Something You Should Know - The Science of Sexual Attraction & What Does Your Job Mean to You?

Starting point is 00:00:00 The search for truth never ends. Introducing June's Journey, a hidden object mobile game with a captivating story. Connect with friends, explore the roaring 20s, and enjoy thrilling activities and challenges while supporting environmental causes. After seven years, the adventure continues with our immersive travels feature. Explore distant cultures and engage in exciting experiences. There's always something new to discover. Are you ready?

Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, you see a lot of people wearing tank tops in the summer, but do you know why they're called tank tops? Then the science of sexual attraction, which is different than any other kind of attraction. When you are sexually attracted to another person, you feel your thoughts being directed to that person almost against your will. When people find somebody sexually attractive, they find it more difficult to look away from the person.

Starting point is 00:01:00 Also, ever wonder where that missing sock in the laundry goes? And the ever-changing world of work, and why you don't have to love your work to be happy. While it would be great to love our work, because again, what's the alternative? We don't want people to hate their work, think it's certainly meaningless. But we know that we don't all need to love our work to do great work, nor do we need to love our work to have a great life. All this today on Something You Should Know. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks.

Starting point is 00:01:44 Remember to follow all traffic signals. Be careful along our tracks and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Starting point is 00:02:11 Hi there. Welcome to Something You Should Know. It is summer pretty much everywhere now, and with warm weather comes warm weather clothing, like t-shirts and tank tops. And so I get why it's called a t-shirt, because you lay it out flat, it looks like the letter T. But why do they call tank tops, tank tops? Well, the name comes from a woman's bathing suit called a tank suit, first popular in the 1920s. A tank suit was a one-piece suit with shoulder straps. It was called a tank suit because it was worn in a swimming tank. Swimming tank is an obsolete term for what we now call a swimming pool.

Starting point is 00:02:55 Shirts or tops resembling that style of two over-the-shoulder straps became known as tank tops. And that's the story. And it's something you should know. Why are you attracted to some people, but not other people? You know, that spark, that, ooh, I like the way she looks, or I like the way he looks. That thing that attracts us to other people and them to us

Starting point is 00:03:23 is what keeps the planet populated. People have to be attracted and get together and have babies for humans to continue. Yet most of us don't know very much about what's going on when you feel that something about someone you see across a room or someone you meet at work. And it turns out that the science of human sexual attraction is fascinating. Here to help us understand it is James Giles. He's a lecturer at the University of Cambridge Institute for Continuing Education and has been studying this for a while.

Starting point is 00:03:58 He's author of a book called Sexual Attraction, the Psychology of Allure. Hi James, welcome to Something You Should Know. I think I want to start by, maybe we need a tighter focus on what is sexual attraction and what it is, when you talk about it, what is it you mean by sexual attraction? I think sexual attraction is really strongly distinguished from other sorts of attraction, first of all, because it's based on physical appearance. And I think people who might doubt that and say, oh, you know, you can be sexually attracted to someone because of their personality and so on, what seems to be sexual attraction can often be motivated by other things that aren't really anything to do with sexual attraction. If you think they're sexually attracted to someone because of the person's status or their money

Starting point is 00:04:58 or their power, but that's not sexual attraction. So if sexual attraction by definition means you're attracted to someone's physical appearance, then is sexual attraction the same thing as physical attraction? Two words for the same thing? No, they're not. You look at the research and everyone knows from the personal experience that friendship is often based on physical attraction. We know that children choose friends who are the better-looking people in the class, if they can,

Starting point is 00:05:34 and also with older people and adults. The physical attractiveness of the other person plays a role in wanting to be friends with that person. And people of similar levels of physical attractiveness often seek out friendship or even affiliation and other things with each other. We know that people who are physically attractive are usually liked more by people. And none of that is sexual attraction. So physical attraction definitely plays a role in sexual attraction, but it's not to be equated with it.

Starting point is 00:06:16 When someone sees someone and is sexually attracted to them, what goes on? I mean, a little light lights up in your brain. I mean, what is it that happens that makes you go, ooh, hey, look at that. I like what I'm seeing here. The core of it really lies in this experiential element that we have when we are sexually attracted to another person. And the fascinating thing about it is that when you are sexually attracted to another person, you feel that attraction emanating from the other person like a magnet. So you could imagine like

Starting point is 00:06:53 if a nail could experience the magnet's pull, pulling it towards it. That's what we feel. We feel it in all sorts of ways and wanting to be closer to that person. You feel your thoughts being directed to that person almost against your will. And we know that when people find somebody sexually attractive, they find it more difficult to look away from the person than someone who is just physically attractive or someone who isn't attractive at all. You use the term allure. In fact, it's in the subtitle of your book. Explain what allure is, because we've heard the word and it's all kind of mystical and mysterious and everything. But what is allure? What I like to do with the idea of allure is I break it down into three components,

Starting point is 00:07:48 which ties into what I'm saying here. And I think the first aspect of it, which is interrelated with the other two, is that you feel yourself drawn towards the other person. Secondly, you feel yourself helplessly drawn. It's almost beyond your control. And again, you have to remember there's numerous degrees of sexual attraction. There's the overwhelming, where you really are attracted. You look at the person and you feel completely and strongly attracted to the person. or there's just the minor version where someone passes you in the street and you think, oh, she's nice, and you just look. So there's all different

Starting point is 00:08:31 degrees of this. But in every case, I would argue, there is a sense of being drawn and being helplessly drawn in the direction of the other person. Now, the third component, I think, is when you feel yourself being drawn. What are you being drawn to? Well, you're being drawn to an intimate connection with the other person, a sexual connection. So in that instance that you feel yourself drawn towards the other person, I think what happens is immediately a sexual fantasy appears so that you imagine yourself, you know, in varying degrees to maybe a degree of not even noticing it, that you imagine yourself caressing that person or touching that person. So you see somebody's lips and you think she has beautiful lips and it's nearly beyond your control that you imagine your lips being brought up against hers. Or you see

Starting point is 00:09:33 her figure and you imagine your arms around it. And it's just those little things that are the core of the sexual fantasy that is the result of being attracted to that person. And these three components, I think, blend in various degrees, and sometimes one or more of them can assert itself more. But I think if you want it to be sexual attraction, it pretty much has to involve these three aspects of allure. Well, one of the things that I'm sure anyone who's had a sexual attraction to someone else has found out is that you may see someone very attractive, sexually attractive, but it doesn't go the other way. That person has no interest at all. It's just a one-way street. Yeah, you can be attracted to a stranger in the

Starting point is 00:10:26 street who doesn't even see you. So you can be attracted to someone who is repulsed by you, right? A sexual attraction is just an experience that you have of feeling the other person's physical appearance casting its spell over you and pulling you towards that person. So I would assume there's a purpose to sexual attraction, and that is to keep the species going. So we have babies and we have more people. But it's interesting, and I'd like you to talk about, we're not all sexually attracted to the same people, right?

Starting point is 00:11:03 Some people like tall people. Some people like short people. Yes, and that's an important point to realize. So, we know, for example, that people tend to be attracted to another person who resembles in various ways their opposite sex parents, and there's fairly good data for this. There's one study that what they did is they took a picture of a man's wife, and they took a picture of his mother, and they did this with several men. And then they mixed all those pictures up and had independent people try to place the young woman and the older woman who looked most alike together, and they weren't bad at doing it. They got a pretty accurate result

Starting point is 00:11:50 for finding the woman that looked like the mother. And there's other things like spatial metrics that they have done, both with women and men, and showing that there are similarities, there's studies on eye color and hair color, that people tend. It's a tendency. It's not a 100% thing, but there is a strong tendency in that way where people tend to

Starting point is 00:12:12 choose someone who resembles their opposite sex parent. And this is why we all are attracted. One reason why we're all attracted to different people, because our parents just don't look like Mike. But seeing someone who's sexually attractive, that's no indication at all that they might be a good match for you in the long run. It's just, right, it's just sexual attraction in this moment. I don't think there's any evidence for making a good mate. It just is sexual attraction. And this is, again, why a lot of the data is confusing

Starting point is 00:12:54 because when they will ask a woman who she's attracted to, they fail to say sexually attracted in the moment or attracted to as a long-term partner. And those are very different. A woman might find a man, for example, very sexually attractive, but his personality and his irresponsibility just make him not a candidate for her as a long-term partner. And I think that distinction is very crucial to see that people don't choose mates always for sexual attraction. They choose mates for all sorts of reasons, you know, to be in the family, or he's a good wage earner, or she's friends with my other friend, or all sorts of things. Or I can't get the person that I'm sexually attracted to so I'll choose this person instead there's a big difference you

Starting point is 00:13:48 know and choosing someone and settling for someone and in numerous cases people just settle for someone or they might have had many bad experiences with say an attractive woman and being unable to keep her so they opt for someone who's less attractive we're discussing the science of sexual attraction, and my guest is James Giles. He's author of the book, Sexual Attraction, The Psychology of a Lure. This episode is brought to you by Melissa and Doug. Wooden puzzles and building toys for problem solving and arts and crafts for creative thinking, Melissa and Doug makes toys that help

Starting point is 00:14:25 kids take on the world because the way they play today shapes who they become tomorrow. Melissa and Doug, the play is pretend, the skills are real. Look for Melissa and Doug wherever you shop for toys. At Wealthsimple, we're built for whatever you're building. Built for Jane, who wants to break into the housing market. We're built for Ted, who's obsessed with what's happening in the global markets. And built for Celine, who just wants to retire and explore the world's flea markets. So take a moment and think about what you're building for. We've got the financial tools to help make it happen. Wealthsimple. Built for possibilities. Visit wealthsimple.com slash possibilities.

Starting point is 00:15:09 So James, everybody has their own criteria of what makes someone sexually attractive to them. But are there things that are universally sexually attractive to pretty much everyone? People might agree on that someone's physically attractive, right? Like two women might agree that a particular man is physically attractive. He would be a good model. Everyone would think he's good looking. But one of them might say, he just doesn't do it for me. He's good looking.

Starting point is 00:15:39 He's got all that, but he just doesn't do it for me. And the other one might say, oh, he does it for me. Again, I think that physical attractiveness versus sexual attractiveness has to be brought into play there. We don't know everything, of course. There's not lots of research done in this area. Okay, let me give you an example. There's something called the matching hypothesis. And this is the view that people tend to choose someone who is at their own level of sexual attractiveness. So if you just got people to rate somebody on a general scale of one to 10, according to how sexually attractive they are, there tends to be a tendency for people to choose someone who is in their own level. So two fives choose a five, two tens choose a ten.

Starting point is 00:16:36 There's all sorts of discussion about why that's the case, right? And nobody really knows why it's the case. One view is, well, you know, the aspiration view is that you don't go beyond, you know, what's possible for you. Is there much of a difference between how sexual attraction works for a man versus a woman? Because from what you're saying, it sounds like you're saying that sexual attraction is all physical. It's all appearance. But we hear things like, well, physical attractiveness isn't as important to women as it is to men. And I don't know if that's true or not. What do you say? Well, yes, you do hear that all the time. And again, I would say that looks aren't as important

Starting point is 00:17:21 to women in terms of long-term relationships. But in terms of initial sexual attraction, there's no good data to show that women don't care about the looks of a man. In fact, there's data that shows the opposite, that women are just as interested in the looks of a man. And there was one very interesting study where they took students at a university, invited them to a dance, and randomly assigned them to a partner. This is your partner for the dance. And little did the students know, but the people had been coded by independent judges before

Starting point is 00:18:00 the dance in terms of their sexual attractiveness. And the one thing that predicted whether they wanted to see the person again later and would be interested in pursuing them later was the person's degree of sexual attractiveness, and it was the same for men and for women. But when they followed them up six months later, that had no predictive value about whether they'd be together. And in fact, the one factor that did have predictive value was the matching hypothesis, how closely they were related on the level of attraction.

Starting point is 00:18:34 So I don't think women are just as interested in the physical appearance, sexual appearance of a man, how sexually attractive he is as men are. But, you know, there's all these society taboos, right? Women are not to show that kind of behavior. Women have to think in terms of a long-term relationship. Women are going to be mothers. There's all this pressure from all these different ways that stop that. But that doesn't mean that in the moment that a woman looks at a man,

Starting point is 00:19:04 that she's not doing exactly what he's doing, you know, looking at him in terms of his sexual attractiveness. If physical attraction is all about appearance, which is what I'm taking from what you're saying, what is it about the appearance? I mean, can you generally say, well, what women really look for in a sexually attractive person is, you know, this about his eyes or whatever, or is everybody individual? It just depends on the person who's looking. Yeah, I think so. you know, of eye contact and skin and hair and, you know, the tone of your voice. That's one thing very important for people. And the height, you know, the body isn't just, you know, a stationary thing.

Starting point is 00:19:57 And in one interesting study, they did light points of people walking. This is where they just have a stick figure drawn in points of light that they map from an actual figure walking. And they looked how men walk and how women walk, and they walk quite differently. Men have more velocity, more side-to-side motion, take longer steps. Women take shorter steps, have more of a hip sway and a back arch when they walk. Then what they did is they had the light point figure walking in high heels.

Starting point is 00:20:31 And you couldn't see the high heels, but both men and women rated the light point of the woman walking in high heels as more sexually attractive because when you look at it, it actually exaggerates the women's way of walking. So features that exaggerate the feminine aspect or the masculine aspect are often thought to be more sexually attractive. So here's a question I've wondered about. A woman can look at another woman and say, you know, oh, she's a very attractive woman. Is what she's seeing that makes her say that woman is very attractive, is it the same thing that a man sees that would make him say she's very attractive? Well, that's a really fascinating question, and it's complicated. We know, for example, that in women's magazines, the women models tend to be slimmer and not have so much of a figure and less body fat.

Starting point is 00:21:32 Whereas in men's magazines, when women are used in advertisements, they are more curvaceous and full and have more subcutaneous fat. So there's something there, but that's a really good example of where physical attraction and sexual attraction contrast with each other. A woman can look at another woman and think, yeah, she's sexually attractive, but I'm not attracted to her, but I know that a man would be, but she could still find her attractive, but not in a sexual way. How do male-female friendships fit into this discussion? Because men and women, I guess, can be friends. But what is the friendship? I mean, is there some sexual attraction even though there's no sex? Or how does that work? We know that, you know, cross-sex friendships, male and female friendships, they're a relatively new thing. Like in the 1940s and 50s, they were quite frowned upon.

Starting point is 00:22:34 You know, it's considered a deviant friendship. And in many countries in the world, they are just illegal, right? You're not allowed to be with a man, let alone be a friend with him if you're not his partner. But one of the things about cross-sex friendships that's happening, I think, is the profile is the same as in a romantic or a sexual relationship, where the woman tends to be younger than the man, tends to be shorter than the man, tends to be less educated or making less money. That tends to be the case in partners, sexual romantic partners. And that's also true in cross-sex friendships. So there probably is definitely a sexual element there, but it's important to remember that just because there's

Starting point is 00:23:26 sexual attraction doesn't mean that people act on it. You can't act on every instance of sexual attraction. So it's okay that you feel sexual attraction without thinking that, oh, this must mean this and that and so on. No, it doesn't. We feel that, and that's a very normal thing. And in cross-sex friendships, it seems like it's there. There is definitely an element of sexual attraction, and that gives it a different flavor from male and female friendships. Though there's several other things, too. Like there's a female way of thinking that males enjoy. Males often in their friendships have competitive aspects that makes them a little bit unpleasant. And with a woman, he doesn't have that. And women also have

Starting point is 00:24:12 a competitive streak. And some women say our friendships are just too emotional and they're too strong. And with a male friend, I don't have to worry about that. So there's several features going on there. But there is sexual attraction. And often, these relationships do turn into full blown romantic relationships. But again, they need not. Well, this is a topic that, you know, everybody has thought about one time or another. And it's interesting to take the different kinds of attraction and compare them with each other. And it really helps you understand the whole idea of sexual attraction.

Starting point is 00:24:51 James Giles has been my guest. He's author of a book called Sexual Attraction, The Psychology of Allure. And if you would like to read that book, there's a link to it at Amazon in the show notes. Thank you, James. Thanks for explaining all this. Thanks, Mike, very much.

Starting point is 00:25:06 I've really enjoyed this. I appreciate you having me on the program. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics,

Starting point is 00:25:34 creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind

Starting point is 00:25:56 of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts.

Starting point is 00:26:13 Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast. And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest.

Starting point is 00:26:34 Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back,

Starting point is 00:27:07 and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. For a while now, I've wanted to do a segment on how the world of work has changed, because you can see how it's changed. I mean, when you look at the workplace pre-COVID compared to how work is today, so many things have changed. And while some things look like they're going back to the way they were,

Starting point is 00:27:45 a lot of other things are not. And perhaps the thing that has really changed is how people view their work. Or maybe it's better to say the way people question their work. Is this really what I want to do? Does this work really mean something? Jennifer Toste-Karras has been studying this and has some great insight I think you'll find interesting. Jennifer is a professor of management at Babson College. She also teaches, researches, and coaches others about what it means to create a meaningful career. And she is author of a book called Is Your Work Worth It? How to Think About Meaningful Work. Hi Jennifer, welcome to Something You Should Know.

Starting point is 00:28:26 Hi, Mike. Thank you so much for having me. So let's start by talking about how work has changed, because it's changed a lot, not just pre and post COVID, which is a substantial change, but the whole idea of work has been changing for years, and it's just different now. When my father was working, you know, he kind of defined himself by what he did. And it just seems to have gotten very far away from that. Yeah. It's funny, Mike, to hear you say, you know, we've changed how we used to think about work, where how we used to think about work is pre-2020, maybe. Because I like to go way back, like a century back, right, and sort of trace our movement from farm work

Starting point is 00:29:13 to factory work to kind of mid-20th century office work and office culture. And I think that's where when you say we're your father, certainly my father, you know, my parents age, we're still in that kind of dominant office culture for many people where you expect to have one employer, maybe the majority of your career, move up that ladder, retire from that place and also stay in one place, raise the family, not really move around. So already by the time, you know, I graduated college in the year 2000, I'm kind of this cusp of Generation X and a millennial. I already had no delusion that I would work for the same company forever. Everyone I knew was job hopping, moving around, you know, certainly not yet working remotely. I would say that is more of a post-COVID thing. But we already had this notion of what is sometimes referred to by people who study careers as a boundaryless career. And most of the changes that you've just described were changes that happened gradually over a few decades. Things just evolved. The workplace evolved. But then COVID came

Starting point is 00:30:26 and it changed things quickly and changed things a lot. I mean, more than we ever would have thought. So jobs that prior to COVID, you would say, there's no way this could be done remotely. Suddenly, guess what? We all saw it. They're being done remotely and well and successfully. And now workers don't want to go back. They're negotiating, will it be, you know, two days in the office? Will it be, you know, I don't basically, I don't want to come in unless I have to. And I certainly don't want to come in on a Friday. And, you know, we're just seeing all this newfound, I mean, we had already gotten way more flexible and way more boundaryless than we had been. And now it's just gone to really another level. I mean, I guess the other thing

Starting point is 00:31:14 that I want to make sure that I say, especially given what I, you know, research and study and write about, is people really reconsidered post COVID the big why. Why am I doing what I'm doing? This is why we saw the Great Resignation. Because people suddenly, especially when you're faced with your own mortality, you know, people are dying. I could die. I could die tomorrow. We don't tend to go around thinking those sorts of thoughts. But when we do, we suddenly say, is what I'm doing with my limited time on this earth, is it really working for me? Is this really how I want to be spending my time?

Starting point is 00:31:49 And so many people quit jobs that they otherwise might have gone along in because they said, time is too short and I have to try. I may not know what I want to do, but I have to try to do something better. One of the things that historically seems to drive what job you take, what job you want, what job you will settle for, is your desired standard of living. How you want to live will determine, well, what job do you need to live that way? And that seems to have changed. There's a movement you may have heard about called the FIRE movement, Financial Independence Retire Early.

Starting point is 00:32:28 And so some people said, how do I actually free myself of work as quickly as possible? And a lot of that is, what do I really need to live? Do I need, you know, we get trapped in this and especially in the age of, you know, social media, constant marketing. We think we need a certain standard of living. But a lot of people, not a lot, but at least some people are reconsidering, how much do I really need to live? And is there a way to even get passive income that requires very little of me and I can, you know, I can still live and not work as much. So when people talk about, well, people write books about, you know, meaningful work, but

Starting point is 00:33:13 do people think that way? Do people wake up in the morning and say, is my work meaningful? Must I, mustn't I find meaningful work? Or do people just get up and go to work? Yeah. mustn't I find meaningful work? Or do people just get up and go to work? Yeah, I mean, I think too often and day in and day out, people just go to work. And by the way, even the most meaningful jobs that we can imagine, right, just these prototypical helping professions, caring professions, health care, child care, social work, right? Saving the world, saving the oceans. Very little work feels meaningful every day. So regardless, there are going to be days when you're waking up

Starting point is 00:33:52 thinking, oh, man, I have to go to work today, right? So I, you know, while certainly there are times when I would say people do ask questions about, is this the job I want? So for example, when graduating from college or graduating from high school, maybe entering the workforce, there are times when people may contemplate career changes for lots of different reasons, but, you know, and then maybe they're asking these big questions. But I would say in general, we don't tend to ask this question about, is my work meaningful? And that's part of what, you know, through my own research and teaching and coaching, I would like to get people to think about that. And by the way, meaningful work does not just need to be work that makes the world a

Starting point is 00:34:37 better place or, you know, feels personally fulfilling and self-actualizing every single day. Again, that's a very, very high bar. Work can be meaningful if it is providing for my family and my family is what makes my life meaningful. Work can be meaningful if it is allowing me to enjoy a hobby or something I would say I love doing outside of work that is sort of my reason for being, my reason for living. So although there is an idea that work itself can be meaningful, that's not always what it has to mean. But that's what gets talked about a lot. People talk about how they want to change the world and their work isn't fulfilling

Starting point is 00:35:22 because they're not doing, it's not their calling. And it's a lot of woo-woo stuff when, you know, the guy down at the brake shop is making a lot of money and providing for his family and living a good life, but he's just putting brakes in cars. Yeah, absolutely. So we have had a absolute cultural, I don't know, takeover, I'll say, of this idea that you should do what you love, your work should be a calling either because you are literally a clergy person doing the work of God. Later, you know, sort of Protestant Revolution, Protestant work ethic. The idea was, let's elevate work, let's elevate what we do day in and day out and say, it can serve God, even if I'm, you know, quote, unquote, just a farmer or just a laborer, that this work can be in service of God. And it's sort of like beats the alternative where idle hands are the devil's play thing or,

Starting point is 00:36:33 you know, whatever people like to say. But we see this really reemerge in kind of late 90s, early 2000s, when we see knowledge work become very popular. And we see a lot of people who, again, are maybe freed up to say, I have a lot of choice. What is it that I want to be doing? And we start putting a lot of pressure on people that your work must be a calling. So I like to quote from this, you know, Steve Jobs, Stanford commencement speech, where he tells people, the only way to do good work is to love what you do. And if you haven't found it yet, keep looking. And so then I see a very direct line to my students. And they're in my office, like, if I don't know what

Starting point is 00:37:16 I love to do, and I don't know if what I love to do is in my work, you know, what does that mean? Have I failed basically at life? So I think this cultural pressure is a bit misplaced because obviously, as you said, while it would be great if we all loved our work, because again, what's the alternative? We don't want people to hate their work, think it's drudgery, think it's certainly meaningless. But we know that we don't all need to love our work to do great work, nor do we need to love our work to have a great life. Is the is the issue, though? I mean, are people sitting around wondering about is their work meaningful or is it more of a I wonder what I should do?

Starting point is 00:37:58 Like, what do I want to do? It doesn't have to save the world, but what do I just, especially, I guess, people coming out of school, graduating high school or college or whatever, and wondering, what do I want to do? Is that the question? Yeah. I think that is the question. And so I think when we think about the overall rewards of work, we do tend to distill them, and it's a little bit of a false dichotomy, but we do tend to distill them to money or meaning. I mean, I'm simplifying greatly. Right. But we're sort of aware at some level that often the jobs that, let's say, do the most good in the world or, you know, make make the world a better place are not always the ones that pay. Of course, doctors, you know, there are some exceptions to this, but, you know, surgeons, doctors, etc. But again, I think the question becomes, how much do you really need to live and to accomplish the goals that you have

Starting point is 00:38:58 for your life? So not just your work, but your life. And are you caught up in what others are doing? I mean, I see this a lot teaching at a business school and actually one that's known for entrepreneurship. Everyone thinks if I'm not Mark Zuckerberg and I've started my first company by the time I'm done with college, I'm a failure, right? So how do we reduce the social pressure and the cultural pressure? Sometimes there's parent pressure involved too, right? Like you can choose any job you, as long as it's a doctor or a lawyer, right? A lot of parents say that a lot of parents like business schools, because they have a return on investment, a lot of people get employed at the end of it and in jobs that are well paying. But you know, I would love for people when they are considering, what is it that I want to do? You know, will the job make

Starting point is 00:39:45 you will it will it pay enough that you can accomplish, you know, whatever the goals are that you have? And also, will it be meaningful, even in a way, again, doesn't have to save the world doesn't have to, you know, feel like a perfect job every day. But can you sort of justify to yourself and others why it's worth taking the time to do, right? Like versus the alternative where I honestly don't know why this job even exists. And I don't know why, you know, anyone should care about it. I mean, we wouldn't want anyone to feel like their work is truly without meaning or, you know, devoid of meaning, or I guess even worse has sort of a negative meaning, is doing harm in some way. But there's been stuff in the news about people who are, and you mentioned earlier the great resignation,

Starting point is 00:40:37 like people are just exiting work. Like are people questioning the value of work? Like why do I need to work? Maybe I don't need to work. Maybe I will do something else and not work. So I feel like our cultural conversation now is upending any number of beloved institutions. So people are like, why do I have to get married? Why do I need a college degree? Right. And along with that, why do I have to work? So I mentioned earlier this movement toward early retirement, this dream of like, why do I need to wait until I'm older, maybe not in as good health? Why can't I have that today? Right. And so that's that's sort of one side of this. I think another side of it is this very omnipresent, looming threat of artificial intelligence and automation and what's sometimes referred to as technological unemployment, meaning at its most simple form, the robots are coming for our jobs. But what will it mean if

Starting point is 00:41:41 I see a world in which my work either goes away entirely, it's maybe automated, routinized, AI can do it better, or it's changed to the point where it's not a job I want to do anymore, right? What makes it fun for me or interesting for me and makes me feel like I can grow is gone. Then what? And I think we're right on the precipice of that. I mean, I think there's a lot of angst about it, and not a lot of clear answers. And we're all just, as with many major, it feels like world issues right now, we're kind of waiting to see how things play out. And that's

Starting point is 00:42:16 sort of psychologically uncomfortable and anxiety provoking. So I think people are asking really big questions about work. And I think it I think it makes sense. And I certainly think rather than say, I must work the majority of my, you know, waking life, I would love people to think to feel like there are options and I can choose how I spend my time and I will work as much as I as you know serves me or as I wish to and not more. Do you think what you're talking about applies to most people? Because I see in the media and just in life I see people that fit this description that they're questioning their work maybe they want to do something else how much do they need their work. Maybe they want to do something else. How much do they need to work? Where do they want to work? All that. I get that. But there's also people who work a lot. I mean, they love their work. They're, you know, first in in the morning,

Starting point is 00:43:15 last to leave at night. And that's kind of the old, the old stereotypical, you know, my dad's generation kind of thing where work was everything and you worked really hard and that's what you did. We did get in this place of work being sort of a default state for a lot of people. We had a lot of overworking. We had it sometimes called the hustle culture where people felt like from the moment they wake up in the morning till the moment they go to sleep, unless they're working, they're sort of worthless. That's predominant among entrepreneurs like the people that I work with at my college.

Starting point is 00:43:55 You know, if you're not working, hustling, grinding all the time, you're a failure. And I would love to see people take a step back from that and say, what else would I want to do with my time? And am I using it, you know, the proper way? Then I wonder, if we swing the pendulum all the way over to where a lot of us are choosing not to work, what will that actually look like? So my co-author, someone I work with a lot on this topic, Christopher Wong Michelson, he likes to say, even if work went away, I think how we would occupy our time would look a lot like work. You know, can we really be productive in our lives in a way that doesn't somehow look like we're accomplishing a to-do list? Well, what happened or has anything happened to what has often been referred to as the work ethic in this country,

Starting point is 00:44:51 that people had a work ethic, which to me always meant you need to get up and go to work. That's your work ethic. You can't just not. I mean, that's and it does seem like that it's not as clear a work ethic as it used to be. Yeah, I mean, every generation loves to say that the young generation currently is lazy, entitled, doesn't want to work hard. So that was true when I was Gen X coming onto the workforce. Everyone was saying about us, that about us, then about the millennials, and now about Gen Z. people or anyone else is actually lazy and just thinks they're entitled to everything without working hard for it. There's actually like no data to back that up. But I do think this sense, I've been asked a lot lately about a phenomenon called quiet quitting. And that seems relevant

Starting point is 00:45:59 here because that's this notion that quiet quitting, I'm not quitting my job. In fact, I'm very much staying at and doing my job. But I'm doing sort of the bare minimum. I'm not going above and beyond. I'm doing the job description, but no more. And that really scares employers. I mean, employers are like, how can we stop this? Right. And I wonder if it's not, again, a recalibration of for so long people felt the only way that I can either do my job well or maybe get my employer to recognize me, promote me, maybe even just keep me at my job was to go 110%, you know, above and beyond day in and day out all the time. And I think that maybe people are trying to reclaim a little bit of that autonomy and time for themselves. And again, sort of this antidote to this hustling, constant hustling culture that I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing as long as their job is getting done.

Starting point is 00:47:07 But I think we may reach this sort of intersection where my desire of how much I want to do as a worker bumps up against the employer's expectations. And if that falls to the side of I'm not meeting expectations, you can, you know, keep you on or promote you or any of those things. So another label that I often hear is lazy girl jobs, sort of picking jobs that when they leave, the job stays at work, they're not bringing it home with them, they're doing, again, the bare minimum. But I also think these concepts are very unsatisfying to us, because we do, I mean, Americans really do like to think of ourselves as industrious hard workers. We do have, as you referred to, a Protestant work ethic, right? It's sort of our founding belief is doing hard work is inherently moral or noble. So it very much

Starting point is 00:48:03 flies in the face of that, which I think makes people uncomfortable. Well, anyone who has a job has certainly noticed that things in the workplace have changed, and they continue to change. It's like in a total state of flux. So I think it's great to get your explanation and your insight into what's going on and why. I've been talking to Jennifer Toste-Karras. She is a professor of management at Babson College and author of the book, Is Your Work Worth It? How to Think About Meaningful Work. And there's a link to that book in the show notes.

Starting point is 00:48:37 Thank you, Jennifer. I appreciate you coming on and talking about all this. Awesome. Thank you so much, Mike. It is impossible to go through life Awesome. Thank you so much, Mike. Well, it is possible that you may think you put two socks in the laundry when you really only put one in. But let's assume you actually did put two socks into the washing machine and only one comes out. The A-wall sock often gets trapped inside the washing machine. Socks are particularly prone to go rogue during the spin cycle, especially if the washer is overloaded. And then it winds up being whipped into some small gap where the sock can then slip between the tub and the drum or somewhere else in the washing machine. From there, some may even work their way down and get sucked

Starting point is 00:49:36 into the drain pump. And other socks may actually make it all the way through and out with the wastewater. And that's where it went. And that is something you should know. If there is anything in this episode that you thought was particularly interesting that you would like to share with a friend or some relative or something, please, please do so. Please push the share button wherever you listen to this on the player and send it to whoever and help us grow our audience. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Do you love Disney? Do you love top 10 lists?

Starting point is 00:50:11 Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. The parks, the movies, the music, the food, the lore. There is nothing we don't cover on our show. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed. I had Danielle and Megan record some answers to

Starting point is 00:50:38 seemingly meaningless questions. I asked Danielle what insect song is typically higher pitched in hotter temperatures and lower pitched in cooler temperatures? You got this. No, I didn't. Don't believe that. About a witch coming true? Well, I didn't either. Of course, I'm just a cicada.

Starting point is 00:50:56 I'm crying. I'm so sorry. You win that one. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a co-founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot.

Starting point is 00:51:27 During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go network by listening today.

Starting point is 00:51:55 Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know - The Science of Sexual Attraction & What Does Your Job Mean to You?

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.