that your life is not as fortunate
Speaker 1: as you thought it was. It also could just be
Speaker 1: kind of a burden. So we did a study where
Speaker 1: we asked people to count two blessings, four blessings or
Speaker 1: eight or sixteen or thirty two blessings and and sort
Speaker 1: of measured their affect and we found that what do
Speaker 1: you think was the goldilocks kind of number of blessings two, four, eight,
Speaker 1: sixteen or thirty two? I was gonna say eight, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought it before, but eight is actually the right answer.
Speaker 1: It totally felt right to me. But we are trying
Speaker 1: to replicate that study. We haven't been able to replicate it, so,
Speaker 1: you know, just disclosure. We'll see what happens if that's
Speaker 1: that's a real effect or not. It's such a valuable
Speaker 1: nuance within the field that says, like count your blessings
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, yeah, another nuance in the field. Again,
Speaker 1: My student Annie did a study for her like faster thesis,
Speaker 1: where we she compared what's what sort of more happiness
Speaker 1: promoting for gratitude writing a gratitude letter or like gratitude
Speaker 1: list right kind of your blessings, And it turns out
Speaker 1: that letters or kind of essays are more happiness inducing
Speaker 1: than lists. And I think it's not that surprising. When
Speaker 1: you're writing like a whole essay, it's more meaningful, it's
Speaker 1: more rich. Right, you could talk about like, oh my
Speaker 1: mom has done all these things for me. If it's
Speaker 1: just a list, it's sort of not as it's a
Speaker 1: little bit more trivial. That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I know. The
Speaker 1: topic you could go on all day about is the
Speaker 1: use of smartphones and social media and how it's making
Speaker 1: us maybe unhappy in some ways. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: the research you found on the association between these things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try it. Yeah, and I'm gonna try to
Speaker 1: be sort of brief. So another former student, Lisa Wallas,
Speaker 1: this is going to been this is sort of her wheelhouse,
Speaker 1: and she did a dissertain, So we there's lots of
Speaker 1: research on this. Gen twenty published a lot of research
Speaker 1: showing that, you know, smartphone news or technology. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would say digital media use is associated with lower wellbeing,
Speaker 1: more socidality, you know, more depression, especially in girls and
Speaker 1: really maybe only in girls. Boys tend to video play,
Speaker 1: vating video games that are more social. Anything that's sort
Speaker 1: of more social tends to be happiness inducing or at
Speaker 1: least not reducing, so especially in girls and especially in
Speaker 1: teen and tween girls. That's where you kind of see
Speaker 1: the negative correlations. Other researchers show or try to argue
Speaker 1: that the correlations are really tiny. So there's sort of
Speaker 1: this debate about like are they really tiny? I mean,
Speaker 1: they are tiny, but like does that matter? And Gene
Speaker 1: twenty Full Disclosure is also a friend of mine and
Speaker 1: a collaborator. She argues, No, No, even though these are
Speaker 1: small correlations, they really do matter, especially when you break
Speaker 1: them down by gender and age. So there's a debate,
Speaker 1: you know. So again, my take on the debate is
Speaker 1: that smartphone news, but particular social media use does seem
Speaker 1: to be negatively associated with well being. But it's mostly
Speaker 1: true for girls and for young girls. Okay, so that
Speaker 1: sort of my take on the literature. Now, those are
Speaker 1: all correlations, right, So it could be that, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're depressed to begin with, you're going to use
Speaker 1: social media more. No mixed evidence on that, so really
Speaker 1: we need to do experimental research. So there's some studies
Speaker 1: on this. So so Lisa did for a dissertation a
Speaker 1: big experiment where she asked people to for a week
Speaker 1: or about eight days, to give up their smartphone use
Speaker 1: as much as possible, or their social media use. So
Speaker 1: she actually had actually kind of brilliant dissertation. She had
Speaker 1: four groups. Either you are asked to as much as
Speaker 1: possible get off all digital media all smartphone use now
Speaker 1: of course, like if you have to absolutely do something
Speaker 1: for work, or you know, or check Facebook because there's
Speaker 1: an event happening and you want to know where it is.
Speaker 1: That's okay. So one condition they're giving up as much
Speaker 1: as possible, there's there digital media use. Another condition, they're
Speaker 1: just only give up social media use. Another condition they're
Speaker 1: sort of not doing anything. We're just tracking them. And
Speaker 1: then we wanted to have a control condition where people
Speaker 1: are kind of like giving up something that maybe makes
Speaker 1: them feel a little bit good. And it was really
Speaker 1: hard to come up with that, right because we thought
Speaker 1: like maybe they should give up sugar or but it
Speaker 1: doesn't work for everyone. Es. Actually, my teenage daughter had
Speaker 1: the idea is to use less water. Right, So we
Speaker 1: live in California, have water is really well in lots
Speaker 1: of places. It's very valuable. So you know, whatever, you
Speaker 1: not drink less water, useless water. Yeah, And so what
Speaker 1: we found was that, you know, we didn't have big effects.
Speaker 1: We did find just with the reducing social media some
Speaker 1: positive effects of reducing social media. We actually find a
Speaker 1: really interesting correlation, we really correlations between uses of these
Speaker 1: different technologies and well being. And by the way, the
Speaker 1: uses were tracked by what's it called screen time app
Speaker 1: in iPhone. So this was like very right, hardcore, rigorous
Speaker 1: tract or like you know, because people don't know how much,
Speaker 1: like how many hours did you use your phone today? Right?
Speaker 1: You you don't know. And it turned out that some
Speaker 1: apps were associated with less happiness than some worth more
Speaker 1: or not or or not associated and the less was
Speaker 1: like Twitter, Facebook, more happiness, Snapchat. I mean, we don't
Speaker 1: know why. And I'm not like an I'm not like
Speaker 1: a promoter of that company, But that was kind of
Speaker 1: interesting finding. What about TikTok, I'll have to look that up,
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, in fact, I can look it up
Speaker 1: now if it's so popular. Yeah, I know, maybe the
Speaker 1: most popular. What about Instagram versus Twitter, I think both
Speaker 1: of them were negatively associated with happiness, Yeah, because I
Speaker 1: see that with Twitter, but I feel like Instagram's happy.
Speaker 1: I feel like people on Instagram were happier, like just
Speaker 1: in terms of the way they write and talk to
Speaker 1: each other's Yeah, we didn't find that in terms of
Speaker 1: their own happiness, but maybe like positivity if you code,
Speaker 1: is that we were saying, kind of your code positivity
Speaker 1: in people's posts. I don't know what I'm saying. It
Speaker 1: just seems like Instagram. What I'm saying is it seems
Speaker 1: like from my experience that people are happier on Instagram
Speaker 1: people are grumpy or on Twitter. There's lots more heart
Speaker 1: emoticons on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. So the positive
Speaker 1: relations with happiness are gaming apps, right, so, because again
Speaker 1: they're more social news apps. Actually, yeah, camera app is
Speaker 1: positive with happiness. That makes sense because you're kind of
Speaker 1: taking photos and Snapchat is positives with happiness negative associations
Speaker 1: that are that are actually significant are let's see dating
Speaker 1: apps Tinder, Twitter, Safari, Male, Facebook, Blackboard. That's funny. We
Speaker 1: Chat blackboard is the one that you know, college students use,
Speaker 1: so I guess they're yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But
Speaker 1: not Instagram. Uh, let's see where Instagram is. I think
Speaker 1: Instagram is just not significantly related to Oh yeah, here
Speaker 1: it is Instagram negative, but it's basically zero. And TikTok
Speaker 1: is also the same as Instagram. It's basically zero correlation
Speaker 1: with happenings. So interesting, and as you said, it really
Speaker 1: probably matters when you break it down to the demographics,
Speaker 1: even more by age and gender and other demographics. Right,
Speaker 1: all participants in this study were all what are called
Speaker 1: eegen or gen Z because that's the that's the you
Speaker 1: know population we're kind of more worried about. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we'd love to do something with like across you know,
Speaker 1: lots of age groups. Yes, it'd be really important research,
Speaker 1: really important. The last question I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: is this connection between mind and body. I know you've
Speaker 1: done some physiological and hormone markers and various things. How
Speaker 1: can acts of kindness boost our immune profile and then
Speaker 1: how have you investigated that? Yeah, I'm super excited about
Speaker 1: this work. So this has worked with my students and
Speaker 1: foremost students. Thank you. And actually a former grad school
Speaker 1: buddy and friend named Steve Cole who is a social
Speaker 1: psychologist who retrained as an immunologist. He's at UCLA and
Speaker 1: so he does what are called genomic analysis looking at
Speaker 1: RNA gene expression. So we now have two different studies
Speaker 1: because we replicated the first where we ask people again
Speaker 1: it's an experiment, we ask people to do acts of
Speaker 1: kindness for others. We have one group do as a
Speaker 1: kindness for others, another group of do acts of kindness
Speaker 1: for yourself, which I think is a great comparison condition
Speaker 1: because it makes you feel good in the moment to
Speaker 1: kind of treat yourself to like a massage or a
Speaker 1: candy bar or something or nap. And then we also
Speaker 1: have sort of a group that sort of tracks their activities,
Speaker 1: so they're kind of trying to organize their time, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of fairly neutral. And what we find is
Speaker 1: that only the group that does acts of kindness for
Speaker 1: others is over period of four weeks, we collect their
Speaker 1: blood spots, their blood before and after the intervention. Only
Speaker 1: that group shows changes in their RNA gene expression that
Speaker 1: are associated with a healthier immune profile. So they show
Speaker 1: less pro inflammatory gene expression. So think inflammation. More inflammation
Speaker 1: is bad, So we have less pro inflammatory gene expression.
Speaker 1: We have some indication in the second study of we're
Speaker 1: not sure about that, of more anti viral gene expression.
Speaker 1: So really really cool. So again, doing acts of kindness
Speaker 1: for others leads people to show in their blood sort
Speaker 1: of downregulation of pro inflammatory genes. So we're super excited
Speaker 1: about that. I am super duper excited about that. We
Speaker 1: need to get the word out there, you know, in
Speaker 1: this in this environment of lots of divisiveness, and yeah,
Speaker 1: that kindness matters. So yeah, to do so helping others
Speaker 1: makes you really makes you happy. But it maybe might
Speaker 1: even prevent you from from catching viruses or getting sick,
Speaker 1: but we don't know that because this is just a marker, right,
Speaker 1: so we actually are not looking at real health. Thank
Speaker 1: you for that nerdy caveat Sonya. It is amazing to
Speaker 1: have you finally on the psychology podcast. Why haven't you
Speaker 1: asked me to be on it before I have? But
Speaker 1: you know I have I have you've been. You're a
Speaker 1: busy human. Yeah, you're you're a busy human. But h
Speaker 1: honored to call you a friend and yeah, I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm so I'm so uh enamored your career and uh,
Speaker 1: I mean you are legitimately a legend in the field
Speaker 1: of psychology. You're a legend. Thank you, Scott. No. I
Speaker 1: love doing this work and again, my students are cloud.
Speaker 1: The best part of it because of you know, because
Speaker 1: of connection. Right, the best part of it is working
Speaker 1: with other humans, right, with my students and collaborators and
Speaker 1: doing this kind of thing like talking talking to you,
Speaker 1: talking to other people to disseminate the science is really
Speaker 1: super fun. Can't wait to get this out there. Thanks,
Speaker 1: thank you, pleasure, thanks for listening to this episode of
Speaker 1: The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some
Speaker 1: way to something you heard, I encourage you to join
Speaker 1: in the discussion at Thusycology podcast dot com. We're on
Speaker 1: our YouTube page, The Psychology Podcast. We also put up
Speaker 1: some videos of some episodes on our YouTube page as well,
Speaker 1: so you'll want to check that out. Thanks for being
Speaker 1: such a great supporter of the show, and tune in
Speaker 1: next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior, and creativity.