Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind brained behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm delayed to have Sarah Aljaoe on the podcast. Doctor
Speaker 1: al Joe is Associate Professor of Social psychology the University
Speaker 1: of Virginia. Her expertise spans of motions, relationships, and health psychology.
Speaker 1: Her basic research questions illuminate the social interactions that are
Speaker 1: at the heart of high quality relationships. These include giving
Speaker 1: to others, expressing gratitude, and sharing laughter. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for chatting with me today, Sarah. Yeah, it's a pleasure
Speaker 1: to be here. Yeah, your research does span quite a gamut.
Speaker 1: But there is a theme there. There's a theme I
Speaker 1: can't quit gratitude. There's something there. Well, Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 1: I was going to say the theme was relationships. Oh
Speaker 1: that's great to hear Yeah, that's what happened, especially lately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I thought we'd start there because gratude seems to
Speaker 1: be only one part of the larger umbrella for you,
Speaker 1: and I thought we could start by explaining to me,
Speaker 1: what does this phrase you use? What does this mean?
Speaker 1: Positive interpersonal process? Oh, yeah, that's a great question. What
Speaker 1: was that sounds? Is that something I want? I want that?
Speaker 1: Is that a good thing? For the most part, it's
Speaker 1: usually a good thing. Yeah, it's all the good stuff
Speaker 1: in your relationships. It's the reason that you want to
Speaker 1: hang out with your friends. It's the I don't know,
Speaker 1: the goodness that infuses your very favorite relationships, you with
Speaker 1: your favorite aunt or a romantic partner. And so these
Speaker 1: are things like laughing together and expressing gratitude and sharing
Speaker 1: moments of joy with someone. So you find out something
Speaker 1: great happened and you tell them about it, and then
Speaker 1: they're excited with you. In the ideal situation, they're also
Speaker 1: excited with you, and so that can amplify the kind
Speaker 1: of positivity of the moment. And so positive interpersonal processes
Speaker 1: are really these kind of great little opportunities in everyday
Speaker 1: life where one person or both people experience a positive motion,
Speaker 1: and then by the way that it's communicated and then
Speaker 1: the way that the other person responds, it can provide
Speaker 1: opportunities for connection. Yeah, that's really cool, And I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of two research programs just seemed to relate to this.
Speaker 1: One is Love two point zero by Barbara Frederickson. That's
Speaker 1: not research programs as her book, it's the book titled
Speaker 1: but her research program on the positive micro moments of
Speaker 1: love and connection. And then also, you know, you made
Speaker 1: me think of Sharon Salzberg's work on love. It maybe
Speaker 1: comes a different direction because she's not a psychologist, but
Speaker 1: she's a Buddhist meditator, And for some reason I felt
Speaker 1: like it dovetailed nicely with your work of kind of
Speaker 1: having to like being in the moment with the person
Speaker 1: for a good, solid relationship. Yeah. Yeah, it's actually really
Speaker 1: interesting that you say that. So I started studying positive emotions,
Speaker 1: little moments of positive emotions. If you don't mind, I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you a little bit of a history
Speaker 1: of Oh, please do how I got here, because we
Speaker 1: love that on the Psychology podcast together. And so when
Speaker 1: I was in graduate school at the University of Virginia,
Speaker 1: I started studying positive emotions, and I was really especially
Speaker 1: interested in how these moments between people can all these
Speaker 1: kind of everyday things that happened in our environment, so
Speaker 1: you might admire someone, or somebody might do something that
Speaker 1: makes it feel grateful, and so I started studying those
Speaker 1: when I was at Virginia and I worked with three
Speaker 1: really awesome emotions researchers, so to moscent On Height and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Chlore. It didn't take very long for me to
Speaker 1: get into studying emotions and especially my interest in how
Speaker 1: they shape interpersonal interactions to realize that actually a lot
Speaker 1: of people who study emotions just focus on the person
Speaker 1: who's experiencing the emotion in the moment, but my interest
Speaker 1: was really in how they actually coordinate behavior between people.
Speaker 1: So I started working with gratitude way back when, and
Speaker 1: that was this moment when I was really realizing that
Speaker 1: gratitude is really about connecting people together, and if that's true,
Speaker 1: then you should be able to see the effect of
Speaker 1: one person's gratitude on the other person. And so I
Speaker 1: started getting into trying to figure out how to study
Speaker 1: these moments interpersonally, kind of really bringing in both sides
Speaker 1: of the coin. And so then I actually went off
Speaker 1: to do a post TALC with Shelley Gable, who was
Speaker 1: doing a lot of work on positive relationship processes. So
Speaker 1: she was studying how people what happens when you share
Speaker 1: joy with someone else, and then she found that not
Speaker 1: only does it make you feel good to share your
Speaker 1: good news with people start to feel better about yourself,
Speaker 1: but the way that they respond really makes you. It
Speaker 1: changes the way that you think about the opportunity that
Speaker 1: came up for you. So like you've got a promotion
Speaker 1: at work, and if the other person says, oh, man,
Speaker 1: we're never going to see you anymore because you're gonna
Speaker 1: be working all the time, instead of saying, oh, that's
Speaker 1: so great, You've been working so hard for that, that
Speaker 1: really makes a difference for the person who's experiencing that moment.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so she was doing all this really great
Speaker 1: stuff and awesome methodological stuff, you know, working with couples
Speaker 1: over time and looking at daily reporting from each member
Speaker 1: of the couple and doing sophisticated statistical modeling, and I
Speaker 1: really wanted to work with her to figure out how
Speaker 1: to test gratitude in this context as well, in this
Speaker 1: like more interactive kind of opportunity. So then I started
Speaker 1: thankfully got a post talk to work with Shelley as
Speaker 1: one of one of my mentors. That was two thousand
Speaker 1: and five. Yeah, and then I started talking to bar
Speaker 1: Bark Frederickson, and so then I was we kind of
Speaker 1: started having these really great conversations about positive emotions and
Speaker 1: ongoing interactions, and so she asked me to join her
Speaker 1: lab as well, and so I was able to join
Speaker 1: her as opposed to her and so she started studying
Speaker 1: loving kindness meditation with Sharon Salzburg. And so that was
Speaker 1: right around that time that we kind of all connected.
Speaker 1: And so it's funny to hear you bring up Barb
Speaker 1: and Sharon because since that time we've had several collaborations
Speaker 1: that kind of came as a result of that path
Speaker 1: that I took along the ways, and she was of
Speaker 1: course Barb's Barden and Build theory of positive emotions was
Speaker 1: like one of the things that was really exciting to
Speaker 1: me when I started studying emotions, because gosh, I am
Speaker 1: getting really excited talking about all this stright now actually.
Speaker 1: But so Barb Broad and Build theory of positive Emotions
Speaker 1: came out around the time that I was in graduate
Speaker 1: school studying the emotion of gratitude, and it really again,
Speaker 1: in the same way that a lot of emotions researchers
Speaker 1: had been focused on how the emotion changes your own
Speaker 1: the person experiencing the emotion's own thoughts and feelings and behavior,
Speaker 1: many emotions researchers have also really focused on the negative emotions.
Speaker 1: So we knew a lot about anger and sadness and
Speaker 1: things like that, and the main sometimes researchers would study
Speaker 1: a positive emotion, they would put one in there in
Speaker 1: among all of the negative emotions just to have a conference,
Speaker 1: and it was happiness. Usually it was just happiness. And
Speaker 1: she was like, no, no, no, no, much our emotional tapestry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's way more richness to our emotional tapestry. And not
Speaker 1: only that, but they're actually really valuable opportunities in people's lives,
Speaker 1: and so that was kind of so it was really
Speaker 1: fun to kind of come full circle. And now Barber's
Speaker 1: my colleague here and awesome friend and collaborator. Cool, that's
Speaker 1: really awesome there. But yeah, I'm also thinking of Jane
Speaker 1: Unnan's work, right, Yeah, yeah, Jane's a wonderful researcher and
Speaker 1: really a pioneer in this area. Yeah, so the whole
Speaker 1: concept of a high quality relationship seems to dovetails nicely
Speaker 1: with positive interpersonal processes. They kind of go together, like
Speaker 1: trying to think of an analogy. They're almost the exact
Speaker 1: same thing, like a hand in hand. Like strawberry jam
Speaker 1: and blueberry jam. You think they go's go well together? Yes, anyway, yeah,
Speaker 1: they both jam. True. What about like strawberry mango. I
Speaker 1: think that's Sharon Salzburg who also belongs there, so yes,
Speaker 1: and I think she'd be okay that I just like
Speaker 1: in her to that particular flavor. But anyway, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there's this kind of I mean, it's nice when that happens.
Speaker 1: It's nice when there's the of ideas. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: what we want in science. I mean, you want that, right,
Speaker 1: So that's a good thing. These confluence is. You know,
Speaker 1: I thought we could talk about some interesting nuances that
Speaker 1: I've seen in the literature and you know that I
Speaker 1: think would be fun to kind of just chat with
Speaker 1: you what you think about it. So I think there's
Speaker 1: this merging idea that positive psychology is also contextual and
Speaker 1: that like we shouldn't put these absolute labels on our
Speaker 1: emotions or actions or behaviors or traits, even traits like
Speaker 1: for instance, I'm not a big fan of labeling emotions
Speaker 1: positive or negative because some seemingly positive emotions can be
Speaker 1: like you go to a if you go to a
Speaker 1: funeral and you're in a chipper mood and you're like,
Speaker 1: I'm so happy, you know, people will look at you like,
Speaker 1: you know, inappropriate time for positive emotions in a little
Speaker 1: bit of yeah, I mean so, And that is one
Speaker 1: exam I mean, there's plenty of negative emotions that we
Speaker 1: want to not evaporate from our system. You know that
Speaker 1: like are important important. So I've tended to like to
Speaker 1: just be just to describe the experience like comfortable, exuberant, uncomfortable, painful,
Speaker 1: you know, like actually like describe as clearly as possible,
Speaker 1: actually what the experience of the emotions without labeling whether
Speaker 1: or not that's positive or negative. That's sure the perspective
Speaker 1: I've started to taking my own research, and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to throw that out there and think what you
Speaker 1: thought of that? Yeah, No, I think I absolutely agree
Speaker 1: with you, and I really respect that position. And it's
Speaker 1: helpful because it gives me an opportunity to actually really
Speaker 1: clarify that when I'm talking about a positive when I
Speaker 1: say positive emotion, I mean the valence. So in the
Speaker 1: moment that you're experiencing it, is it generally enjoyable? Is
Speaker 1: it more or less pleasant? And so the more pleasant
Speaker 1: it feels when you're experiencing it, the more positive. And
Speaker 1: so it's I also, as an emotions researcher, am comfortable
Speaker 1: with people with the idea that people have can have
Speaker 1: and actually as a meditator, as an emotions researcher and
Speaker 1: a meta I'm comfortable with the idea that people can
Speaker 1: experience or kind of co experience positive and negative emotions simultaneously.
Speaker 1: In this so this comes up actually and we're talking
Speaker 1: about gratitude, I think some people mistake the situations that
Speaker 1: sometimes people mistake situations that cause gratitude for situations that
Speaker 1: cause indebtedness or you know, just because someone does something
Speaker 1: for you to beholden into them and so therefore and
Speaker 1: just by kind of objectively describing the situation, they would
Speaker 1: assume that you have this. But I would say, based
Speaker 1: on my research that indebtedness is a negative feeling and
Speaker 1: it's a more uncomfor a negative emotion and it's a
Speaker 1: more uncomfort, you might say, in cover of unpleasant emotion,
Speaker 1: whereas gratitude is a pleasant emotion, and they can kind
Speaker 1: of co occur even within moments of each other, so
Speaker 1: you might think like, oh my gosh, that's so awesome,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to do that for me, and they
Speaker 1: feel this gratitude and then immediately follow up by oh gosh,
Speaker 1: there's no way I can repay that person, And that's okay.
Speaker 1: For my definition, it still works to kind of have both,
Speaker 1: and then it helps me to make additional predictions based
Speaker 1: on valence. So barbes broad and build theory really taps
Speaker 1: for production's broaden and build theory really taps into the
Speaker 1: valance component as providing these opportunities for broadening your perspective.
Speaker 1: And I have another paper with the student where he
Speaker 1: has this really cool series of studies showing that for
Speaker 1: emotions that are experienced as being more pleasant, when we
Speaker 1: experience those emotions, we actually experience greater agency. And so
Speaker 1: valance valence is a real dimension and it really has
Speaker 1: these different psychological implications, and so for me, that's why
Speaker 1: it makes sense. And so far I'm comfortable with continuing
Speaker 1: to call the more pleasantly experienced emotions as positive emotions,
Speaker 1: and I absolutely agree that those don't always produce positive
Speaker 1: I would say beneficial outcomes. So yeah, yeah, I appreciate
Speaker 1: your perspective as well, and I think that it has
Speaker 1: become a little unaility for me in trying so hard
Speaker 1: to do this. It's like someone who wants to like
Speaker 1: that's just determined in our society today to replace all
Speaker 1: gender pronouns with like gender neutral. So you try to
Speaker 1: make sure everything, and it's hard because you're living in
Speaker 1: a world that that you're going against a green This
Speaker 1: new book I'm working on, I'm I set out the
Speaker 1: principle and the beginning that I don't want to use
Speaker 1: the label positive negative. But once I set myself to
Speaker 1: that task, I'm actually finding it's like I keep slipping.
Speaker 1: It's so much easier to say positive or negative as
Speaker 1: opposed you know, I'm like, I get to all these
Speaker 1: tricky situations because then I say, well, comfortable, No, it's
Speaker 1: not really comfortable. You know, they don't really describe all
Speaker 1: all the all experience of the positive emotion, but it's
Speaker 1: not comfortable. So what do I wabele that? So now
Speaker 1: I actually have to invent different subclasses of experiential labels
Speaker 1: for different classes of emotions, and I'm doing that, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm right, and it's certainly just
Speaker 1: my subjective impression. I'm like, oh, well, to me, that
Speaker 1: feels not It's not just pleasant. I mean, like, would
Speaker 1: you describe you know, like transcendent love is pleasant? You know, know, right, right, No,
Speaker 1: there's more to it, but that's one of the core
Speaker 1: features of this Yes, of course, of course. But it's
Speaker 1: like that doesn't fully describe it. Like I want to
Speaker 1: really like nail, like how certain things really feel, but
Speaker 1: it's hard. It's hard. So anyway, I think it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier from a just a descriptive like communication perspective sometimes,
Speaker 1: like you know, just from like two people communicating with
Speaker 1: each other easily. There are certain benefits for certain things.
Speaker 1: Say thank you for that perspective. Now you have a
Speaker 1: specific theory I want to talk about called the find,
Speaker 1: remind and bind theory of gratitude. You pauseive, most researchers
Speaker 1: love catching days. You all love that stuff. Okay, it
Speaker 1: is catchy. I will admit I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: very barol prediction. Thin you do, so, yeah, can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about that theory of yours
Speaker 1: and how it may is differentiated from some other theories
Speaker 1: of gratitude in the literature. Yeah, so I'll start with
Speaker 1: what the find and find in mind theory is, and
Speaker 1: that is that moments of gratitude. Actually, let me start
Speaker 1: with my definition of gratitude because that matters because a
Speaker 1: lot of people use gratitude in different ways in their
Speaker 1: everyday life. And so when I'm talking about the emotion
Speaker 1: of gratitude, it's an emotion that a person can experience
Speaker 1: when someone else does something nice for them. And a
Speaker 1: starting point that I like to use is that we
Speaker 1: don't always notice when somebody does something nice for us. Objectively,
Speaker 1: somebody else might say that was really nice of them
Speaker 1: to do, but you might not even notice because you
Speaker 1: expect it from the person. We might have a lot
Speaker 1: of different kinds of emotions when they do this nice
Speaker 1: thing for us. Some of them might be negative. I mean,
Speaker 1: you see, like a very nice person, but I sometimes
Speaker 1: feel like, what do they want from me? Every once
Speaker 1: in a while you're like, oh, oh, let's going on
Speaker 1: here are you? Or like you might think, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: why did they think I would want that, but anyway,
Speaker 1: sometimes their gesture really stands out and you feel grateful.
Speaker 1: It's this positive emotion. And so what I say is
Speaker 1: that moments when we experience graduates, it's that we notice
Speaker 1: that someone else has really gone under the way on
Speaker 1: our behalf and that they might make a good relationship partner.
Speaker 1: And it's not necessarily explicit, but so we can gratify
Speaker 1: also alert us to people in our environment who are
Speaker 1: good for us, who are looking out for our best interests.
Speaker 1: So it helps to find new people who maybe we
Speaker 1: didn't notice before, or you know, we kind of get
Speaker 1: used to people who we have regular interactions with, and
Speaker 1: it might remind us of, oh, that's what I love
Speaker 1: about you. And then and the emotion kind of coordinates
Speaker 1: your mind and bodying behavior in that moment to help
Speaker 1: set you up to actually bind yourself more closely with
Speaker 1: that other person. So we might do things to make
Speaker 1: sure that they know that we really appreciated it, or
Speaker 1: that we care about them too. And ultimately, my data
Speaker 1: now shows that those kinds of gestures actually can help
Speaker 1: draw the other person closer into the relationship, even closer
Speaker 1: than they were when they first did the nice thing.
Speaker 1: They probably did the nice thing for you because they
Speaker 1: liked you in the first place. And then yeah, so
Speaker 1: we have some nice evidence about the process. Thank you
Speaker 1: for explaining that. So I'm trying to think if bind
Speaker 1: is the right word, because it's like, you're not saying
Speaker 1: you're bound. So there's a difference thing in bind and bound.
Speaker 1: I guess, right, Like, you're not saying that like by
Speaker 1: doing this you are actually as a contract, You're not.
Speaker 1: Actually it's not like a contextual binding exactly. Yeah, okay, good,
Speaker 1: because that's not conducive to positive interpersonal relationships to feel
Speaker 1: as though you are actually bound to the person, right,
Speaker 1: that's not good. Yeah, well, and that's that's the thing
Speaker 1: that differentiates it a little bit. We have to kind
Speaker 1: of have these tip for tet relationships with people just
Speaker 1: to go through everyday social life. This is how we
Speaker 1: get through the world. You scratch my back, I scratch
Speaker 1: your back. If I don't repay a favor, then you're
Speaker 1: not going to want to do that favor for me
Speaker 1: necessarily in the future. So we have to have that
Speaker 1: kind of exchange type of relationship with lots of people
Speaker 1: just to kind of navigate social life. But this is
Speaker 1: a different kind of potential relationship, and it's based on
Speaker 1: this idea that like, wow, this person just seems to
Speaker 1: be open to looking out for my best interests. And
Speaker 1: it's a qualitatively different kind of experience, and so the
Speaker 1: emotion really motivates you to it's like a desire. You
Speaker 1: really want to make sure that they know, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you're so great. Did you see what this person just did.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you did that. You know. It's like
Speaker 1: it's more of an approach orientation, right, And it also
Speaker 1: seems to be something though, that is not tied to
Speaker 1: that necessity for tit for tat Like you know, you
Speaker 1: we tend to have gratitude towards people who, like you said,
Speaker 1: don't seem like they want something in return. That seems
Speaker 1: to increase the likelihood we'll have gratitude for a person.
Speaker 1: But what about this sort of like just general domain
Speaker 1: general gratitude that one can cultivate as just a way
Speaker 1: of being in the world, you know, in any Davidan's
Speaker 1: a collaborator of mind. He's at Penn and he he's
Speaker 1: doing great work on transcendent experiences, and he laid out
Speaker 1: in a review paper he wrote recently. Actually, Jonathan Hyde,
Speaker 1: you're a mentor. It was a co author of that
Speaker 1: paper laying out a whole self to treaded emotion continuum,
Speaker 1: and gratitude is on that continuum, as there are self
Speaker 1: transcendent positive emotions which are different than other positive emotions.
Speaker 1: So it seems like gratitude falls within kind of a
Speaker 1: unique class of pose of emotions there that allow us
Speaker 1: to really transcend self interest. Yeah, absolutely, and so, and
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that we find is so
Speaker 1: actually so just so I can come back to the
Speaker 1: question about domain general gratitude that I have a different
Speaker 1: answer about that, But regarding gratitude as it's self transcendent emotion,
Speaker 1: that's really what our most recent evidence is showing is
Speaker 1: that we've been trying to do some comparisons between the
Speaker 1: social consequences of feeling something like joy, which would be
Speaker 1: I got a positive book for myself, so just perfectly
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful experience, as opposed to gratitude, which is,
Speaker 1: I got a positive outcome for myself because of your
Speaker 1: praiseworthy actions, and so it's elevating as hype, Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: And so it's because of the praiseworthiness of your actions.
Speaker 1: And so we've been doing work to show that this
Speaker 1: really the social consequences of gratitude go beyond just feeling joy.
Speaker 1: And so if I feel grateful to you, it's you
Speaker 1: will experience a consequence because my gratitude will I will
Speaker 1: naturally be inclined to make sure that you know it
Speaker 1: in a way that you know, really calls out what
Speaker 1: it is about your what you did that was praiseworthy,
Speaker 1: and then that has an impact on you absolutely, And
Speaker 1: you know, it's fun looking at your work and looking
Speaker 1: at the development of your thinking, and I'm thinking also,
Speaker 1: you know how that interacts with the development of your
Speaker 1: collaborators thinking. You know, so at the time in two
Speaker 1: thousand and five when you were working with jol A Heighted,
Speaker 1: he had he come up with the elevating Emotions construct.
Speaker 1: Yet was that there did that exist? Yeah? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he when I first started working with him, he had
Speaker 1: just maybe published one he had published some stuff with
Speaker 1: Daker Cutner on ah I think right around that time,
Speaker 1: and then he was publishing some stuff on elevation and
Speaker 1: I think right around that time he won the Templeton
Speaker 1: Prize as well for his work on elevation. And so
Speaker 1: the reason that I actually started working with Don was
Speaker 1: on my interview with him or the the I don't know,
Speaker 1: in our whatever. First my first meetings with him, he
Speaker 1: told me about this idea of elevation and he's like,
Speaker 1: we need some data, and so he said that sounds great.
Speaker 1: I'm really intrigued by that, and then we want into
Speaker 1: compare it with a few other positive emotions. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that he said was, you know, something
Speaker 1: that I've been noticing is that when so elevation is
Speaker 1: when you see another person. It's not related to you,
Speaker 1: just see one person do something nice for a third party,
Speaker 1: and so there's no benefit to you, but you see
Speaker 1: this and it can be really moving to see that. Actually,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of commercials where they have this
Speaker 1: kind of like pay it forward. Then if you see
Speaker 1: someone helps help somebody pick up something and then they
Speaker 1: go off and do something fit in. So that's what
Speaker 1: elevation is. And he said, when I ask people about
Speaker 1: their experiences of when they see this happen and they
Speaker 1: have this feeling, a lot of people say that they
Speaker 1: want to thank the person who originally, you know, was
Speaker 1: kind to someone else we need to know more about gratitude.
Speaker 1: And so I was I jumped into the literature and
Speaker 1: I didn't. I would just say the literature was there
Speaker 1: was some really healthy reviews out there, but it just
Speaker 1: didn't resonate with me as especially because Barbe's work was
Speaker 1: coming out around that time about positive emotions and it
Speaker 1: was like it was all about economics. The gratitude literature
Speaker 1: at the time was really about economics and it wasn't
Speaker 1: didn't even infused with this idea of broadening or these
Speaker 1: real opportunities. Bob emmonds research around that time was economic orientation. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: Bob Emens was doing research on counting your blessings, which
Speaker 1: is very positive. And there was a really foundational a
Speaker 1: foundational review mccallaugh and Emmonds and Kilpatrick and Larson. It
Speaker 1: is a really wonderful review and it was a review
Speaker 1: of the literature that had been done. And so they
Speaker 1: concluded things that are still I would say, there are
Speaker 1: still true to this day that when you experience now,
Speaker 1: I won't remember the three things that they could included
Speaker 1: about gratitude, but that let me try. Let's give myself
Speaker 1: a little test. So they that gratitude is a morality detector,
Speaker 1: so when someone else doesn't good, it's a moral reinforcer.
Speaker 1: So when I thank you, you're more likely to do
Speaker 1: something nice for me in the future again, or like
Speaker 1: the same thing again. And that was all stuff that
Speaker 1: had been demonstrated. And then there's one more thing. It's
Speaker 1: about the repayment or something like that, And that's all
Speaker 1: totally accurate, and it was based on literature that other
Speaker 1: people had, studies that other people have done, and they
Speaker 1: weren't interested in gratitude is an emotion they were really
Speaker 1: interested in, Like the question actually a totally different question,
Speaker 1: which is like, why would anybody ever be nice? Touch? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why would evolves? Yeah? Well no, no, this is about altruism.
Speaker 1: So their question was like why would anyone Yeah, it
Speaker 1: wasn't McCullin stuff, but like the people who were doing
Speaker 1: the research were like, why would you ever be nice
Speaker 1: to someone? Well, probably because the other person, of course,
Speaker 1: feels grateful when you do something nice for them, which
Speaker 1: we don't know isn't true. And then and then the
Speaker 1: more gratitude they feel, the more likely will be to
Speaker 1: repay you for the thing, so then your costs are balanced.
Speaker 1: And so that's the way that previous researchers had kind
Speaker 1: of come at that question, and I just came at
Speaker 1: it from a different perspective of really like looking at
Speaker 1: emotions and thinking about positive emotions in these like really
Speaker 1: uplifting experiences. So again, like that review is awesome. Everything
Speaker 1: that they've concluded, almost everything that they conclude. I have
Speaker 1: a little twist on one of the conclusions that I
Speaker 1: think adds to this relationship side of things. But everything
Speaker 1: that they concluded is like really well supported. But it
Speaker 1: just felt like it didn't resonate because I didn't have
Speaker 1: that when I experienced gratitude, I think, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: we'd never do that. But so, yeah, it was an
Speaker 1: awesome review. And then but then Bob Evans's word was
Speaker 1: the thing that he led at the time was about
Speaker 1: counting your blessings. And that's really another way that people
Speaker 1: think about gratitude a lot. And that gets back to
Speaker 1: your question about general orientation toward life. Yea, there's like
Speaker 1: an analog to loving kindness for all humans, even your enemies.
Speaker 1: There's an analog in the gratitude world. It seems like
Speaker 1: there's a demain general like brother or sister to that, right,
Speaker 1: the generalize because just like you know, loving kindness, meditation,
Speaker 1: you can like generalize it to all the cosmos. You
Speaker 1: can go all the way up with that one. You know,
Speaker 1: you can do the same thing with gratitude. I like it,
Speaker 1: and you can go all the way down as well
Speaker 1: and be like, I'm only have gratitude. Like you know,
Speaker 1: some people are like I only have gratitude. It's just
Speaker 1: people who are royal to me. Yeah, there's like an
Speaker 1: in group gratitude only. So I really think that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a continuum of gratitude there where of
Speaker 1: in terms of like how expansive is yourself. Oh, that's
Speaker 1: really interesting to think about. Yeah, because I think about
Speaker 1: it in a really different way. So now you've got me.
Speaker 1: I'm just throwing that out there. I don't know makes
Speaker 1: any sense, but I try to make it kind of
Speaker 1: an dichotomy for my own brain put after my research,
Speaker 1: which is like, I mean that the other kind of gratitude,
Speaker 1: which is so much I'll define right now, is like
Speaker 1: appreciating the good things in your life, like understanding that
Speaker 1: you have these really amazing blessings in your you know, wow,
Speaker 1: this a good thing thing happened to me and I
Speaker 1: have you know, like the or the sky is blue
Speaker 1: or whatever, and I, for my own ease, I call
Speaker 1: that appreciation, which is a more cognitive construct and it's
Speaker 1: easier for me. But I do agree with you that
Speaker 1: it I often think about how appreciation came to be
Speaker 1: because the other way that I think about appreciation, the
Speaker 1: way I just defined it, is as a meta positive emotion. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of a meta positive emotion. So
Speaker 1: you have it. Yeah, I feel like there is a
Speaker 1: super category that of a way of being in this
Speaker 1: world that blends. And I'm gonna throw some things out here.
Speaker 1: It blends gratitude. It's like, okay, you tell me what
Speaker 1: you get when you get the perfect fusing of these things. Gratitude, mindfulness, savoring, death, acceptance.
Speaker 1: I'm throwing that one in there. I'm throwing that one
Speaker 1: in there. But no, it's not. I really I really
Speaker 1: think that when you combine these things, you have a
Speaker 1: way of seeing and perceiving the world that you're like
Speaker 1: constantly on. As Abraham Maslow referred to it as like
Speaker 1: a high plateau, not the peak experience, but you living
Speaker 1: your life turned on all the time. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: think there is this you said meta, but there is
Speaker 1: a super ordernate something that construct that hasn't been well
Speaker 1: studied in the field. But that whyse above some of
Speaker 1: these things. So anyway, something to think about and study, well,
Speaker 1: something to study, not just think about we're scientists, think
Speaker 1: about think about that idea though it's pretty it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And about appreciation is that, I mean there's some pretty
Speaker 1: good evidence or you know, gratitude or like having a
Speaker 1: grateful disposition and just kind of having a way of
Speaker 1: being in the world where you get that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of goodness in your life and you can see
Speaker 1: it in the everyday little things. You don't need to
Speaker 1: have somebody do something for you, you don't need to
Speaker 1: have an amazing, luxurious house or you know, whatever the
Speaker 1: things are that you need in your life, just as
Speaker 1: a way of being in the world. Because I was
Speaker 1: thinking about it and actually walking into my office leading
Speaker 1: up to this our conversation today that it seems like
Speaker 1: it the data suggests that it's actually necessary for mental health.
Speaker 1: So there's some cool. Yeah, so that's something else to
Speaker 1: play around with. And now I might not tell me
Speaker 1: the cool and then you just didn't tell me so
Speaker 1: I'm on the edge of my seat. You say, you
Speaker 1: tell me cool. Yeah, really time to suggest that so
Speaker 1: people who are not mentally I mean, it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like it's just a correlation, but to mean having being
Speaker 1: a grateful person and having better mental health. But that
Speaker 1: is actually like a necessary precondition. And I you know,
Speaker 1: I could write that paper, but I can't just pull
Speaker 1: all the data points for you right now. No, I
Speaker 1: mean you're obviously hitting a thing really existentially profound. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're kind of making a case the way, even though
Speaker 1: you haven't said it is like the famous answer to
Speaker 1: the question why not kill myself? You know, like we
Speaker 1: as scientists need to answer that question as well being researchers.
Speaker 1: And I think that's actually a good question for us
Speaker 1: positive psychologists to help quarify our priority list of things
Speaker 1: that we study. And it sounds to me like you're
Speaker 1: saying one of those reasons is that we can generate
Speaker 1: gratitude in our lives, you know, and that's almost an essential. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think it's actually a really interesting question even
Speaker 1: within the field. What are the essentials, you know, and
Speaker 1: what are the luxuries of you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think right now. Well, what I because I like them all,
Speaker 1: they're all good. What's a luxury like? Well, no, that
Speaker 1: was not a luxury for me all. No, you know
Speaker 1: what if you take all away from my life? No gratitude? No, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to think, what are there any luxuries?
Speaker 1: There certainly are some that differ in their strength of
Speaker 1: correlation with well being. But I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: the right way to answer the question. But any right,
Speaker 1: So you in two thousand and nine wrote this paper
Speaker 1: with Jonathan Height on what you called other praising emotions,
Speaker 1: and it seemed like you divided it into two classes,
Speaker 1: not two classes, but you differentiate other praising emotions such
Speaker 1: as elevation which is a response to moral excellence, gratitude,
Speaker 1: and admiration. You differentiate them from joy and amusement. So,
Speaker 1: linking that to your most recent work on positive interpersonal processes,
Speaker 1: it seems like you make a differentiation then, orgo in
Speaker 1: your Positive Interpersonal Processes work, you make a differentiation between
Speaker 1: in our relationships other praising emotions versus other positive emotions.
Speaker 1: Do you make that same differentiation in your positive interpersonal
Speaker 1: processes work? Now? Oh? No, because I've come to decide
Speaker 1: that well, especially I think, I mean, Shelley gables work
Speaker 1: on capitalization is just awesome and everybody should go find
Speaker 1: out everything they came about it, and yeah, to do
Speaker 1: the reading. But you know, that's about joy, that's actually
Speaker 1: about your own joy. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: we found in that two thousand and nine paper was
Speaker 1: this echoes what Shelley talks about and just coincidentally, which
Speaker 1: is that I think in our paper, like we ask
Speaker 1: people what they did when they experienced joy when something
Speaker 1: good happened to them, and think, I'm right, like eighty
Speaker 1: percent the people said that they told somebody else about it.
Speaker 1: They're like, and we call it broadcasting. They told other people.
Speaker 1: And that's I mean, that's all of Shelley's work, is
Speaker 1: what I described, is about this that she had doing
Speaker 1: separately in more wonderful ways. But it's just a nice coincidence,
Speaker 1: or is it. But anyway, anyway, so what we found
Speaker 1: there is like people still do this kind of social
Speaker 1: thing with their own emotion. And then, like I said,
Speaker 1: Shelley's work has really shown that that matters too. We
Speaker 1: can really make great connections and actually the best way
Speaker 1: of responding when someone shares good news with you, is
Speaker 1: just to be excited for them if you want to
Speaker 1: preserve the relationship. But if you want to maybe there
Speaker 1: is something. We sometimes have negative feelings about our like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would have made that choice,
Speaker 1: you know, when somebody shares some good news with us.
Speaker 1: But like just being there for them and being being
Speaker 1: excited about the thing that they're excited about because you
Speaker 1: and you know that they care about it actually is
Speaker 1: a really cool opportunity for connections and important connections. So
Speaker 1: she shows that those opportunities for connections are even better
Speaker 1: predictors of your feelings of support from that person, your
Speaker 1: perceptions that that person gives you support. Then when that
Speaker 1: person actually gives you wow, like like when you say
Speaker 1: something negative. Yeah, And so those positive moments between people
Speaker 1: really matter. Test These are everyday things like oh, I've
Speaker 1: got a paper accepted or not. That's not an everything,
Speaker 1: but you know, the way to test people, See how
Speaker 1: I feel like it's like a test. It's a way
Speaker 1: of testing people, Like you know, if you really want
Speaker 1: to test your friendship. It seems counterintuitive if I said
Speaker 1: to someone, tell me the best way to test a friendship,
Speaker 1: like are they there when I need them? You know,
Speaker 1: It's like no, I would actually, you know, see how
Speaker 1: genuinely excited they are with your positive news. Seems like
Speaker 1: that's a very contextual thing, though, because it seems like
Speaker 1: just as positive that can be when you seem authentic.
Speaker 1: If you react to someone's positive news in a positive way,
Speaker 1: but you don't come across as though you genuinely care,
Speaker 1: that seems to be just as bad it seems to be.
Speaker 1: That's another one of these catextual things I wanted to
Speaker 1: want to point out here because it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I was really sick the other day, just really high fever,
Speaker 1: and someone was telling me some good news of theirs
Speaker 1: and I really inside cared, but I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: they couldn't overlook the fact that, like I was sick,
Speaker 1: Like it was just like, oh, you don't really care,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like, my gosh, what do I do
Speaker 1: in this moment? This person's taking it so personally, and
Speaker 1: like I'm like, trust me, inside, I'm really excited. I
Speaker 1: just can't breathe right now because I have a high fever.
Speaker 1: But do you know what I mean? It seems like
Speaker 1: people can can be really sensitive with people as well.
Speaker 1: We all just need to maybe be a little more
Speaker 1: like you know, as well human as human with each other.
Speaker 1: But yeah, exactly, no, I mean, sincerity is the thing.
Speaker 1: All of our research, Shelley's work and my work, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the work in the relationships domain really
Speaker 1: emphasizes that the you know, these things work when the
Speaker 1: other person who's responding is perceived to actually be understanding
Speaker 1: and actually seems to care and actually seems validating. That's
Speaker 1: the person that kind of the fact that it has
Speaker 1: on you that can then translate to these downstream you know,
Speaker 1: feeling like that person is around for you in the future.
Speaker 1: So yeah, sometimes you know, people are strange and that's
Speaker 1: why we see them. Everything's wonderfully strange. I love. Well,
Speaker 1: that's why we do what we do. I mean, comedians
Speaker 1: live for the absurdity of the world. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that psychologists are fundamentally different in their motivations than comedians,
Speaker 1: to be honest, except we just are more nerdy maybe,
Speaker 1: and how we go about our methods. So, can you
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about some meta analyses on
Speaker 1: gratitude interventions? Can I can tell you a little bit?
Speaker 1: This is basically the meta and really it's like two
Speaker 1: sentences the meta analysis take your time, time, No. I
Speaker 1: mean it's like the meta analysis of gratitude interventions suggest
Speaker 1: that they work, especially for people who need them the most.
Speaker 1: So there are lots of ways that people have done
Speaker 1: gratitude interventions, and I would say, because I've been watching
Speaker 1: literature for three years, I think researchers have started to
Speaker 1: discover more more effective ways of having people do these interventions.
Speaker 1: And so I think some of the earlier work had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a lighter touch, and so it's
Speaker 1: maybe harder to have a big impact on everybody who
Speaker 1: was in it, and some of the more recent stuff,
Speaker 1: So Sonya Leibermersky has a really impressive body of work
Speaker 1: on these gratitude interventions, and I I've noticed that they
Speaker 1: have turned more toward having people do interpersonal gratitude. So
Speaker 1: they actually say somebody that they feel grateful to, or
Speaker 1: they actually kind of yeah, so they kind of acknowledge
Speaker 1: somebody else's actions as opposed specifically as opposed to counting
Speaker 1: your blessings, or they have them maybe write a note
Speaker 1: to that person, and so those are some of them.
Speaker 1: More so it's kind of interesting that the literature has
Speaker 1: shifted a little bit. And one of the reasons from that,
Speaker 1: I would say is because we know that relationships are
Speaker 1: so robustly associated with mental and physical health, and so
Speaker 1: in my mind, it really makes sense that to the
Speaker 1: extent that thinking about the nice things that other people
Speaker 1: do for us and feeling grateful for those things can
Speaker 1: help us to feel more close and connected to those
Speaker 1: people and feel like we have a safe set of relationships,
Speaker 1: then that would really naturally lead to having better mental health.
Speaker 1: I don't know that many people have any's really tested
Speaker 1: that idea carefully, but it's you know, it makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense for them. Sure, So I would say
Speaker 1: there's effectiveness of the interventions has started to get better.
Speaker 1: So the meta analysis that I've seen really support the
Speaker 1: conclusion that the gratitude interventions really work well for people
Speaker 1: who need them the most. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that I have this idea that gratitude seems to
Speaker 1: be necessary, a necessary precondition, because people who already feel grateful,
Speaker 1: they're not going to move up higher in their mental
Speaker 1: health necessarily. It's kind of a weird argument that I'm
Speaker 1: coming up with off the cuff, but anyway, so if
Speaker 1: it's the case that yes, So basically, if you're doing
Speaker 1: really well mental you've got fine mental health, are reasonably
Speaker 1: good mental health, you don't have depression, Then what possibility
Speaker 1: is that you when I ask you to gratitude intervention,
Speaker 1: like where you're writing about the good things in your life,
Speaker 1: you don't have very much room to move up on
Speaker 1: the happiness scale. For example, you fill up the happiness scaling,
Speaker 1: you're pretty happy already, and so there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of room to move up. So maybe that's true, or
Speaker 1: it might be that people really need people who are
Speaker 1: already who already have gratitude in their lives, who are
Speaker 1: already happy. Maybe they already have gratitude in their lives,
Speaker 1: Maybe they already count their blessings on a regular basis
Speaker 1: and think about the good things in their lives like
Speaker 1: a restricted range. So then that might be why that
Speaker 1: gratitude interventions don't do as much for people who are
Speaker 1: already mentally healthy. But in either case, it seems like
Speaker 1: gratitude feels like it's a necessary part of the equation.
Speaker 1: Is that right, though, because maybe it's a maybe it
Speaker 1: really is an inverted use shaped curve sort of phenomenon.
Speaker 1: It's totally possible. Yeah, I'm making this up. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean that's all my in terms of no, No, it's
Speaker 1: totally We're just thinking through possibilities. I think the other
Speaker 1: thing that I would say about the graduate interventions is
Speaker 1: that they really do show a lot of promise. Sonia
Speaker 1: has been talking a lot recently about potential variations, so
Speaker 1: they might not be great for everybody, and sometimes they
Speaker 1: might backfire for some people. I couldn't tell you the
Speaker 1: specifics of the findings that she has, but I have
Speaker 1: seen a few. I saw her to the talk about
Speaker 1: a year ago, and she was going over because she
Speaker 1: has a massive amount of data. Was that at the internation?
Speaker 1: Was that at the conference? Yeah, well I was thinking
Speaker 1: the same I'm thinking of the same talk. We were
Speaker 1: both in the room together. Cool, that's so great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so she and it was a great talk, and I mean,
Speaker 1: so she was really going through and I think there
Speaker 1: was like a so one consideration is a cultural consideration,
Speaker 1: and the excent to which graduate is value, or the
Speaker 1: extent of which thinking about the good things that other
Speaker 1: people do for you might also bring up indebtedness simultaneously.
Speaker 1: And you talked about that a little bit earlier, and
Speaker 1: so then you would have this kind of negative obligatory
Speaker 1: feeling as opposed to feeling like oh and now you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot to do something for this other person, and
Speaker 1: I really get on that. I'm bound exactly. It's great work.
Speaker 1: And she also is why I'm thinking inverted U shaped
Speaker 1: curves thing because she said that there seems to be
Speaker 1: a dosage effect. There's such thing as too much gratitude
Speaker 1: practices during your week that it's like a headonic too
Speaker 1: much of anything, is you know Schwartz and Grant their
Speaker 1: paper on all the character strengths. Any too much of
Speaker 1: anything you kind of get burnt out. You can get
Speaker 1: burnt out with gratitude, or at least if not burnout,
Speaker 1: it's not as novel, right, and that I would say,
Speaker 1: not only novel. But I don't know if you've ever
Speaker 1: tried to graduate practice, but I have. Oh yeah, good,
Speaker 1: how did it go for you? Really really great. I
Speaker 1: find that gratitude infusing it more and my daily life
Speaker 1: really shifts my perspective in a very positive direction. So
Speaker 1: for me personally, it's been very very good. Oh good, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's my experience as well, but if you do it
Speaker 1: too much then yeah, so I would say not only
Speaker 1: novel yeah, maybe novelty, but maybe authenticity slips a little
Speaker 1: bit too. So you feel like you have to find
Speaker 1: something and so it's like hmm, yeah that thing, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't it's not like genuine Oh yeah, that was
Speaker 1: this great moment or this person's and I just really
Speaker 1: appreciated that swims or whatever it might be. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: we go, go go with the appreciation versus gratitude. Are they
Speaker 1: the same thing? I have worked it into my book
Speaker 1: in Oh wow, we have such a devolution even within
Speaker 1: a one hour chat of Well, I want to end
Speaker 1: with not a gratitude but another topic that when I
Speaker 1: was digging through your papers, I found this amazing paper
Speaker 1: that you wrote with Jonathan on moral amplification and the
Speaker 1: emotions that attach us to saints and demons, and it
Speaker 1: really I found it so thought provoking it could you
Speaker 1: mind if we talk about it a little bit. You
Speaker 1: argue that that a part of human nature is to
Speaker 1: divide the world into angels and demons. That's like maybe
Speaker 1: a social cognitive bias that we have built into ourselves.
Speaker 1: This has some pretty deep implications, right for lots of things. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought, I'm going to stop talking about your own paper,
Speaker 1: like since I I do dig up old things. Yes, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't have a lot to say about
Speaker 1: the people because I very since really haven't thought about
Speaker 1: that for quite a while. But it is it is
Speaker 1: the case that praise and blamee. I mean, even if
Speaker 1: you just take this dimension of praise and blaine, we
Speaker 1: do very quickly do that. And then yeah, the argument
Speaker 1: is that morality really amplifies that. And that's as much
Speaker 1: as I've thought. It seems to me that too much
Speaker 1: gratitude is not good because it seems like we need
Speaker 1: the contrast in our lives. This is my way of
Speaker 1: integrating everything that we talked about, including that paper. It
Speaker 1: seems like, you know, we won't know we're not something's
Speaker 1: gratitude until we see a devil. By devil, I mean
Speaker 1: someone who's out to get you, and it's obvious that
Speaker 1: they are not giving you something for self purely selfish,
Speaker 1: selfless reasons. Right, Yeah, so that when we see it,
Speaker 1: because we are there's the contrast. Yeah, and then we
Speaker 1: appreciate even more. Anyway, Look, I can't thank you enough
Speaker 1: for the work you've done for the field, and yeah,
Speaker 1: chang with me today. Thanks a lot, sir. Yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: it's been such a pleasure, such a joy. It's nice
Speaker 1: to see you. Oh yeah, that was a very positive
Speaker 1: interpersonal process. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: react in some way to something you heard, I encourage
Speaker 1: you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com. Also, please
Speaker 1: add a rading and review of the Psychology Podcast on iTunes.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being such a great supporter of the podcast,
Speaker 1: and tune in next time for more on the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity.