The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant - Resisting Influence in an Over-Influenced World

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, Adam. Hey, Brinne. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. Are you gearing up for your book tour? I am. Whether I like it or not. I'm excited for you. More to come on that, y'all. I had this weird idea for a podcast topic.

Starting point is 00:00:21 Adam was like, oh my God, I love this. It has gone from funny in my mind to I am enraged. So, I just, I just want you to know, you brought this on yourself. I contributed nothing to the rage. No, you did. Really? You did. You have no idea how many conversations that you and I have had about this that you

Starting point is 00:00:45 were not a part of. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't know you could have conversations with me without me. Oh, you need to meet my husband. Like, he'll say, you seem weird. I'm like, no, we're fine. It's just, it was a difficult fight, but I'm glad we reconciled. and I'm glad that you agreed with me.

Starting point is 00:01:02 And he's like, do I need to be read in or can we just move forward? And I was like, no, I think we're good. There is so much more going on in your head than mine. Oh, yeah, no, for sure. Welcome to The Curiosity Shop. A show from the Fox Media Podcast Network. Okay, so here's how this podcast started, y'all. I tell Adam that I saw a funny meme on Instagram that said, am I the only one that's still like rinsing my hair with cold water to close the cuticles of my hair and make it shinier?

Starting point is 00:01:44 Because I read that in 1983 in 17 magazine. And I told Adam that I thought was so funny because I still do that because I read the same thing in 17 magazine. Well, I don't do that. And I feel like hair is going better for you than it has for me. So maybe I miss the boat here. No, it's, so I called Adam and I said, I want to do a podcast on why we're so susceptible to tricks and tips that seem easy and hackable and doable. and I have held on to that for, let me just do the math in my head, okay, 40 years. Like there's other things I read in Young Miss and 17 Magazine when I was in middle school and high school that I am immovable on. Thoughts. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is, did you ever read Made to Stick by the Heath Brothers?

Starting point is 00:02:48 No. Tell me about it. Oh, I think it's one of the best evidence-based books ever written on teaching, communication, and it's all about how ideas become memorable and why they lodge in our brains and we don't let them go. And they boiled a lot of the research down to six principles, which they, I think, spelled out as success with one S at the end. So if I remember correctly, they are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotion, and story. Oh, my God, that's so good. Say it again. So simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotion, story. You don't have to check all those boxes, obviously.

Starting point is 00:03:27 But I'm just thinking back to what you read in 17. Maybe at the time you saw it as a highly credible source. I don't know. Maybe less now. I mean, Jane Modeen was on the front of it. She was a supermodel of the late 70s. I mean, who is a young girl, fifth generation Texan? Who would I be to question a magazine that had Jane Modine on the front and an entire spread of Noxema?

Starting point is 00:03:52 Okay, so this is interesting about ideas that stick because it started as what I thought would be a funny podcast. And then it turned into, I cried for two hours over the weekend when I was thinking about it. And I'm going to tell you why. Stay with me. When my sisters and I were caregiving for my mom, and I think we've talked about this before, my Instagram feed, became flooded with, and you have to remember that like, Ashley and Barrett and I were caregiving for my mom, but my mom and I had done the caregiving for my grandmother, both 77 years at onset, both devastating. And the thing you're thinking about is, of course, you're thinking about caring for

Starting point is 00:04:43 your mom, but you're also thinking like, shit, am I on a clock? Am I on a dementia clock? And so my feed became full of these advertisements and influencers saying things like, are you a caregiver for dementia, a dementia parent? And here's what you can do. And I remember I bought a couple of things and I threw my phone a couple times. And so I know it seems like a leap from 17 magazine and how to get shiny hair. But one of the things that this brought me to, was an article that I read 20 years ago. It was a peer-reviewed article. Are you familiar with Robert Chialdini,

Starting point is 00:05:30 the persuasion person? Bob Cheldini is one of the reasons that I became a psychologist. What the frick? Yeah, I, when, okay, What the frick? Quick backstory. First semester of freshman year of college,

Starting point is 00:05:45 his book, Influence, is assigned both for my psychics, one class and also for my writing seminar and social influence. I found it so fascinating. I read it for both classes. Then I called home and told my family they needed to read it. And when I got to grad school, I had an assignment to interview a scholar I admired and seek their career advice. And I cold emailed Bob, and he responded and hopped on the phone right away. And he's sort of been a mentor from afar for nearly a quarter century since then. You and I have such weird synchronicity. in Kismet sometimes. You'll say something like, man, this study I just saw it. I'm like,

Starting point is 00:06:24 I was in her doctoral cohort. Yeah, I was like, yeah, I'm a subject in that study. Okay, so here's what's interesting. And I'm so excited to talk about this with you. So Brad Sagan, do you know Brad Sagan. Do you know all these people? I know the name. I don't know him. Okay. So they wrote an article and you'll know why I was interested in it because the title of the article was dispelling the illusion of invulnerability. And I'm going to just give listeners and watchers a simpler rendition of the study. What they found was in order to reduce our susceptibility to misinformation, you need to both believe that you are vulnerable to it, and then you have to have skills to deconstruct it. Neither of those alone is enough. So one, you have to admit that you're

Starting point is 00:07:28 susceptible. And two, you have to be able to have some literacy around deconstructing what you hear. Does that make sense to you? It's so interesting because, you know, when you were, when you were talking about the parallel between what you went through with your mom, which I'm so sorry for, by the way. Thank you. It's brutal. And the connection between that and 17 Magazine, like, oh, what those two situations have in common is, they're praying on your fears. Yes. And you are in a vulnerable emotional state, whether it's worrying about your mom and your future or whether you're worrying about your hair and whether unlike me, you're going to keep it.

Starting point is 00:08:08 And so I think that nobody wants to feel vulnerable in those situations. And so a lot of times we get duped because we don't even realize we're susceptible. And so what you just said, I think, captured, it's so important to recognize I am vulnerable right now. I am exactly the kind of person they're trying to target. Yes. But it feels like admitting weakness, even though it enables us to be strong. Yes. So it's so interesting. This is why, like, my voice is shaking. I get so effing mad. This is why it's so upsetting to me because it's so hard to acknowledge our vulnerability in a space where we're

Starting point is 00:09:01 vulnerable. Like if I'm caregiving for my mom and everybody that is watching or listening who is, who is care given, not just for someone with dementia, but potentially any, you know, end of life disease. Like, you're changing diapers. This is like humanity at a level that you did not know you could do. Like you are, you are standing in a room crying, taking a deep breath out of earshot and eyesight of the person you're helping. And you're saying to yourself, you can fucking do this. Do not be a coward. You can do this. You know, it is. It is. You is torturous. And so you are so vulnerable that in the moment when the ad slips by on Instagram, it's almost impossible to say, oh, I'm vulnerable here because if you let yourself

Starting point is 00:09:53 be vulnerable, you can't get out of bed in the morning. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And you're almost undermining the self-talk that you were just doing to say, toughen up. You can do this. You can do this. I remember this moment. where my grandmother was in San Antonio, and my mom and I were trying to figure out, and she was in this terrible, just an indictment of that health care system in the U.S. She was in this terrible situation where she had been a beauty operator her whole life, you know, a hairstylist. Her husband was a teamster and a forklift driver in a brewery, pearl beer,

Starting point is 00:10:28 doesn't get more Texas, San Antonio than that. Yet they had enough income that they couldn't get help and not enough income to pay for, you know, assisted living or, you know, anything like that. They were in that place. And we were trying to figure it out. And she was at home at the time, which was not tenable because she was a smoker. This is my grandmother who I think would have liked your grandmother, the maximalist. Yes.

Starting point is 00:10:52 And she was a smoker. So we knew we couldn't keep her at home long because she was going to burn down the house. Like there would be cigarettes lit all over the place when I came home falling out of ashtrays. And I was like, I need to bathe her. And I was 21, you know, and I was like, oh my God. Like, no. You know, and so the self-talk and the get tough, and probably maybe as an older person, I understand the self-talk is like be vulnerable and it's okay. But that's not the self-talk that's ever worked for me.

Starting point is 00:11:27 So I think you're right. Yeah, no. It should. If it works for anyone, it should be you for today. No. This is my me search. Leave my me search alone. So what is interesting is in this study that Chialdini and Sagan did together, the takeaway is for everyone of us to say, I'm not outside the reach of persuasion. I have to learn to examine what's persuading me.

Starting point is 00:12:05 So good. Does that make sense? Because then you can figure out your vulnerabilities. Right. This makes so much sense coming from Bob and his team too, because his work on influence and persuasion has been picked up by marketers and salespeople and tons of people who are trying to, in some cases, exercise influence. And in other cases, manipulate.

Starting point is 00:12:27 And Bob is always the one to raise his hand and say, I didn't want this to be used as a weapon. I actually started studying this for self-defense because I remember him saying all of my life, I have been the one who gets taken advantage of. And I realized I needed to figure out what are the principles that people are using so that I can put my guard up. But I love this extra layer that you're bringing in of let me figure out where I am vulnerable. What is it that appeals to me? So I could go in a thousand directions, and we could both go in the direction of weaponizing work. Because I think, my work's been weaponized.

Starting point is 00:13:06 Your work has been weaponized. Anyone that does work has been weaponized. I mean, for God's sake, specifically for God's sake, the Bible's weaponized all the time. So it's like you can weaponize anything, right? One of the things where I got thinking about my own experience as a caregiver, but then do you know Jessica Nurek, Dr. Jessica Nurek? She's a PhD. I think she also has a master's in nursing. She's a research.

Starting point is 00:13:30 And she kind of, what is it called when you show a video and then you're watching the video and then you comment on it on Instagram, like a play-by-play of videos? Yeah. Oh, a reaction video? A reaction video, yes. I don't know her. No. Okay, you should look her up.

Starting point is 00:13:47 She's great. So yesterday, I saw this video from her. And there's a guy and he's standing in an aisle of a store. and he says, toxic products for newborns that I'd never allow in my house as a naturopathic doctor. And then Jessica stops, Dr. Nurek, stops it right after he says that. So all he said so far is, like he points behind him on the shelves, toxic products for newborns that I'd never let in my house as a naturopathic doctor. And then Dr. Nurek stops and says these things.

Starting point is 00:14:28 One, vulnerable population, parents of newborns. Two, fear-based hook. Like, is there anything more fear-based than toxic products for newborns? And then three, she says, an appeal to authority versus any actual evidence. That's such a great deconstruction of the kind of message. that too many people are susceptible to, including us. Yeah. So, like, I've got shaky leggy.

Starting point is 00:14:58 That's what we call it in my family because 50% of my family's got shaky leggy and the other 50 doesn't. I'm usually the 50 that doesn't have shaky leggy. And I'm like, hey, collection of shaky leggy people, you're levitating the table here. But I've got it right now because I'm all hyped up. So let me walk you through this like a transformer. Fear-based hook. toxic products for newborns. Immediately, my capacity for vulnerability is corroded

Starting point is 00:15:28 because I'm in fear now, so I'm starting to armor up. Oh my God, I've got a newborn. Am I giving my baby something poisonous? Appeal to authority. Oh, my God. He's a doctor of some sort. He would know. Oh, my God.

Starting point is 00:15:44 He's standing in a store where I shop. It's like this is where... The grifting is so effing powerful because if you combine my vulnerability of my situation and circumstance with a fear-based hook and an appeal to authority, there's nothing left in me to look for evidence. Are you tracking what I'm saying in my nuts? No, I think this is powerful. And, you know, to link it to something you said earlier, okay, so I guess I'm imagining a different approach. to opening up Instagram.

Starting point is 00:16:22 Starting with, okay, I recognize that I'm vulnerable to certain fears, and I need to know what those fears are. And then when somebody appeals to one, instead of immediately responding to the emotion, just pausing to ask, what is this person trying to sell me? What are they trying to persuade me of? Yes.

Starting point is 00:16:43 Where some see heroes and other see egos. Bloomberg sees the era of business. billionaire athletes. While others follow the noise, we follow the money. Learn more at Bloomberg.com. Okay, I have this sentence that I wrote down. A competent recommendation is not the same thing as real evidence. I think about this all the time. Okay, say more. Say more. I have to have some ice tea, baby. The texted in me is thirsty. All right. So I think where it, where it jumps out in the immediately is seven out of ten doctors

Starting point is 00:17:25 recommend. I don't care what seven out of ten doctors recommend. I want to know what seven of the ten studies showed. Mm. Those are two very different questions. Two different things. Very different. And in evidence-based

Starting point is 00:17:41 medicine, and now evidence-based management, too, there's a hierarchy of levels of evidence. And at the very bottom of the hierarchy is expert professional opinion. And at the very top would be a meta-analysis, a study of studies of good, randomized controlled trials with double-blind placebos. And we don't always get that.

Starting point is 00:18:03 But we should be pushing for better evidence than here's the opinion of a supposedly trustworthy professional. You should defer to it. Yeah, check the authority. I got to tell you, I mean, this makes me really nervous about the Trump administration taking over NIH. I mean, wait, I'm sorry. Are you saying that RFK and his team are not medical experts and that they're not consulting the best available rigorous evidence?

Starting point is 00:18:34 How could this be? I mean, when I was prepping for this, just my innocent journey from 17 and Young Miss magazine to this cluster effery, all I could think about is this is what's working right. right now, not just in wellness grifting on Instagram, but politically it's vulnerable population, you know, fear-based hooking, and appeal to an authority that's really not credible. And the other thing that I think is interesting is this study, it's a small sample. what it talks about is that participants could see ads as problematic and still be hurt by them

Starting point is 00:19:29 that recognizing what's happening and being protected from it are not the same thing. Uh-oh. Well, that's not helpful at all. But think about this for a second. What do you make of that? That recognizing what's happening and being protected by it are not the same thing.

Starting point is 00:19:50 Okay, it reminds me of a long history of research in social psychology on the sleeper effect where people are presented with information and they don't necessarily trust it or believe it. And then you look at what happens over time and very often people forget the source and they hang on to the message. Yes.

Starting point is 00:20:11 And if we go back to the Heath Brothers principles from earlier, if it's a simple, unexpected message, if it's concrete and it's emotional and there's a good story behind it, if you forget the source, you have lost the flashing neon sign that says, hey, this is not credible. And you're just hanging on to the information, then that information that didn't sway you initially can rebound and now influence you over time. Yes.

Starting point is 00:20:37 And there's a group of psychologists that I thought had a great takeaway on this. They said, ultimately, may the source be with you. I mean, as a Star Wars nerd, I love that. But I think it's right. I think that when we put our guard up, we forget, okay, if I'm going to let any of this information into my head, I need to hang on to the source to you. I need to think about, is this a credible source or not? And then when I retrieve that information later, it needs to be linked to the source. I have to remember where I saw it.

Starting point is 00:21:10 I have to remember who posted it. I have to ask myself, do I trust this person? And I think that most of our message processing is kind of, okay, the source fades into the background, the information or the recommendation sort of stands out in the foreground. And that's what ends up in our memory. And I wonder if that's a little bit of a way out of this trap is to say, okay, like if we're building a model of how to resist unwanted influence or being convinced of things that we shouldn't, know your vulnerabilities. That's kind of phase one. Phase two is when you say, okay, this is a fear-based appeal, this is coming from an authority that I don't think is credible. You need to attach, you need to link the appeal to the source. Okay. Can I riff on your process a little bit?

Starting point is 00:22:00 Please do. Okay, so one, recognize and own your vulnerability. Like, there's no shame in being vulnerable to persuasion. because, I mean, our next episode is going to be on your new book vibe. And I don't think without mirror neurons and if someone was completely immune to persuasion, I don't know if we could ever connect and vibe in real ways. So I think the same thing that delivers our susceptibility to persuasion also delivers our capacity for connection and empathy. Wow. Do you think that's true?

Starting point is 00:22:39 That's so interesting. I never thought about that. But you're right. I mean, one of the core markers of a healthy relationship and a meaningful interaction is we're both open to being persuaded by each other. Right. I just read that in Vibe. I'd never put those pieces together. That's an aha moment for me to say, like, we cannot communicate effectively unless we both accept, I am willing to be influenced by you. And you are willing to be influenced by me. Again, next episode's on Vibe. I freaking love that book. I love when you apply words and linguistics and taxonomies to things that happen that, I just love it.

Starting point is 00:23:20 So we can repeat it and do more of the good stuff and less of the not of the shitty stuff. But so I think the first thing is, yeah, it's just good. It's just good. It's just a good book. You're so terrible taking a compliment. But anyway. I'm just sitting here saying, thank you. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:23:34 I know. I appreciate that. I know. But so the first thing is understand that what's the best of us. and the hardest of us is our susceptibility persuasion. It makes us human. So one is to acknowledge that we are influenceable. Okay, number two, this is my riff on what your model is.

Starting point is 00:23:55 Number two is get some persuasion literacy. Be able to recognize the appeal to authority. Recognize, does the appeal to authority replace evidence? where is the evidence? I did this really quick lit review, and there's not a lot of good literature unless you know some because it's relatively new about kind of grifting, wellness gripping on social, where 90% of the information shared by influencers is everything this can do for you. None of the caveats, none of the dangers, none of the specific population, you know, no studies. So one, know you're vulnerable and know that's the best of us and the hardest part of us.

Starting point is 00:24:40 to deconstruct with some advertising literacy. Is that true? Yeah, that's very good. And you're going to add a third. Well, I want to go to your third. I'm just squeezing my second in on the deconstruction, the advertising literature.

Starting point is 00:24:55 I think the second is really good. And I think Chaldini's book influence is a crash course in a lot of the ways that advertisers might be trying to manipulate you. I also thought Maria Konnikova in the confidence game where she studied,

Starting point is 00:25:10 con artists, map that out really well. Ooh, we'll put those books in the notes. And then the third one you said is, may the source be with you? So when you remember something you should be buying, doing, taking, practicing, chase it back down to the source. Yeah, who shared it, who said it.

Starting point is 00:25:31 Don't just hang on to the what, link it to the who. And I think this is so interesting. I've never really thought about this before. But hear me out on this and tell me if it's a terrible idea. It drives me crazy when people say, well, they've shown or they've proven. Like, who's they? Are you saying scientists, researchers? Whenever you hear an ambiguous source or whenever you see a message from somebody that you're not 100% sure that you trust on that topic, the immediate question should be, who are they?

Starting point is 00:26:07 do they have a track record of communicating reliable information on this issue? Okay. I want to get into who are they? May the source be with you. And one of the things that I found kind of prepping for today that I thought was interesting is one quick way of yes or no, do you agree with me or not? Or let's push on this for a little bit. Let's rumble on this for a little bit.

Starting point is 00:26:39 does the source have anything to financially gain from me believing them? Yeah. Alter your motive. Yeah. Do you have any vulnerabilities to these things? I make up that you don't because of your, I make up that you don't. Of course, I do. I think everyone does.

Starting point is 00:26:58 And I think if I thought I didn't, I would be in danger of the Dunning Krueger effect applied to persuasion, where the more overconfident I am about my invulnerability, the more vulnerable I actually am. Right. So, no, I think I have a really strong reflex to say, appeal to fear, not a credible source, where is the actual evidence? But I think I have domains where I'm very susceptible. And I actually experienced one recently around AI.

Starting point is 00:27:27 Oh, my God. Do you want to talk about it? Yeah. I mean, we saw a wave of comments over the past few weeks that, you know, we're much closer to recursive self-improvement than we think. thought and maybe AI could kill us all. And I thought that that claim was preposterous. But then I see posts saying from sources I consider to be at the very forefront of pioneering work in AI saying, you know, a swarm of AI agents could take over the internet. I start to think

Starting point is 00:28:03 about hacking. And I think, okay, like, what are we going to do? Do we need bottled water? do we need a backup internet source? Oh my God, you go prepper. Yeah, I start to prepare. I go preper too. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, we don't need to be in bunkers, but we do need to be ready.

Starting point is 00:28:23 And it would be so stupid, even if this is a low probability event, it's so high severity that I might as well be ready. And I look back at that and I think, okay, to your point, what vested interest do people have in spreading those messages? in convincing you that their technology is so powerful,

Starting point is 00:28:42 it could take over the entire internet. I have an answer. Ooh, Brunay. I'm wondering, I don't know either. Like, I am both filling my bathtub with water and critically fighting the messaging at the same time. I'm hedging. That makes sense, though.

Starting point is 00:29:06 Yeah, I don't trust any of these people. And I think what's driving the lack of regulation is greed and competition. You know, and probably mainly I would guess with China and other people who have frontier models that are not being slowed down by ethics or testing. And so I think it's greed and competition. But I'm wondering if now they're wanting to slow down

Starting point is 00:29:29 because they are hedging on de-leveraging in an AI bubble crash. You know, I just don't trust these folks at all. So when they say it's going to help us, I don't trust us. When they say it's going to kill us, I don't trust him. You know, I don't know. Yeah, I think that's a version of the regulatory capture argument that if we get to shape the regulation, it's going to benefit us and it will protect us. I also think, you know, one thing I haven't heard talked about a lot,

Starting point is 00:29:58 but that I have felt when I interact with some of the AI founders is I think they are vulnerable. They've thought several of them anyway, not all of them, but if you make a list of the who's who of AI, a number of them have thought in a lot of detail, very vividly, about AI doomsday scenarios. And so if we go back to the Heath Brothers, they have the emotion, they have the story, they kind of bounce off of each other, and they're in an echo chamber of sources they consider credible. And I think that the concreteness of the images they generate, they have started to, buy into a narrative that the danger of China being ahead of America is so great that we need to get there first, even if the thing we build might be dangerous in ways that China's tools aren't.

Starting point is 00:30:51 And I think they've kind of bought hook, line, and sinker, the argument that, okay, because China could be faster, the morally responsible thing to do is, like, we have to build it so that, you know, we can stop them. Not really considering, okay, is that a fear of mine that now is influencing my motivation? Yeah, no. Who has sold me that argument about China? And what is their vested interest? Their vested interest is in propping up the American economy and getting America to be AI dominant. And I'm not saying their fears are right or wrong, but the fact that the people who are now peddling the fear are themselves also responding to it. I think it gets complicated very quickly, right?

Starting point is 00:31:39 Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, make sure that you put on my tombstone, I won. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. I just want to go back to the name of the study, dispelling the illusion of invulnerability, the motivations and mechanisms of resistance to persuasion. You know, and this whole idea that when we have shame about, being persuadable, we are so vulnerable to influence. Is that wild? It's a little bit mind-boggling and it's paradoxical. Not that, you know, not that we've never

Starting point is 00:32:18 seen a paradox before or anything, but this is also how people end up believing in conspiracy theories. Oh, 100%. I'm not talking about plausible conspiracy theories. I am talking about clearly falsified, invalidated conspiracy theories like the earth is flat. Right. And I have seen this. It's clear in the data, but I've also seen it happen with some people I know where they are so afraid of, you know, pick your poison, big pharma or big government, or whatever source they think might have some self-serving intentions or profit motives.

Starting point is 00:32:57 They put up their guard against them. And that fear then makes them vulnerable to another group of people. who are selling complete snake oil. That's it. I mean, that's what happened with COVID denial. Oh, yeah. It's what happens with all kinds of science denial, right? Yeah, and I wonder, you know, this is the wildest conversation.

Starting point is 00:33:16 I love it so much. And it's a conversation that's so perfect for the two of us because coming from think like a scientist and then coming from shame and vulnerability, and you can't have this conversation without all of those variables. I love how you just put our life's work together. Yeah, no, it's, yeah, it's cahoots. We're in cahoots here on this one. I think to be able to ask what's persuading me and is the promise that I'm being made supported by evidence. Like, what is the promise? And I also think, to be honest with you, the very first week of COVID hitting the U.S., I posted something on social that said, This is going to be an involuntary experiment in mass collective vulnerability. And you will see the best of people and the absolute effing worst of people.

Starting point is 00:34:17 And I think that was true. Yeah, you're exactly right. And I think that part of the conspiracy theory, and this is interesting because I'm going to vibe now, which is I want to say for our next episode, but when I was reading Vibe, I kept thinking about believing, because it's your connection between the wellness grift and conspiracy theory, that's not a 30-mile walk. That's two steps to the left. Yeah, that's right. And what drives, I think, that we don't ever talk about?

Starting point is 00:34:56 what drives the COVID denial and the flat earth and the things that are just kind of mind-boggling if you follow evidence and sources is also belonging. Yeah. I want to be a part of something that in a mixing bowl looks like a little bit of toughness combined with ribble. Combined with Fuck the System and boy, this mixture is how I want to be seen. I don't want to be controlled. I don't want to be sheeple. Although if you look at the conspiracy theory believers, they define sheeple. I mean, that is the definition of sheeple.

Starting point is 00:35:52 It's the ultimate irony. Yeah. People following science and getting vaccines, you know, come on. Like, I don't know. So it's, there's also a, when we're afraid and when vulnerability doesn't feel like an option because it means we could die or not be able to get out of bed, we want to put on armor that looks like bravado, that looks like resistance, that looks like. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:36:23 Yeah. that looks like I will not keep, I am a rebel. The earth is flat. Yeah. Yeah. And, okay, that makes people feel secure. It gives them a sense of strength. It also connects them to a group.

Starting point is 00:36:39 And this is your point about belonging. It connects them to a group where now they have special insider knowledge. Instead of feeling like they're just either the stupid masses or, they're actually excluded. They're outsiders. Now they're possessing privileged information. It makes them feel important. They know things others don't. And they reinforce each other's knowledge and then you get a group polarization effect. That's it. And that is absolutely, every time I see something, including this naturopathic doctor who was standing in front of this stuff, saying

Starting point is 00:37:18 toxic products for newborns that I would never let in my house, I think immediately that's going to become a group of people that in your vibe words will feel like pals right away. They are hot wiring connection and palship. They are common enemy intimacy is what I call it in my work. Oh, that's such a good term for it. Common enemy intimacy. Intimacy. I don't know you. When shit gets hard, there's no way this relationship's going to stand up.

Starting point is 00:37:57 We are never going to be, you know, the highest level of vibing in vibe is companion, where we can lean on each other and into each other. We will never be that. But right now, there is a bolus, a hit, an endorphin hit of connection because we hate the same people and we believe the same wild shit, and the rest of the world is fucked. And that makes us feel like inseparable allies, too. That's it.

Starting point is 00:38:24 Because we've got a common mission to take down this enemy, or even just to protect ourselves against this enemy. That's it. Wow. Yeah. So when you come across this Instagram that's on our feeds every day, toxic products for newborns that I'd never let in my house, the seduction is not.

Starting point is 00:38:46 just, oh, I've got, you know, every one of us who's brought a newborn home is like, who in the hell trusted me with this thing? Who let this happen? I mean, who in their right mind thinks that, you know, and I was going home with a baby and a pediatrician? And I was still like, we know nothing. This is not allowed. And so when I say, yeah, I'm not letting that toxic stuff in. I've got an immediate friend group. I'm in the non-toxic mother group. I'm in the non-toxic mother group. I'm in the non-vax mother group. You know, it's like, it's not just vulnerability and deconstructing messaging and chasing sources. It is a primal need to belong. So it's not just what am I afraid of that makes me vulnerable. It's also what am I missing in my life

Starting point is 00:39:40 from a group membership standpoint, from community, from connection. Who are my people? Who are my people? Where can I find people? And I don't think if you choose your people to be a group of people that believe different things, that challenge around different things, that's not easy. No. No, it's not. But it's exactly what we should be trying to build. And it's something we could be setting up much earlier. This should be taught in schools.

Starting point is 00:40:08 Oh, God, yes. I mean, I will trade trigonometry for protecting people against people. vulnerability. If I were designing a high school curriculum, I would say replace Trigg with Statistics 101, which includes a whole module on how do people lie to you with facts, with data, or how do they even signal credibility when they don't have data to begin with? Yes, and here's where Adam and I part ways. I would say take out Trigg, replace it with an interesting class in the sociology department, on belonging vulnerability, and persuasion and have a tiny little statistics component.

Starting point is 00:40:49 Can we do both? Both. Two parts, year long, two semesters? We need to find another class to cancel. Mine's going to be more appealing, dude. Yeah. I'll give you a long list. I actually do use algebra every now and then, so I can't do the geometry.

Starting point is 00:41:06 No. Yeah, I could let it go. No, geometry is really important, pickleball. Sorry. Calculus. I don't think anybody needs calculus. No, no, bye-bye. Bye-bye. Yeah. All right, this was, thank you for, thank you for, like, I just feel like we got on a roller coaster and you were like, what kind of ride is this? And I said, don't worry, let's go. Buckle up. Here we are. Buckle up. And one other book for anybody who wants to dig more into this, Sander von der Linden published a book called Foolproof. And it's a whole book about the psychology of why we fall for misinformation and how to build it.

Starting point is 00:41:44 immunity. And we will put that in the show notes too. Okay. And before we close, you're not going to like this, but I don't care. I just have to talk about this. Oh, no, I'm going to love this. Allison published lump. Love it. And October, Brene, I got to say, actually, your timing is impeccable because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I just want to say to everyone that y'all know I'm a huge poetry person. and I do not say this easily, because I could say a lot of nice things about the book and not say this, I never thought as an adult that I would read a new book that pushed its way into my top 10 books of poetry of all time.

Starting point is 00:42:31 And Lump did it. And the subtitle is a memoir and inelquent reflections. And it is a collection of poetry about, is it fair to say, Alice. breast cancer, diagnosis, her healing, her, how would you describe it? Yeah, I think that's a great description of it. I mean, I loved it so much that I married her. But, you know, not necessarily in that order, but there's so many things I could say, but it meant so much to both of us that you read it, let alone that you were moved by it. And yeah, I think when she was going through diagnosis, treatment, recovery,

Starting point is 00:43:12 even now we're about to celebrate six years all clear. It was really hard to talk about. And she found that writing poetry and prose really helped her process the experience. And she basically tried to write the book that she wanted to read when she was going through all this. And I'm thrilled for her that it's out in the world. And I'm really hoping that anybody who has to either go through a difficult illness themselves or care for a loved one or just wants to understand

Starting point is 00:43:46 an experience they haven't lived better will benefit from reading it. Yeah, I mean, when I read it, I just emailed Allison right away and just said, the first words that came to me is this book is what poetry is for. Like, this is, yeah, no, this is, God, I laughed.

Starting point is 00:44:05 It is so freaking irreverent. And then I sobbed. And I saw myself. in it and I saw people that I love in it and it's just lump right here, Alison Sweet Grant. Like, it's beautiful. So I wanted to say it because it's true. Well, thank you. You are such a giver, Brunay. Sometimes. Thanks for getting on the ride with me today. It was fun in real time to make all these connections. For me too, as always. The Curiosity Shop is produced by Bray Brown Education and Research Group.

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The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant - Resisting Influence in an Over-Influenced World

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