Offline with Jon Favreau - Chatbots, MDMA, and Finding Love in the Digital Era

Episode Date: May 30, 2026

Sonja Lyubomirsky, happiness researcher and author of How to Feel Loved, joins Offline to explain the secret to living a contented life—and why the internet makes it so damn hard. If everyone we love and seek to impress is reachable at all times…why are Americans getting less happy, year after year? Sonja and Jon chat about how social media curation may be seeping offline, the ways our digital lives have affected our ability to form strong relationships, and whether AI could actually help bring under-socialized, under-romanced teens out of their shells.

I'm Dan Pfeiffer. For years, I've heard from candidates, activists, and political staffers who turned to Podsafe of America for political strategy and messaging advice because they don't have access to a political consultant or a pollster. That's flattering to hear, but it's a huge problem. If we're going to defeat MAGA and protect democracy, we need everyone to have access to the best information and advice possible. That's why I recently launched MessageBox Pro, a subscription consulting product for people working at every level of politics. Subscribers get weekly strategy memos, data-driven messaging insights and polling analysis. Plus, you get access to an incredible community of smart, committed political pros. Whether you're running for office, staffing a politician, organizing your community,

or working in communications at any level, messagebox pro is built for you. So learn more or sign up. Go to messageboxpro.com. A chatbot is going to be the best listener you've ever had in your life, right? Because I'll remember everything you ever said and exactly how you said it. So you can't compete with that, right? you can't compete with listening to learn or curiosity, right? They'll ask you lots of questions in a way, and they'll keep asking in a way that a human will get tired, right?

Our brain is sort of co-opted, and we think, yeah, when that AI companion is sharing about their experience, we think that's real. The one part that I find it hard to imagine is that open heart, right, that the AI actually really loves me and wants me to be happy. I'm John Fabro, and you're not. You just heard from today's guest Sonia Lubermerski, author of How to Feel Loved. Sonia is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and one of the the nation's foremost researchers on the science of happiness. Happiness is, of course, one of those elusive endeavors in which every self-help guru

claims to hold the key. We've heard their recommendations. Spend more time with your loved ones, exercise more, get outside, put down the phone. But not many people have compiled the research Sonia has on what truly makes us happy. To some extent, her findings are simple. The people who feel the most love feel the most happiness. More connection equals more happiness. But somehow, in an age when we're more connected than ever, so many of us feel more unhappy

than ever before. And if you listen to the show, I'm sure that sounds familiar. I invited Sonia on because I wanted to talk about why all that connection isn't making us happier. In fact, why it might be making us less happy. We chatted about why it's so hard to feel love over the phone, the ways our digital lives have affected our ability to form strong relationships and what it'll take for us, both as individuals and as a society, to find happiness in this current moment. It was a conversation

I'm very thankful to have had. We'll get to it in a moment, but before we do, please consider becoming a crooked media subscriber if you haven't already so that you don't miss out on any of the great content we're putting out for our friends of the pod. Subscribers get our new extra episode of Pod Save America called Pod Save America Only Friends, other subscriber only shows like Polarcoaster with Dan Pfeiffer. Access to all of our excellent substack newsletters like Pots Save America open tabs, add free episodes of all your favorite Crockettpods, and you get to feel good about supporting one of the few independent,

proudly pro-democracy media outlets left in Trump's America. So head to cricket.com slash friends and subscribe. All right, let's get to it. Here's Sonia Lubermerski. Sonia, thanks for coming in. Pleasure to be here. I wanted to talk to you for offline because I think your latest book, How to Feel Loved, has a lot to do with our digital lives.

and it's also doing something different from, I think, what people would expect from a happiness researcher. The premise is that being loved and feeling loved are two different things, and that an awful lot of people who are surrounded by people who love them still walk around feeling unseen. So we'll start there. What is the gap between those two things and how big is it? Yeah. Well, my co-author, Harry Wiese and I actually did a survey expressly for the book. And we ask people if they feel loved. And 70% said they don't feel as loved as they'd like to be in at least one relationship in their life.

And 40% said they wanted to feel more loved by their romantic partners. I actually think those numbers are understatements. Yeah. It was a hard thing to admit. Yeah. So that's a lot. That's a lot of people who are not feeling loved. And feeling loved, I really think, is the key to happiness.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, in putting it that way about feeling loved, I feel like it puts some responsibility on the reader. Is there a risk in a message that may land as like if you feel unloved, that's on you? Interesting that you would look at that interpretation because we look at it the opposite, which actually is empowering because it is really up to you. It's under your control to feel more love. Because a lot of people, when they don't feel love, they think, oh, I need to somehow make myself more lovable. I need to somehow change the other person and make them love me more.

And we're saying, no, it's actually under your control. You don't have to change yourself. You don't have to change the other person. You just have to change your conversations. A relationship is just a series of conversations. And that seems very controllable and empowering. So that's how I see it is under your power. One more sort of opening question before we get into it.

You're known as a happiness researcher. your whole career has been about what makes people happy. Why did you decide that that feeling loved is upstream from that? It's a great question. So for 36 years, I've been doing research and happiness. And for like 28 of them, my lab and I have been doing what we call happiness interventions. So happiness interventions are experiments with human participants where they're like clinical trials. We're testing whether different happiness strategies make people happier, like doing active kindness, does that make you happier?

Write a gratitude letter. just be more social. And I've discovered, after all these years of doing like, you know, dozens and dozens of these interventions, that almost all of the interventions that work to make us happier, they work precisely because they make us feel more connected to and loved by others. So that's really the key. So when I write a gratitude letter to my mom or my best friend, it makes me feel more loved by them, right? If I do an act of kindness for you, it makes me feel closer to you.

So it's really the key to happiness. So that's why I'm here. And then I decided to partner with like a love scientist to write a book about love and happiness. So it's, you know, as other people have found, it is about connection. But more specifically, it's about the kind of connection that makes you feel more loved. Exactly. So your book opens with the claim that we live in an age of unprecedented connectivity and unprecedented loneliness at the same time. We've talked about that a lot on this show.

the World Happiness Report that came out in March basically says the same thing, youth well-being in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the UK has dropped about 0.86 points on a 0 to 10 scale over the past 20 years. While it's gone up for young people, almost everywhere else in the world, American and English-speaking young adults now rank between 122nd and 133rd out of 136 countries in terms of how much their happiness has changed. what's your read on why the floor is falling out from young people in exactly this slice of the world and not elsewhere? Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's a little bit of a puzzle because people from all over the world have smartphones.

But it's young people, and that's why the U.S. keeps dropping, right? It's whatever it is, the 14 to 28, something like that age range that's dropping. So, I mean, I have a fairly nuanced view of this because I certainly we recognize there's ways that like social media and, And just having, yeah, having texting, whatever, a FaceTime can help us feel more connected to others. So I don't want to discount that. And in fact, a meta-analysis just came out of like a thousand studies or something. And they showed that basically face-to-face connection is the best. Overscreens is second best better than none at all.

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Really great study, Baumeister at all. But what is happening with young people? I mean, partly is that they've never really learned. to have conversations.

I mean, conversations with a human, really. That's like what it's all about, right? That's what makes us feel human. And one of the examples I like to use is, like, when I was young, a friend would come out of my house and they would knock on the door and they would be like, hello, Mrs. Lubomirski, although they probably couldn't pronounce her name. Is Sonia here, right? And they would chat with my mom.

And now what do they do? They just text you and you come out and you don't even have the experience. You skip that step. You skip that step. If that's just one of a million ways that young people aren't, practicing having those conversations. You know, in those schools where they've taken out phones, you see kids during

lunch or recess, right? They're just like, they're like punching each other and they're joking around and right, they're laughing hysterically, like kind of what kids should be doing. So yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm going to tell you anything you don't know, but it is harder to feel loved over a screen, although you can. And then, of course, like, the AIA companions

are here. And this idea, that if you have a young child, their first relationship is probably going to be with an AI, not with a real person. By the way, there's some benefits to that. Maybe they can rehearse and practice how to have a conversation, how to communicate. But that's a whole other layer, right? There's just so much easier to communicate over screens. And then one other thing, again, when I was growing up, if you spent your weekend alone, you know, without seeing people, you were kind of a deviant, right? Like you were not the popular kid. Like you were maybe 5% of kids, right?

We're sort of not social. They were like the unpopular kind of ostracized kids. And now the statistics, I don't remember what they are lately, but they're, they're incredibly surprising, like how many kids, like never see any other person on the weekend. That's become kind of the norm. It certainly makes sense to me, because I talk about this all the time in the show, and I think a lot of our listeners that in-person conversation is superior to digital conversation, but I kind of want to dig in on the why.

There's a passage in the book that sort of jumped out at me that I want to read back to you. How can you truly feel loved when your loved ones only know the rosy side of you? More audition tape than real life. How can you truly feel loved when you worry that unveiling your raw, full, imperfect, innermost self might cost you their love and respect? How can you truly feel the love coming from them when your attention is focused on how you are coming across to them? That reads to me like a description of what social media has done to every conversation and not. just interactions on social media itself. Do you think the curated online self is bleeding into how we show up in person?

So, like, is the Internet making it harder to be vulnerable enough in real life to actually be loved? So fascinating. So, okay, so thank you for actually making it clear that we're talking about social media, right? Because you can do these things over texting or FaceTime phone call. Right. So we know we have these curated personas and everyone thinks, and there's a great study that came out with first year college students. that first year college students think that every other person in their first year is adjusting better than them because they keep seeing videos and photos of here's me and my roommate having fun here's me at a party

and so yeah so they have this this misleading image of how much fun everyone else is having and this is really the key the key to feeling loved is being known right so like if you only see this one side of me and usually it's sort of the polished you know positive side but even if it weren't if it's just a one side, but it's like only 10%, how can I ever feel loved by you? Because I'll always wonder, would you still love me if you knew more, you know, the real me, more of the me, right? It's kind of like when you think about influencers, have all these followers, how can they feel loved? When the followers only see this one little, you know, side of them, they really can't, we argue. You need to be known to feel loved, right? And so, and you're asking, whether that blees into everyday

day conversations. I don't know the answer to that. I haven't actually thought about that. But maybe it does. If you're sort of always used to talking about the best parts of your day and then when you actually are in person and they say, how are you? Like, are you going to be more likely to say, oh, actually, I had this terrible, I had a terrible weekend. It's on, it's you. And then also, I wonder if people think that sharing the more vulnerable parts of their life, things they assume are secret, is not going to be received well by others because, that's not what we encounter day to day because we live so much of our lives online. Right, right. We don't even see it. And there's something called the vulnerability paradox in psychology. Vulnerability paradox, which is this idea that you think people will like you less if you are more vulnerable, share something negative about you. And actually, they like you more. And actually, one of my favorite examples is John F. Kennedy, after the Bay of Pigs, those of you who know what that was, he goes on TV and he like says, I made a mistake.

And his approval ratings shut up. Now, very extreme example. We're not all JFKs, but you have to read the room, so we're not talking about just dumping your traumas on people at the wrong time or the wrong place, right? But it turns out like we think, and there's a great work by Nick Eppley at University of Chicago showing that we think that if we reveal something deep,

or if we ask someone a deep question, is it going to be awkward, we're going to be judged, it can be used against us, or maybe people won't care, worse case scenario. Right. No one cares. Yeah, indifference. Right, indifference, even worse than. than a negative reaction, right? And actually, that's false. Like, on average, people don't respond.

They actually like you a little bit more. Again, as long as you read the room, you need some emotional intelligence. Yes. Offline is brought to you by Incogni. If you've ever gotten one of those scam calls that somehow already knows your name or worse, your address, you realize pretty quickly this stuff isn't random. Your personal data is out there and it's being used. That's where Incogni comes in. Incogni helps you take back control of your personal information online because behind the scenes, data brokers and public databases are collecting and selling your details.

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Naomi gets it and tell you what she thought. Head to greenchef.com. 50 offline and use code 50 offline to get 50% off your first month, then 20% off for two months. That's code 50 offline at greenchef.com slash 50 offline. Younger generations are pursuing romantic relationships, much less than their parents and grandparents did. Your book notes that Gen Z is more than twice as likely to be sexually inactive as Gen X was at the same age. Only 55% of high school seniors in 2015 had never been on a date, down from about 85% for previous generations. And that's pre-pandemic, you know.

What's driving the retreat? Yeah. One more statistic. Sorry. Because it's very vivid. IG, a book by Gene Twangy on this, says that 12th graders today look like eighth graders generations ago. So in terms of driving sex, drugs, alcohol, working outside the home, spending time

with parents versus independently. So yeah, 12th graders look like eighth graders It's probably gotten worse Those are kind of old data So yeah, that's incredible, right? What's driving it? Like, yeah, like lack of experience, fear. There's this great article in the Atlantic

called The Sex Recession. Have you ever read it? I've heard about it, but I've not. You drop everything and read it. I've read it like three times because it's so fascinating and the writer interviews all these young people. They're like teenagers to like 20s

and they're like, you know, it takes too much. work to get past first base. And we're reading it, we're like, what? It's too much work. It's like easier just to stay home, you know, watch porn. And so it's a very different kind of perspective, very different approach and a sort of fear, fear.

What's driving the fear that's different in this generation from other generations? I feel like we all had the fear, but then we were forced to, when you're forced to just jump in the lake and just face it and talk to people who you're attracted to and hang out with other people your age. But if you're in your room, it's like you're afraid of snakes, but you never confront a snake, right? How do you get rid of phobia as you actually confront? Right.

Exposure therapy. Yeah, we all need more exposure therapy. The data on young people in screens is interesting because it seems like they feel like they have to use it because everyone else is. But if given the choice to get rid of them for everybody, they'd rather do that, or at least a majority would be. Yeah, exactly. I remember once visiting a class, it happened to be at UNC Chapel Hill, and we're

talking about this and everyone in the class said, yeah, I want to get off of it, but like, exactly, like, because otherwise I'd be ostracized. I mean, I would not know anything that's going on, like my whole social life would end. Yeah. So they're like, can we all get off of it at the same time? And there are schools, like for younger kids, there are whole schools that make a pact with the parents that no one will use phone. And I don't know how well that works. Because the whole school has to be in on the pact. Yeah, it feels like it, this is why it comes from the, it administration, right? Like, that's usually the best way to do it. You and Harry argue the answer isn't to ban tech or unplug because that's not realistic and not even desirable. But you also

recommend that text-based communication should be 5 to 10 percent of your conversation time max. That is radically less than how most people I know actually live. What does the rest of that time look like in your prescription? Yeah, yeah. In terms of conversation time, yeah. I mean, ideally face to face. And I wish we were all, we lived in situations where we would be running into people. So I don't know if these kids are living in a neighborhood where they could see other kids or people their age very easily, whether on a bike or in their neighborhood. That's one of the issues. I actually was once asked to consult. I think they didn't tell me what it was. I think it was from one of the Emirates and they were designing a happy city. And they said, can you design a happy city

for us? And I'm not an urban planner. I'm like, okay. And so I basically said, like, let's create, like a neighborhood where people are constantly running into each other, right? So you couldn't not run. We know that people who live near stairwell have more friends in a dorm. I mean, that makes sense, right? When you think about back at college, right? So ideally, they're face-to-face, you know, or they're reading. It is funny. It's a feeling, I lived in D.C. for a decade before this, before L.A., and small towns in Massachusetts before that. And I felt like when I first moved to L.A. I have constantly lived in neighborhoods near people I know. And even now, I have some very, very good friends like down the street. And it is such a difference because just, and like

neighbors that I had met before, but just being able to walk and run into people, you know, is such a big difference than when you feel like you're living somewhere where you're isolated and just walking around and don't know anyone. It's such a big deal to actually make a plan. This is why actually so many of my friends are talking about like building community. where people are actually going to live together, like in a compound, which I know sounds... We joke about... Our friends, we always joke about that. We've kind of done it on our street.

I know, I think it's, like, in fact, one of my friends who was 50, she's about to move in with some roommates. So she's like, what am I doing? I'm 50 years old. I'm like, this is great. This is exactly what you should be doing. And in some ways, my favorite time was college. Like this idea, you have your own room, but you have chaired meals that you can go out in the quad, and people run into people.

You go into studying the library, you're running into people there. So a lot of my friends are talking about recreating, like, that kind of college dorm environment. But for adults, wouldn't that be great, then you can go to talks and movies? It would be nice. Even when you were talking about the kids in the cafeteria in schools that don't, that ban the phones, we had Dr. Vivek Murthy, the last surgeon general on. And he said, like, one of the saddest moments for him was visiting a school where kids had their phones and they were all sitting at the lunch table just on their phones, head down,

weren't talking to each other the whole time. And you're like, that can't be socially healthy for kids. And for their posture and all of that. Yeah, that too. But yeah, well, anyway, there is, and you know Jonathan Haidt, who's a friend also, he, yeah, I think he's making a huge difference. And Tristan Harris, they're really made a lot of, you know, we've made, they've helped, you know, this movement to, and also people are realizing it. And they both say, we all have to kind of realize it together. It's kind of like when nuclear power was a threat, everyone had to kind of decide we all want to live and not die.

And it took that much kind of will, but it happened, right? And so is that a bigger problem than phones? Maybe, maybe it was, I don't know. Yeah. Phones are a bigger problem. The heart of the book are what you call five mindsets, sharing, listening to learn, radical curiosity, open heart, and multiplicity. I want to spend time on listening because I think it's probably the one with those

political weight. You and Harry write that the three things real listening requires are attention, comprehension, and positive intent, which is the one I keep thinking about. Because most of what we see online is the opposite of that, to say the least. Can you walk through what positive intent actually means and what is lost when it's missing? It's that I care about you. I want you to be happy. What you care about matters. When you think about listening, you think about it as something more neutral, right? We're just kind of paying attention. Just taking it in. Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, it's like a, and we say

listening to learn, listen like there's going to be a quiz tomorrow, great, so it's a good way to think about it. But it's more than that, it's also just feeling like I care, it's caring about the person or what they have to say, and that it matters. And we all know, you know, in this polarized society we live in, right, if we listen more

to each other, really listen, not just dismiss without listening. And then curiosity, which is really the enthusiasm component, right, of listening and also really be curious about the other person. So when someone has a really different perspective from you, like, why, you know, to really be curious, why do they believe that? I mean, because they're not necessarily bad people, right? Or maybe even harder, you're in the middle of a fight with your spouse. Try to be curious in the middle of a fight. Right? Wow, they are really angry. What makes them so angry right now? Right. And listen, again,

listening, which means not like, because we have this inner chatter in our heads, right? all this interchatter all the time. There's this great survey that just found that 25% of the time when we're trying to listen our mind is wandering. It's probably more than that, right?

And you can tell. It's hard. It's hard to turn the chatter off. Yeah, yeah, it's normal. It's human, right? To turn it off and to truly listen. One of the best pieces of advice I got was to listen like you're watching a film.

So unless you're a filmmaker or a critic, right, when you're watching a film, you're just taking it in, right? You're just like, taking it in. you're not formulating a response. What are you going to say to the film, right? What you think about the film, you're just taking it. So when you're listening, try to listen like listen like you're watching a movie.

And now people aren't even, people are like on their phones while they're watching screens, which I do think that is another contributor to the not listening to learn. Like you're going to take a quiz because we're so used to our attention. And I know that's one of the one of the things listening requires as well, but because our tension is in so high demand from all the different screens and everything else, I think we're used to our brains going from thing to thing to think to thing. But we can turn it off. And when you think about it, like, I remember when my kids were in this high school,

that it was private sky school, we had a speaker who wrote a book called The Organized Mind. It was really about like our short attention spans. And he talked about, oh, how horrible it is. All these kids have short attention spans, literally like TikTok videos. They're watching that three minutes long. Terrible. And I actually raised my head and I said, wait. but these kids, they're taking like three-hour AP tests and they're acing them, you know,

and so they can do it. They can do it. So every habit can be untrained. It's like a muscle. Yeah. Like I remember when I had little kids, they'd be like, don't give them a pacifier. I'm like, you know what? Yes, they'll get used to the pacifier, but you know what?

They can also get unused to the pacifier. It's like the pacifier. We've got to get unused to it. Your research found that self-described good listeners report feeling more loved in every category measured by partners, friends, family, community, colleagues. The benefit comes back to the listener. It's a little counterintuitive. Like, why does being a good listener make you feel more loved yourself?

Yeah, yeah, so interesting. Because we actually have a grant now where we're studying the benefits of listening for the listener. Most studies are actually about the benefits to the speaker, right? Because it feels good. And some of it, the correlational studies, there could be a confound. It could just be the type of people who are good listeners also happen to be just whatever. have better relationships and, you know, for other reasons. But in the experiments, it's actually very interesting.

It's maybe that kind of attunement or when you're putting, like the positive intent, right? When you're putting positive energy out there for the other person, that feels good. It's kind of almost like creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. You know, if you don't like someone, there's a study of this. And I actually do it sometimes. There might be a colleague that I don't really like. And I'll say to them myself, I want them to be happy. I want them to be happy.

you know, and then you start feeling it. I want them to be happy. And then you start acting. And then you kind of start. So yeah, so you're listening. I care about what you have to say, you know. And you learn things about the first thing. Oh, empathy too, right?

You're able to put yourself in their shoes and you are able to understand them better. Yeah. The attunement is interesting. And it's funny because I obviously spend most of my life asking people questions. And I was doing some interview. I was on someone podcast. And they were like, does anyone ever ask you how you're doing? I was like, not a lot.

But then I'm like, thank you. That's really. You know what? Like when someone does ask you, you're like, okay, yeah, that's a nice. Same thing with parents, right? It turns out, by the way, if I were to tell you're listening to anything, today, call up your parent and ask them like, well, how is, not just how is your day, but like, really, what are they thinking about lately?

Like, what is important to them? Yeah. Tell them about their childhood memories, right? We often take it for granted, right? But asking questions also makes you happier too. So, John, you're probably happier just from asking questions. It is true. I do feel happy.

I mean, yes. I love doing this. But it's a two-way process. I would say if you're only asking questions, you're like, it's like an interview or worse in interrogation. If you're only sharing, we talk about the importance of vulnerable sharing, then it could be like a monologue, right? So you really need both, ideally, this dynamic process.

It's so funny you mention parents because, and I think, you know, my wife and I both talk about this when we're talking to our parents. It's like, how are you doing? And usually the answer is, well, your dad and I did this and then we did this and then this happened. And oh, and it's like a report. And you do realize that part of that is because you don't say like, how are you feeling? Or like, what's been, you know, what's been interesting to you lately? Right. Ask them deeper questions.

Again, research shows we are afraid to ask deep questions because we think it will be seen us prying or it'll be uncomfortable. Actually, people love to be seen. But let's get back to the, they give you the report. Or just, we know people who are like, you ask them something. They're like, oh, I went to run an errand and I couldn't find a parking space and then I didn't have change. And this is very boring. So I'm not saying your parents are doing this. We all do.

I've done it to people as well. Or like, I've missed the flight. And then you give them the play by play. It's not very interesting to the other person. But then you wonder, okay, you wonder, why are people doing this? Because they want to be heard. They want you to know about the details of their life, right? The details of the inner life.

Like, we really want to be seen. And so that's why they keep telling us these details, right? So maybe we're not doing enough. So the person in your life was always telling you those stories, those boring stories. Maybe we're not doing enough to kind of really help them be seen. And maybe I don't know how to do that exactly. Maybe ask them some questions. about that parking space.

But you're right that it is a, it's a signal. Yeah. It's like, because I've done it before and you're like telling details of like what you did. And you're like, no, because I want, you're, you don't even know what you're looking for, but I think it's, you're looking for that deeper connection. Exactly. Yeah. So you have to figure out what's underneath it.

There's always something underneath it. I actually did a workshop where I asked people to kind of ask questions. And there's these two women who know each other for like 20 years. And they asked each other questions. And one said, she said, she was, telling me the same story I'd heard many times. And so she almost like tuned out. She's like, okay, I've heard this story before.

And then she stopped herself and said, you know, there must be a reason why she keeps wanting to tell me the story again. Maybe there's a part of the story that I'm not quite hearing or I'm not quite understanding, right? So there's always something underneath that. Or the person who talks nonstop. It's so annoying. And you have to ask yourself, why are they doing that?

Maybe they feel like people aren't, they're tuning them out. So then they're talking even more. It's like a vicious cycle. But I'm not so good at all of this either, but I just, I can observe it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I've, no people like that. So I thought this was fascinating.

You guys cite research showing that high quality listening actually reduces political polarization during conflict. That when, you know, one person in a disagreement listens well, the speaker depolarizes. We touched on that a little bit. And reduces prejudice among both of them. Yeah, as you say, how does that work mechanically? And given that nobody on the political. political internet is doing this. Well, good.

Well, in studies, you force people to do it, right? So they literally get people from opposite, you know, hats, so to speak, you know, religious, political orientations. And then we get, and they get them to talk about, well, there's a couple of different ways of doing it. A recent study just had people share vulnerably. Actually, it's not about this thing. It's about sharing.

And I'm, so you're from different, totally different spectrums. And I talk about how I'm struggling with my son. And the other guy is saying, oh, I'm struggling with his son. So then we start to understand each other better like, wow, we're just both human. We have the same struggles. And so that reduced prejudice. It's not interesting. That didn't even involve talk about politics.

It's just like realizing we're all human and we have the same problems. But then listening to me, it's kind of obvious, right? Like if I'm really listening to you and you say, you know, like I support this, you know, this person or this policy and you're like, I don't understand because I. And then you really, really listen why. And sometimes you, yeah, you get to understand better. again. You still disagree. Yeah. And it seems intuitive. But like, I've had, you know, I've had these arguments on Twitter and I always think to

myself like, if I could just sit down with this person for like 10 minutes, I don't know that we'd necessarily agree, but we wouldn't get to the point where we think each other's are like monsters. Right. Exactly. But it's so hard because our defenses go up, right? Yes. Our defenses go up, our walls go up, and we want to be right. That's actually a really big part of it is like not needing to be right. Yeah. You realize like once you stop needing to be right, because why do we need to

why do we need to convince that person? I mean, obviously, some of it is just about votes, right? But like I know I'm, well, I don't know. I shouldn't say that. I know I'm right. Like I know, this is how I feel about these things. I don't need to convince this person of my point of view because it is what it is. But, but if you keep, yeah, why do you have that need to convince it?

Well, you just mentioned, you said votes. It's not about it. But like. I would argue that people are not as focused on getting votes because to get votes, you need someone to agree with you, if not on everything, at least on a general worldview. And if you're trying to persuade, then what's more important trying to persuade someone so that they eventually come along with you or being right? And I do think that the way that we talk about politics now, it incentivizes because we do

it online, being right over actually changing a mind. Yeah. So you came at this as a scientist, not a political commentator, but I'm curious whether you see a path from like the five mindsets, like up to the level of a society. Like can 330 million people like can the country practice radical curiosity toward itself or are these like very one-on-one we're sitting across? No, no. I mean, the book has really written more about one-on-one about all kinds of relationships, by the way, not just romantic ones, any relationship. including with strangers, but absolutely, we didn't write the book about it, but this could be applied, we could do a second book. How does it be applied to, like, I absolutely believe the world would be a better place if we all use these five mindsets, right? So we shared more of ourselves, so we didn't just sort of hide ourselves because then if you, then we'd see each other more as human,

and we see our humanity, and we also see how similar we are to others. And if we listen better with curiosity, rather than just dismissing and avoiding, And the open heart is just compassion and believing in other people and thinking and wanting them to be happy. I mean, that's an obvious one. Almost don't talk about that. Why I said that that much? Because it's sort of obvious, yeah, to have compassion for others and empathy. And the last one, multiplicity, I actually think, might be the most relevant one to political polarization.

Yeah, explain multiplicity for people. Yeah, sure. So the word multiplicity, I'm told, comes from trauma research. This idea that if you have a trauma, it doesn't have to define you. It's still, of course, part of you, but it doesn't define you. So the idea is that we're all a quilt. of like both positive and negative qualities and traits and behaviors.

So I'm kind sometimes, but sometimes I'm selfish, right? We all are. And sometimes I'm loyal and sometimes I'm a little narcissistic. Like we all are, and we know this. And when I tell people they nod

and they're like, of course, yes. We should all take a multiplicity lens, by the way, not just towards others, but towards ourselves. Right. Seeing everyone in their messy complexity and the problem is it's so hard, right? So I feel like I've gotten better

as I got older. When I see someone do a bad thing, Of course, my first reaction is, oh, they're terrible. And by the way, I have this pet theory, which is that it's evolutionarily adaptive for us to be judgmental. Right, think about, in our ancestral past,

we meet someone, you have to judge whether they're a friend or foe. Right? We have to make that snap judgment. Yeah. And so we have to override it, like deliberately and intentionally. So someone does something about it.

I'm like, oh, I hate that person. And then you override it. And you're like, okay. And so I have a few friends who've taught me how to do this. And they're like, like, as example of this one guy, he wrote something kind of terrible to a woman. And we're all looking at this text. We're like, I can't believe this is a terrible person.

And she says to us, I see the little boy inside of that guy. I see the little boy who was rejected by women, girls. And this is where it's coming from. Now, it doesn't condone or excuse, you know, justify what he wrote, but it gives us compassion. You know, and so I think I'm a lot better at that, but it's easier said than done. You know, we all know people who, like, did something really bad. And we shouldn't, would you agree we shouldn't judge people by their worst behavior? Yeah.

And yet we do. And think about people who've been to prison. You know, we really do. We really, we never give them, you know, yeah, they don't get a pass. They get, they serve their time. They pay their dues. They're repentant. And yet, for the rest of their life, they're sort of paying the price, right?

We can have a different society where really, really, really give, you know, release them of that, you know. Did you find that being a parent? helped with that because that is one thing and you were talked about as you as you've gotten older it's easier to think about that I've noticed that because now my I have two boys my eldest is almost six and is very inquisitive and curious and asked tons of questions and as he's like sort of knows what I do and it's been introduced a little bit to politics you know he'll say oh so Donald Trump's bad he's like a bad guy and then of course you watch cartoons and cartoons are so like bad guys, good guys, villains, heroes.

And I've tried to stop myself from being like, I've tried to say a few times, like, there aren't bad people and good people. There are people who do bad things and people who do good things. And we all have the capacity to good and bad things. And like, who knows if he's getting it now, but it is, I feel like it's something that you really have to practice. And when it's with your kids, you suddenly realize, like, I don't want them growing up up thinking that the whole world is black and white, good and evil.

Like, I want them to know that there's people have the capacity to do horrible things and wonderful things, but it feels like you're really closing something off by saying that like you're good or you're bad. So interesting. Of course, like the black and white thinking, when you think about me,

when you think about, starting with cartoons, fairy tales, right? Bad good. But even for adults, like, you know, it's easier, I guess probably a movie does better

when there's like a clear hero or villain, right? When there's complex characters, although I think lots of TV shows now, there's lots of complex characters. Yes, it's changed. You know, yeah, it's changed,

like succession, you know, one of my favorite shows. Yeah, but it's really, hard because again, it's easy to kind of nod and say, of course, but then when I give people an actual example, you know, so actually, I'll give you an example. I have a friend who went to prison. He did something bad. He really paid, he's so ashamed. He's really paid his dues. And he's lost 80%

of his friends. And they don't ever want to have anything to do with him again. And I'm like, well, what do you do with that? You know, a lot of people, if I tell them what he did, you know, they're like, I don't know how you could be friends with him. And yet I feel like he's, I don't know how you could be friends with him. And yet I feel like he's changed and it was a mistake, you know, and I also see all the other parts of him that are wonderful. But anyway, when you actually hit someone with a real-life example, they're like, oh, multiplicity lens. Well, not on that guy. I mean, my wife, for the last several years, has done a lot of work with Homeboy Industries here in Los Angeles, which is a gang rehabilitation program. And it's run by Father Greg Boyle.

who's a Jesuit priest, and he always says, we're not the worst thing we've ever done. That is his sort of guiding philosophy. And Emily is always, when she's there, and she meets all these people who've rehabilitated their lives, it is like the most powerful example of, okay, if I can see that this person has changed, has realized what they did in the past was wrong,

wants to be better, then why shouldn't I apply that to other people that maybe I've never met? you know exactly and like we don't see yeah we don't want to give people second chances you know it's but yeah but anyway I do think it's a sign of sort of maturity I guess maturity that's why I say as you get older you just see everything right the more you see everything you see all kinds of people you see all kinds of like people change and growth and so we we forgiveness you know it's another talk grace yeah grace yeah

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For years, I've heard from candidates, activists, and political staffers who turn to Podsafe of America for political strategy and messaging advice because they don't have access to a political consultant or a pollster. That's flattering to hear, but it's a huge problem. If we're going to defeat MAGA and protect democracy, we need everyone to have access to the best information and advice possible. That's why I recently launched MessageBox Pro, a subscription consulting product for people working at every level of politics. Subscribers get weekly strategy memos, data-driven messaging insights, and polling analysis. Plus, you get access to an incredible community of smart, committed political pros.

Whether you're running for office, staffing a politician, organizing your community, or working in communications at any level, messagebox pro is built for you. To learn more or sign up, go to messageboxpro.com. You mentioned AI earlier. I want to spend a little time on this because I thought that chapter 12 in your book was just fascinating about this. You cite these USC studies where people in online conversations consistently felt more heard and supported by AI generated messages

than by responses from other humans and where independent third-party raiders agreed, the AI responses were more compassionate. Walk us through that research. Right. So, AI, right. So a chat bot is going to be the best listener you've ever had in your life, right? Because I'll remember everything you ever said and what you're exactly how you said it.

All right. So you can't compete with that, right? You can't compete with listening to learn or curiosity, right? They'll ask you lots of questions in a way and they'll keep asking in a way that a human will get tired, right? I actually say that, like, they can share, even though whatever they're sharing is not real. But for the same reason, I can watch a film knowing it's not real and I can have real emotions, right? I laugh and cry and I'm scared, even though I know there's a camera there. Our brain is sort of co-opted and we think, yeah, when that chat, when that AI companion is sharing about their experience, that we think that's real.

The one part that I find it hard to imagine is that open heart, right, that the AI actually. really loves me and wants me to be happy. But even that could be co-opted as well. So, again, it's not surprising to me. I do, again, I'm trying to have a more nuanced view about AI companions. I think they can be very helpful. There was a New Yorker article actually that said something like, those of you who throw shade at AI people who have AI companions have never been truly lonely.

Right. And I haven't, fortunately, been truly lonely, but, you know, or truly depressed, right? So they can really be helpful for people at certain points in time in life, for survival. But I'm just hoping that they can they can serve as transition objects. Well, because there's also a twist in that same research, which is, you found

that people, they found that people who spent more time talking to voice-based AI chatbots initially felt less lonely, and then over time felt more lonely, more emotionally dependent on the chatbot and had fewer interactions with real people. What's your read on what's happening there? Yeah, yeah.

I think short term, it could be really beneficial or rewarding, and that over time, if you're becoming over-relying, just like anything, right? Look, moderation, you know, they are subtly in mean. I'm a big believer that moderation, you should practice moderation in everything, including moderation, right? And, yeah, like if you use it in moderation, but then you go and, you know, see your friends on a Friday night, there's some great examples. Like, there's a study out of China that had women, so these are women who were using AI chatbots

to practice conflict conversations with their husbands. And these are married. where they had less power. And so the study found that the conversations went better because it's like they had a therapist sort of of hold of them. Yeah, they could afford, right?

And that's really cool. So you could use, or the young people could have an AI companion practice relationships before they actually get into the relationship, but the risk is, right? They never make the leap. And that's, I know, I think about that a lot because I can, as much

as I talk about the sort of the dangers of AI, I can see those benefits but partly because when you first start talking to it, it can so easily lure you in and make you think like, oh, I'm feeling listened to. I have someone to think with me or listen to me. Then because there's no friction, it feels like, oh, maybe that's going to be easier

than going to have the difficult conversation. Which, again, think back to those young people who say, it's too hard to get to after first base, past first base, because there's a lot of friction and conversations and awkwardness and anxiety. you have to get through. It's easier just to either not do it or now to do it with an AI bot. Yeah.

Well, and there's a related point that you make, which is chat bots are designed to never criticize, never seem disappointed, never disappoint you. And this is a defect because feeling loved and real love does include friction. Can you make the case why it involves friction to feel loved? Yeah. I guess I would say it has to do with authenticity, right? One of my, I think, highest values is authenticity.

It's actually a very complicated concept. Yeah, this idea that you feel it's real, right? It's kind of like if I'm always giving you compliments, you're not going to believe them unless once in a while I give you some criticism. Some tough notes. Exactly. And I try to do that with my friends. But we know that, right? If it's only giving us positive feedback, I cease to believe it so much.

We're not so stupid, right? So a sort of authenticity that friction makes us. feel real. And by the way, we of course can design a bot that will have friction. And it's just that the incentives aren't there for companies, right, that they want you to just like with social media, right? The incentive is that you keep looking. But we can't, I'm

sure they're people working on it now, right? Like an AI companion that's more realistic. And it's not so aophantic. Yeah. The challenge, and you mentioned this too, is that chatbots cannot really love you because they don't choose you. I thought that was an interesting thing. Yeah, I know. I was actually talking just talking about a friend about sort of what's the most important thing in relationships,

right? So some partly, partly it's openness and vulnerability and commitment to repair, but like maybe the most important is, yeah, it's like to, you're chosen. You're chosen and you're honored and you're desired and you're desired. Right. And, um, but certainly they can tell you they've chosen you and they desire you and they honor you. So, boy. But you're, but then you realize like, well, if you don't log on to talk to them for a month, they're never going to be like, hey, where have you been? Yeah, that is, I find that interesting. I don't know if you saw this past week.

Pope Leo released his very first encyclical. It was about AI. He frames the choice we face as one between what he calls the culture of power and the civilization of love and argues that the human person can't be reduced to data, that true progress requires a heart open to others and intelligence willing to listen and a will that seeks what unites rather than what separates. That is like basically the five mindsets? Beautiful.

What do you make of the Pope landing in the same place as a happiness researcher? No, I love it. No, I love it. Well, and he probably had lots of guidance and conversations with others to land on that. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And it's just, the problem is you can design an AI to do those things. So I don't know. I'm an optimist, but I have there days that I'm afraid for the world. One non-A, I think I want to ask you about it sort of surprised me in the book. You and Harry argue that MDMA, actual MDMA, the drug, induces every one of your five. mindsets in a single afternoon. You quote a Benedictine monk saying people spend 20 years meditating to feel what MDMA gives you in an afternoon. As a happiness researcher, how seriously should we take that? Is the future of feeling loved pharmacological?

Or can it be enhanced? Does it make it easier? It certainly can be enhanced. So I actually have a line of research on MDMA for a really good reason because you sort of you can bottle in an afternoon in a lab experiment what it might take a long time to create, which is this feeling of being deeply understood, deeply loved, grateful, trusting, everyone's beautiful, right? So it's not a shortcut, but you can use it just for research, right?

So you can, like, when you find out, like, what brain regions are activated, right? When you're feeling understood or when you're listening, when you're curious. In fact, people, there's like these funny studies, these funny anecdotes. people in MDMA experiments where they're just sitting alone in a room, and yet they want to connect, right? So like someone told me, the nurse will come by and measure their cardiac, you know, signs because, yeah, there's some cardiac things that could happen with MDMA. And they'll be like, oh, are you a nurse?

Oh, how long have you been a nurse? Tell me, do you like your job, right? Because you're so very curious on MDMA. Anyway, it's not a shortcut, but it certainly can, there's certain people who maybe who have never felt those things or very easily can, if they use MDMA with a guide, it could be incredibly helpful. It might be the first time in their lives

that they feel like truly connected, truly trusting, truly grateful. And as you may know, this substance is being used to treat PTSD and lots of events. That makes sense for. Yeah, because like the walls come down, you're able to go into that room,

you know, where that horrible event took place and process it. Yeah, you're not defensive. You know, I had a neighbor who told me, This is great. He negotiated his divorce settlement under MDMA with a guide. No way.

Isn't that brilliant? Yeah. I mean. Yeah. That's fascinating. Because they weren't defensive because otherwise it's very emotional, even if it's a good, you know, kind of a functional divorce, healthy divorce. So, yeah, I think it's an incredible kind of almost a magical substance.

There's other psychedelics. MDMA is not technically a psychedelic. Other psychedelics that have been shown to have really kind of incredible, you know, outcomes under sort of set in settings. So yeah, I'm a big proponent of like using psychoactive substances to to answer questions about, you know, human psychology, love connection. Yeah. Last question. And you said you're an optimist, but some days. Now that you've written a book about, you know, the road to happiness and how it runs through feeling loved, after all the research that you guys have done and that you've encountered, are you more or less hopeful than when you started?

Yeah, more hopeful. And this is going to sound so hokey, like coming from a scientist. I've been a rigorous scientist for decades. And now I'm thinking that, like, this sounds like I've just taken a psychedelic journey. That, like, everything is love. It's like the substrate of the world is love and that we just need to increase the love in the world and we'll be all better off. Like sort of love is the antidote to almost any problem. And when I say love, you know, I'm also, I'm including like the mindsets, right?

It's compassion, it's real genuine listening, curiosity, sharing of yourself, you know, looking at others' people with warmth and acceptance. So, yeah, I know it sounds a little bit woo-hoo. No, I mean, yeah, I'm sure it'll strike some people as woo-hoo and hokey or whatever it may be. I will say that the more, the longer I've been in politics and the darker politics has become, the more that sounds to me, like, yeah, that's about right. It kind of comes down to, like, treating people really well, like you want to be treated and trying to connect with people more

than clearly we are connected right now. Do you know that Rig Doblin, you know, who started MAPS, which is the organization that does clinical trials to test MDMA for treatment with PTSD, he sent, I think he said he sent like, and I remember he told, he was at my house at the other one time, and I think he said he sent a thousand capsules of MDMA when Gorbachev and Reagan were having their summit

in like, what was it, 1980? 80, yeah. 80. And this is kind of brilliant, right? This idea if like world leaders of different countries or imagine like Israelis, Palestinians, you know, took MDMA together. Now, he's pretty sure Gorbachev and Reagan did not take it. But he's also pretty sure that some of the AIDS did take it.

Wow. So, yeah, there you go. Maybe we should send Trump some MDMA. You're not the first person to. And maybe the Ayatollah. And maybe we could just get them all. Yeah. And then they would, and again, it's not going to solve all the world's problems.

But if you could sit across the table from someone with your defenses down, where you're not just dismissing anything they say with just this deep curiosity. It is a shortcut to deep curiosity and listening and an open heart. You know what? That's a perfect place to leave it. Sonia Lubomirsky, thank you so much for joining offline. The book is How to Feel Loved. Go check it out, everyone. It'll really make you think.

Really fun talking to you. I love your questions. Thank you. Yeah, because they're a little bit different from other people's questions. Well, thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. Offline is a Cricket Media production.

It's written and hosted by me, John Favre. It's produced by Emma Ilich-Frank. Austin Fisher is our senior producer, and Anisha Banerjee is our associate producer. Audio support from Charlotte Landis. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. Matt DeGroat is our VP of production. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music.

Thanks to Dilan Velaueva, Eric Schute and our digital team who film and share our episodes as videos every week. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. For years, I've heard from candidates, activists, and political staffers who turn to Potsave America for political strategy and messaging advice because they don't have access to a political consultant or a pollster. That's flattering to hear, but it's a huge problem. If we're going to defeat MAGA and protect democracy, we need everyone to have access to the best information and advice possible.

That's why I recently launched MessageBox Pro, a subscription consulting product for people working at every level of politics. subscribers get weekly strategy memos, data-driven messaging insights, and polling analysis. Plus, you get access to an incredible community of smart, committed political pros. Whether you're running for office, staffing a politician, organizing your community, or working in communications at any level, MessageBox Pro is built for you. So learn more or sign up. Go to messageboxpro.com.