Instant Genius - How to form more meaningful relationships

Episode Date: June 23, 2024

It’s well established that human beings are social animals who thrive on making connections with others. But did you know that developing and maintaining nourishing relationships is just as vital to our health as eating a nutritious diet or taking regular exercise? In this episode, we catch up with science writer David Robson to talk about his new book The Laws of Connection: 13 Social Strategies That Will Transform Your Life. He tells us how human beings have evolved to crave shared experiences, how lending a helping hand to someone in need can improve our wellbeing and why we shouldn’t be so afraid of speaking to strangers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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audio.com to learn more. Hello and welcome to Instant Genius, a bite-sized masterclass in podcast form. Twice weekly, you'll hear world-leading scientists and experts talking about the most fascinating ideas in science and technology today. I'm Jason Goodyear, commissioning editor, a BBC science focus. It's well established that human beings are social animals who thrive on making connections with others. But did you know that developing and maintaining nourishing relationships is just a

as vital to our health as eating a nutritious diet or taking regular exercise. In this episode, I catch up with science writer David Robson to talk about his new book, The Laws of Connection, 13 social strategies that will transform your life. He tells us how human beings have evolved to crave shared experiences, how lending a helping hand to someone in need can improve our well-being, and why we shouldn't be so afraid of speaking to strangers. So welcome to the podcast, Thanks very much for joining us. It's my pleasure. Yeah, thanks for inviting me on.

So today we're talking about your new book, The Laws of Connection, and it's all about the human need for social connection. So let's start with the big question then. Why is this so important? So humans evolved as a social species. Other primates are social, but humans have evolved to live in like bigger and bigger groups. And so that meant that social connection was really essential for our survival. And it seems that we actually, because it was so important for our survival, first of all, we

evolved this kind of response, the kind of loneliness response in our brains that brings that very painful emotional feeling when you're socially excluded to warn you that you're maybe not getting the social connection that you need and you need to tend your relationships. So that's why, you know, it can feel so hurtful when we do feel isolated. But also, we evolved physiological responses to deal. with the dangers that would have come from isolation. So if you think back to our evolutionary past and you're kicked out of your group,

you're at a much greater danger of being attacked by predators or by hostile human beings. So the body does things like raises its levels of inflammation, which can help you to deal with infection if you're wounded, and also of blood clotting factor, which can help the wound to heal and prevent blood loss. You know, great short-term responses. but actually if you're feeling lonely day after day, week after week, year after year,

we know that things like increased inflammation can be implicated in a host of different diseases, things like diabetes, Alzheimer's, heart disease, you know, how likely you are to have a heart attack or type of stroke. Now, that's exactly what we find when we look at these big longitudinal studies examining the potential connection between loneliness and mortality, is that loneliness increases the risk of all of those illnesses and ultimately your risk of an early death. And that's been very well established over hundreds of studies. And what I think is not so well recognised by the public, but is absolutely recognised by organisations like the World Health Organisation now, is that social connection is really as essential for living a long and healthy life as things like exercise or obesity.

So that's the physical effects of isolation and loneliness. How about the mental effects? Yeah, so, I mean, there are plenty of mental effects of loneliness. So it does predispose you to all kinds of mental illnesses, most obviously depression. And, you know, in the workplace, like how well you get on with your colleagues, is one of the best predictors of whether you're going to experience burnout. So it's hugely important for our mental health. But actually, you know, there's benefits to social connection.

So the opposite of loneliness. People who are more socially connected tend to be a bit more creative. They find inspiration more easily. And that's because they're just exposed to more ideas, more perspectives, they're more likely to receive feedback that can help them to refine their projects. So it's hugely beneficial, you know, for pretty much everything that we value in life, social connection can enhance that. So we'll look into some of those effects in a moment. But first, we've got a problem with loneliness these days and isolation. Lots of people are feeling lonely or isolated. So sort of a two-for question.

What sort of proportion of people are feeling this way? And how has that happened? So, I mean, it depends on how you measure loneliness. You know, according to the kind of questionnaires that have been used by like the US Surgeon General, for example. You know, around 50% of US citizens feel lonely. fairly regularly in their life. And I actually think, you know, just anecdotally talking to people from my own experiences, you know, that seems about right, really. It's very rare for you to meet someone and for them to say that they have the absolute optimum social life without craving

more connection. Now, loneliness, you know, it's not just about physical isolation. It's also about feeling understood and supported what we call existential isolation, the sense that maybe you might be at a party or you might be at the cinema in the theatre, you're the only person who doesn't really get what's going on around you. Everyone's laughing and you're sitting there alone. That's existential isolation. And it's the kind of thing when I, you know, sometimes would, you know, wake up at like two or three in the morning and you're suddenly hit with this sense that, you know, you might be near people, but you're also alone. Both of those are important for our health and well-being. Now, the question of, you know, has it always been like this or is this a modern phenomenon?

you know, that's still a matter of debate, even though I think, you know, there's this general idea in the zeitgeist that loneliness has increased over the last few decades. There's very little data to support that view, actually. The surveys that we do have from, you know, across the 20th century suggest that loneliness was probably with us for a long time. And so you can look at social changes that we've experienced. Stuff like, you know, urbanization people kind of moving away from the villages in which they lived, living in, you know, tower blocks where maybe they don't know their neighbours so much. And I'm sure that is having some kind of effect. But, you know, the fact is that even if you were living in the same small town that you grew up in,

surrounded by people who are all very familiar, and you know them to, you know, look at, to say hi in the street, to have that kind of small talk, the fact is even then you could still have been experiencing that existential isolation. And actually, if you read, know, diaries from people in the 19th century or 20th century, they often do express exactly that. They might, you know, have physical presence of people that they know, but they don't feel connected to them. So that's why I think loneliness is something that has probably afflicted humans, you know, for as long as we've been around. Yeah, so this sort of all boils down to meaningful connections, right? Right.

So what are the characteristics of a meaningful connection? So, I mean, to escape that existential isolation, what we really need with people is what psychologists call a shared reality. And that's the sense that the person that you're speaking to or the people around you are experiencing the world in the same way as you. You know, at a very visceral level. So they're thinking the same things. They're, you know, feeling the same things. You know, if you're listening to a song together that they're kind of they're having that a full suite of emotions that you're. are. Now, you know, we know from questionnaires, you know, you ask people like, how often, for example,

do you end each other's sentences or find that you say the same thing at the same time as each other? These are measures of shared reality that are very good at predicting people's relationship closeness and, you know, ultimately how satisfied they are with the relationships, how invested they are in the relationships. Relationships really, you know, a constellation of all of these little moments where you just suddenly realize that the other person is on the same wavelength as you. Let's talk about different personality types then. I think this is interesting. So people often talk about introverts and extroverts. So how do their social connections and social connection styles differ? I don't think we can deny that there is this kind of spectrum from

introversion to extroversion that depends on how gregarious and assertive you are. Lots of people are kind of roughly in the middle. So they're those, we call them ambivorts. They're neither fully introvert nor fully extrovert. But what the research shows us is that actually when you're looking at people's capacity to form social connections, it doesn't really matter where you lay on that scale. Everyone can benefit from trying to be a little bit more sociable, to talk to new people, to make friends with strangers. So even the introverts, they can benefit, they do feel better, once they've been to a social event, once they've been to a party. The big difference actually seems to be in what they predict will happen.

Introverts just seem to be a bit more pessimistic. Beforehand, they are pretty certain they're not going to enjoy some new social interaction with someone they don't know. But afterwards, they do show a boost in their well-being, just like the extroverts. So maybe the differences between the two aren't as pronounced as we sometimes imagine they are. And crucially, if you are an introvert, and you feel this craving for connection,

but you believe that your personality is holding you back. What the research really suggests is that if you do just push yourself out of your comfort zone, actually you will find that satisfying. And ultimately, you might be able to recalibrate those expectations, so you feel happier going into those situations. So sort of related to that, in the book, you talk about social confidence, which a lot of people struggle with. So how can they build that up?

you know, what sort of advice could you give them? Yeah, so I mean, I think like social confidence and our social skills in general really is something that comes with practice. In that way, it's not so different from learning a musical instrument or a new sport. For example, you might be very hesitant and tentative to start with, but the more you do it, the better you get and the more confident you feel. One of my favourite studies set up this kind of scavenger hunt situation where they gave people an app that set different goals that they could complete each day. And it was, you know, things like talk to someone in the park with a cute dog or praise someone for their crazy dress sense when you see them today. Now, what they find was that at the start,

you know, lots of people, and I, you know, I think even some extroverts would have been among these people, they felt quite nervous about those interactions with strangers. I worried that they were going to be rejected, that the conversation would be awkward. They didn't thing they would enjoy it very much. But after just one week of completing these little tasks, those people had recalibrated those beliefs. So actually, they came to expect a friendly interaction. They didn't really fear being rejected. They knew that, you know, if there was any awkwardness, they would overcome it. And actually, it would be much more pleasant than they expected. You know, they really began to relish these opportunities. And I feel like that's an amazing

change in social confidence over just one week. I think Often the reason that we do fear talking to strangers is we just don't do it enough. And so we always forget how pleasant it actually was when we did do it, you know. And what's happening here when you just practice your social skills every day in these slightly challenging situations that are just outside of your comfort zone, you're just reinforcing the memory that actually, you know, 99 times out of 100, those interactions are really pleasurable. They give you a mood boost.

they probably help to boost the mood of the other person too, and you go away from it just feeling great. So it's like sort of exercising your social muscle. Yeah, that's exactly how I see it, as a kind of muscle that can be built very quickly. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. You said this place was steps from the water.

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Today, in partnership with French acoustic specialist focal, name audio creates systems that deliver exceptional sound, and unforgettable listening experiences at home. Try it for yourself at a focal powered by name boutique. Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. So key in building nourishing relationships is being able to understand the perspective of others. So in the book you discuss something called egocentric thinking. So what is that and what can we do to combat it?

So most neurotypical people have what's known as a theory of mind, which just means that you can recognise that someone else might not have the same perspective, the same knowledge, the same beliefs that you. do. So, you know, if you look up the famous test of that is the Sallian test, and we find that for most people, that develops in early childhood. Now, what has become clear recently is just because we have the capacity to exercise our theory of mind doesn't mean that we actually use it very often. And so, you know, in a surprising number of cases, people just forget to consider the other person's perspective. They anchor their thinking in their own perspective. You know, that can be

as simple as just forgetting that another person, you know, visually, they have a different perspective so they can't see what you're seeing. It's also a failure to recognize that, say, the words that you speak are quite ambiguous and that they won't necessarily come to the same conclusions that you were trying to convey. My favorite example of that in the book concerned Edgar Hoover, who wrote on his memos, Watch the Borders. He was the head of the FBI, and all of his staff went into this kind of panic thinking that there was something happening in the US borders, you know, some impending attack. They were quite scared of him, so they basically were too scared to actually ask him what he meant.

And it took a couple of days for them to realise that he was meaning, watched the borders of the paper because he didn't think they had wide enough margins for him to make his notes on. He was not concerned about the US's international borders. That's just one example of this phenomenon that we call the illusion of understanding. but it's very common and it's really, I think one of the big reasons for misunderstandings, for arguments is just the fact that the two parties are operating on different assumptions and we never actually stop to check that the other person understands exactly what we mean. So what can we do to avoid putting ourselves in a situation like that?

So the kind of advice that you would find in self-help books of the past, you know, from people like Dale Carnegie, would be just to consider. consciously try to take the other perspective. So that's, you know, basically a reminder, exercise your theory of mind. And like, absolutely, I think that's like a good piece of advice in general, you know, no harm in doing that if there's no other option. But the problem is that is very imperfect, actually, and we often have too much confidence in our perspective-taking abilities. Like imagination is not as good as actually just asking someone, you know, what do you think and what do you believe? And the research shows that this is true with strangers, but it's also

very true with the people who we think we know best. We overestimate how much we actually understand their thoughts and opinions and beliefs. And so we're very often wrong when we're asked, you know, will they like this comedian? Will they enjoy this concert? What do they think of this politician? You know, you can ask people that about their spouses and in a kind of, I guess like a Mr and Mrs kind of game. And, you know, very often very wrong, but they think they're right much more than they actually are. And, you know, that's one of my laws of connection, really,

is actually just check your assumptions. Be humble, check your assumptions, even if you think, you know, someone really well. And one of the pleasures of long-term relationships is actually being surprised by them. You know, people are infinitely complex. And you can deepen your relationship, whether you've known someone for a week

or whether you've known someone for 40 years. there will be elements of their personality, they're going to surprise you, and we should embrace that. So you mentioned they're asking questions. So one key element of social connection is having meaningful conversations. So what are some sort of common traps that people fall into there, and how can we avoid them? Yeah, I mean, there's a few traps. One is just that we don't ask enough questions and we don't ask enough follow-up questions to show our curiosity about what someone's just said. that's also related to the sins of inattention, as I call them. And, you know, the problem is that actually even when we are really listening to someone quite intently,

we don't necessarily demonstrate that. We might rely on what's called paralinguistic cues, which is like, you know, murmuring a scent, like, mm-hmm, aha, yeah. You know, we think it's obvious that the other person knows that we're actually taking on board what they're saying, but it's very easily faked. and I think we probably all have engaged in that kind of trickery as well when we're not really listening and we're just kind of saying what we know we have to say, our mind is somewhere completely different.

So the best way to actually show full attention is to just be explicit about it, to verbalise your agreement with what they're saying, to maybe offer another example of what they've said, or to reiterate and paraphrase what they've said, or to kind of question one particular detail of what they've said. You can't really fake that. If you weren't listening, you can't. fake those explicit linguistic cues, so we should just be using those more often to validate

what someone's saying. So another topic that you talk about in the book is praise and compliments. So I found this really interesting because personally I'm terrible at taking compliments. It often makes me feel awkward. So, you know, what's going on there and what could I be doing better? I mean, in general, people don't compliment enough. That's what the research says, that people do tend to enjoy receiving compliments more than we think. I think maybe it is tempered with a bit of uncertainty, like you say, about how to act when we're given the compliment. We might really appreciate the words that someone's saying to us,

but we don't know how to take that graciously. I'm not one of those people, actually, I just have always really loved receiving compliments, and I guess I just see it as like receiving a gift. It's just, I think, like, what I tried to do is just focus on the kindness of what someone's saying in the warmth, and just to recognize that, like, they're saying something because they want you to feel good and because they're kind of seeing you.

And so actually, just to thank you, just to let them know that you recognize that fact, I think, you know, that can take out the awkwardness. Also, I think we have this fear of seeming kind of big-headed. I don't think people really read that from our behaviour when we're receiving compliments. What I really learned from, you know, every single chapter of my book was actually just that we read too much into, you know, our little, like, reactions and conversations. Like, we think they're far more revealing than they really are, but actually people aren't really focusing that hard or judging you on how you respond to a compliment. People are just much less judgmental than we believe they are.

So you mentioned their big-headedness. So that's quite interesting. So one sort of common phenomena, I think it's been amplified by social media is, you know, bragging or showing off or the perception of that. You know, people will post holiday picks, or I'm in the Maldives, or, you know, I've just completed a marathon, or look at this amazing meal I've just eaten or I've just cooked. So if we are going to do something like that, how can we avoid sort of coming across like that and alienating our friends? Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of the ways that social media may be harming social connection is actually that we're all putting up this kind of polished. veneer of our achievements and we're not really letting people know the kind of challenges that we're

facing to. I actually think just being more honest about the kind of full scope of your life, it will help your friends to recognize that when you have achieved something, they'll know the struggles that you've been through. So they're less likely to see you as being kind of big-headed because of that. But also, you'll feel more connection with them too, because you'll feel more empathy from them when you do talk about some of the difficulties. that you faced. This is a phenomenon that we call the beautiful mess effect. And it's that actually, you know, we worry too much about people judging our vulnerabilities as kind of a sign of weakness or feeling alienated from them, but actually opening up about some of the things that are

imperfect in our lives. We're often pleasantly surprised by the empathy that we receive and other people don't see it as a sign of weakness. They actually see that as a sign of courage, that you were willing to share something that wasn't, you know, polished and varnished. So my advice actually really is to just share more of ourselves in every way possible. We can share our weaknesses and people will see that as courage. We can also share our achievements. And, you know, as long as you're honest about your achievements and you're not kind of engaging in social comparison explicitly by kind of tearing other people down to prove how great you are, as long as you do those two things, people are generally very positive about sharing your achievements and successes, and actually

they engage in this emotion that we call con felicity, which is just vicarious joy at someone else's happiness. If you know that they're just being honest and they are genuinely pleased and proud, more than likely they're just going to be happy for you. So that's sort of like the opposite of Sheldon fraud. Yeah, exactly. And that's actually this German word, Mitreider, which, you know, says exactly that. It's feeling joy with someone else, rather than at their misfortunes. So related to that, then, let's have a look at the effect of helping one another. You know, what effect does that have on both parties?

Yeah, I mean, this is a game. Like, I just found this so optimistic. I'm the kind of person who tended to struggle by myself if I had a problem. Like, I hated asking for help. And that came partly from my kind of shyness and also just the fact I didn't want to be a burden to other people. And again, you know, there's this kind of fear. that by asking for help, you're putting yourself in this vulnerable position where they might consider you to be kind of incapable. It will damage their perceptions of your competency and capability.

But the research shows, you know, this is a big psychological barrier to connection because actually people often really like being asked for help. You know, it's quite flattering, actually, to be told that someone values enough and trusts you enough to ask you for help. So it can enhance connection in that way. That's called the Benjamin Franklin effect, because in his autobiography, he described how he turned a rival politician into one of his greatest allies just by asking this guy for a favor. He asked to borrow one of the guy's books from his private library. And, you know, ever after that moment, this guy had a lot more respect for Franklin, and they

did form a very good friendship. And that's been replicated in experiments, that, you know, asking for favors can often be the best way of increasing someone's regard for you. Now, there's also an advantage of providing help. Obviously, you know, people are grateful for your support, but there's also this kind of selfish benefit that comes from helping. There's research showing that actually by engaging in generous behaviour, we actually get our own well-being boost. It makes us feel happy, just to have been able to have made some difference to someone else's life. And it actually suppresses the brain's stress response, which I found very surprising. But you can do brain scans looking at the areas like the amygdala that would light up when people are feeling stressed.

And you see lower activity when someone has engaged in some kind of emotional support to someone else. So this is thought to have evolved maybe from parenting because actually parents, when they're looking after they're young, have to be able to suppress their own stresses to be able to help their young effectively. You know, they can't be flipping out if the baby is kind of injured or endangered, they have to just focus on the task at hand of making sure that they keep that baby safe and healthy. But it seems there's then this kind of knock-on effect. So actually, whenever we help any other person, you experience the same mood boost and stress suppression, which might be one of the reasons that helping others is associated with longevity.

So specifically, you know, being a volunteer, for example, tends to be associated with a longer life. Also, people who regularly help their friends and family members seem to live longer than those who don't. So even in the best relationship, we don't always see eye to eye. So how can we cope better when we do disagree? I mean, I wrote this chapter really being very conscious of the kind of polarized political climate that we're all experiencing in England, in the US, you know, and in lots of countries, where actually surveys suggest that people often assume that they can't even agree over the basic facts of certain social or political issues. Now, that is clearly a big rupture in the sense of shared reality that you're going to have with those people. So the big question is, you know, what can you do to review? repair that shared reality. Now, I was really heartened to find that actually, you know, it is possible to have really constructive conversations about our disagreements and the ways to do that are often pretty simple. So one strategy that just, you know, we neglect, but it's so super important is to just demonstrate actual genuine curiosity and interest in the other person's

point of view. So you're not trying to persuade them initially. You just ask them, like, why do you believe this. You just dig deeper. You know, you tell them that you want to know, what they're thinking and where that opinion came from. And what the research shows is that for the other person, that just lowers their defences. They recognize that you're open to creating this shared reality. And so they actually become much more humble in their opinions. They're less likely to express like very strong, polarized opinions, more likely to see some of the potential holes in their argument, and to recognise the merits of your argument. So even if you don't actually manage to change their opinion

and they don't change your opinion by the end of that conversation, at least you can come to this kind of mutual understanding where you can recognise, say, the moral values that lay at the heart of what they were thinking. And that's one way of healing this rift. So we've covered quite a lot of ground there. So by way of summary, other than buying the book, what sort of key piece of advice would you give to someone listening who wants to improve their social connections?

Yes, I've got a couple of things. I think firstly, if you're the kind of person who tends to be quite negative and anxious about your capacity to build a greater social network, I'd say one of the best things you can do is just to practice more self-compassion. Now, there's lots of great resources online. I kind of provide links to them in my book, but there's loads of ways that you can do this. you can do something like writing a letter to yourself as if you were writing to a friend, for example, just trying to be a bit more forgiving of the errors that you make and recognizing that,

you know, you're probably catastrophizing some of these things. Like the faux par that you think was really important probably wasn't even noticed by the other person. And even if it was, it almost certainly wasn't as important as you think it was. There's loads of research showing that self-compassion is just really good for our health and well-being in general. It's a really good mindset to cultivate. But I think it's especially important if we're trying to build our social confidence to just try to be a little kinder to ourselves

and that will make your interactions with others so much smoother and just it's a kind of self that those anxieties you might be feeling. And secondly, and related to this, I just think try to be just a little bit braver. What the research that I've uncovered really tells us is just that our expectations

are often just too pessimistic. And so just push yourself out of your comfort zone. And the more you practice, the more confident that you'll become. And you can't expect everyone you meet to become your best friend. But the fact is, you know, the more you practice this, the more likely you are to meet those kind of platonic soulmates that will really enrich your life. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius.

Brought to you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was science writer David Robson. To discover more about the topics we've just discussed, check out his latest book, The Laws of Connection, 13 social strategies that will transform your life. If you liked what you just heard, please do consider subscribing to Instant Genius on your podcast platform of choice. The current issue at BBC Science Focus magazine is out now. Pick up a copy wherever you buy your favourite magazines or download us on your preferred app store. You can also find us online at sciencefocus.com.

podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analogue warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist focal, name creates high-end audio systems, combining innovation with craftsmanship, so you can listen to music, just as the artist intended. Discover more at name audio.com.