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Speaker 1: Pushkin. I was driving home late at night after spending

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Speaker 1: the night in Seattle, and as I was coming over

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Speaker 1: a bridge back into Tacoma, a little dog run out

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Speaker 1: in front of my car. I did exactly what most

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Speaker 1: people do when this happens, and I now know you

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Speaker 1: shouldn't do, which as I swerved to try to avoid

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Speaker 1: hitting it, and the result of both swerving and then

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Speaker 1: ultimately hitting it anyway, was that my car was sent

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Speaker 1: into a sort of a fishtail and then a spin

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Speaker 1: across the freeway. This is Abbey Marsh. She was only

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Speaker 1: nineteen years old when the events in this story took place.

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Speaker 1: When the car finally came to a stop, it was

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Speaker 1: in the fast lane of the freeway, just past the

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Speaker 1: crest of this bridge i'd been crossing, which meant that

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Speaker 1: I was invisible to the oncoming traffic. Unfortunately, they were

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Speaker 1: quite visible to me because my car was now facing

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Speaker 1: backward into the oncoming traffic and the engine on a

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Speaker 1: car sort of sputtered to a halt, and I didn't

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Speaker 1: have a phone, and I had no way of escaping

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Speaker 1: because this bridge didn't have any shoulders on it, so

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Speaker 1: there was nowhere to go even if I were to

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Speaker 1: get out of the car, and I just panicked. I

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Speaker 1: couldn't get the car to her back on And I

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Speaker 1: was feeling every time one of these trucks or semis

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Speaker 1: past me, the whole car would shutter if they went by,

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Speaker 1: like ushit. Now, what am I gonna do? Like I like,

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Speaker 1: you know, your mind is sort of stuttering through the

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Speaker 1: different options. And do I get out of the car?

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Speaker 1: Do I stay in the car? If I get out

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Speaker 1: of the car, I was risking car hitting me. But

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Speaker 1: then if I stayed in the car, I was definitely

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Speaker 1: going to get hit eventually, because these cars that were

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Speaker 1: coming over the crest were swerving barely in time. Who

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Speaker 1: avoid me? There? Abby was a teenager, all alone and

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Speaker 1: trapped on the freeway, confronting what seemed like certain death,

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Speaker 1: And it was just the sense of futility and blankness.

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Speaker 1: It was awful. But what happened next propelled Abby on

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Speaker 1: a totally new journey, a journey that would bring her

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Speaker 1: face to face with the worst and best parts of

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Speaker 1: human nature, and one that has allowed her to unlock

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Speaker 1: a counterintuitive secret to what makes life happier and a

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Speaker 1: bit more worth living. Our minds are constantly telling us

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Speaker 1: what to do to be happy. But what if our

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Speaker 1: minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying to us,

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Speaker 1: leading us away from what will really make us happy.

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Speaker 1: The good news is that understanding the science of the

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Speaker 1: mind can point us all back in the right direction.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Happiness Lab of doctor Laurie Santos.

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Speaker 1: Abby Marsh was trapped in her disabled sub in the dark,

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Speaker 1: facing the wrong way on the highway. She watched in

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Speaker 1: terror as oncoming traffic swerved by. She needed a miracle.

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Speaker 1: It's funny because you know, I don't believe in guardian angels,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, it frustrates me when people refer to

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Speaker 1: very alterwistic people as angels, because I feel like it's

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Speaker 1: sort of takes away from how compassionate real live human

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Speaker 1: beings can be. You know, you don't have to be

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Speaker 1: supernatural to help somebody else. But it did have that

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Speaker 1: sense of just he just appeared out of nowhere. Abby

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Speaker 1: looked over to see that a complete stranger was knocking

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Speaker 1: calmly on her passenger side door. My memory of him

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Speaker 1: is that he was wearing a suit and a lot

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Speaker 1: of gold jewelry and sunglasses. It was the middle of

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Speaker 1: the night, that made no sense, but he said, you

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Speaker 1: looked like you could do some help, and I said, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think I could. And he ran around the front

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Speaker 1: of my car into the traffic, got into the driver's seat,

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Speaker 1: and then he got the car back started again and

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Speaker 1: got just back across the road and parked us behind

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Speaker 1: his car. I was shaking, and I'm sure it was gray,

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Speaker 1: and I fell awful, and he said, you don't look

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Speaker 1: so good. Do you need me to follow you to

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Speaker 1: make sure you get home? Okay? I was like, no, no no, no,

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Speaker 1: I'll be fine. I'll be fine. I'm pretty sure. I

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Speaker 1: didn't say thank you. And he's like, okay, you take

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Speaker 1: care of yourself, and he got out of my car,

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Speaker 1: back into his own and disappeared. Abbey has spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time wondering about the man that rescued her

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Speaker 1: and the reasons behind his actions. The instant practically he

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Speaker 1: saw in my car. He must have pulled over and

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Speaker 1: then run across five milnes of freeway traffic in the

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Speaker 1: dark to get to me. Why would somebody do that?

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Speaker 1: Why would somebody do that? What was that moment that

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Speaker 1: happened inside this other person's head that I owe my

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Speaker 1: life too? What's interesting to me is that just knowing

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Speaker 1: that people do it sort of semantically, you know, you

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Speaker 1: read about it in a newspaper, is you can sort

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Speaker 1: of be like, oh, that's interesting, but there's something about

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Speaker 1: it happening to you. Real human being made this choice

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Speaker 1: to save my life, even though he risked being killed himself,

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Speaker 1: to make you want to understand it, and the fact

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Speaker 1: that we don't really have good explanations for why somebody

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Speaker 1: would do something like this. In fact, it defies a

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Speaker 1: lot of conventional wisdom about human motivation. You know, all

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Speaker 1: humans being fundamentally selfish, that's something many people believe, and

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Speaker 1: so what could be more interesting than a concrete fact

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Speaker 1: that defies a lot of established ideas. But Abbey wasn't

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Speaker 1: content to just sit and wonder why her savior chose

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Speaker 1: to help her. She decided to get to the bottom

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Speaker 1: of his actions. Scientifically, I'm not sure how often these

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Speaker 1: motivations that drive us are clear in the moment, but

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Speaker 1: in retrospect, it's very clear that my research took a

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Speaker 1: very distinct track since then. Abby is now a professor

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Speaker 1: in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in

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Speaker 1: Neuroscience at Georgetown she's a world expert and how we

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Speaker 1: process other people's emotions. I started studying how we respond

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Speaker 1: to other people's fear initially, so why it is that

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Speaker 1: the site of somebody who's frightens elicits caring responses and

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Speaker 1: people who see it. But that's a really difficult question

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Speaker 1: to study in the lab because you know you can't

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Speaker 1: ethically induce extreme fear in people, and it's really hard

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Speaker 1: to measure people's behavior when it comes to things like

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Speaker 1: altruism in the lab in a way that doesn't make

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Speaker 1: them do what you want them to do. So Abby

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Speaker 1: decided to employ a common psychology research logic. If you

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Speaker 1: want to understand a concept, one of the better ways

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Speaker 1: to do that is to find a population to people

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Speaker 1: who were missing the thing you're interested in and try

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Speaker 1: to understand what makes him different, and hopefully that will

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Speaker 1: help understand where that process you're interested and comes from,

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Speaker 1: which led Abbey to explore the nature of altruistic actions

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Speaker 1: using a seemingly strange population psychopaths. We had known for

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Speaker 1: a while, and sciences and known for a while that

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Speaker 1: people who are psychopathic don't respond normally to the site

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Speaker 1: of other people's fear, which even the idea of other

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Speaker 1: people's fear. And one of my favorite examples of this

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Speaker 1: comes from a story of my colleagues of fighting was

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Speaker 1: telling name she was testing a bunch of psychopathic adult

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Speaker 1: inmates on their ability to recognize other people's facial expressions,

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Speaker 1: and one psychopathic inmate she was testing was particularly about

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Speaker 1: it recognizing other people's fear so bad he missed every

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Speaker 1: single fearful expression she showed him. But he knew he

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Speaker 1: was doing badly because he got to the last fearful

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Speaker 1: expression in the set and he's like, you know, I

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Speaker 1: don't know what that expression is called, but I know

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Speaker 1: that's what people look like right before you stab them.

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Speaker 1: I find that so incredibly profound, because, you know, here's

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Speaker 1: a man who is imprisoned because he does things that

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Speaker 1: cause other people to believe they're going to die, and

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Speaker 1: he's like, oh, yay, I know what they look like.

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Speaker 1: You know, I recognize that phase. But he couldn't link

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Speaker 1: it to the emotion fear. He just he couldn't make

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Speaker 1: sense of that vivid, you know, wide eyed, distressed expression

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Speaker 1: and understand the emotional content behind it. Abby's now done

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Speaker 1: some elegant work exploring why psychopaths have this problem recognizing

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Speaker 1: others distress. We found that there's a structure in their

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Speaker 1: brain called the amgala that doesn't seem to respond normally

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Speaker 1: to other people's fear, whereas in most people, this particular

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Speaker 1: structure seems to be very active in response to somebody's fear,

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Speaker 1: and that seems to help you interpret that emotion, and

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Speaker 1: people who are psychopathic just show no response at all.

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Speaker 1: But the biggest idea that came from Abbey's work on

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Speaker 1: the brains of psychopaths was an insight that eventually led

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Speaker 1: her back to the question she first started asking on

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Speaker 1: that highway many years ago. We have understood now for

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Speaker 1: a while that psychopathy is not a sort of cluster

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Speaker 1: of individuals that's qualitatively different from everybody else. It's a spectrum.

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Speaker 1: And so there are people who are highly highly psychopathic

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Speaker 1: and people who are only moderately psychopathic, and then those

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Speaker 1: traits vary continuously throughout the population. And what it's interesting

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Speaker 1: about that fact is it suggests that there must be

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Speaker 1: such a thing as an anti psychopath. So if most

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Speaker 1: of us are sort of moderately compassionate, and we've got

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Speaker 1: psychopaths on one end who have no compassion, Well, there

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Speaker 1: must be a mirror image of that people who are

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Speaker 1: unusually compassionate, And I got to thinking about what that

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Speaker 1: might look like. What would it look like to be

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Speaker 1: anti psychopathic? Are they, for example, the kind of people

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Speaker 1: who would run into oncoming traffic to save a complete stranger.

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Speaker 1: Could they be the key to understanding why some people

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Speaker 1: are willing to lose everything to help others. After the

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Speaker 1: break you'll hear more about these so called anti psychopaths

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Speaker 1: and how they are unusual choices, demons straight what you

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Speaker 1: can personally do to become a little bit happier. The

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Speaker 1: Happiness Lab will be back in a moment. I started

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Speaker 1: out thinking it would be fun too, and you know,

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Speaker 1: edifying to study people who were heroic rescuers, like the

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Speaker 1: man who saved my life. But at the time it

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Speaker 1: wasn't at all clear how I would find them. After

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Speaker 1: exploring the brains of psychopathic killers, researcher Abbey Marsh wanted

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Speaker 1: to understand the minds of the polar opposite side of

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Speaker 1: the psychological spectrum. It's not an easy thing to put

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Speaker 1: like an ad in the newspaper for have you ever

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Speaker 1: saved a stranger's life? And risk your own. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: aware of any way to recruit them, and so I

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Speaker 1: thought about, well, there are other ways to save lives

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Speaker 1: that involve significant risk and sacrifice, and at the time,

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Speaker 1: a number of articles and a book could come out

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Speaker 1: about altruistic kidney donors. People who give away a kidney

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Speaker 1: to save the life of a stranger and ende renal failure.

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Speaker 1: Patience and end stage renal failure often wait three to

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Speaker 1: five years to get a kidney from a deceased donor.

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Speaker 1: Living kidney donors, people who are willing to give up

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Speaker 1: one of their two functioning kidneys, can cut down on

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Speaker 1: the weight time for the nearly one hundred thousand people

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Speaker 1: who are on that wait list. The donation procedure is

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Speaker 1: more straightforward than you might think. Most donors return to

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Speaker 1: their usual activities in a few weeks. But like all surgeries,

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Speaker 1: kidney donations come with at least some risk of serious complications,

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Speaker 1: things like blood clots, infection, or even death. And I thought,

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Speaker 1: you know, if anything is altruistic, it is that it

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Speaker 1: is this very significant decision to give away of an

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Speaker 1: internal organ, invital internal organ, to save the life of

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Speaker 1: somebody that you've never met. And in most cases have

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Speaker 1: been picked off a list for you. So it struck

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Speaker 1: me that if anything could be considered antipsychopathic, gets the

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Speaker 1: decision to give a kidney to a stranger. So Abby

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Speaker 1: harder target group kidney donors, but at the time it

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Speaker 1: was a pretty exclusive club. There are only a few

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Speaker 1: thousand in the entire country who'd gone through that invasive procedure.

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Speaker 1: Meaningful results in scientific studies require having as many test

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Speaker 1: subjects as possible, and so Abby was a bit worried

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Speaker 1: that she wouldn't be able to find enough donors. In

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Speaker 1: spite of the odds, she put an ad on an

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Speaker 1: organ transplant list Serve, have you ever donated a kidney

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Speaker 1: to a stranger? If so, a researcher at Georgetown is

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Speaker 1: interested in connecting a study with you. Abby reasonably assumed

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Speaker 1: that she'd never find enough participants from such an absolutely

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Speaker 1: tiny pool of potential recruits. I have this vivid memory

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Speaker 1: of sitting down and being like, oh, I wonder if

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Speaker 1: anybody's responded to my ads for kidney downers, and opening

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Speaker 1: up by laptop and my inbox was just flooded with

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Speaker 1: new messages, many with all caps subject things from altars

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Speaker 1: to kidney downers who were just very excited to be

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Speaker 1: taking part in my research. You know, I would love

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Speaker 1: to be your guinea pig. Please sign me up. Abby

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Speaker 1: was immediately shocked by this population's generosity. Hundreds of them

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Speaker 1: were ready to fly to her lab at a moment's notice,

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Speaker 1: and once they got there, they were happy to go

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Speaker 1: to great lengths to be helpful. And consider it, working

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Speaker 1: with lots of different populations over the years, it can

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Speaker 1: be a real trick to just get people to come

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Speaker 1: in and to come in on time. And the first

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Speaker 1: three altruistic kidney donors we brought in and they come

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Speaker 1: in from all over the country, and they were staying

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Speaker 1: in a hotel just a few blocks from the campus

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Speaker 1: where we were going to be scanning them, and they

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Speaker 1: were so worried about not being late to their brain

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Speaker 1: scans that they came three hours early the first camp.

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Speaker 1: It's like unheard of, and they ended up getting lost

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Speaker 1: in the bowels of the university hospital and almost ended

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Speaker 1: up breaking through a fire door to get to the

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Speaker 1: camp center and setting off alarms all over the hospital

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Speaker 1: because again they were so incredibly concerned about not being late.

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Speaker 1: Abby also found that her kidney donors were unusually humble.

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Speaker 1: They didn't like her hypothesis that they were in any

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Speaker 1: way special or at the extreme end of some goodness spectrum.

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Speaker 1: A number of them very kindly told me that they

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Speaker 1: were happy to participate in the study. They were happy

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Speaker 1: to help out, but they were pretty sure that I

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Speaker 1: was barking at the wrong tree. The idea that there

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Speaker 1: was anything different about them at all was just wrong.

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Speaker 1: They're not unusually altruistic, they're not unusually compassionate. They're just

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Speaker 1: like anybody else. They happen to be in the right

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Speaker 1: place at the right time, which is not how anybody

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Speaker 1: else talks about people who give kidneys to strangers. But

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Speaker 1: their real sense of humility has been really striking, just

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Speaker 1: an unwillingness to think of themselves as better than anybody else.

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Speaker 1: Of course, Abbey's results showed that kidney donors were wrong.

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Speaker 1: They were different, at least when it came to their brains.

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Speaker 1: Abbey used neuroimaging techniques to measure the size of the

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Speaker 1: donors amygdalas, that same brain structure involved in processing fear,

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Speaker 1: the very same part that was significantly smaller than average

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Speaker 1: in psychopaths. It turns out that her kidney donors also

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Speaker 1: had peculiar amygdala's, but they were eight percent larger than

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Speaker 1: those of average people. Now, it could be that her

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Speaker 1: donors were just born that way, but it was also

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Speaker 1: possible that performing acts of kindness over time had caused

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Speaker 1: the enlargement, like a muscle responding to exercise. Whatever the reason,

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Speaker 1: these extreme ultruists had ambigdalas that indeed looked like the

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Speaker 1: polar opposite of what she'd seen in her malicious criminals.

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Speaker 1: Abby had finally identified a population of anti psychopaths, which

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Speaker 1: was a pretty cool result for a budding neuroscientist. But

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Speaker 1: the most important thing about studying this new population for

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Speaker 1: Abby wasn't just that she had discovered a completely new,

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Speaker 1: nearly atypical population. The ultruistic kidney donors finally gave Abbey

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Speaker 1: the opportunity to pose the question that had puzzled her

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Speaker 1: for decades, The question she wanted to ask her highway savior.

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Speaker 1: Why would somebody do that? Why did her rescuer choose

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Speaker 1: to save her? Abby conducted interview after interview, asking what

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Speaker 1: was going through your head when you decided to help

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Speaker 1: someone in such an extreme way. The most common answer

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Speaker 1: I get to the question is it just hit me

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Speaker 1: like a bolt of lightning. I've found out that there

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Speaker 1: are people who were dying from kidney failure. There's one

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Speaker 1: hundred thousand of them on the waiting lists, and most

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Speaker 1: of us can of a kidney away and be none

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Speaker 1: the worse for wear for it. And I thought, I'll

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Speaker 1: do that. I mean, there is no decision process I

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Speaker 1: think is the interesting thing. Like, it's not a hemming

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Speaker 1: and hawing process for really almost anybody I've talked to,

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Speaker 1: it's just so, well, you can do this. Somebody's life

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Speaker 1: is gonna be saved. I'll do it. At first glance,

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Speaker 1: this sort of answer fits with Abby's initial hypothesis that

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Speaker 1: there had to be something fundamentally different about people who

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Speaker 1: would risk their lives for strangers without a moment's thought.

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Speaker 1: But if that were the case, her results wouldn't be

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Speaker 1: as relevant for all of you, and so I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be talking about them here on the Happiness lab. As

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Speaker 1: Abby probe more deeply, she realized that this couldn't be

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Speaker 1: the whole story. As she heard more about her participants' lives,

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Speaker 1: she realized that many of them got to this act

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Speaker 1: of kidney donation through lots of smaller acts of generosity.

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Speaker 1: Nobody goes from sort of ground zero to donate a

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Speaker 1: kidney almost always. The people we've worked with are long

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Speaker 1: time blood donors, platelet donors, some have been marrow donors.

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Speaker 1: Many of them work in tier positions, rescue animals, foster children.

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Speaker 1: They've all done things in the past that involved giving

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Speaker 1: of themselves to help other people. Abbey realized that many

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Speaker 1: of her kidney donors wound up getting to what seemed

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Speaker 1: like an extreme altruistic choice through lots of baby steps,

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Speaker 1: smaller nice actions, the kinds of things that lots of

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Speaker 1: us do or could easily do. Over time, the donors

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Speaker 1: recognize that performing these smaller acts of kindness felt well,

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Speaker 1: kind of nice. The sense that I get is that

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Speaker 1: they have had the wonderful opportunity to discover how rewarding

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Speaker 1: that is, what a sense of joy and happiness it

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Speaker 1: gives you to help other people. And it's just like

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Speaker 1: any other reinforcement process. You sort of work your way up.

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Speaker 1: You're like, well, that was so rewarding. What else could

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Speaker 1: I do? If donating blood is good, I guess donating

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Speaker 1: marrows even better. If donating kidney is good. I guess

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Speaker 1: donating a piece of my liver is even better. And

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Speaker 1: I now have several kidney donors I've worked with who've

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Speaker 1: also donated a portion of their liver. As she heard

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Speaker 1: from more interviewees, Abbey's Big Savior on the Highway puzzle

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Speaker 1: started to become Clearerultists did what they did because they

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Speaker 1: had learned a simple yet counterintuitive principle of human motivation.

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Speaker 1: Doing nice things for other people feels really good, even

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Speaker 1: in cases where it's a bit costly. Helping others can

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Speaker 1: provide a big spike to our well being. Altruistic kidney

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Speaker 1: donors just take the usual wellbeing spite we all experience

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Speaker 1: to an extreme. It's therefore no surprise that they tend

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Speaker 1: to be a really happy group on average. It's a

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Speaker 1: universal response I get from them. They are so glad

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Speaker 1: that they made the decision to donate. They do it

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Speaker 1: one hundred more times. If they could do one hundred

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Speaker 1: more times. It's one of the best things that they

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Speaker 1: ever did, and it gives them this sense of joy

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Speaker 1: that sticks with them as far as I can tell forever.

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Speaker 1: Some of the people I've worked with donated close to

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Speaker 1: twenty years ago. Now, and it doesn't ever seem to

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Speaker 1: go away, that sense of vicarious joy of having been

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Speaker 1: able to do this thing for somebody else. I've had

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Speaker 1: many interviews and in tears as people are describing the

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Speaker 1: after effects of their nation and hearing that the child

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Speaker 1: who would receive their kidney like days after donnation, he

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Speaker 1: was making plans to go to the beach and camping

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Speaker 1: for like the first time. He'd never been able to

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Speaker 1: do these things. And like the kidney donors sabbing relating this,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sabbing relating this, it's incredibly profound. As Abby

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Speaker 1: heard more of these stories and saw the incredible joy

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Speaker 1: that her subjects experienced, she started to think that her

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Speaker 1: extreme subjects might be onto something important, something that the

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Speaker 1: rest of us could learn from. Two. If you want

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Speaker 1: to make a good decision about bringing joy and meaning

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Speaker 1: in a sense of connectedness into your own life, helping

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Speaker 1: people is clearly the way to do it. Abby started

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Speaker 1: to realize that all of us can benefit from doing

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Speaker 1: nice things for others, even if we're not yet ready

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Speaker 1: to give up a body part to a stranger. We

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Speaker 1: all have our own ways that we can make the

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Speaker 1: lives of other people better. You know, donating kidney is

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Speaker 1: one way, but it's certainly not the only way. But

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Speaker 1: as Abby right, I mean, it's clear that her donors

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Speaker 1: get a huge happiness boost from their generous act. But

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Speaker 1: can the average person really become happier by making a

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Speaker 1: small sacrifice to aid a stranger? Can shifting your focus

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Speaker 1: to helping other people really be a strategy for improving

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Speaker 1: well being? And if there is a path to becoming

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Speaker 1: a happy altruist, is there a step along that path

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Speaker 1: that you could take today? The Happiness Lab will be

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Speaker 1: right back. When we think of small, everyday things we

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Speaker 1: can do to boost our mood, we often think of

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Speaker 1: the idea of pampering ourselves. And whenever I think of

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Speaker 1: personal pampering, I'm reminded of one of my favorite seams

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Speaker 1: from the TV show Parks and Recreation. Once a year,

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Speaker 1: Donna and I spend a day treating ourselves. What do

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Speaker 1: we treat ourselves to? Clothes, treat yourself, treat yourself, massage,

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Speaker 1: treat yourself, mimosa, treat yourself, fine leather goods. Treat yourself.

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Speaker 1: It's the best day of the year, the best day

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Speaker 1: of the year when we want to be happier. We

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Speaker 1: think it's time to spoil ourselves, or, in the popular

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Speaker 1: parlance of parks wreck, I've got three words for you,

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Speaker 1: Yo sill. On the show Tom and Donna observed treat

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Speaker 1: yourself day every October thirteenth. It's now become a cultural phenomenon,

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Speaker 1: so much so that Rheta, the actress who plays Donna,

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Speaker 1: can't post a photo of a cocktail or a purse

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Speaker 1: on Instagram without some fan telling her to go ahead

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Speaker 1: and treat yourself. But it's a strategy, right. Should we

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Speaker 1: be treating ourselves to feel happier or are we missing

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Speaker 1: other more powerful opportunities to boost our moods? You know,

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Speaker 1: I don't think treating ourselves is a terrible idea, like

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Speaker 1: spending money on ourselves can be good. This is Liz Done,

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Speaker 1: a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia an

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Speaker 1: author of the book Happy Money, The Science of Happier Spending.

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Speaker 1: It's just that this idea of that spending money on

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Speaker 1: somebody else could actually be helpful, I think is especially

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Speaker 1: easy to overlook because I think we do just get

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Speaker 1: focused on ourselves. Liz studies the cases where our so

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00:21:05,156 --> 00:21:09,276
Speaker 1: called treat yourself. Intuitions can lead us astray, especially when

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00:21:09,276 --> 00:21:11,796
Speaker 1: it comes to spending our disposable income. I first got

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Speaker 1: interested in this idea, like, not because I was especially

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Speaker 1: interested in generosity, but because I was interested in money.

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Speaker 1: So I managed to make it through my twenties without

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Speaker 1: ever holding a real job. At twenty seven, I got

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Speaker 1: my first real job and they actually started paying me,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, oh wow, Like, what do I

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Speaker 1: do with all of this money? Like this is more

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Speaker 1: money than I need to survive, you know, and what

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Speaker 1: do I do with it? I was surprised at the

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Speaker 1: time by how little research there was on this topic.

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Speaker 1: Liz Comb the literature to figure out the best way

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Speaker 1: to spend our money to feel happier, and all the

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Speaker 1: existing studies seem to point in the same direction. The

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Speaker 1: science shows that treating ourselves doesn't make us as happy

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Speaker 1: as treating other people, and that result is not just

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Speaker 1: true for extremely altruistic people like Abby's kidney donors, even

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Speaker 1: when we look in pretty diverse regions of the world.

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Speaker 1: In fact, in all seven major regions of the world,

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Speaker 1: we find this relationship whereby people who donate money to

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Speaker 1: charity are happier than those who don't. So I thought, well, okay,

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Speaker 1: would we actually get more of kind of happiness being

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Speaker 1: for our buck by spending on others than by spending

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Speaker 1: on ourselves. Listen, our colleagues decided to test this in

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Speaker 1: a rather simple experiment. They walked up to people on

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Speaker 1: the street and handed them twenty dollars. We asked them

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Speaker 1: to spend it by the end of the day, but

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Speaker 1: with a catch. So we told half the people they

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Speaker 1: had to spend it on themselves, and we told half

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00:22:31,076 --> 00:22:33,796
Speaker 1: the people they had to spend it to benefit others.

431
00:22:34,036 --> 00:22:36,316
Speaker 1: Imagine for a second that you're a subject in this study.

432
00:22:36,876 --> 00:22:39,156
Speaker 1: You just got twenty bucks out of the blue, and

433
00:22:39,196 --> 00:22:42,956
Speaker 1: you're asked to spend it. What would feel better spending

434
00:22:42,956 --> 00:22:45,396
Speaker 1: that money on a nice free meal or a shiny

435
00:22:45,436 --> 00:22:48,956
Speaker 1: manicure for yourself, or using that same amount of money

436
00:22:49,076 --> 00:22:52,596
Speaker 1: to help someone else. If you're like Liz's subjects, you

437
00:22:52,716 --> 00:22:56,836
Speaker 1: probably think the treat yourself condition would feel better. In fact,

438
00:22:57,196 --> 00:23:00,036
Speaker 1: Liz asked over a hundred people to predict which condition

439
00:23:00,036 --> 00:23:02,796
Speaker 1: they would prefer, and about two thirds of them went

440
00:23:02,836 --> 00:23:06,276
Speaker 1: with the treat yourself option. But what did Liz find

441
00:23:06,316 --> 00:23:09,196
Speaker 1: when people really spent that cash windfall. People were in

442
00:23:09,236 --> 00:23:11,676
Speaker 1: a better mood at the end of the day when

443
00:23:11,836 --> 00:23:14,076
Speaker 1: they'd been asked to spend this money on other people

444
00:23:14,236 --> 00:23:17,276
Speaker 1: rather than on themselves. The simple act of spending twenty

445
00:23:17,276 --> 00:23:20,876
Speaker 1: dollars on another person was enough to significantly raise people's

446
00:23:20,916 --> 00:23:23,316
Speaker 1: well being levels. But Liz has found that the same

447
00:23:23,356 --> 00:23:26,716
Speaker 1: effect holds for smaller amounts of money too. Her team

448
00:23:26,756 --> 00:23:29,556
Speaker 1: tested a different group of subjects. They were given only

449
00:23:29,596 --> 00:23:33,036
Speaker 1: five dollars to spend on themselves or someone else. This

450
00:23:33,156 --> 00:23:36,236
Speaker 1: second group showed exactly the same effect as those who

451
00:23:36,276 --> 00:23:38,756
Speaker 1: were given more cash. You don't necessarily have to be

452
00:23:38,796 --> 00:23:43,076
Speaker 1: spending crazy amounts of money on others, even like say

453
00:23:43,116 --> 00:23:46,516
Speaker 1: five dollars, or even just two dollars, and shifting it

454
00:23:46,556 --> 00:23:49,556
Speaker 1: towards using that money to benefit other people does seem

455
00:23:49,556 --> 00:23:53,156
Speaker 1: to provide this detectable benefit for moods. Listener colleagues have

456
00:23:53,236 --> 00:23:56,196
Speaker 1: now replicated the same effect in people all over the world,

457
00:23:56,636 --> 00:24:00,556
Speaker 1: in Canada, India, Uganda, and even remote villages on the

458
00:24:00,556 --> 00:24:04,276
Speaker 1: island of Vanawatu. The results are always the same for

459
00:24:04,436 --> 00:24:07,756
Speaker 1: rich and for poor people. One study of South African

460
00:24:07,796 --> 00:24:10,516
Speaker 1: subjects found that people who are happier spending money on

461
00:24:10,556 --> 00:24:13,956
Speaker 1: others even when they report not having enough money to

462
00:24:13,996 --> 00:24:16,556
Speaker 1: buy food for their families in the last year. But

463
00:24:16,676 --> 00:24:19,996
Speaker 1: what's most impressive is that Liz has shown that generosity

464
00:24:20,276 --> 00:24:22,796
Speaker 1: doesn't just feel good in adulthood. We started to wonder, like,

465
00:24:22,916 --> 00:24:25,036
Speaker 1: you know, is this a fundamental part of human nature?

466
00:24:25,156 --> 00:24:27,436
Speaker 1: So my student lair Acting and I teamed up with

467
00:24:27,556 --> 00:24:31,076
Speaker 1: Kylie Hamlin, who's a developmental psychologist, and we brought toddlers

468
00:24:31,116 --> 00:24:33,436
Speaker 1: just under the age of two into the lab. Now,

469
00:24:33,436 --> 00:24:36,036
Speaker 1: of course, toddlers don't really care about money, so we

470
00:24:36,076 --> 00:24:39,236
Speaker 1: worked with like the closest thing to toddler gold which

471
00:24:39,236 --> 00:24:42,996
Speaker 1: of course is goldfish crackers, And so we gave these

472
00:24:43,036 --> 00:24:46,596
Speaker 1: little kids windfall of goldfish for themselves, as well as

473
00:24:46,596 --> 00:24:48,716
Speaker 1: a chance to give some of those goldfish away to

474
00:24:48,796 --> 00:24:52,276
Speaker 1: a puppet named Monkey. The researchers watched how many goldfish

475
00:24:52,276 --> 00:24:55,076
Speaker 1: crackers kids gave away, and then they coded their facial

476
00:24:55,116 --> 00:24:58,676
Speaker 1: expressions to see how happy toddlers seemed afterwards. What we

477
00:24:58,676 --> 00:25:01,156
Speaker 1: see in the study is that even children under the

478
00:25:01,156 --> 00:25:04,276
Speaker 1: age of two seem to exhibit pleasure from giving their

479
00:25:04,276 --> 00:25:09,596
Speaker 1: resources away. Counterintuitively, the kids smiled more and see much

480
00:25:09,636 --> 00:25:13,316
Speaker 1: happier after losing a bunch of their goldfish crackers. It's

481
00:25:13,396 --> 00:25:15,716
Speaker 1: kind of just reassuring, Like as many problems as we

482
00:25:15,756 --> 00:25:18,276
Speaker 1: have in the world right now, it's like the tiny

483
00:25:18,356 --> 00:25:22,436
Speaker 1: humans are starting out with this proclivity to derive joy

484
00:25:22,836 --> 00:25:27,476
Speaker 1: from giving their stuff away. That to me, I don't know,

485
00:25:27,476 --> 00:25:32,716
Speaker 1: it makes me optimistic again about the world. What's less optimistic, though,

486
00:25:32,916 --> 00:25:35,676
Speaker 1: is that we adults don't realize that doing nice things

487
00:25:35,676 --> 00:25:38,676
Speaker 1: for others feel so good that it can have such

488
00:25:38,676 --> 00:25:41,716
Speaker 1: a positive impact on our mood. I mean, I definitely

489
00:25:41,716 --> 00:25:44,116
Speaker 1: want to be happier, but I haven't given away a

490
00:25:44,156 --> 00:25:47,276
Speaker 1: really significant chuck of my income, let alone a kidney.

491
00:25:47,876 --> 00:25:51,116
Speaker 1: I bet you haven't either. Our lying minds keep saying

492
00:25:51,196 --> 00:25:54,236
Speaker 1: treat yourself, which means we tend not to even take

493
00:25:54,316 --> 00:25:57,356
Speaker 1: baby steps towards kindness nearly as much as we could.

494
00:25:57,676 --> 00:26:00,316
Speaker 1: It's so interesting because I think on a broad level,

495
00:26:00,676 --> 00:26:04,436
Speaker 1: people totally recognize that this is the case, and I

496
00:26:04,516 --> 00:26:10,996
Speaker 1: get postcards and emails and stuff from people saying why

497
00:26:11,116 --> 00:26:13,756
Speaker 1: did you, as a scientist, need to waste your time

498
00:26:13,956 --> 00:26:16,396
Speaker 1: showing this Where people are just saying like, oh, we

499
00:26:16,396 --> 00:26:19,196
Speaker 1: already knew this from like the Bible or from like,

500
00:26:19,596 --> 00:26:22,356
Speaker 1: you know, what our parents taught us. And I think

501
00:26:22,396 --> 00:26:25,556
Speaker 1: you know, on a broad level, people recognize that generosity

502
00:26:25,636 --> 00:26:29,156
Speaker 1: feels good. I think what they miss is that, you know,

503
00:26:29,196 --> 00:26:31,836
Speaker 1: when they're looking at how to spend the twenty dollars

504
00:26:31,836 --> 00:26:36,276
Speaker 1: in their pocket, that's where they make the error. So

505
00:26:36,316 --> 00:26:39,916
Speaker 1: it's like, in this moment, with this like piece of

506
00:26:40,236 --> 00:26:43,996
Speaker 1: extra money in my hand, it doesn't maybe occur to

507
00:26:44,036 --> 00:26:46,796
Speaker 1: me to spend it on something else, or you know,

508
00:26:47,116 --> 00:26:50,756
Speaker 1: it feels much more tempting to use it to benefit

509
00:26:50,836 --> 00:26:53,716
Speaker 1: myself rather than to spend it on others. And again,

510
00:26:53,756 --> 00:26:56,396
Speaker 1: I think we forget that, like, oh, I could buy

511
00:26:56,436 --> 00:26:59,916
Speaker 1: a slightly less expensive car and then have a lot

512
00:26:59,956 --> 00:27:03,676
Speaker 1: of money left over to use to help other people

513
00:27:03,716 --> 00:27:06,356
Speaker 1: in my life or donate to charity or whatever. And

514
00:27:06,396 --> 00:27:08,236
Speaker 1: I think you know, that's where the error creeps in,

515
00:27:08,356 --> 00:27:10,476
Speaker 1: is that we've kind of get that we would actually

516
00:27:10,516 --> 00:27:13,236
Speaker 1: benefit from using the money less on ourselves and more

517
00:27:13,276 --> 00:27:16,236
Speaker 1: on other people. So if you really want to treat

518
00:27:16,276 --> 00:27:19,276
Speaker 1: yourself to a happier day, give up something to benefit

519
00:27:19,316 --> 00:27:22,796
Speaker 1: another person. You can start with money, just give up

520
00:27:22,836 --> 00:27:25,236
Speaker 1: a dollar or two, But if you're strapped for cash,

521
00:27:25,596 --> 00:27:28,676
Speaker 1: you can also give up time, like letting someone cut

522
00:27:28,676 --> 00:27:30,596
Speaker 1: in front of you in line at the grocery store.

523
00:27:30,956 --> 00:27:33,476
Speaker 1: It could even be a small service like helping a

524
00:27:33,516 --> 00:27:36,236
Speaker 1: neighbor clear off the snow, or maybe taking the time

525
00:27:36,276 --> 00:27:39,356
Speaker 1: to rate and review your favorite podcast. And doing nice

526
00:27:39,396 --> 00:27:42,356
Speaker 1: things for others doesn't just boost your mood, it also

527
00:27:42,396 --> 00:27:44,916
Speaker 1: makes the person who received your kind actions a little

528
00:27:44,956 --> 00:27:47,396
Speaker 1: happier too. And that's a kind of tip I most

529
00:27:47,436 --> 00:27:50,476
Speaker 1: love sharing on this podcast, one that lets my listeners

530
00:27:50,476 --> 00:27:53,276
Speaker 1: selfishly bump up their own happiness in a way that

531
00:27:53,396 --> 00:27:56,396
Speaker 1: also helps to make the world a better, more empathic place.

532
00:27:57,476 --> 00:27:59,996
Speaker 1: And who knows, maybe you won't be satisfied with the

533
00:28:00,076 --> 00:28:03,196
Speaker 1: small act of donating two dollars here or five bucks there.

534
00:28:04,116 --> 00:28:07,116
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll also graduate from those baby steps to the

535
00:28:07,236 --> 00:28:10,156
Speaker 1: kind of selfless acts that lead to a huge, huge,

536
00:28:10,236 --> 00:28:13,556
Speaker 1: long standing boost and well being, ones that really really

537
00:28:13,556 --> 00:28:17,396
Speaker 1: help people. Maybe you'll even save the life of another person,

538
00:28:18,196 --> 00:28:22,116
Speaker 1: A person like Abby stuck on the highway alone, embraced

539
00:28:22,156 --> 00:28:24,796
Speaker 1: for what could have been certain death, a moment that

540
00:28:24,836 --> 00:28:28,156
Speaker 1: has stayed with her for decades. It just stuck with me,

541
00:28:28,436 --> 00:28:30,156
Speaker 1: the fact that I owe my life to the stranger

542
00:28:30,156 --> 00:28:32,836
Speaker 1: who is willing to risk his to save me. I'm

543
00:28:32,876 --> 00:28:36,116
Speaker 1: hoping that your altruistic Savior is out there somewhere. If

544
00:28:36,156 --> 00:28:39,716
Speaker 1: he's listening right now, what would you say. That's a

545
00:28:39,756 --> 00:28:42,876
Speaker 1: big one. But you know, if he's out there listening today,

546
00:28:42,996 --> 00:28:47,916
Speaker 1: and I just want to say how profoundly grateful I

547
00:28:47,956 --> 00:28:51,356
Speaker 1: am for the beautiful thing that you did and the

548
00:28:51,396 --> 00:28:56,956
Speaker 1: opportunities you've given me, and I hope to do your

549
00:28:58,076 --> 00:29:12,276
Speaker 1: tremendous act of bravery justice. The Happiness Lab is co

550
00:29:12,316 --> 00:29:14,636
Speaker 1: written and produced by Ryan Dilley with the help of

551
00:29:14,636 --> 00:29:17,876
Speaker 1: Pete Naton. Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver,

552
00:29:18,236 --> 00:29:21,756
Speaker 1: with additional scoring, mixing and mastering by Evan Viola. The

553
00:29:21,796 --> 00:29:24,916
Speaker 1: show was edited by Sophie mckibbon and fact checked by

554
00:29:24,996 --> 00:29:29,596
Speaker 1: Joseph Fridman. Special thanks to Mia LaBelle, Carlie mcgliorre Heather Fame,

555
00:29:29,916 --> 00:29:34,636
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Maggie Taylor, Maya Kanik, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent,

556
00:29:34,756 --> 00:29:37,716
Speaker 1: Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by

557
00:29:37,756 --> 00:29:41,036
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries and by me, Doctor Laurie Santos