Afford Anything - The Science of Friendship (and How It Improves Your Net Worth), with Dr. Marisa Franco

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

#464: More than ever, most people's lives are packed to the brim with activity. We are trying to fit in demanding jobs and families, commuting and a neverending list of chores. Social lives often suffer. It’s no wonder that in 2021, 12% of U.S. adults said they did not have any close friends, up from 3% in 1990. This has enormous consequences on our health, productivity, and our ability to grow our net worth, make money, and enjoy life. Dr. Mariso Franco, a renowned psychologist and best selling author, shares invaluable insights on the significance of fostering meaningful connections and discusses the detrimental impact of NOT having fulfilling connections in our lives. Today’s episode also delves into the importance of connection in the workplace. We chat about how cultivating genuine relationships with colleagues can boost productivity, enhance job satisfaction, and contribute to a positive work environment. Throughout the episode, Dr. Marisa Franco shares practical tips and actionable advice on how to nurture and sustain friendships in our fast-paced, digital age and improve our overall well- being. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode464 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The changing nature of the way that we work presents a health ramification that very few people are talking about. And it's the subject of today's episode. Welcome to the Afford Anything podcast, the show that knows that you can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice that you make carries a trade-off. And that doesn't just apply to your money. It applies to any limited resource that you need to manage, your time, your focus, your energy, your attention. So what matters most? That is the subject of every podcast episode. I'm your host, Paula Pant. Today we're going to talk about something that is under-discussed. If you are a remote worker, you've probably noticed that you don't socialize with your colleagues quite as much. That's not specific to you. It's part of an increasing epidemic of loneliness that is happening in modern society. And that loneliness has major health consequences. which ultimately impact our productivity, our net worth, our ability to hit our goals, to make money, to be the best possible versions of ourselves, right, to lead this fulfilling life that is

really the ultimate end goal of financial independence or early retirement, right? It's about living a more optimized life. And an optimized life involves having really meaningful friendships. And that is increasingly difficult in today's world. So to discuss this, we've invited Dr. Marissa Franco to join us. Dr. Franco researches the science behind friendships and connection. And in our upcoming interview, we talk about why loneliness is a modern epidemic, what that means when it comes to our productivity, our health, our happiness, and what we can do about it. So here is Dr. Marissa Franco.

Hi, Marissa. Hi, Paula. It's great to have you here. So good to be here. You write and research about friendship, the topic of friendship. What I'm interested in learning, and I think what the Afford Anything community is interested in hearing about, is how friendship can be developed and sustained in a world of remote work when more of us are working from home. and in a world of side hustles where whether or not you work from home, you probably have a primary job, you also have side hustle, you also have maybe kids, maybe you have an elderly

parents, so you've just got, you're just very, very busy and you don't have time to go with your friends on Friday night like you could when you were 22. So I want to cover all of that. But first, let's start with why friendships matter. Friendship is community is so central to both our physical. mental health. I was just reading a meta-analysis, as one does, the other day. And actually, it found that lack of social network made people more vulnerable to contracting PTSD than did the severity of the trauma itself. So that was wild. And I think if you've heard anything about connection,

there's this commonly cited statistic that's loneliness is as toxic at smoking 15 cigarettes a day, but there's also three different types of loneliness. Only one intimate loneliness that can be fulfilled by a spouse and intimate loneliness is a desire for a close intimate connection. But there's also relational loneliness, which is a desire for someone as close to you as a friend. And then there's this collective loneliness, which is a desire for a group working toward a common goal. And so we need community. We need community to feel whole, to feel like ourselves, to understand who we are as each friend brings out a different side of us, to be healthy. Right. And one of the stats that you had in here is that you compared loneliness to being sedentary. They did a great line about how you could be a

social couch potato. Yes, you appreciate my cheesy humor. I thought you would. Stylist in your podcast. Yeah, so meta-analyses have found that diet obviously affects our longevity, exercise affects our longevity, but our social networks affects our longevity more than diet or exercise. Right. And prior to the 1800s, there was no word for loneliness. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. So the word for loneliness meant something that was similar to alonness because earlier on it was sort of like your community was baked in. You did not sought after, right? Like you kind of live with your family and you were doing work within the home and people didn't really move. It's a very recent phenomenon that we've become so lonely that it's become so hard to make friends. And based on the data, it's the hardest time. It's the

hardest time now to make friends in all of human history. Like, if you look at the rates of loneliness and how much they have been on the increase globally as well. And that makes sense because when there is increased mobility, when there's vehicle transportation, there's airline transportation, all of these things that we didn't have in the days of horses and ships. Yeah. Right. And then on top of that, there's technology that enables remote work. So as mobility increases, it makes sense that social connections decrease. Yeah, it gets harder. People ask me, why is it so much harder to make friends as an adult than when we were kids? And there's the sociologist Rebecca G. Adams, and she says that when you're kids, you have the infrastructure to connect, which is having repeated on planned

interactions, like I see you every day, and shared vulnerability. And so that's kids at recess. That's kids at lunch. That's kids at gym, right? But as adults, we don't have that infrastructure anymore. of us are working from home. We don't necessarily see people. And so if we just assume that it happens organically, like it may be used to, we're going to end up really lonely. Right. And you and I were just talking about that right before we started recording, I just graduated from Columbia and you asked me how I felt about it. And I said, you know, the thing I miss is having essentially the infrastructure, having one specific building that I would go to every single day and all of my friends would be there. Yeah. You know, or at least a bunch of my friends would be there.

Yeah, it's like automatic. Right. And it was unplanned interactions. Yeah, exactly. Like having that automated interactions, so much healthier for us. Right. Okay. So then for people who are listening who are remote workers, right, they are working out of their living room or out of their guest bedroom and don't have that spontaneity anymore. They don't have those unplanned interactions. There's really two topics. One is initiating friendships and then the other is sustaining your existing friendships. but let's start with initiating. Yeah. I mean, the first thing I want to say is just that sometimes I think, like, in the working world, we have this myth that we become, I call it the myth of the employee when I speak on loneliness at work. And it's this idea that, like, we go into work and we become employees and we don't have these fundamental human needs anymore, like the need to belong.

But we see in the research that employees that are lonely are more likely to miss work. They don't perform as well. Their teams are less cohesive. A lonely workplace is inherently less functional than a well-connected. workplace. So the first thing I want to say is that we still need connection, even if it's related to work. And so how do we create that connection? The thing that we need to understand is that we're just going to have to be very intentional about it. If we're passive, we can just end up really lonely because of the infrastructure in which we're living in, which really lacks the ability for

social connection. So one thing that I suggest to people is to make your colleagues, your friends. So I do co-work with friends and invite them over and then we'll do work together. And for some friends, that's easier than for others. And I want to make sure I'm answering your question, Paula. Were you asking about how people make friends even though they're working remotely or how do they have friends while working? How do you, for now, we'll start with, how do you make friends when you are working remotely? Gotcha. You let's say from from the moment that you wake up until 6 p.m. every day, you just never leave your house. Yeah, you got to leave your house. You're going to have to you're going to have to leave the house. So yeah, when people ask me how to make friends,

and I think this applies related people at our work, the first thing I tell people is to reconnect. Because the research shows us that when we reconnect with someone, they're happier to receive that reconnection than we predict. And so I think a lot of times people are like, oh, you know, they've already moved on. They have their established group. They're so busy. But in fact, so many people, the average person is more likely to be lonely than they are to be so connected that they don't want any friends. So first, finding a place to reconnect with people, I think is really important. Second, not assuming. it happens organically, like I said, because that's actually related to being lonelier over time,

whereas people that see it as taking effort are less lonely. Third is like, how can you create that same infrastructure we had as kids? Like for some of us that might look like, I want to join a co-working place, or I'm going to set this up with my friend where every Monday we are going to work together. We're going to co-work together. Every Friday we're going to co-work together. How do you create that infrastructure with someone else so that you're able to connect with them? And fourth, I will say that I do think having like virtual meetings with someone, it's kind of like a little bit less ideal, ideal form of connection as connecting in person, but it still does something for us. You know, it's not like zero sum here. And research actually finds that for people that don't have the option of connecting in person, how they connect online is even more meaningful for the overall success and satisfaction with the relationship. Because I know there's some people that, for example, have disabilities or more immunocompromise, so they kind of have to work from home. And I would say, for those folks, also leaning into the ability to connect with people virtually. Right. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing with regard to reconnection,

because oftentimes when you reconnect with your former social circles, you find that they've left the state, right? Yeah. They're now living elsewhere. So it can be hard. Or you're the one who left the state or maybe left the country even. And then you're brand new in a new place and also a remote worker. I think that's kind of more common these days. Yeah. If you're someone that's move to a new place. First of all, I say the work of connection starts before you get there. So before you move to your new place, checking in with your existing network, I did this when I was in Mexico City traveling solo for a month. So I asked all my friends, do you know anyone in Mexico City? End up meeting with someone who's a friend of a friend, who's in Mexico City. And then when you get

there, finding something to engage in that's repeated over time. So again, it's about creating the automaticity, creating that infrastructure. So when I was in Mexico City, I did a language class every day. So I had the Spanish class where I met people. Then you're capitalizing on something called the mere exposure effect, which is our tendency to like people simply because they're familiar to us, which means that, you know, this is based on a study where these researchers implanted women into a psychology lecture. And it was big. So none of them remembered the woman, but at the end of the semester, they liked the woman who showed up for the most classes, 20% more than the woman that didn't show up for any. So it's completely unconscious. We like

people who are familiar. So I think sometimes people struggle. They want connection. They might go to like one happy hour one networking event. I say join something more continuous. Join that language class or that professional development group where you'll see people repeatedly. And the other implication of the mere exposure effect is that it's going to feel awkward at first. Like we're kind of primed to feel weary of new people. I think in a problem that I've had in the past, like when I was in college, I would join a social group. I would go once and be like, everyone's clicky. Nobody's trying to connect. with me. I'm not going to go back. And now I realize, oh, that discomfort is part of the process

rather than a sign that you should disengage from the process. So stick with that group for like three months, unless you really hate it before you make a decision about it. That's right. The mere exposure effect is one of my favorite cognitive biases. I love that you have a favorite cognitive bias. So when you write about that feeling where you go somewhere, you go to one networking event and you're like, everybody's clicking, nobody talk to me. And so you decide not to go again. So that makes me think of over-avoidance versus overt avoidance. Can you define each one and tell us how they distinguish from one another? Yeah. So I think of myself in college is like Exhibit A for everything you can do wrong with friendship. I had to write a book on this topic to really understand it.

For some people, it comes naturally. So overt avoidance is like, I'm nervous about people. So I'm just not going to show up. I'm not going to go to that social group. I'm going to stay in my house all day. And, you know, you have to overcome that to connect with people. Because again, friendship doesn't happen organically in adulthood. We don't have the infrastructure for organic connection. But covert avoidance is when you show up to that social group physically, but you check out mentally. You're like on your phone or you're in the corner or you're talking about one person who you already know and you're not engaging with people. And in order to make friends, you don't just have to show up.

You have to also engage with people when you get there and say, you know, hi, I'm Marissa. How have you liked this group so far? What's your experiences been? You have to show interest in people. I think sometimes we're just so afraid of people because they can reject us that we don't realize that everyone else is just as afraid. And so if no one comes up to us, we're like, oh, they're standoffish. They're stuffy, right?

Like there's actually the study on a networking event of business students that found that when they went to this networking event, 95% of them said they wanted to meet new people, but everybody would spend more time with people they already knew. So it's kind of like the assumption going in is like people want to connect with me. They just might need me to initiate and making sure that you're initiating. Right. And you have made the point in your writing that when people say that they want something to feel organic, what they don't realize is that that actually means they want the other person to initiate. Yeah. Yeah, I say that. It feels really natural when someone else initiates with us.

It feels really painful when we're the ones that have to initiate. And so, yeah, I think this, like, idea that it happens organically. It just really, unfortunately, sabotages our ability to connect with people. And I think we know about, like, I don't know, finding work that really suits us, right? We're willing to kind of trial and error and switch different jobs, find different positions. And even, like, finding love, like, people are so intentional about going on these apps. But, you know, when it comes to friendship, all of a sudden, we're going. have this idea of things happening organically, which is just antithetical to so many other things

that are meaningful and important in our lives. Right. And I mean, with basically anything, the amount of effort that you put into something that's generally speaking going to be commensurate with the reward you get out of it. Yeah, exactly. So like, I just feel like in the past, I have struggled with having a more external locus of control when it comes to connection and feeling like, oh, it's just some sort of magic or serendipity and I have to just wait for it to come to me versus now understanding that as we live in a society that doesn't have the infrastructure for connection, we really need to practice a lot of agency in order to connect with people. We really need to embody that more internal locus of control. Now, for those people who are listening who are

not remote workers, who do go into an office, what are ways, like, you know, as a let me, I'll pause and back up for a moment. I think about the late former CEO of Zappos, Tony Shea. He did a big revitalization of downtown Las Vegas. And one thing that he was very intentional about was designing not just work spaces, but live work communities for Zappos employees that were conducive to what he referred to as collisions. And a collision would be an unplanned, spontaneous interaction between two people. You know, they happen to be walking by each other. And then one person might be a graphic designer and the other might be in marketing, but they happen to be walking by each other and they happen to be chatting. and they'll come up with an idea, and that'll improve the Zappos website. He was a big believer in that.

So with that, like, very long preample, you know, he was able to really very intentionally try to build out some infrastructure because he had $300 million at his disposal to do so. Yes. For those of us who have just slightly smaller budgets, what can we do, particularly people who go into an office, what can we do to build out an infrastructure in whatever place we're already in that is conducive to collisions? Yeah, this is a really good question. And something that I think about because I teach a class on loneliness at University of Maryland. And I want to make the class a community, not just a class because I think learning is powerful when it's embodied and not just intellectual. And so there's some different things that I've done, knowing that, for example, vulnerability fosters connection. We share pictures that represent like kind of fun facts about our lives. So each student does that each week. So that's something you can do. I think Google did like highs and lows at the beginning of of their meetings to keep their remote work teams feeling closer to each other. At the end, we have an appreciation hat where you bring in a treat for another student who said something you appreciated and you give that to them at the end of class. And so giving people opportunities to share affection for each other, like, okay, what's someone who did something that you really appreciated in work, setting aside that time? And what I think is really powerful when it comes

to generating community. So I have this loneliness class and in one of the classes, they would hang out outside of class. And in the other one, they wouldn't. And I was like, what is going on here? Put on my anthropologist hat, which I don't really have because I never studied anthropology. But I see that one of my students, Savannah, says to the class, like, anyone want to hang out? And 11 people go to lunch with her after class. And those 10 people did not have to initiate, but because she did, 10 other people in the class have more connections. I call Savannah an igniter. Igniter is someone who creates social groups. And I'm trying to formalize that in my class by saying one of your assignments is each of you has to be an igniter.

Each of you has to create some sort of opportunity to connect outside a class. It could be, you know, study day. It could be lunch. It could be something like that. And so if you really want connection to be part of your culture, that's something you can formalize. When people come in, you can say that, you know, we are going to ask you to find ways to connect because having collective ownership is something that really increases people's level of investment in the world. workplace, willingness to connect with other people. And so I think that's also really important. The other thing that I'll say is I've also been thinking about this as a faculty member.

My role as someone who studies connection is often to give people opportunities to do things, the things that they already want to do, but they feel scared to, which is like to connect with each other. So I started the faculty social committee. And so that involved lunches twice a week, where it's just the infrastructure is there now. We're going to meet up for lunch at this time, if you're available. We also did weekly, we research shares where we co-work together for a few hours each week and then we can also share like research that we're doing with each other. And so it's just creating those opportunities, creating that automaticity where people can connect with each other. And the last thing that I'll say, because I remember there's a study

that looked at like obviously interacting with people makes you more likely to connect with them, but it found that the more time people interacted at work, the less close that they felt. Isn't that weird? And I think what was happening there is like often at work, we just bring this employee side. And so you don't actually know who I am as a person. And I don't feel like I know you. You don't feel like you know me. And I think that what we need is like a little bit more vulnerability.

We need to be willing to like share who we are. And it's not that we have to share our deepest darkest secrets, but you can share your hobbies, your interest. Like what are you doing outside of work? What are you passionate about? So I think to connect at work, we ironically have to stop talking about work. We'll come back to this episode after this word. from our sponsors. Fifth Third Bank's commercial payments are fast and efficient,

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And not, you know, depending on the culture of the workplace. some workplaces are more okay with that than others. Yeah. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. I've been in workplaces like that where it's been in a more uncomfortable place to be vulnerable and to, you know, feeling like, okay, this is a place where I have to stuff myself away. But what I kind of realized is that the culture of a place and there's individuals within that culture. And sometimes when I would come when I was at a workplace where it felt like that was the culture to be more stuffed up,

I would assume that everybody like that and everybody was aligned with that. There was this generalization that was happening. And when I actually started to be like, oh, actually, like, do you want to get lunch together? Do you want to hang out? When I still put myself out there in that culture, it was clear that there were people that wanted to connect just like I did or wanted to like actually share who they were and not be as formal just like I did. And so reminding ourselves to like maintain nuance that even if a culture tends to be a particular way, there's still people within it that might. align better with us. And that's really, really important because our level of connectedness in work is like one of the most, the biggest predictors of how meaningful that we find the work. Like I've definitely learned from previous workplaces that I could be doing work that I love so much and still want to quit that job because every day I go in and I feel like I'm not authentic and I feel like people don't really know me. And it's kind of like I have to deal with the burden of inauthenticity all the time. And that can eclipse how beautiful the work is. Yeah, and so to that extent, forming strong workplace friendships, I mean, really, it could impact your tenure at work. It can impact your, which then has an impact on seniority and promotions and income.

Exactly. I mean, this was me when I was, you know, my first job as a professor, I was like, I was on the tenure track. So I'm like, I need to be producing research. I'm not here to make friends. What do I find? Everybody's getting on each other's grants because they're talking at the water cooler about, you know, their lives. And then they're like, oh, well, you know, do you want to. to be on this grant with me, like just how informal that process was happening and that by me trying to isolate myself, I was working a lot harder, not smarter. And I also wanted to create change in the workplace. And I thought I had really great ideas, but nobody would back my ideas. And I realized, oh, people back ideas with people they feel connected to. It's not just by the merit of my ideas. And so after that, when I went to my next workplace, it's the onboarding session, I was like, Oh, hey, I'm Marissa. Like, do you want to get lunch together? Like, I just had such a different approach after realizing how my reluctance to connect with others was affecting me both personally and professionally. So what I'm imagining right now is there's going to be some subset of people who are listening to this who are thinking, in theory, it sounds great to get lunch with your colleagues twice a week and then sit around and then like chat about what you all are working on or to gossip around the water cooler.

They're like, but I'm busy. I drop my kids off before work. Yeah. And then I need to go in and I need to get all of this done and I have work through my lunch break and or I go to the gym during my lunch break. Yeah. For the people who are listening to this thinking, I don't have the margin in my schedule for collisions or those social interactions. Yes. What would you say?

I think you interviewed Cal Newport. Was it him who talked about taking breaks and how it actually makes our work better? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there was a study on like taking breaks to chat with people and that it made people more efficient and quality at the work that they're doing. And so, you know, if we're honest with ourselves about what makes us productive and whether we actually have the ability to continue to perform endlessly for nine hours, there's probably a point at which we're sitting in front of the computer not actually doing much. And it feels like we can pat ourselves on the back. But if we actually look at the quality of the work that we're doing, when we start to feel lonely, when we start to feel disconnect.

we might realize that it's going to take a slide. And so I would say is that you wanted to do really good work and that is awesome. And part of doing that good work is being in a state of connection. When you are in a state of loneliness, that's taking up a lot of your cognitive resources that you could be putting into good work. So instead of viewing that time to connect as like antithetical to doing the work, like this is part of the process of doing good work. Right. Right. And speaking of which, speaking of that cognitive load, of loneliness. There's a study in here about people who are avoidant who scored lower on some type of a memory test, if I'm remembering correctly. Oh, was that the one where they had to recite digits and suppress things? Yes, the Stroop test. The Stroop, S-T-R-O-O-P, the Stroop task. Yes. Page 101. Let's see if I could, do you want me to recite the study? Yeah. Okay. Okay. So this is a kind of complicated one. So let's see if I could remember. Basically, they had people like write about a breakup

and afterwards they could write about anything, except half the people were told you have to suppress anything about the breakup. And then they were like, they did this stoop task, which is there's a bunch of words and those words are a bunch of colors, right? So there's like a blue word, a green word, a red word. And you have to be able to say, is it the color word or the word? Is this the one where the word blue will be written in the color orange? Yeah. And then the word, Orange is written in the color green and the word yellow is written in the color blue. Oh, that is so hard. I know. It's really hard. People came to the lab. They had to write about a breakup. And then,

in one condition, they were told to suppress any writings about the breakup as they wrote again this time. But another condition, they could write whatever they wanted. And afterward, they had to do this troop task, which basically involves you seeing different words that are in different color. So a pink word, a blue word, a red word. And you have to name the color, but not the word, right? So I have to say like blue, red, pink. But the thing about this was that the words were words related to breakups, like abandonment, like loss, for example. And this was like a really ingenious study because the idea was that if it takes you longer to name the color, that's a sign that you're being bogged down by the breakup more. Like the abandonment, you're thinking of your subconsciously thinking about it more.

So it's taking you longer. It's interfering with your ability to them name the color, right? So they found that after people had suppressed the thoughts of the breakup, generally it took them longer to name the color, which suggests this rebound effect, that what we suppress, we then end up thinking about more. There are people that are what's called avoidantly attached. And avoidantly attached people actually really love work. Yeah. Because they're afraid of the intimacy of social connection. So they tend to stake more of their identities on work.

And these folks were good at suppressing. They were able to say the color of that word, even if it said, like, you know, rejection, abandonment, they were fine. avoidantly attached people, they were kind of raised to dispress their feelings. But they did this high cognitive load condition, which basically meant they had to say like a bunch of digits between them saying the colors. And what they found was that at that point, the avoidance ability to suppress broke down. No longer was avoidant an asset to being able to say the colors, that there was this sort of effortful suppression that was going on all along and the avoidant people were just better at it. But once they had this high cognitive load, they had to name these digits. And then they had to name the colors. Now they did worse. And they also felt worse about themselves.

Wow. All right. So what I'm hearing is for the people who are avoidantly attached, i.e., the people who have the most practice at suppression, they, when they were given a relatively easy task, they could do to all of that practice, they could still perform well at it. But as things got harder, everything broke down. Yeah, basically, basically. The rest of us were probably even worse at. suppressing. Right. I'm trying to remember how we got to this. I think we were talking about suppressing feelings of loneliness maybe. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And the sense that you're you're so busy working that you just don't have time to make friends, like the I'm here to work. Yeah. Attitude of not wanting to have that little chit chat. I mean, people with friends at work, they're doing better at work, you know. They are performing better at work. They are more likely to be retained at work. You know, they are more motivated at work. And so,

I think it goes along with what we said that, like, yeah, there's this false compartmentalization as if at work, like, we still don't have these fundamental human needs, like the need to belong. But if we try to pretend that, if we try to deny that need, it's inevitably going to affect our ability to succeed in the workplace. Right. Yeah. And to bring this back then to remote workers, I think the challenge that a lot of remote workers are facing is how to create that consistency. Yes. Because oftentimes, you know, you might, as a remote worker, or be able to call a friend for a cup of coffee, maybe even once a month, but once a month is still like insufficient for the daily need. I mean, it's like food, really, you know? Social interaction is like food. You need it every day. Yeah. And you're going to really have to go out of your way to find it. Like I said, like making your friends or colleagues, inviting people to co-work with you, if that's a possibility that you could do, joining a co-working space, if that's, you know, something that you have access to, putting informal, like, check-ins, a weekly check-ins, like, just kind of asking people whether they want to form some way of connecting weekly

with you so that you have that throughout the week and you have it automatic. It's like when we don't have the infrastructure, we kind of have to create the infrastructure for ourselves. Right. Now, one of the points that you make in here, I was thinking about this for the people, the podcast listeners who are parents, you talked about another study called a boat, Oh, the Bobo doll experiment. Yeah.

That's the famous one in psychology. Yeah, tell us about that one. Oh, this is a classic one. Basically, these kids were able to watch people interact with this, like, big grinning doll, Bobo. That sounds terrifying. It was kind of terrifying. I sure these videos have been on YouTube.

Anyway, so some of the kids just kind of watch people interact with Bobo more peacefully, but other kids watch people kind of punch Bobo and attack Bobo. And then when the kids went in to interact with the Bobo themselves, they basically replicated what they saw earlier. If they saw someone attack Bobo, they would then attack Bobo. If they saw them playing peacefully with Bobo, they'd be more likely to play peacefully. And so Bobo doll experiment, it's kind of a symbol of how we learn. We have these formalized universities and a lot of the ways that we learn in school.

It feels like it's more like intellectual. Like you're telling the information and I become a vessel to receive it. But in fact, a lot of the ways we learn are just by observing the world around us and taking in the world around us and we become natural replicators of what we see. And so that, for me, that leads to two thoughts. One is that for people who are listening to this who are parents, parents role modeling strong friendships in their own life, that naturally teaches your children to also develop or to prioritize strong friendships in their lives. Yes. Which, as we know, has a lot of positive health consequences. Exactly.

The other thing that that makes me think of is that famous quote from the management guru Jim Rohn, who says that you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time around. And so, you know, we've talked a lot about the quantity of friendships and the frequency of social interactions. But I think the part we haven't touched on is screening for quality friends. Yes. Because you will naturally be boboing, right? You will naturally be like learning from and therefore imitating. the people that you choose to spend time around. Right.

Yes. And I think one of the most important qualities in a healthy friendship is this thing called mutuality, which means that I am looking at my friend's needs and my needs and trying to balance them at any given time. So I'm not always expecting my friends to sacrifice themselves for me. I'm not always like, you drive an hour to come see me. I'm not going to drive to see you, right? Or I'm not asking my friends to do things that will require them to sacrifice their

sense of autonomy. Like, you know, if a friend really hates going to the movies, I'm not going to get mad of them for not come to the movies with me because I'm thinking about how do we fulfill both of our needs. And in these unhealthy friendships, you see that I guess there's a bit of like selfishness or I'm only thinking about myself. I'm only thinking about how you impact me. I'm only thinking about how I feel. I'm not thinking about how you feel as well. I'm not thinking about how we can get both of our needs met in this relationship. And so I think we find those quality friends when we find friends that are sort of like,

I guess, like, considerate of us and one of them makes happy. I mean, it's as simple as that, while also keeping retaining their own sense of self. Right, right. And to that end, you write about the distinction between individual boundaries and communal boundaries. That's a framework I hadn't heard before. And that was interesting. So can you describe the distinction between individual boundaries and communal boundaries? Yeah. Prentice and Pill. They wrote, boundaries are the distance, which I could love you and myself at the same time. And that's what I think we're really getting at with communal boundaries are like, I know what I can't do for you, but I also ask myself, what can I do for you? Right. So I'm trying to consider both of us. And so let's

say that I can't make my friend's wedding. And it's a really big deal for them. I try to make sure that they are taking care of in other ways. Like I'm like, I'm still going to send you a gift or I'm still going to send right you this really, really thoughtful card. It's like instead of seeing boundaries as all or none, thinking about how can we find win wins or how can I find ways of taking my boundaries, but also finding ways to say that I am considering you too, and I, you know, love you too. And it requires some sort of like creativity sometimes, right? Like, let's say our friend wants to hang out and we really can't. You know, you're a parent. You don't have much time. And so, you know, individualistic boundaries might be like, I really can't see you. Like, I need to

prioritize my family. And so we, our friend doesn't get their need met at all and we get our need met. Camatal boundaries might be, okay, where can we creatively find intersections between what I need and what you need? Maybe we meet up for coffee during the workday. Maybe we co-work together on Mondays. Maybe you're willing to come into the things that I'm already doing, like exercising, so that I can find ways to meet the needs of both of us. We'll come back to this episode in just a minute. But first.

You write about anger. You write about vulnerability, about authenticity, kind of how to manage a lot of these emotional attributes that are valuable in sustaining long-term friendships and also. in sustaining long-term workplace relationships. You know, it's like, actually, because we haven't talked about anger yet, let's chat briefly about that because expressing anger to a friend or to a colleague is difficult to do without damaging that relationship.

Yeah. Can you talk a bit about when the objective is to maintain healthy long-term relationships, that anger can be expressed? Yeah. So I think I have certainly associated anger with something. called anger of despair, which is like you want to seek vengeance on someone, you want to punish them. And I was very avoidant of like anger and confrontation and feeling like, oh, gosh, like, this is going to make things way worse. And what I found when I started reading the research

was that when people had conflict that felt empathic, it actually was correlated with having a deeper relationship and that people that are able to have conflict in healthy ways, they're more popular, or less lonely, you know, tend to be closer to people. And so I came across the second concept, which was anger of hope. And anger of hope is like people that have hope that they can basically heal the problem that's between them. It's like a growth mindset, I guess. And when you express anger of hope, it looks really different in that there's more perspective taking. You are trying to share your reality and hear the other persons. You're not trying to put them down. You're trying to share your truth while being as kind as you possibly can. And so that looks like start.

starting with like framing the conversation. So this could be in work, outside of work. Framing means indicating that you're addressing this issue as an act of love. And so I wanted to talk to you because I know that you've been late for the last couple of meetings. And I want us to be able to work really well together. So I figure we should talk about anything that, you know, is coming up between us. Right. And so, and as friends, this is going to look more like, I love you.

Our friendship is so important. And this has been on my mind. I just didn't want to make withdraw. I don't want to, you know, have it come up between us. So I wanted to bring this up. It looks like sharing, I feel statements instead of you did this. So, you know, I felt hurt. I felt upset when this happened instead of you're a bad friend where you need to get your act together.

You're not good at your job, right? It looks like perspective taking. Okay, like what's been going on in your end that's been impacting, you know, your ability to show up? Maybe there's a reason this person's chronically late that would be really compelling and would change the way that you perceive the situation. And so it's a lot more of a reconcending. reconciliation than it is in tack. And honestly, this was my biggest growth area in writing platonic. I was really not good at addressing things with friends. I would kind of back away and hope that I get over it. And I realized that I wasn't getting over it. And I was just withdrawing. And I think so many times friendships end because we don't make the unsaid said. And so I had to grow the strength to make the unsaid said. And now I was just on a trip with one of my best friends. And every day we'd be like, okay, like, let's check in. Anything that I did that bothered you? Like it just, it was. It was. We've normalized set president for like confrontation, being an act of love and an act of reconciliation. Right.

That makes me think of the adage. It's not you versus me. It's us versus the problem. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think when you're on the receiving end, like one other factor that determines whether a relationship is healthy is that when someone approaches you with a need, you respond with responsiveness rather than defensiveness. Defensiveness is why do you have that need? This isn't actually my problem.

This is actually your fault for these reasons. Responsiveness is this is valid. Because it's a need of yours, it's valid to me. And so let's figure out a way that I can fulfill this need. And again, sometimes it's going to have to be a little bit more creative if it's going to require you to sacrifice your needs. But trying to come on with, my friend was willing to address this with me rather than just backing away, that's a sign that they're really invested in this relationship with me.

and I want to try to make them happy in this relationship because I love and value them. Like, that's what healthy relationships look like. Excellent. Well, we're coming to the end of our time. Is there anything that I have not asked about that you would like to emphasize? Well, this is a tip that I tends to resonate with people that I share when it comes to making friends. And that's the idea of assuming people like you. For the science nerds, there's research behind this that when people report, basically assuming

they're being rejected when it's ambiguous. Like your friend is tired, your friend's grumpy, you don't know if they hate you or they're like really hungry. People that tend to assume they're being rejected, they reject. They become cold. They become withdrawn. And when people are told that you're going to go into this group and based on your personality profile, people will like you, and this is deception. It's not true. But they find that people actually go into the group warmer and friendlier toward others. And so it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy called the acceptance prophecy. And so if you want to connect with people, I know it's normal to feel insecure and feel really afraid of rejection, but also having a second voice telling you that they might just like you

and they might just like really appreciate that you reached out. Right. And that goes to the tips that you give in terms of trying to to make friendships, initiate some type of social activity, assume that they like you, and then just keep following up, you know? Yeah. Hoverd avoidance, make it automatic. Yeah. There's science to it. The science of friendship. Yes. That might be our episode title. I think we nailed it.

The science of friendship. Thank you to Dr. Marissa Franco. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Number one, developing fulfilling friendships is difficult and it can fall by the wayside as adults get busy with work, with families, with the stuff of life, with buying rental properties and researching stuff. and starting side hustles. But in spite of all of that, developing connections needs to be intentionally prioritized. Friendship is not simply a nice to have.

It's an absolutely critical component of living a healthy life. And not developing those connections creates a major negative impact on our lives, on our health, on our happiness, and ultimately on our productivity and our net worth. Friendship is community is so central to both our physical and our mental health. I was just reading a meta-analysis, as one does, the other day. And actually, it found that lack of social network made people more vulnerable to contracting PTSD than did the severity of the trauma itself. So that was wild. And I think if you've heard anything about connection, there's this commonly cited statistic that's loneliness is as toxic at smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

Met analyses have found that diet obviously affects our longevity. Exercise affects our longevity. but our social networks affects our longevity more than diet or exercise. This is an absolutely crucial topic that has strong ramifications for our health, our longevity, our happiness, and our productivity and our ability to make money and to stay in the game for as long as possible. So that is the first key takeaway. Key takeaway number two, loneliness at work can impact productivity, both at an individual level and also at a broad company level, it's essential to invest in building connections.

And what's challenging is that both employees and employers might sometimes have a hard time fostering connection, even if they want it. I call it the myth of the employee when I speak on loneliness at work. And it's this idea that we go into work and we become employees and we don't have these fundamental human needs anymore, like the need to belong. But we see in the research that employees that are lonely are more likely to miss work, they don't perform as well, their teams are less cohesive. A lonely workplace is inherently less functional than a well-connected workplace. So the first thing I want to say is that we still need

connection, even if it's related to work. And so how do we create that connection? The thing that we need to understand is that we're just going to have to be very intentional about it. If we're passive, we can just end up really lonely because of the infrastructure in which we're living in, which really lacks the ability for social connection. So one thing that I suggest that, to people is to make your colleagues, your friends. So I do co-work with friends and invite them over and then we'll do work together. That is the second key takeaway. Finally, key takeaway number three, finding others to connect with can sound daunting.

So we need to keep a few factors in mind when we embark on developing friendships. And these factors refute some popular assumptions and help provide a foundation for building and maintaining connections. First, finding a place to reconnect with people, I think is really important. Second, not assuming it happens organically, like I said, because that's actually related to being lonelier over time, whereas people that see it as taking effort are less lonely. Third is, like, how can you create that same infrastructure we had as kids? Like, for some of us that might look like, I want to join a co-working place, or I'm going to set this up with my friend where every Monday we are going to work together. We're going to co-work together. Every Friday we're going to co-work together.

you create that infrastructure with someone else so that you are able to connect with them. And fourth, I will say that I do think having like virtual meetings with someone, it's kind of like a little bit less ideal, ideal form of connection as connecting in person, but it still does something for us. You know, it's not like zero sum here. And research actually finds that for people that don't have the option of connecting in person, how they connect online is even more meaningful for the overall success and satisfaction with the relationship. Those are three key takeaways from this conversation with Dr. Marissa Franco. Share what you thought about this episode.

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